Chapter 93

 

 

Lost in the dark, continued;

We still haven’t found the dwarves a while later.

We will have to put out the light soon after I treat Rina’s wound. It’s strange and hard to do because I feel handicapped. But the light spell will be drawing goblins from miles around and we still haven’t figured out what happened to the other dwarves in this eternal subterranean night. While treating her wound, we’ve tried to duck under cover into like a crevasse of sharp volcanic rocks, which we are trying to not get cut on. It helps cover some of the light, but if someone is really close that won’t cut it still.

I trust Asakura though and her new senses. She’s now really strong.

She will get us through this. I’m sure I can depend on her and she’s proven herself over a long period of time. Her survival instincts are why she’s been stronger this whole time. Now I can clearly see that all the changes have been survival oriented.

We also have to hunker down to make a big sacrifice of mana to save Rina and for me to rest for a few minutes right after, or take a small power nap…of course that’s assuming I can somehow calm down my neurotic fear of goblins not finding us long enough for said power nap. It will cost me almost all of my mana to save her, and all of my skills. I end up using both the normal heal spells and the mana stitching spell.

It’s tempting to put her in the demon box but that would be wrong…every second of bleeding I’m really tempted to do so. I’d rather have a live sister with complications than a dead body sister.

First I used the mana stitching, and it also helps me see much smaller details in the wound to look for the bad points of where the deep piercing stab went into her side. This is also another skill I realized quickly. It doesn’t help my magic any; but it’s like a sensory perception that I’d been subconsciously developing while learning how to heal others and feel where the organs, tissues, and tendons were. And that gives me an advantage.

I’m not even sure when this skill started to develop but I bet there was an incomplete half version being started way back in the gnome tunnels but that has started to come out now. It helps me feel using mana sense, where the cut is and how bad it is. I still struggle with it, since I have an error rate once I go deeper and deeper into a wound. For that reason I used it over and over to make sure which parts are going where in the cut while my hands are bloody trying to keep her wound pressured shut and the liquid body fluids inside. By process of elimination and repeated probing I’m able to finally iron out the unknown areas and eliminate my chance for error.

After a few minutes I wipe the sweat off my head with the back of my hand as I try to concentrate further and relieve the tension and stress.

Right now I’m so scared that my fingers are twitching, not to mention I wish I could stop and eat. There’s also the fact that even when you have skills for something, there’s a reason people say in medical fields that your emotions get clouded over trying to treat your own family members. I managed to get the internal bleeding stopped and the rest of it too. I’ve closed the wound on the inside first though, and I’m not even worrying about the outside part of the wound because the internal part is what I’m most worried about.

I laced the mana stitches all throughout and they help make a supporting framework and then I have added additional webbing that spreads the forces and structure supporting the stitches to many spread out points rather than one or two points. It’s kind of like how a water strider spreads out its weight on more than one spot. This helps to make the mana stitching stronger.

At least the wound looks better. It looks like a half healed stapled shut kind of wound on her lower abdomen. It also seems she can move if she’s careful, but she’s got her hand covering it and holding it like she’s made out of glass and hunched over.

Right now my mana is so low right now that I’m not sure what my accurate readout would be number wise and we’re still far from the others.

Then I set down a heal spell.

“Is it bad?” Rina sounds like she’s in pain and tired. There’s a lot of sweat on her face too, from combating the pain in her system that is relentless. She tries to squeeze my hand for comfort.

She’d been gritting her teeth this whole time and now another school uniform blouse is ruined. It’s still in good shape but now its pure white is stained deep in blood and it has a hole in the side where the wound went through. But for that matter I don’t understand why she was using that instead of the dwarven clothes that we were given. Instead she’d stayed wearing the school uniform.

Was it because of vanity?

I feel disappointed. It’s hard to keep and get nice looking clothes that don’t like homeless peasant trash in this world.

Rina is too weak to make it on her own. We have to find a place to rest and hide under cover. I’m also worried about things will find or smell us during the eternal subterranean darkness. But to do so I’ll have to make a bet on if Asakura is good enough to hide and sneak in the dark.

We’ll have to go a bit slower, and I’ll have to help her. But I don’t want to lose a team member.

“Asakura, I need you to help us find a place to hide. The goblins are coming. You have to lead us to safety and we need a spot we can hide in where even if they are close to us they won’t see us. I don’t know if they have the senses to smell blood or not either,” I said earnestly hoping she’d understand.

“I understand,” she said in a child like innocent way, but also committed too. She scratched her head and looked around a few times. “Thinking…thinking…”

“Are you ready? As soon as you start us in a direction I’ll have to put out the light. Rina and I will be blind and will have to depend on you,” I said.

“I understand,” she repeated after scowling stiffly.

“Why not look for the dwarves first?” Rina asked in a hoarse voice, despite my giving her the treatment already.

“Our priority is survival and we can’t necessarily believe that they will come through for us when we’re technically still outsiders to them and after they ditched us. I don’t know if they will slow down for you in your wounded state, and they themselves said they had no wagon. They don’t intend harm to us but they barely know us and may forget us easily. We can continue looking for the dwarves after we wait this out. But we can’t do anything if we don’t survive. So we have to prioritize hiding right now,” I said.

“OK, I get it. You are right. But I’m not so sure they ditched us on purpose. Maybe it was like an accident?” Rina suggested while looking like she might collapse.

I didn’t answer. I don’t want to scare her more.

I finally extinguished the light spell. It’s too dangerous to have it going, but being totally blind is just as scary. In the end, it takes a lot of trust and willpower. I have to feel for things, touching both Asakura and Rina when I need to be sure where they are or what’s going on. We also can’t stray from each other this way or we’d never find one another again.

“Shun…this place….too open, need more cover,” Asakura said while tugging at my sleeve.

Technically, she’s right. She’s my eyes right now too, so I have to trust her in spite of how tempting it would be to give up and sleep right now.

“We need to move to a more secure spot that has more cover,” I confirmed to her the order, since she’d been wanting some confirmation. She nods and starts us off.

“That’s going to be really…hard,” said, Rina who is still weak. She looks more stable in her posture, but her face is like really like a half dead person.

“Can you move? We have to move…” I warned her. I want her to come forward on her own. But even though she’s healed I know there is a feeling of heavy fatigue and needing rest still because of the body’s cells wanting to recover from the regenerative right.

“I…think so…but keep hold of me…please,” she groaned trying to get to her feet. Even though I can’t see it, I can feel the shift in gravity as she’s pulling herself up, partly using my body weight as I’m already standing. I loop her arm over my shoulder in a half side carry.

Rina has to hold my hand, while we move and its pitch black, since I killed my light spell. While she’s holding my hand I have to hold Asakura’s hand while she moves us. She’s careful but even then sometimes we trip over rocks.

Its hard to move like this and a bit slower. But we can make it.

If I keep the light spell up, the goblins will find us; which is why its now off while we trust Asakura’s new abilities.

“Don’t trip,” she warned us when we get to something to climb over or elevation.

“Your warning is a bit late,” Rina winced after nearly falling again and bumping into me.

She’s right to go to high ground, I’m thinking.

Slowly and bit by bit, I can feel us moving to higher elevation. But it doesn’t get easier and it’s more dangerous to move. We have to go carefully while she coaches us in one or two word sentences how to avoid falling.

“Watch for sharp spot there…” Asakura said dully. She pulled our direction to the side. It’s like swimming in black ink since we can’t see anything now that the light spell is out. She weaves us around what feels like a mountain trail for about twenty minutes and I can vaguely feel something like a sheer drop off. But she has to go slow, and check for noise sounds too while keeping us from falling on our faces.

“Edge of trail here…don’t fall,” our guide Asakura warned again.

I hear Rina swearing like a sailor while I have to move with testing the weight of my feet. I’d almost fallen over the ledge but Asakura pulled me off falling from the edge like I was a rag doll by easily lifting me by grabbing my pants front belt and buckle, and then pulling me up with her other hand grabbing my upper arm.

“Wow, that was close,” I said. But inwardly I’m like, ‘holy shit, how did she get so strong?’

“Shun…don’t …fall,” she said easily like she hadn’t even exerted herself.

Rina is swearing in stress even more now. But she is following me from behind so she’s less likely to fall. Even so, I reduce and slow our pace a bit.

“No, not that way. Move slow, feel over bumps,” Asakura added.

It seems to be an area of rocky crags and not just having a cliff face on the animal trail we’re following.

We then stop.

“Shh, be quiet. Goblins close,” I feel her pursing both of our lips shut and she pulls us under cover. I can tell we’re crouched down and hiding behind a bunch of rocks and boulders but beyond that I am totally blind. The temptation to run is here, but we’re also close to where we almost fell too. So there’s danger on all sides of us, as far as I can tell. It’s scary being blind when we know they are close. And we know for sure the goblins can see some in the dark at least.

“Don’t move, green skins,” Asakura whispered again. There’s no doubt about her meaning. We’re frozen in fear as we try to slow our racing heart beats. The three of us are also plastered together holding each other in the hiding spot. We stay like that for a long time. I can tell she has her weapon ready too, but she’s also careful to keep the reflective part of the metal low and covered.

Far below us and about a hundred feet away I can hear the steady rhythm of marching over rocky terrain in some kind of booted feet. There’s a steady crunching sound of many unified feet and clanking metal and bones from their equipment pushing against gravel, rocks, and other material. It continues for some time and is long and snake like over a long period of time.

There must be quite a few of them because we were staying low for some time. Is this a whole marching army? It can’t be dwarves or Asakura would have signaled for us to talk. She would have seen beards too instead of green skin.

I hear a barely audible whisper from Asakura reminding us to be quiet and not safe now.

The long line of marching does sound like its several columns next to each other in addition to the steady long line.

There are a lot of goblins down there. There must be easily way over a thousand of them. We’re lucky this hiding spot is so good.

“Take off,” Asakura suddenly said. I can feel urgency in her voice.

“Hurry,” she added tugging at it again in a low voice.

“What?” I whispered.

“White shirt, they will see us,” she said. “White is bright.”

Oh shit. She’s right.

I’d forgotten light clothes are easily seen in the dark. I recalled a scout trip when I was younger where I had the perfect hiding spot in a hiding game, but my shiny white shoes had given me away to the enemy. These aren’t just white either, they are the shiny new sparkly white kind of new because we have been washing them carefully this whole time.

The white clothes in the dark are more easily spotted. Since we don’t have an idea of the extent of the goblins’ night vision it wouldn’t be a good idea to underestimate this problem.

Rina is wearing a white shirt. And so are all of us really. Inwardly I’m swearing like crazy. This is the worst time for this to come up.

“What?” Rina’s voice is low and weak. “I don’t get it,” she whispered.

“Rina, your shirt is bright white. Goblins see in the dark. They will see the white shirt,” I said.

“Hurry. Take it off,” Asakura said. “They come this way. Scouts near marching soldiers,” she said.

There’s a slow awkward silence while it sinks in. Finally I hear Rina say something like… “Well it’s not like you haven’t seen me before. You could have asked me this earlier and I would have complied sooner,” she said with a strange sultry sound in her voice.

If she takes it off, she won’t have anything underneath.

Asakura growled in competition.

“Cut it out you two,” I said shutting it down before she can get aggressive.

“Shun…is mine,” Asakura said softly.

“I didn’t think we’d be hiding when I get dressed this morning,” Rina whispered stiffly. I hear a faint rustle. Rina had been leaning on me this whole time, but sure enough she is taking off her shirt. I also don’t have time to find another…if we even have an alternative, and all our other clothes are back at the camp and supply wagons. We’re fortunate that the school uniform skirt is a really dark black and not light or bright colored with a dwarven equipment belt hanging over it that is nearly empty. Because I’m in dwarven clothes I don’t have to deal with this problem either.

Asakura also follows suit shedding her shirt right after, from the sound of the rustling. I end up collecting all their top clothing with mine, stuffing it into my inventory slots. It wasn’t that I’d asked for it, but both of them just assumed since I was the leader... I’m holding out my hands to collect them and feel Rina give me her shirt, and then Asakura put hers right on top of it. But after that I was a bit surprised when I felt both their bras also being deposited with them.

I hadn’t thought about that until now and it’s sinking in as I put the clothes in the demon item box’s inventory. It also took a few tries because with no light, I’m having to go off my memory on what feels like what. I hope I don’t put things in the wrong slot…

Wow, both of them are topless and like less than a foot away from me, I realized?!

I still can’t see anything but it’s made me get a bit overly excited in certain areas as I squirm in my pants. It’s a weird feeling. Rina has always been pretty. I have avoided thinking about her that way because of discipline and avoiding evil thoughts, but this situation and the coercion of the demon genes is really making this dangerous.

Asakura was also always prettier than she was too, but I’m not blind or homosexual so I can’t avoid some excitement even though I’m trying to be good. The girls also don’t have a place to store the clothes, since their skirts have no pockets.

Of course it’s not a feeling I’m good at controlling because I can feel Rina pushing up against me to hide from behind. That caused a feeling of warmth that is heavenly and too much to handle and there are some obvious things that are accidentally being pushed against my back. I’m not sure what to do about it. Because we’re hiding from goblins in the dark I can’t push her away.

My heart is totally racing like crazy.

How am I going to resist?! I’m scared.

I haven’t ever crossed that line, but having a topless girl hanging onto me from behind is not easy to resist. It’s even worse when there’s also one in front of me and I’m surrounded. I can only resist so long and the demon genes are making my teeth grind as I’m trying to avoid just throwing her down and jumping on top of her.

I try to focus on Asakura, and realize I’m holding her hand so hard that I’ve probably cut off the circulation. But I can’t let go because I’m afraid I’ll lose my sanity. Still my heart beat won’t calm down. This is the most dangerous situation in the whole world with Rina shirtless hugging me from behind is unbearable.

I’ve instantly got a stiffy but feel partly ashamed. If it were only Asakura I wouldn’t feel bad but Rina is my sister…as the minutes tick by I’m trying to focus my lust only on Asakura but it’s really hard…

We continue to hear goblins marching somewhere below us and a bit further out. But some of them are getting closer. I think it’s the scouts shadowing the flanks of the marching soldiers. Some of them are really close to us.

As they are moving, I can feel both Rina and Asakura’s chests push into me hugging me in fear. Rather it was fear from Rina, and fear for my safety and a protective instinct from Asakura; she’d thrown herself back against me from in front of me mashing her giant boobs in my face to push me under cover to hide me. Now with both of them together I’m totally afraid to even move and afraid to breath. I’m soo close to losing control right now. Of course because of Asakura’s boobs being almost volleyball sized and becoming milk producing machinery now it’s become like I’m living in the most coveted male fantasy one could imagine. There’s also no mistaking sometimes if she presses too hard against me there’s mild leakage coming out from her constantly producing whatever kind of milk the demon genes are churning inside of her.

It…wouldn’t hurt to have a sip right now actually, the genes are trying to make me think. But if I give in, I’m not sure if I’ll stop. I also can’t be sure that I won’t start making noise without realizing it. I can’t get distracted or we could die but it’s got all kinds of conflict stirred up inside me, I keep telling myself as the goblin army is marching by. We listen to them trying to find things or targets to kill or pursue nearby knowing the slightest noise could cause our being discovered.

It takes a long time for the moving column to leave. How many of them are there?!

We can’t risk doing any hit and run work on them alone since they are better at moving in this terrain than we are. We can’t even move easily here. I don’t even know where we are. I hate moving blind too but it seems like the safest way to do things.

After an hour Asakura is sure it’s safe to move, but we decide to rest. We need to get my power back asap. The hunger inside me has to be sated somehow.

I need that milk…

Huh, why am I suddenly coveting milk?

But it’s weird that we no longer see any lights anywhere on the cavern floor below us from the dwarven heavy armors from a few miles off in the big open cavern. Those things shouldn’t die quickly either so we’re even more confused.

“I’m hungry,” Rina said.

“OK, should we have lunch?” I asked.

“Sure, let’s do it,” Rina said in a strange overly excited voice.

Weird…I’m sure she’s thinking something perverted right now. I try to push her away from hugging my back but her grip is like steel and I’m sure I’m going to have bruises where she’s clutching at me.

“No light, goblins can still see far away,” Asakura commanded.

“Got it,” Rina said. “So we stay like this in the dark all night…” her tone is a husky again.

We still don’t risk getting Rina’s crisp bright white blouse out yet but I know this has to stop very soon. I’m fighting my inner demons right now afraid of how I’ll act around her. Even if she’s my sister, she’s very beautiful…

Oh hell, my mind keeps pulling itself back to these evil thoughts. The anguish is so great because of high close I am to giving in but no matter how hard I’m pulling away it’s like getting lost and going in circles and finding myself right back where I was before.

No, stop. I have to like picture mental imagery of her being an ugly ogre or something. If I just concentrate hard enough and associate certain pictures in my mind, then I might be able to fight the lust building up inside me…

I try to breathe slowly, to calm myself.

“We’ve got dwarven ration packet A and B type,” Rina said, after I get them out. They had been hanging from our belts.

“What flavors are they again?” I asked.

“I swear, the one is like roast beef and potatoes or something but it’s like a slightly different version than our foods. Theirs uses some kind of mountain yams that are very, very close to potatoes but I’m not entirely sure what spices they are using. The other one…yeah, some kind of mutton and vegetables in a sort of tamale like provision in a special wrapping.

I wish I could still eat human food right now. Inwardly both of those sound freaking awesome. But I know it will make me sick if I try to eat very much of it.

Its also weird how I can only drink Asakura’s milk now…but I’m thankful I don’t have to slay and eat people like werewolves or vampires at least.

We each got one of the rations out. They resemble like a type of crackers wrapped in a type of wax paper and sealed shut with a few small cubes of beef jerky packed in the other end. They smelled wonderful the first time we ate them.

Each of us is holding it carefully because while being blind it’s hard to know if we will spill the crackers and jerky bits onto the cavern floor or not.

“Hmm, these are so good!” Rina said, chewing on hers noisily. She’s stirring up my jealousy this whole time while the scents from it are sending all kinds of signals to my brain. I risk a bite in mine and then swallow but for some reason it tastes really bland and almost like garbage. Is that because my body hasn’t changed all the way? It’s weird that I like the smell but not the taste.

“Yuck, I think mine’s gone bad,” I said.

Across from me Asakura has started eating hers in small slow bites. Can she still stomach this terrible crap? I curiously hear her chewing it slowly and delicately with no complaints. Sometimes her eyes are riveted on looking and watching me, then glancing back at security watch around us, rinse repeat.

“Are you sure? Mine is good, and the spice flavor I think I’ve identified to be like similar to hickory smoked meat I think. This is good stuff,” Rina reinforced. Our voices are still low but there’s a bit of levity.

As soon as the next bite out of mine is taken, it feels like I’m eating sand. “Blueh,” I couldn’t help but spit it out. It was like chewing on something that wasn’t even organic. “Yeah something is wrong with mine,” I said.

“Really? Let me see,” Rina said.

Asakura doesn’t say anything, but I can feel she is next to me still eating hers very slowly. She has hold of my bicep and is keeping hold of my arm like some security blanket.

I feel the rustle of Rina climbing over me, and she trips mashing her boobs in my face. I tried to get out of the way and accidentally had full frontal contact with her boobs pushing her away so she wouldn’t fall on me. Then she yelped.

I pushed her away too violently and accidently sent her sprawling on the ground.

Oh hell. If that had stayed like that even a second longer I might have lost it…

I’d almost latched onto her nipple and I don’t even know why.

“S-sorry,” I said.

“It’s OK. I surprised you too,” Rina blushed.

“Quiet,” Asakura fumed. I can almost feel the anger seething in her right now for obvious reasons.

Did Rina do that on purpose?

It would totally be like her to be a bro con and have it act out while she’s got a legitimate reason to be topless. Crap, I should have seen it coming.

“Sorry Shun, that was an accident,” she said. Of course she says it a bit too happy.

But then she reaches over into my crackers and meat and takes a few. I hear her teeth and mouth munching it together. “Hmm, this is good too. There’s nothing wrong with it. I think you are just stressed out Shun,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s it. Maybe it’s like the stress boiling over in your system and making you not worry about food right now,” she said.

“Really?” I sounded skeptical.

“Go ahead, do you want me to feed you?” she asked.

“No, that’s OK,” I said.

Asakura tried to feed me some of hers after that in a jealousy competition concept. As soon as I swallow it suddenly my stomach is going nuts. I feel like I’ve eaten a brick and it’s slicing up my stomach from the inside. In less than a minute I end up vomiting back up the food. Of course I had barely enough time to make sure I vomited away from myself and the girls.

What the heck is wrong with me? I guess it’s more proof I’m not human anymore, even though I look like it from the outside. I tried to eat it again after that but still the same thing. I literally can’t keep anything down.

But one thing is for sure. The craving for Asakura’s breast milk is even stronger now.

“Not good,” Rina said breaking the heavy silence. “Hey you can heal yourself you know.”

I try it. I risk three small heals on my stomach and guts. I also do a cure disease/poison spell. I’m partly wondering if some small goblin blade has nicked a scratch on me somewhere that I’ve missed. I repeat the process while we rest. Because they are small heals it doesn’t use much mana. Also I did it mostly to soothe the turmoil of the stomach rather than targeting tissue in the stomach directly.

It helps a little bit.

For now all we can do is wait.

There’s no good changes other than we rest and take a nap.

My stomach doesn’t feel good though.

I think it’s a lot of pressure for Asakura, but in her child like innocent state she probably doesn’t notice and is actually has an expression like she’s glad she can be of use. Of all of us for some reason she seems to be handling it the best. Since she’s the only one with night vision she is the only one who can do guard duty right now. We’re curled up on either side of her while we go to sleep.

I have to keep Rina on the opposite side of Asakura away from me so I won’t lose control now. But the feeling of my teeth grinding and aching is coming back. It’s probably not in my mouth, but actually my brain making me feel this way.

It also happened that somehow Asakura has made a wonderful lap pillow and is almost like…purring while I’m in laying with my head on her lap while I rest.

We’ll have to find the dwarves soon.

Rina won’t jump me in the dark will she? This whole last hour I’ve had to be very forceful in keeping her off me.

I’m so tempted that adrenaline is bursting through me. How do I control all these powerful urges that are trying to drown me as if I’m being swallowed by a hurricane?

Should I tell the girls I lost their shirts and keep them topless?

I feel so much temptation right now. It would be easy to give in.

It’s so tempting…I could totally do that right? They’d probably also enjoy it…but if I do that will I lose control of myself and never be able to hold my cool enough to blend in like a normal human in society again?

I’m wondering just how I’ll get through the night too. I feel like I’m starving…even though I know I’m not but this hunger is awful.

And will Rina make it? She still looks so weak.

But my thoughts are also at a standstill when I notice that I also have a limited ability to see a few feet around me in the dark. I hadn’t been consciously thinking about it because we’d been so busy, but sometime around when the girls had to take off their shirts, I started to be able to see a short range in the dark, like maybe five feet or so? I mean it still looks and feels like its dark, but it’s like a limited night vision though I’m sure mine is a much, much lower range than Asakura’s. It’s no longer pitch black darkness, but almost like a bright full moon is out lighting up the dark, except I can’t see or feel the moon.

I guess this in demon biology is similar or maybe like how bees in the hive can do things the queen bee can’t and vice versa?