*Thump*

The door to the tavern opened with a loud thump. At the door, two hooded figures, drenched in water, stood, eerily, glancing at a table with a lowered head.

Mary shivered, an instinctive fear rushing through her spine as she felt their gaze pierce through her. Her hand went straight to her sword, before turning towards the figures... and recognizing the details of one of their dresses.

"Huh! Ace, Necro?! What the hell happened?" She stood up in a hurry, her armor clanking at the sudden movements. "I'll take them to the inn. You guys stay here. If we don't come back, get yourselves a room and take the bill from our share."

With Bid and Hal's strained nod. Mary quickly walked towards the figures, a strange fear growing further in her. There was something different, something odd. She didn't know what, but it made her feel a genuine terror. 'I'm her knight. I'm by her side. No matter what happened, she'll take me with her and we'll be fine. Yes, I need to trust her, not my instincts.' Mary persuaded herself as she made her way to the door, widened eyes staring at the three from the whole tavern. Oddly enough, none of them carried fear. She was the only one feeling this sense of oddity...

Which soon turned into awe as she reached the two and put a hand on Necro's shoulder.

"Are you o—" She froze mid sentence, as Necro looked up into her eyes for a second. Her hairs stood on end, her muscles tensed up as if screaming for her to run. This fear... She knew about it, she never felt it before though. "We gotta go, now. You two, keep looking down." She warned the two softly, while putting herself in front of the pair, leading their way across the street and over to the building next to the Adventurers' Guild.

"Mara, they ain't feeling well. Can I get the keys to our room?' Mary asked the human at the desk. Mara was a frightful girl, young but not so much as to find it strange to have her as an Inn-keeper.

"Mary... Is everything okay? These people look..." She stopped for a second, staring softly at the two girls behind the paladin. Her eyes wandered down to see two pairs of feminine feet, and a glimpse of a damp bluish hair, "Wait! They're too wet, you're gonna get ill!"

"It's fine, we'll change in the room."

"No can't do! The bath is cold... but nobody used it yet today. Just go and use it before they fall ill."

"A bath? Thanks! Didn't know this inn had one."

"Oh, It was built recently. We bought the house behind."

"I see... We'll be going then." Mary walked past the desk into the direction she pointed, carrying the key to the room. Ace and Necro followed suit but something else happened, unbeknownst to Mary.

As she passed, Necro looked up, trying to see the face of the innkeeper. The girl gasped in awe silently, as a pair of blood-red eyes stared deep into hers... a rose glint flashing over her hickory eyes, before vanishing as if it'd never happened, leaving the girl staring at the two as they passed by.

The bath, if you could call it, was just a wooden basin filled with water. It could easily fit one, maybe two, if small, comfortably. But for those three... It'd be pretty cramped.

*plaf* *plaf*

Two extremely wet rags fell to the ground. Necro's fake peasant dress, and Ace's similar one... way different than her usual clothes that lay underneath it.

"What the heck happened? You girls are completely wet, it wasn't even raining that hard when I left now, what the fuck happened."

"We got wet." Ace responded coldly.

"That I can see, but where did all the water come?"

"The sky."

While the two wet girls undressed themselves, the paladin was still struggling to remove her armor, looking towards the shelves while she dried the removed pieces of armor, slightly wet from the rain.

"Are you fuckin— Wha— What the fuck!?" Mary froze after turning towards the two, a shiver running down her spine as her hair stood on end. "What... is going on?" She muttered in awe and horror, as two pairs of eyes stared at her. A dark slit ran through the center of both of the two’s eyes, their pupils shaped like those of an animal. And beyond that, Ace's blue eyes were drowning from the edges in a red color that seemed to take over most of her irises. Necro's looked about the same as before, but now completely red. The purple hue was nowhere to be seen.

And more... a pair of fangs could be seen sliding between their lips... 'What is happening here? Is this a joke?'

*Badump*

Mary's heart skipped a bit as their eyes stabbed onto her very soul. It was almost as if she could see a dark red aura around the two...

While she pondered, frozen in shock and awe, the two finished undressing themselves, and Necro put a single hand into the water, swirling it.

What followed made Mary widen her eyes. More so, Ace, who until now had an equally dark and cold face, returned to her normal self, her eyes and mouth wide, as the water began to steam. The surprising thing was, not a single magic circle had been seen.

While taking off the remainder of her underwear and twirling it on her finger, Necro turned, "Are you just gonna stare or you intend on joining us?" Her teasing smile made Mary's heart waver, relaxing from the ungodly pressure she'd been feeling from the two until now. 'I guess everything's fine...' she thought, before untying her trousers.

DarkGodEM

Necro is finally back after months! Thank you all for the patient wait, and please enjoy the chapter.
Make sure to also check the advanced chapters that are available on Patreon.
Releases for this novel will be weekly, with a single chapter every Sunday because I have very little free time.