After he died, when his body fell to the ground, something black left it. I didn’t get a good look at it, but I would always recognize this shape. It was human, a human shadow just left his dead body. I was stunned, I didn’t know what to think about what just happened. Was the spider I fought controlled by humans? But how?

And why did it kill himself. After surviving everything I threw at him, why would he just end up his life like that. He called me a princess, so I could probably assume that his mind returned when I overloaded my telepathy, did he kill himself so the human controlling his body wouldn’t attack me when this wore off?

How can one be so loyal? He didn’t even know me, and certainly I’ve never seen him, and yet, he killed himself just so I wouldn’t die by his hand? There had to be another reason for that, no one is stupid enough to do this. I looked for the shadow that left his body, but it seemed like it escaped through the hole I made.

My earlier rampage with overblown attacks actually wiped out the rest of the enemies, so I could finally rest. I mean, I wanted to, but the thought about what just happened wouldn’t leave my mind. I also had to rescue Felicia, but for that I would have to wait until I broke free from the web restraining me.

Screw it I’m burning it off. Some of the strands were made with ethereal thread which strangely lasted even after the spider died, so I couldn’t just slip through by turning into a spirit. Fortunately, it could be destroyed with anything related to magic, so as I broke out and regenerated I was free.

Not wasting any time, I broke into a run. The hole I made was starting to close, so I left through it quickly. Next I started climbing the tree from the outside, I wouldn’t get any experience by skipping floors like that, but now it didn’t matter at all. Some flying enemies attacked me on my way, but I just erased them with air bombs.

I went around the large branches and continued going up, until finally I got a response from my [Bond] skill underneath my limbs. This was the sign that Felicia was close, and I reached what was most likely the ending point of the dungeon and its master chambers. Now how would I get inside?

Last time I checked the mana in the dungeon floor, it was so dense I couldn’t go through it even in my spirit form, but what about now? I had virtually infinite mana, so I could just pour it into my body until I went through. There shouldn’t be any side effects as long as I regulated my mana before rematerializing myself, so I decided that it was the best way.

An explosion could hurt Felicia after all.

Not wanting to wait any more, I began to fill myself with mana, and I have to say, the feeling was quite unique. After a certain threshold, there was this feeling of power that overcame me, but there was also a voice in the back of my mind which was constantly shouting to not give in to it. I knew roughly what could happen if I undid spirit form while being filled with so much mana, so I resisted it with all my power.

The more mana I used, the harder it got to resist, but I didn’t stop. I had to save my pet after all.

When I reached the point I was sure I was positively glowing, my limbs started to sing into the tree’s bark. With just a bit more I would finally go through. With only a little push, I reached the needed point and suddenly found myself in an unfamiliar room. Of course as soon as I passed through the wall I made sure to get rid of as much mana as I could to not fall to the first floor.

When I looked around I was a bit dumbfounded. It didn’t look like a top of the dungeon, but rather like a room in a comfy cottage. There was even a large soft looking bed near the wall. Did I just enter someone’s bedroom? I didn’t have time to ponder on this, since my [Bond] was reacting again.

I left the room through the door and started looking for the catgirl, and to my luck, I found her near instantly in something resembling a living room.

And she was running.

Extremely fast.

She was literally running on every possible surface including the ceiling, while dodging another, slightly older girl. It wouldn’t be that weird (even including Felicia on the ceiling), if everything wasn’t at literal light’s speed. I wasn’t even able to follow them, and my conclusion was reached from the moment they stopped for a short while.

They didn’t notice me, but I did notice that there was a bathtub filled with water in an adjacent room. This surely explained a lot, but I was still confused about the whole situation, so I just sat there and waited for the conclusion. It took a while, but in the end Felicia was victorious, with the second girl being left on the floor panting from complete exhaustion.

Only after a good minute, she finally got up and noticed my presence.

“WHAAAT!? HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD!? AND HOW DID YOU EVEN GET HERE!?”

If I had ears, I would surely have to regenerate them after that.

Come to think of it, how do I even hear things?