Chapter 343: I’m Fine.
As Belladonna dragged the lizard further out and started to butcher it, which was difficult considering its tough hide and as well as the folded frills getting in the way constantly, Lilith turned to Saige with a huffing pout.
"Thanks for the help on that one." She said, not even trying to hide the sarcasm in her voice.
"Hm? Well what could I have done to help? I’m just the adorable, helpless little healer." Saige replied, giving puppy-fox eyes as he wrapped his tail around him and lifted his ears up so they were pointed at maximum fluffiness.
"Besides, you looked super sexy doing that~" He finished with a purr.
"Oh really? You like watching me flex as I kill monsters." Lilith growled back, as she flexed the muscles of her demonic form, before scooping him up and starting to nuzzle each other in a disturbing display of PDA.
"Get a room you two!" Belladonna shouted with a groan, not even bothering to bring up the fact that it was her that technically killed this lizard. It really wasn’t worth it and wouldn’t even stop them. So what was the point?
Instead she focused on her lizard friend, peeling the hide open and pulling out his guts.
It was strange to think that at one point she had been disgusted by this, but now it was just second nature. She truly was coming into her own as a butcher. The only thing holding her back in further levelling the skill, in her opinion, was the variety of animals that she was skinning.
To move up from Advanced to an Expert in Butchery would require a lot of experience. Real, actual experience not just nebulous experience points. But it would come in due time.
But whilst this strange lizard didn’t give her a bump in her butchery level, it did hold a few surprises, one of which put a smile on her face.
As she cut it apart, Belladonna pulled her hand from between its lungs, and curled her fist to reveal a bright orange crystal resting in her blood soaked palm which was warm to the touch.
This lizard was not some kind of Demon. It was a true beast, and that meant that it dropped Source Remnants instead of Essence of Sin. Finally, there was some loot that she could actually use!
I mean, not that she didn’t appreciate her scrolls, as the Berserker one did offer a few more glyphs that she was figuring out how to incorporate into her body, but why would she ever need to summon a demon?
Source Remnants on the other hand, now those she could actually use. Not just here, but all of them. Finally! It was starting to feel like this dungeon was heavily favouring Lilith for a while. And whilst that made sense, given their environment, it didn’t make it feel much better.
However she couldn’t focus on her prize for long, as there was soon a heavy panting sound from beside her as hot breath curled across her face over and over, bringing with it a peculiar stench of fish that only pet breath could produce. Whether they had fish or not.
Belladonna glanced at Gaia out of the corner of her eye, before turning to fully face the baby dragon as it sat next to her panting like a dog.
Gaia was facing Belladonna, but her eyes kept darting down to the corpse, as if very subtly telling Belladonna that she wanted some.
"Hehe, I think she likes you~" Vestra cooed with a giggle.
"No. What she likes is food." Belladonna laughed back, glancing up at Lilith who was off being a very irresponsible parent with her fiance and not paying Gaia any attention, before she simply shook her head.
She stuffed her hand back into the body, fished out the lizard’s liver before tossing it into the air for Gaia. It didn’t even reach the peak of its arc before the dragon snatched the liver out of the air and practically inhaled it as if chewing was never an option.
The two girls laughed softly as Gaia licked her lips and let her slobbering tongue flop out as she waited for the next piece that was definitely going to be coming.
"Oh god... I’ve done it now." Belladonna laughed, "Feed a stray once and it will never leave you alone."
She turned to Vestra again and gestured down the tunnel with her head,
"Since those two are pre-occupied and Figg is... supervising. Do you think you can go find the chest with the fragment in it? Should just be down there."
"No problem!" Vestra chirped happily. After her blunder in the boss room, she was eager to do anything she could to be useful.
Se immediately turned on her heels and jogged over to the tunnels entrance. But just before she disappeared inside, Belladonna called out to her again.
"Hey Vezzy... Are you okay?"
Vestra’s expression flitted back and forth between a frown and a smile, as she blinked quickly. As if her brain couldn’t decide which emotion to show, before she finally landed on a smile that didn’t crinkle her eyes in the slightest.
"Yeah, of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m fine. Totally fine."
"You’re right. Stupid question. Anyways, you should probably get to grabbing those fragments. We’ve still got a lot of work to do." Belladonna replied with a half hearted laugh, as she quickly brushed it off and went back to her butchering.
Vestra’s smile stuck on her face until she turned away, where it quickly melted away before she stepped into the tunnel.
Belladonna glanced up from her work, briefly looking at Vestra’s retreating back, before letting out a deep sigh as voices of teenage girls echoed a singular word in her mind.
***
Whilst Belladonna’s party were harvesting their rewards and dealing with their issues in their own special ways, the other parties who had delved into the dungeon with hopes of defeating it were having their own issues. Although theirs were much different, and took on a very unexpected form.
Hours earlier, when the first party to ever step foot in the seventh floor, the floor after the second mini boss, were hit in the face by a horrible discovery. A discovery that came in the form of a cold breeze.