Chương 54: Chapter 53: Choices

As a cheer rose up from the gathered crowd who hadn't sided with the former Duke, I allowed my notifications to wash over me at last. I could feel quite a few waiting patiently for my attention. The first one also seemed the most important. That Was Close! You have defeated Duke Edmond Windbinder IV, Undead Lord of Dead Mists, Level Unknown 💀💀 Bonus XP is Gained for defeating an Opponent above your level! Bonus XP is Gained for sparing your Opponent! Bonus XP is Gained for defending your Lady!

Due to fighting as a group, reward is reduced. The Duke had nothing left. He lay on the ground like a crushed bug, the candle lights of his eyes dwindled to points as his chest struggled to even rise and fall. Did ghosts and skeletons breathe? Or did they still just think they needed to? I had no idea. He only had one arm left after what had happened, and it didn't look like he would be moving for some time. I found myself staring blindly at him past my notifications, but he did not look at me, just...

stared at the ceiling. I had real trouble feeling anything like sympathy for him. Part of me still wanted to crush him like a bug, after all, and Wolf was anything but pleased that we hadn't done so. The next notification came. As it did, Roxala came up to the pair of us, spoke to me - I missed what she said completely, lost in my thoughts - then to Gelidia. I missed the brief conversation they had as well, but she trudged off again. I paid her little mind. For some reason...

I just couldn't seem to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. Dungeon Cleared! Your Party has overcome the Windbinder Keep dungeon. Your party is the first to do so. For being part of the party overcoming this dungeon for the first time, you are awarded 1 Floating Skillpoint! Whoah! That was a pretty big deal, I figured! Torch, despite his injuries, perked up considerably and Roxala let out a woop as she thrust one of her shields into the air!

Felorikaan, clearly fatigued and slightly battered, let out a much more subdued chuckle before hobbling his way towards the Duke, Gelidia, and I. Your [LIFE, MAGIC, SYNERGY] Braucherei skill has improved, and is now eligible to rank up! Rank E is a free rank! [LIFE, MAGIC, SYNERGY] Braucherei, Rank E - 0%: The ability to blend will and action together by means of herbalism, craftwork, and sympathetic magic power to cure - or to curse. You gain some additional instinct in what might be possible.

That was my new magic skill - neat! The description hadn't changed much, but I could hardly wait to try it out and see how it worked. The magic runes I'd encountered were so useful and interesting! I could hardly wait to perform magic of my own, even if this style of magic sounded more... cottagecore than witch or wizard core. I'd take it! Your [MONSTER, COMBAT, SYNERGY] Wolf-Ren skill has improved, and is now eligible to rank up! Rank C costs 1 Lycanthrope skill point! This one I thought a little harder about.

I'd been building it up slowly of course, and it was proving super useful to me... but part of me had been wanting to save up further levels to level Lycanthropic Transformation again, but... I didn't feel ready to actually commit to that yet. the Wolf had gotten so much stronger so fast, and now she was more ably influencing my decision-making process and emotions. I had to get a handle on things, get used to the change before I felt anything like comfortable enough to level Lycanthropic Transformation again.

So, why not? I nodded to myself. Time to spread the handful of seeds I held a bit. I sank the point. [MONSTER, COMBAT, SYNERGY] Wolf-Ren, Rank C - 0%: The ability to see, hear, and smell things all at once in a synesthetic image of the world in your mind. Weather has even less of an effect. You can spend Mana to slow time in your own perception and pick up additional details. Whoah. I didn't have mana to spare right now to test it, but... that was beyond awesome!

I had no idea what to make of it, but it sounded like just about the coolest thing ever! You have learned a new Skill: [COMBAT] Kick Due to Synergy, your [COMBAT] Kick skill has evolved into [COMBAT, SYNERGY] Unarmed Combat Proficiency, and has reset to rank F. Any invested skillpoints have been refunded.

Your [COMBAT, SYNERGY] Unarmed Combat Proficiency skill is eligible for Evolution into [ANIMAL, COMBAT, SYNERGY] Hound Fang Style Your [COMBAT, SYNERGY] Unarmed Combat Proficiency skill is eligible for Evolution into [MONSTER, COMBAT, SYNERGY] Brutal Savagery Will you evolve [COMBAT, SYNERGY] Unarmed Combat Proficiency? [Hound Fang Style / Brutal Savagery / No] I was starting to get overwhelmed with the sheer volume of notifications I was getting right now!

I had figured Bestial Might was my combat skill - but this definitely suggested otherwise. Sohei was a nice skill, but it was a generalist thing and it was hardly a specific fighting talent in any way. This... was big. I'd delivered quite a few brutal kicks in my time in the dungeon, and I'd seen a few that Roxala had dealt out. I decided to put it off until I could talk to someone about it, and the notification seemed to understand my decision to hold off?

It popped out of my view and waited patiently for my attention to return to it. Only then did I realize that Felorikaan was checking me over. I hadn't even noticed him doing it, so distracted I was by the World informing me of my growth. And... it still wasn't done! I had more waiting for me! Good grief, it could keep waiting. I turned my attention to the man, and he glanced at my eyes a moment.

"Are you well, my friend?" he asked, and I chuffed amiably, nodding, my tail bap bap bapping my Gelidia's calf a bit. He smiled at that, and reached towards me. I let him. He tested my breastbone, right in the middle, and I almost snapped at his hand as pain spiked through me! I let out a displeased little canine noise and he froze a moment. Then, he frowned as he glanced at me and unslung his pack to search through it a bit.

I watched him, curious, but he didn't fish around long before he pulled out a little hand mirror and showed it me. I tensed and my ears flicked back a moment on pure instinct as my Wolf recoiled at what she saw - us! NOT-US IS BACK That's just a mirror, hon. Remember? OH. RIGHT. My ears perked up again, but my friend the Wizard didn't smile.

"You... are going to have a scar there, I think. You didn't heal quite right." he said, and angled the mirror so I could see. Automatically I tried to look without it, but... with my snout, and my bulk, I realized I could not do so and chuffed agan before peering into the pane of mirrored glass on its little bone handle. The fur between my breasts was just... gone.

In its place was a vertical crack of reddened, irriatated, indented flesh and speading out towards my neck and to my sternum was exposed, reddened skin, as if something had seared me and killed the hair follicles there. I gingerly touched over the sight on my body and found the flesh... tender, but firm. The wound the Duke's blade had inflicted upon me, no doubt. I tilted my head this way and that, trying to get a good angle on the vision.

Gelidia knelt down beside me to do the same, petting my arm comfortingly to help keep me calm, I supposed. It actually helped.

"A magic sword can inflict wounds that are much harder to heal. This one was very nearly a death blow." he said matter-of-factly.

"Were you not so resilient, my friend... you would surely have perished." Fel said, and smiled radiantly at me. I only realized Gelidia was paying attention to the exchange when she nodded to him and spoke up at last.

"It is an heirloom, made to slay shapeshifters, demons, and mages." She said.

"It has been in my family for... I have no idea how long."

"Indeed it has." said the Duke in a weak voice. Honestly, I'd almost forgotten he was still there. The Duke struggled to sit up, and the motion clearly pained him, but Gotthardt moved to support him. The dead mist was gone. He was just a skeleton, wrapped in barely-visible translucence, his bones corroded and worn badly but still... holding that essential human shape. He seemed... different, somehow.

There was something missing from the proud, cruel creature I'd fought earlier, and it wasn't just the fact I'd slapped the fight right off of him.

"The Western Wood has ever been haunted by lycanthropes. For our courage in saving the young prince, many generations ago, from the m-..." he glanced at me, and said"... for slaying the one who had intended to make a meal of the young prince, we were elevated, daughter mine." he said.

I only realized I was growling at him when Gelidia's cool fingers pet over my snout a little and pushed it so I wasn't pointing it directly at him anymore, with a soft'Please don't, love' If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"... so it is true. I... did not want to believe that my daughter could... feel so, for a Lycanthrope, I just..." the former Duke began, and Gelidia... took his hand. I growled again, unable to stop myself, and jerked an inch towards the pair before I arrested the movement at a pleading glance from Gelidia. Anger blazed red-hot inside me! Human anger was a dim thing compared to the Wolf's, but I burned with both! How could she touch this man who had been so cruel, so duplicitous?

He'd literally tried to sucker her and slay her on the spot right in front of me! Wolf and I both had VERY definite notions that that wasn't a thing you got away with! Yet here Gelidia was. Holding this asshole's hand. There she'd been, stopping me from giving him what he'd deserved, too! Part of me was still angry about it, even if I'd listened, even if I'd chosen to spare him, even if I'd accepted his surrender. I was sure as anything he wouldn't have accepted ours and let us live.

That should count for something, shouldn't it? The thought almost felt shameful in my heart, but I had no idea why - Wolf's anger was just too loud.

"... I just worry what you are... letting yourself in for, my sweet Mirabilis... my moonlight flower." the Duke said.

"... She's a Lycanthrope. She's... you saw her attack Cook. You saw her tear down the gate." he said, and there was just... such worry in his voice, such residual, distant hate and fear in his barely visible face.

"She's dangerous... you have to know that." he said, slowly and deliberately, and I wanted to bite him, to be able to speak so I could tell him off. How dare this man? How dare he look down on me, and speak about me to her as if pleading a case when I'd never pretended to be anything I wasn't! I was growling continuously now, showing my fangs to the man. Gelidia glanced at me and gave me a thoughtful look before replying to her late Sire.

"She is dangerous." she agreed.

"She is very dangerous, indeed. So am I. So are you." she said, and drew me closer against her side, or perhaps nestled back a little to be closer to me. She cupped my cheek and held my head against her neck on her shoulder, and her fingers dug into the fur on my jawline and ears. I was angry at her... but her scent... her touch... I wanted it. I needed it. My growl dulled in intensity.

"That's not all she is, papa. You saw yourself, when she spared you just now" she said, voice patient and soft.

"She could have pushed me aside and destroyed you. I had almost no mana left right then - I couldn't have stopped her. She chose" she explained.

"When the World offered her a destiny of revenge after her world was destroyed and she was killed, she chose instead to embrace peace, to become a peasant. She chose that." she explained, and went on before he even had a full chance to process.

"When these three adventurers came upon the ruins of our lost city, they attacked her! They gave her ample reason to be her enemy. She could have killed the man who had attacked her, but instead she chose to go out to them, to try and talk, to try for peace. Now they are our dear friends, and our allies." she said, and smiled to herself.

"And even when she was afraid to come here, even when things were harsh... she remained faithful, remained true to me and kept her word. She's never, to my knowledge, lied to any of us." The next she said, while staring at me. Her gaze dragged mine into it, and I found my anger evaporating in the face of her quiet support and sincerity.

"She is wonderful, my Emily: brave, true, and stupid, in the very, very best way possible. When our keep was overrun by monsters from the Cursed Pantry, she rose to the House's defense. Yes, she hurt you, and she hurt Cook, but she did so... defending my honor. Honestly, Cook should have been reprimanded long ago." she said, and kissed the side of my snout. I licked her a couple times, and she smiled at that.

"And you... father mine, you were in the control of the Dungeon itself. I won't blame you for what you could not control" she said and the man looked somehow... older. It was wild to me that a corroded skeleton could look older still, but... he did.

"Not entirely, my daughter." he admitted, voice mournful"Not entirely." Gelidia's gentle expression flickered. I saw it, and heard... the ring of truth in his words as he continued.

"I made choices. You gave me some reprieve from the Core's influence... but I chose not to hear you, not... to listen." His form seemed to condense somehow, the barely-visible translucence of his flesh becoming more real. A ghost's white blood began to ooze from the corners of his mouth. His voice became stronger, but also rougher as he continued"And when I could not strike you..." his eyes filled with shame, and regret.

"I let the Dungeon try to do it for me, through me." he said, and he could not have hurt his daughter more if he'd actually landed that blow on her then. Her face scrunched up and tears welled in her eyes then. My soft growl began anew with nowhere near the fire, for the embers of my rage were banked inside my heart.

"The World... did not side with my judgement of you, of her." he said"She did not agree with me, or grant me Her favor." he said, and his voice was roughened.

"She ruled against me, and... how can I believe anything else, and profess myself a man of faith? I believed that it was her ultimate will that we had... had fallen, for She... made it possible." his daughter didn't let go of his hand, even after his confession, even after his choice was laid bare, even as it hurt her terribly, she continued to listen to him.

"The World judged us, and made it possible that our Keep, our home, our people... could fail. Did fail, and fell into darkness. My heart... fell into darkness. My hope is gone. Your mother... is gone. I was..." tears were in his eyes. I realized he was fully manifested, he was... visible to me now, and he was... bleeding. He was badly wounded by our fight, and he was... embracing that.

"I was wrong. I... see that now, too late. I refused to see the gifts she laid at my feet... and the second chance she offered me. In my..." His voice was weak, now, and getting weaker every syllable." in my despair, in my bitterness... I betrayed and rejected you, my Mirabilis... and let the Dungeon have me." he said. I knew he was dying, that he was choosing to die now.

He was using his mana to manifest himself, to force his body to be real, despite the wounds, despite the pain they caused him, and in so doing, was burning up his mana to sustain himself. Not to heal, or to reform, but simply to pour water through a hose with a hole in it.

"I don't deserve your forgiveness... because my choices led us here, from sunrise to sunset. Be wiser... than me, my Mirabilis, and... look... t-to the... sunrise." he said as his tears flowed, and... went limp. And then, he was just... white motes and dust, which dissolved before my eyes, leaving Gelidia holding... the ring that had been on his finger, and leaving Gotthardt holding thin air as the former Duke chose death. Her fingers slowly closed over the bronze and silver object, and...

carefully, Gelidia stood, and stared at the spot where her father had fallen, where the last wisps of his power spread out in a cloud before vanishing into nothingness at her feet. Her tears weren't spectral - they dripped off of her nose and hit the floor as her dark green mane of hair shimmered in the dimness as Fel and Roxala approached once more. I turned my golden gaze upon them, and a quiet fell upon the gathered people who stared at the new Duchess, in her grief.

I couldn't find it in me to feel bad for the Duke. But I could feel bad for his daughter. She'd just... inherited her father's realm in the worst way I could possibly think of. I put my great paw on her shoulder, and she reached up to take hold of it. Roxala snorted and opened her mouth, but both Torch and Fel glared at her. She crossed her arms, and scowled, but said nothing. Gelidia didn't yell or cry loudly, she just... quietly stood there for what felt like forever before turning into me and embracing me.

I enfolded her in my arms, and clutched her tightly. The Duke was gone, her Father was gone, and... I could only feel bad for her, that he'd been so terrible, that he'd betrayed her, that he would in all likelihood... be back again. He hadn't subsumed, he was the Dungeon's creature... but I had a feeling that Gelidia wasn't going to return to the Keep any time soon. Nobody chose to remain. Ms. Birchwood stabilized, as did many of the noblemen and women.

The servants and the retainers did the same, some leaving service entirely, some remaining in their positions. Some chose to pass on - that was their right. The Dungeon had no hold on them any longer. The Knights who had served their Duke had seen him admit to treachery of the worst sort, against his own child. Some left the service of the House entirely, one of them passed on - Gelidia let them go without complaint. Sir Gotthardt though, he was different.

He, and two of the knights who remained, had a different plan.

"Your Grace" he began and bowed deeply to Gelidia"It is my understanding that the knowledge of the Windcuff fighting style is lost. To regain honor, Your Grace, perhaps I might teach it to generations to come? It could be sommat we might trade to the people of Deplia." he said. Roxala perked her ears.

"Windcuff? Yeah. The wind style of martial combat, nobody teaches that." The shieldsister orc said, a grin her voice." That'd be a big deal." she said. Gelidia nodded at him quietly, and only then did I realize... how worn she looked right then. Gotthardt must have seen it too, because he nodded at that, gathered his men, and left without another word. He wasn't the only one - Abbey Birchwood took Gelidia by the hand gently but firmly, and hoisted Her Grace to her feet.

"Come, come... you very much need a rest, Your Grace... it's certainly been a trying day for you." t he woman said kindly, but firmly. She swiveled her eyes to look at me like gun turrets, and I found myself sitting up straighter, ears perking high on my head!

"And you, Miss Goldtail. Stay the night tonight - your party has certainly earned it, and I understand that Cook, before he joins in the evacuation of the Keep-" because nobody was going to stay in the Dungeon, not after the Dead Mist took them and let them go the first time"- is going to use up the last of the larder for a feast. Your party will be the guests of honor!" she said, and puffed out her chest a little with pride.

This instance of the dungeon wouldn't end until everyone in it left, and once they'd stabilized? The skeletons, ghosts, and ghouls certainly counted as 'anyone's. Gelidia gave a sad little smile, but clearly wasn't listening. She looked so small, so... tired. Honestly, I was worried about her, so I scooped her up into my great fuzzy arms as if she weighed nothing at all, and I nodded to Abbey.