The Deity Entertainment Network

Chapter 247 – Cute Campfire Confessions & Confusions

"John, this is embarrassing."

"Oh? I thought you liked being embarrassed?"

"Not like this... I wasn't in public, why do I need to be punished?"

"You slipped up in front of the two wizards. They are not part of our party, thus you made a spectacle in public. Not to mention, you didn't tell me you had my clothing and sword with you when we met up, leaving me naked in front of everyone the whole way back here. Now, sit still, I'm almost done."

"Ugh. Yes, Sir."

"Good girl."

"ARE YOU TWO DONE FLIRTING YET?!?" Aqua squawked, flailing her arms and stomping her feet for some reason. "I want to know what happened to you! I was- we were worried!"

Putting the finishing touches on the two hair buns he made on top of Darkness's head, making it look like she had two 'Mouse' ears from that old Disney cartoon, he turned his head and looked up at the agitated goddess. "Sit down, Aqua. I'm tired and don't want to crane my head to look up at you while I'm talking."

They were sitting around the fire, the four wolves lying down beside them. John was actually leaning into Nebula's side, with Darkness seated between his legs, while he gave her a new, cute hairstyle. She was out of her armour now, just in her black cloth under layer, so he pulled her back onto him so her head was resting on his chest. Chris was seated to his left side, not quite touching him, while the two wizards were on either side of the fire, watching on in silence for the moment. 

"I want to know too," Chris added beside him, the two wizards nodding as well. "How did you go from taking a quick bath to befriending four great wolves?"

"Well, once I finished washing, I found Nebula was sitting on my gear. At first, I was considering how to kill her, but then I noticed that she was heavily wounded already. So I made the decision then that I would try to heal her instead, and after a minor scuffle, I managed to do so. When my Ki, one of my powers, touched her while I was pushing my healing magic into her, we... shared thoughts for a moment.

It was a weird feeling, as we don't have the same way of thinking, but from what I can tell, these are all that are left of her pack, the undead goblins having killed over twenty of her kin. Twenty is a guess; actual numbers are a difficult concept for her. Anyway, they were turned into those black wolves by a... black monster with red eyes, black wings, a long claw, and seems to be able to cast spells of some sort that can both burn and decay the flesh."

He was extrapolating a lot of this from the pile of blurry images he received from her mind, but the images also came with some very primal feelings of anger, pain, and terror. She was a proud animal, and it was distasteful to her that they had to run away, but she was not strong enough to fight against that monster. 

"A monster that can raise the dead? I'm not sure what it is from that description, but that has the Devil King written all over it. Maybe some sort of Lich? What type of lich would have wings, though?" Aqua said, still pacing in front of him. He looked over at Chris, but she just gave him a shrug, appearing not to know either.   

"No idea. The images are pretty blurry, so it could be something else entirely." 

"Still, it is good we have some idea of what to look for when we catch up with them. With an Arch Priestess and a Crusader, we should be well set to deal with the undead. Just round them up for me, and I will defeat them all with the power of my Explosion!" Megumin added, speaking for the first time since they got off the wolves. She had pulled her hat down over her eyes when they had gotten back to the light of the campfire, but he saw her peek at him a couple of times as he got dressed. 

Actually, most of them tried to peek at him as he got dressed, even Aqua through her fingers. He had tried to hide behind Nebula, but she kept getting up and moving, so it wasn’t very effective. He just found it amusing that they couldn't stop looking, yet called him a pervert before. 

"I can easily turn the undead. Just protect me, and they should fall fairly quickly."

"Have no fear, Lady Aqua. I will use my body to shield you, accepting all their punishment on your behalf. Hah, it will be-" Darkness said, then paused when she was about to comment about how much she would enjoy it. "Ahem, I can use Decoy to draw them in, but correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Turn Undead a single-target spell? I have no doubt you can destroy them, but I fear they may well overwhelm us if they have significant numbers."

"I have Explosion!" 

"I can cast it as a ritual over an area, but that takes a significant amount of time. My stats are really high, so they shouldn't be able to easily hurt me, but I see your point."

"Decoy? What does that do?" John asked.

"It forces monsters to focus on me. It doesn't always work on intelligent creatures, but goblins are usually just dumb enough to fall for it every time. Undead ones should easily lose their focus and charge towards me."

"Can you teach that to me in the morning? I can think of a few instances where something like that would have come in handy." He asked. He didn't always want to be the focus of opponents, but he could use it to distract others if need be.

"I can."

"Hey! I have Explosion! That is all the magic you need to destroy them all! Just beg for my help, and this Arch Mage will teach-"

"Good. I can bring my... construct out if needed, but I need to see where they are gathered first. If they are in this forest, I doubt I'd even be able to see them from inside. Unless I started a massive forest fire, I doubt I could catch them all." Small as she was, Suzy Q was a broadsword, not a scalpel. If he had time, he could probably knock all the trees down around their position and set the sectioned-off area ablaze with Inferno SRM ammunition and lasers, but he doubted whatever was controlling these things would just sit still and wait. 

Not to mention, he didn't want to solve one problem only to cause another for the local farmers. The forest was fairly dry right now, so he was sure a fire would spread fairly quickly if they tried that. 

He looked over at Chris, "You have a couple of things I would like to learn as well. As long as you don't mind waiting until we get back for that bottle of bubbly, I would greatly appreciate it."

"I'll hold you to that! One bottle per skill!"

"Deal."

"Why are you not listening to me? I can just use Explosion on them, and it will be done."

John finally looked over at her. "We are in a forest. If you made a giant explosion in the middle of it, what do you think would happen?"

"We would kill the undead!"

"Yes. You would also shred the rest of us to pieces with splinters from all the exploding trees, sending the trunks in all directions and possibly crushing us, not to mention starting distant fires from the burning wood that was sent flying through the air. I really want to see this spell, but it would have to be somewhere that it isn't going to cause a bigger problem than the one it solved. It is a Hail Mary spell, not Plan A." 

"It is the pinnacle of fire magic! You don't under-"

"Oh, I understand all too well. Where I come from, we have weapons that would make Explosion look like a Firebolt. We don't use them for every problem because they cause too much collateral damage." John said, cutting her off. "We need to find these undead first, then we can decide on how we want to tackle this problem. If it makes sense for you to detonate a spell that made a crater like the one back near the village, I would love to see your power in action. Otherwise, please hold off trying to kill us all while you blow the enemy up."

She pouted but didn't say anything further. Yunyun spoke up then, bringing them back to the start of the conversation. "You didn't say what happened after you healed the wolf. Where did you go?"

"Oh, well. She grabbed my torso in her jaws and carried me back to the rest of her pack. They were all in worse shape than her, so I healed them all. At that point, they all howled, which startled a large boar out of the bushes, so I shocked it with Bolt, and they tackled it and had a midnight meal. They ate their fill, so I washed their maws with a Waterball and some leaves. Oh, and I had to clean the crap in their fur from their old wounds... then they wanted ear scratches and belly rubs. It definitely took some time."

"You mean to tell me that while we were running around this dark forest, a forest with a horde of undead in it, you were busy playing with your new pets?" Aqua said, staring down at him, anger flashing in her eyes and pointing like she was accusing him of something.

"Yep!" He said, then grasped her hand, pulled her down beside him, and wrapped his arm around her. "Sure, I could have tried to sneak away, but I was naked, lost in a dark forest that is possibly full of undead. Besides, now we have four new allies in our fight, and a way to move much quicker than on our feet. Now, unless there are further questions, I think it's time to sleep."

"I have so many questions. Are you... sleeping with all three of them like that?" Yunyun asked, gesturing towards John.

He blinked for a moment, confused at what she meant, then realized what he had done. He had Chris pulled in to one side, Aqua into the other, and somehow pinned Darkness's legs with his so she couldn't move away from lying on his chest. None of them had protested, so he just shrugged at her and smiled. "If they want to, they can; no one is forcing them. You two can pile in as well if you want, or lean on another wolf. They are keeping watch, and I'm too tired to care right now."  

I got so used to sleeping with Rumi and Yu that I never stopped Aqua from sleeping on me when I got here, and now having my arms full just feels right.

"You really are a womanizer, aren't you?" Aqua said quietly. He didn't answer, and surprisingly, she snuggled into his side anyway, the whale he gave her materializing out of thin air tucked under her arm. If that was a skill, he wanted it as well.

"I... I'm content here." Darkness said, a small tremor going through her body. He almost checked with Scouter to see what she was actually thinking, but it was probably along the lines of Aqua's comment, so he didn't bother.

"You are a very interesting and confusing man, you know that, right?" Chris murmured, not moving away either.

He closed his eye then, leaving the decision in their hands on what they wanted to do. He wasn't quite at mana exhaustion, but between that and his Ki, he had burned enough energy that he was really tired. Little John twitched against Darkness's back, reminding him he was quite horny as well, but he couldn't deal with that right now. He would just have to sleep it off and hope it calmed down in the morning.

Wishful thinking, John. You know damn well you are going to stiff as a flagpole, and you don't have your two horny superheroes to take care of it for you. I never thought this NoFap quest crap would be so hard to stick to. Ah, just go to sleep. You have a hunt to lead in the morning.

With that, John drifted off, his dreams much more pleasant than they had been, filled with women, children, and laughter, with not a Zergling in sight.