Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

As Adon flew after Rosslyn, only half-aware of all that he was doing, his body transformed almost by itself.

On some level, he knew that his flimsy butterfly form was not strong enough to do anything for the falling Princess. Lightweight though Rosslyn appeared to be relative to other humans, it was still probably physically impossible for his butterfly body to support her weight, even with all of the mana that he had available to him.

Transformation worked more smoothly and effortlessly than it ever had in Adon's life. Somehow, he was barely aware he was using the Adaptation at all. If there was pain, he did not feel it. His body transformed into its practiced semi-humanoid form, enhanced with giant butterfly wings. He used those to accelerate his fall and slowly draw closer to the Princess.

Even flying as forcefully as he could, he seemed to be unable to reach her before the Princess, plummeting as swiftly as a stone, had tumbled past everyone else. As the wide-eyed knights saw her situation, several extended their arms to try and grab her, but they were far too distant to reach. Somehow, the Princess seemed to be closer to the opposite side of the valley now than she was to their party's own side. Perhaps her kicking to try and get purchase in the wall as she began to fall had done this, propelled her away from any helping hands.

Her eyes were closed now, Adon observed. At least she could not see, could not fear, as she and the butterfly fell closer to absolute darkness—to the complete unknown.

The butterfly had completed his Transformation sequence now. He had successfully taken on the form that he had spent so much time practicing to assume, mainly for the Princess's benefit, and it seemed to be at its most successful this time—now, when she could not see it.

In the back of his mind—which was slowly dulling, as he had released his focus on mental magic—some part of Adon appreciated the irony of this.

Mainly, he tried to hold onto himself and pushed as much power as he could into his wings. They felt absurdly weak right now, as if they had no control over the air at all—and in truth, they had much less than usual. Adon had no significant practice flying with wings that were so large, and he had never flown with a body this large before.

It felt as if he might not be able to fly upward at all—or, if he could, it would require an inordinate amount of energy, both physical and mana.

But never mind. That was a problem for later.

As they finally slipped into that part of the pit where the light did not touch, Adon's flight at last brought him close enough to touch the Princess. He grabbed hold of one of Rosslyn's wrists with his hand and then pulled her up into his arms until he held her in a princess carry.

It was the first time Adon had ever held the Princess—the first time he had ever held any woman at all in this life—and the feeling of her in his arms was intense. The smell of her hair alone was overwhelming for the senses of his barely-used human body. The weight of her body plus armor felt substantial, however, and it reminded Adon of the difficulty of his challenge.

How would he get her and himself back up?

They continued to fall, and as the light retreated further and further out of sight, it became more difficult to imagine that they would have a soft landing, let alone that they would manage to fly their way out of this ever-deepening hole.

You can't afford to think like that, he told himself sternly. At least I have her now. At worst, I can protect her from the fall with my body. I still have mana. As long as there is mana, there's a solution.

Rosslyn would undoubtedly be able to help in her own rescue once she regained consciousness, too—though Adon had no idea how long she would remain unconscious, considering that she had not only taken a blow to the head but also seemed to have been very low on mana before her collapse.

Adon attempted to flap his ungainly large wings once, with a healthy amount of mana infused. That seemed to do nothing but strain the muscles of his wings. It did not even slow their fall.

Not surprising.

He tried completely letting his wings go for a moment, pulling the mana—which he desperately needed to conserve at this point—back into his core, and turning his head to look down. He wanted to see how far they had yet to fall, so he could better manage his energy output. Unfortunately, with his Transformation, he now had less range of vision than he had possessed as a butterfly; he had to make do with swiveling his head quite a lot more.

Even worse, the darkness beneath the pair seemed impenetrable and bottomless.

He considered his options. There weren't many of them.

He could keep falling with Rosslyn and try to do something when they got closer to the ground. Or he could try to swing their way into a tunnel, if the walls of the area they were currently falling through had tunnels dug into them, as the walls had above them. But Adon did not even know if they were still on the level they had been exploring earlier, or if they had fallen into some new and unknown space.

Try as he might, Adon could not think of any other possible solutions. This situation would be much easier to manage if Rosslyn was the one with the Transformation Adaptation instead of him.

Well, I don't want to crash into the walls, Adon thought. That would probably injure him or Rosslyn just as much as suddenly landing would. At least as long as we're still falling, I have the chance to slow us down.

Absent-mindedly, his fingers had begun to stroke the hair on the back of Rosslyn's neck. They froze as he noticed something that broke his train of thought. She was bleeding.

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That blow to the head did more damage than I thought…

Adon wondered if she would wake up on her own—and whether he could afford to use healing magic on her right now.

No, he decided. He couldn't. His reserves would already be dangerously low by the time they reached the ground, at the rate this fall seemed to be happening. He had no reason to think Rosslyn would instantly wake up with healing and be able to take care of herself either. She had still used that big light magic attack earlier that had incapacitated her for a long period after she used it the previous time.

If Adon healed her now, and she did not wake up during this fall, he would have burned through more of his mana for nothing. He would be more likely to increase the odds of her death, by raising the chances that he ran out of mana and lost control of his Transformation, than to save her life.

Adon decided that there was still something he could do. Even if he did not know exactly when and where they were going to land, he could slow down their acceleration, at least.

He had deactivated all magic besides Transformation, which had to remain in effect if he wanted to continue supporting the Princess. So he reshaped his body again—just slightly, this time. Minimal expenditure of energy.

Adon changed his butterfly wings, melded the two together and altered their structure and properties, pushed them out above his and Rosslyn's bodies.

He turned them into a single parachute, connected to his shoulders and reinforced with all the mana he could spare.

There was a tremendous impact as the solidified fabric deployed and suddenly filled with air. Before, Adon had completely relaxed the wings, aware that the fall could destroy them—and that fully regenerating a butterfly's wings might be beyond the capabilities of healing magic, as regrowing Rosslyn's eye had been.

Now, he endured the sensation of the air ripping at the bond between himself and his wings—the feeling that they might be torn from where they connected to his shoulders at any moment.

It was agonizing, but the results spoke for themselves. Adon almost immediately felt the difference in fall speed.

Maybe we won't hit the ground and instantly die, he thought. If I can keep these wings in this shape…

His mana was draining more quickly now, as he was demanding more of it than simply holding himself in a specific shape. Now that he was trying to expose himself to air resistance to weaken the effects of gravity, he could feel a clock counting down.

The time would be measurable in minutes, not hours, before he could no longer hold the combination of his Transformation and his mana-enhanced wings. One or the other would have to slip.

I guess I need to try that idea I wasn't so keen on after all, Adon thought.

The situation had changed enough that trying to look for a tunnel in the walls where he and Rosslyn could land, rest, and hide themselves might now be the only strategy that made sense. They had slowed down enough to land safely now, at least. He would not simply be scraping Rosslyn against a wall at terminal velocity.

Adon subtly bent the edge of his parachute wings to guide himself and Rosslyn more toward the side of the pit where the others had been. He and Rosslyn were surely hundreds, if not thousands, of feet below where he had last seen them, but at least they could be on the right side of this place when he and Rosslyn eventually climbed back up.

The butterfly had mastered the manipulation of the wind with his wings in his butterfly form. Maneuvering with his wings reshaped into a parachute turned out not to be as difficult as he might have thought—might have thought, if he'd had the mental space in which to worry. This situation had given Adon very little room for that.

The adjustments he made were extremely effective in taking him to where he wanted to go. Soon, though the light source he had was receding into a small line in the distance above him, Adon could dimly see that he and Rosslyn were drawing near the wall he had navigated toward.

It was not a perfectly even surface, meaning that there probably were some caves and openings, as in a normal, natural rock formation. The dungeon was not so different.

Adon did not bother questioning where in the dungeon they were just then. Somehow it did not feel as if they could still be on the same level, but whatever was going on might just be dungeon magic, for all he knew. Maybe each floor actually had infinite space, and if you kept digging, you would only find more of the same place.

An opening for a cave appeared and zipped by.

Then another.

The butterfly did not feel that he had any leeway to slip into either space. He was barely aware of them before they were gone.

We're still descending too fast! Adon thought, slightly frustrated.

He lowered his head and quickly scanned the coming sections of wall. He confirmed that there would be more cave openings, and he swallowed. He knew what he had to do. It would be risky. Probably painful again. But it was what needed to be done.

Adon used Transformation to expand his wings until they were a massive size, far out of all proportion to the size of his or Rosslyn's bodies—much larger than a normal parachute.

The air hit the freshly increased surface area of his wings with a renewed force, and although he had braced himself for that result, he still gritted his teeth as he felt like the air would rip the parachute wings from his shoulders.

Got to get into one of those caves now, he thought. His wings were using up vast quantities of mana staying that shape and receiving even greater mana reinforcement than before, and it had rendered his situation not merely a matter of minutes, but single-digit minutes.

But it had all been necessary. The speed of the fall quickly dropped.

Adon and Rosslyn resembled no falling object more than a feather as they began to drift down much more slowly than they had before.

The butterfly used the last of his strength to shape the edges of his parachute wings once more and guide them into one of the caves. He did not even have the ability to check whether there were hostile monsters inside.

They would just have to hope the Goddess was looking out for them—or that the dungeon had not yet filled out every possible place that could hold a monster.

Adon's feet landed inside the cave, then the rest of him snapped to a halt, and suddenly he was rolling, slamming into walls, ceilings, the floor, and then the walls again, the only constant Rosslyn held tightly in his arms.

He was attempting to minimize the impact primarily for her, because ultimately, any impact that didn't kill him would heal. His wings were already reverting back into butterfly wings, snapping to a smaller, more modest shape as his body instinctively knew it needed to save resources.

But the fall had not been slowed quite enough, it seemed.

Adon's head slammed into a rock protrusion from the side of the cave at a bad angle and high speed, he tasted blood, and then he knew nothing.