Re: Butterfly (Reincarnated as a Butterfly)

The world burned.

As far as Adon's awareness stretched, he was only aware of blinding light, the renewed smell of molten metal and ashes, the presence of Rosslyn quietly suffering beneath him, mental activity instantly snuffed out in the area in front of them, and one single survivor, whose body had been partly in the crevasse, partly out of it in the decisive moment.

The monstrous spider had lived through the attack, saved by its strong survival instincts—it had probably jumped out of the way in the moment before Rosslyn launched her final attack—but at least it must be suffering terribly.

The space was filled with ash and smoke, and Rosslyn coughed and gagged on the particles as the air slowly cleared. The kills had been less clean this time, perhaps because she hadn't been able to sustain her attack for as long as the previous time. Adon wasn't sure. What he did know wat that she was on her last legs. The Princess needed rest badly.

Adon fluttered over to the side of her head at the same moment the Princess tumbled forward, catching herself with one hand as she almost face-planted into the ground.

You can rest now, Adon sent. We won. You killed all of them except the big spider, and he's not moving. Must be in a lot of pain over there, probably dying.

"Have to finish him before he gets us," Rosslyn choked out. "Have to—the—the core!"

Just give me a minute, and I'll go after him, Adon replied, trying to infuse calming energy into his telepathic signal.

Adon began healing her, pushing healing mana into the eye that the spider had attacked. Hopefully Rosslyn would not be left blind after this. She didn't seem to have the strength left to heal herself just then.

The Princess clutched at the side of her face beside the eye as Adon worked—it must have been quite painful as the tissue attempted to heal itself—but she didn't interfere with his efforts at all. The fact that she didn't object to Adon healing her rather than finishing off the enemy first probably spoke volumes to the condition she was in.

A few minutes passed in nearly absolute silence.

The spider didn't appear to be moving around much, from Adon's telepathic senses, but neither was it dead. The creature waited. Perhaps it healed itself. And it waited for its prey to emerge.

Do you think there will be more monsters down here? Rosslyn asked in her head.

The sudden sound of her inner voice—strained, but composed enough to communicate in complete sentences again—surprised him, but it was a nice surprise.

You're all right? Adon transmitted.

He fluttered off of the side of her head and hovered in front of her face to get a look at her from a different angle. The Princess wiped away blood and pus from over the eye Adon had just been healing.

She blinked, and then she smiled, as the pupil focused on Adon and dilated.

"I can see," she whispered. "I am all right, thanks to you."

She pushed herself to her feet and took an unsteady step forward, then extended a hand toward the wall to stabilize herself. Adon fluttered over between her hand and the wall and used his body to block her.

Wall is still hot molten metal, he sent. Don't touch without mana to protect you!

"Right," Rosslyn said, shaking her head. She appeared groggy as Adon looked at her.

And… you're also in no shape to continue, whether there are other monsters down here or not, he added after a long moment.

"We do—" She stopped mid-sentence as she began coughing. It sounded as if she was gasping for air, and Adon realized that the fumes from the molten metal and incinerated ants might be affecting her ability to breathe.

Rosslyn!

We do not have a choice, she thought forcefully, still wheezing, pounding at her chest with one fist. We have to proceed to the core. No time for rest. We do not know if… how long it takes to conjure more monsters.

Adon immediately understood. Rosslyn wasn't just trying to be tough here. She had a very good reason for wanting to move on immediately.

Fine, he sent. Try to hold your breath. I don't know what you're breathing in, but it might be dangerous if it's making you cough like that. I'll clear the spider out of here, and then we can try to get to the core.

All right, Adon, Rosslyn thought, her inner voice calm even as her face turned red. I will come along after you as soon as I can.

Shit, he thought. If I just leave her here… Goddess damn it! I could help her walk out of this place, if I didn't know that spider was waiting somewhere near the entrance. Have to kill that thing fast…

Adon flapped his wings and took off quickly, shooting through the still warm air toward the opening.

Where are you? he wondered as he floated nearer to the gap that led back into the larger tunnel. Where—

A white grid-like structure slammed into his field of view and pinned him against the wall behind him.

In an instant, he knew what had hit him, of course. A bunch of webbing.

A moment later, the spider appeared, standing on the ground close to Adon, its head just a few feet away from his body. It was as if the creature had worn a cloak made of the background itself, only to discard it at the moment it was no longer needed.

I really need to get illusion magic, Adon thought. This… it's too big of an advantage not to acquire. He kicked himself for his choices in the Evolution Store earlier. Perhaps he could be copying the spider's skill right at this very moment. It had been short term thinking. Then again, I was imagining just being able to copy William and Frederick's lightning. I didn't think I'd run up against something like this…

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Adon took a moment, lost in those self-recriminations, before he properly recognized the spider's condition. The creature took a step to move closer to Adon, and the sheer clumsiness of the motion drew Adon's eyes to the lower body.

It was mostly gone. There was a scorched area where the lower legs and most of the cephalothorax ought to be, and the spider was also experiencing a small ongoing outflow of fluids. Something that was not blood and that seemed to contain solids was leaving a nasty trail on the ground as the creature advanced with its remaining four legs.

The great spider opened its maw.

"Thank the Great King above," it said in a gloating tone of voice. "In his infinite wisdom, he has given me the opportunity to destroy you once more. I was almost certain that you would be smarter than to separate from your dying friend there."

Great King above? Adon thought. Does it worship that demon god that Rosslyn mentioned the demons believe in? The only deity whose existence Adon had ever personally confirmed was the Goddess who had sent him to this world.

It took him a moment before the last thing the spider had said hit him.

Hey, Rosslyn's not dying! Adon sent angrily.

"Sure. You just abandoned her because she was too slow, like earlier. I thought you were making the sensible decision then, taking care of yourself, only for you to reunite with the human here."

I thought when I found you, you would still have your lower half, Adon replied sarcastically. But I guess life's full of surprises.

"I look forward to eating you," the spider replied. It inched closer and lowered its voice. "After I get through with you, I imagine that knight you came here with will be the perfect fuel for my evolution…"

Adon felt a surge of anger. Don't you dare say that!

Mana coursed up from within his core, flowed rapidly to the surface, and turned to fire. In an instant, his body became a living torch. But the spider moved just as quickly. It hocked up a wad of phlegm-like substance that seemed as large in volume as Adon's body and shot it straight at him.

Then Adon was soaked in the stuff, and he could barely see. Almost his whole body was dowsed, and only one eye was left uncovered to observe the spider's slow, unsteady advance.

Worst of all, whatever bodily fluid this was, it seemed to be fire-retardant.

As Adon tried to spark the fire again, it felt like he was rubbing wet twigs together trying to get a camp fire going. Nothing was igniting.

No, no…

The spider took another step closer, and Adon saw the venom at the tips of its fangs now, glistening green as it prepared to finish off its opponent.

There was a blur in front of him, and the spider's whole body turned sideways. A second later, Adon heard a violent crunch.

The blur took a step back, and Adon saw that it was Rosslyn. One of her feet looked like it was stuck to some object. She scraped her boot against the ground, then seemed to think better of it and stomped on the object. There was a crunching sound, and the body in front of her shuddered. She stepped on it again and again, until the item beneath her boot was reduced to paste.

Sometime in the middle of that, Adon, realized the object was the spider's head.

Good job getting it to step out of hiding, Rosslyn thought, turning to look at Adon. I was worried about you going to fight it on my own.

Oh yeah, just as planned, Adon sent in a deadpan.

Rosslyn exhaled loudly, and Adon realized the Princess had been holding her breath the entire time since he left her.

"Hands off my butterfly," the Princess said to no one in particular. She coughed and then added, "Or legs off. Whatever."

Rosslyn, you know you crushed his head, right? Adon sent. No one can hear you but me?

The monstrous spider was dead. Very dead. Brains-smeared-on-the-ground-and-Rosslyn's-boot-in-equal-measure dead.

As far as the Princess and the butterfly knew, only one more enemy awaited them in this dungeon. The architect of all the suffering and death they had seen in this place.

The Dungeon Core.

Rosslyn made no answer, though.

She just coughed once more and allowed herself to slip into a half kneeling, half crouching position, arm braced on one knee as she tried to breathe with lungs that were apparently still struggling to shake off the effects of the metal and ant fumes she had breathed in earlier.

Seeing the situation she was in, Adon unleashed a sudden surge of mana, enhancing his body and using Transformation in a single burst of energy to break free of the webbing that had trapped him against the wall. His legs tore, broke, and healed, then shattered and healed again, as he smashed through the silk of the web and the stone wall behind him, but he barely registered what would normally have been agonizing.

He dropped to the ground, and the Transformation completed itself in an instant.

Now in human form, he crouched beside Rosslyn, put an arm around her shoulder, and placed his other hand on her back. Green healing energy pulsed out of that palm and into her body. Hopefully it would fix whatever was wrong with her lungs.

"We're almost to the end, Princess," Adon said quietly, mustering a smile. "Don't die on me here."

"Me?" Rosslyn replied, choking out a painful-sounding laugh after the syllable. "I think you were the one who was almost eaten."

She rose unsteadily to her feet, and Adon instinctively pulled her closer, into his arms.

Both of them blushed at the unexpected contact, and he felt her rush of emotions telepathically, hitting him alongside his own feelings. Her affection and trust crashed against his slight anxiety and subdued it. The result was that instead of recoiling from the semi-involuntary touch, he just held her for a few seconds.

A warmth spread through both of their bodies and seemed to suffuse the air between them. Silence settled for a moment.

"Thank you," Rosslyn whispered, avoiding his eyes, still slightly red.

Then her mind returned to the task at hand. Adon felt it as if she'd flipped a switch. Her thoughts became instantly more disciplined. Her muscles tightened slightly.

She put some weight onto the arm holding her, and when Adon didn't drop her, she began to walk forward with his support. She still coughed occasionally, but it was more subdued than it had been earlier. He thought she was probably restraining it a bit, trying not to cough in his face or something—worried about being gross, maybe, or even about seeming weak.

The thoughts weren't out on the surface, and he didn't probe deeper to get them.

With the arm that wasn't supporting her, he continued pushing healing mana into Rosslyn through her back.

The butterfly would have preferred to finish the healing process before they continued, but he could feel Rosslyn's emotions clearly enough that he knew that moment was not the best to question her resolve. For right then, it was better for him to just try his best to keep her in one piece.

And he enjoyed walking with her, supporting her.

They moved in silence, but it felt more comfortable and natural than any silence Adon had experienced with a woman in his entire previous existence.

As the pair stepped out into the purple tinted tunnel, Adon allowed his mind to move from the Princess's condition and turn over his fears and hopes. They were heading into the final confrontation. The dungeon had battered them thus far. He didn't know if they were anywhere close to ready to put an end to this place.

Hopefully her lungs heal all right. Hopefully we'll still have something left when we make it to the core. Hopefully it doesn't have any more defenses like the spider. Hopefully we make it out of here alive…