Two days had passed and Erika had finally woken up. But she wasn't who she used to be, and the devilish heart that stretched across her breasts attested to it. Even so, waking up to the sight of her friends looking at her, made her smile.
"Damn it, Erika…" Aria heaved, helping the priestess to sit up with a sigh.
"Are you feeling okay?" Asked Mel, her caring hand reaching for her shoulder.
Feeling a tinge of a headache, the priestess reached for her forehead. Shutting her eyes and wincing, she took deep breaths before slowly looking at her friends again.
"M-my head is killing me," reminded of her dream as she spoke those words, her eyelids stretched open. Staring at everyone with her mouth left agape, she rummaged through her thoughts wondering if she'd truly been visited by an angel in her dreams.
'Forsecte elya manaya.' Amsodia's deceptively soothing voice echoed in her head. Having read the goddess's scripture in its original dialect Erika deciphered those words in a matter of seconds.
'Keep our bond a secret.' Repeating the words inside her head, she took a deep gulp and shook herself out of her head.
"Hello? Are you there?" Waving her hand in front of Erika, Aria was trying to get the priestess's attention.
Finally noticing it as she woke up, she faked a smile and chuckled nervously. The rest of the morning past that point was simply spent asking her questions, but heeding the angel's words, Erika simply brushed off everyone concerned by claiming some horror must've gotten in her head while etching the runes in the ground.
And with Helga genuinely considering that a possibility, the matter was swiftly dismissed.
However, the high priestess Kara, watching it all unfold in her newly purchased tent, knew that something was off, but she wouldn't open her mouth for free; even if it meant saving her own damned skin.
'Devils, gods, monsters, horrors, the goddess definitely picked a colorful bunch of flowers this time around.' Musing with a smile, Kara simply watched as the group headed out to hunt more horrors.
"Happy hunting~" And with those words, she went back to killing time.
In the meantime, despite being told to rest some more, Erika had finally joined the rest of the group back for training. Walking into territory they'd not yet charted, their very first challenge arrived out of nowhere. Appearing behind Mel as a cloud of black smoke, dark hands reached around her body and sucked her in in an instant.
It all happened so fast that nobody even knew as the archer was traversing from tree to tree.
Hunting for its next victim, the creature tried to go for yet another girl hiding sitting atop branches, but to its own horror, Helga felt its existence just a few seconds before it emerged behind her.
'Another cloud?' Scoffing at the lack of variety, Helga jumped down the branch, bringing everyone's attention in her direction. Looking up at the spot where the horror just appeared, she conjured her ice spear and flung it into its singular massive eye. However, this time unlike the last, the horror disappeared back into nothing before the spear stabbed it.
"Headcount!" Having faced the horror before, Helga quickly ordered the routine headcount.
One after the other everyone spoke their names out loud, all but one, Melicia the elven archer.
"Well fuck me…" Heaved the Valkyrie, knowing now they'd have to find her one way or the other.
"What's happening? Where is Mel?!" As the realization slowly settled in Amedith's head, he spun around calling out to his lover. "MEL! WHERE ARE YOU! MEL!"
Freaking out more and more, his body began to jitter. However, quickly moving beside him, Helga smacked him on the head to shut him up.
"You might as well be painting a target on your back screaming like that," she complained as the hero winced while caressing the spot where she'd just hit. "Just keep moving, the horror will try to kidnap one of us again then we can one by one find out where she is."
Intending to get kidnapped by the monster as well, Helga forced them all to suck up their emotions and work through the problem pragmatically. It wasn't something Amedith, Aria, and even Erika were comfortable with but Raven who thought in terms of end results was more than happy to follow proper orders.
And just like Helga had predicted, the cloud of hands covered each of their mouths as it pulled into a cave far away from where they were. As dark as it could be, the place was riddled with bats, stalactites, and moss. However, even after everyone got there, there was no sight of Mel anywhere.
"She must've moved on to look for an exit," Raven suggested, and the others had no reason to assume otherwise.
"Ugh, I'll look for her, you guys mark the paths that lead towards the exit once you reach it," giving out the order, Helga expected them to follow her command blindly once again.
"No way! I'm gonna look for her as well!" Amedith yelped, his heart racing with worry.
Glancing sideways at Amedith, Helga squinted her eyes slightly.
"If this is about you and her being a couple, let me remind you that I only agreed to train you idiots because you promised to marry my daughters," hanging that reminder over his head, Helga moved closer and looked deep into his eyes. "So stop thinking with your dick and look for an exit. And if you're so worried…"
Looking around at the other members, Helga's eyes landed on Raven and the bracelet in his hands.
"I'm taking him with me, his head seems more leveled than yours."
Slapping Amedith with the back of her hand, Helga glared at him with a look of great contempt.
"I told you to stop thinking like an idiot!" Glancing over the other girls, Helga urged them to take him with them. Although a bit stunned after that sudden slap, the girls quickly nodded and did just that.
Finally turning back to Raven who'd been silently watching everything unfold, Helga heaved a sigh and commanded.
"There's a time and place to think with your dick, but not when we're in for our lives," and with that said, she led them in the opposite direction of where the girls and Amedith had taken off.