The mermaids, an inferior species of mermen, lived on a diet of rotten corpses in oceans and riverbeds. Even so, their curiosity about the witch drew them all around her. They sniffed her from afar as the mana in her body forming into a bubble of air around her–was burning their gills as well as their nostrils.
Laying atop a mountain of half-eaten corpses, the witches' eyes eventually fluttered open. The mermaids rushed away from the waking flesh, its eyes casually glancing across their faces as if it didn't fear them in the least.
'Fucking hell, I'm still here? Where's bitch demon? Why hasn't she come yet?' Wondered the witch as she slowly brought herself back up on her feet. Seeing how the mermaids were staying away from her, she heaved a sigh of relief inside that air bubble. 'At least my body knows how to adapt to danger as deemed necessary.'
Although she thought it was her own doing, the demon down under was the one who was truly pulling the strings. This human body of hers was a vessel connected directly to him, and since he'd felt it going into distress he'd ordered it to adapt while Linkle's usual rescuer arrived to her help.
The nameless demon, this wasn't her first time pulling the witch out of a pickle, and knowing that Linkle glanced up at the glassy surface of the and found that horned bitched looking down at her with a massive smirk on her face.
'This bitch…' Thought Linkle, watching as the devil burned the flowers in an instant and even melted the glass with the same hell flames that she'd burned a hole in Raven's cloth with. The water bubbled for a moment as the molten glass simmered down to the surface, but the heat from the fire agitated the mermaids.
Flapping their tails with their claws outstretched, they began rushing towards Linkle, but the demon shot holes through their bodies with burning steel that had been burning in hell flames.
"UGGHH!" Feeling the heat rising around her, Linkle covered her face to prevent the hot splashes of dark water from burning her entire face. Even so, in parts, she burned heavily, so much that her skin flaked off in places like charred fish scales.
As soon as the fishes stopped their struggle and succumbed to the ever-lasting sleep, Linkle glared up at the demon still smirking down at her.
"I CAN'T USE HOLY MAGIC YOU FUCKING MORON!" She yelled at the top of her lungs, and even though she was underwater, her voice could be heard outside by Raven as well as Shamisha.
"Just swim up already if you have the energy to blast our ears off!" The demon mocked some more, although this time, she decided to step back and not test her luck too much.
'Our?' The word stuck out to Linkle for a moment, but the mystery wasn't for long as the moment she swam up, she was met with Raven as well as Shamisha.
Walking out of the pond, she dragged herself along in drenched clothes that stuck closely to her bottom-heavy frame and even accentuated the rest of her curves somewhat. The cold made her nipples perk up just enough to give a poking bump to her breasts, and had it not been for her burns, she would have easily been mistaken for a succubus visiting a wet dream.
"Which one of you knows healing magic?" She asked, her entire face red with anger.
For a moment, neither of them said a thing, but as Raven bumped Shamisha on the side, she was pulled out of her trance with a jolt and finally realized what was happening.
"Oh! Y-yeah…lemme check," reaching for her medicine cabinet in her hand again, she picked out another enhanced potion and readied it to inject it near Linkle's injured spot.
Ignoring the demon while she was being healed, Linkle tried to hold back her rage, but then as she noticed the demon smirking still, she couldn't help but throw a punch at her face. This time unlike the last, the winged savior wasn't caught off guard and so stopping the punch halfway, she shoved Linkle back before opening a hell's portal by her feet.
"Show your anger to me some other time witch, I have matters to attend to…" Her eyes glued on the disgruntled witch, the demon walked backwards toward the portal and stretched her wings wide. "Like lashing the imps that mine your dress~"
Disappearing into the flames emerging through the ground, she cackled her way to the hells. Her laugh only died when the portal died when the portal was sewn shut–leaving Linkle full of rage with nothing or rather nobody at all to take it out on.
"I can't wait to kill that bitch once I have my body back…" Linkle heaved, taking deep breaths to calm herself down.
Once she felt slightly better and the burns had healed, she let the two guide her to the exit as she was completely drained for the day. After just a few steps, however, Raven even had to carry her wet body in his arms since her legs decided to give in all of a sudden.
By the time, they finally made it out, the witch had fallen asleep from the sheer stress of everything that had happened crashing down at her at once.
After stepping into the open, Raven couldn't hold onto her much longer either since the injury on his head was still making him feel dizzy. Watching him getting on his knees, tired, Shamisha's eyes darted between the two and the slaves who were still stationed outside the cave.
She had to make a decision, whether to call off the excavation or let the slaves stay behind next to a cave infested with horrors beyond their wildest imaginations.
"Aghh shit…" Beckoning the contractor and his slaves closer, she decided to take everyone back to Elenaris to figure out what to do next. "Who would've thunk that a place that was a breeding ground for monsters would be full of monsters?"
Her mockery fell on deaf ears as neither Linkle nor Raven were in a state to understand her squealing.
'I told Mono to clean this place up first, but if this witch wasn't so paranoid about someone else stealing her goods none of this would've happened.' With her eyes staring at Linkle angrily, the bunny girl sorceress took the entire group back to the kingdom of absurdity.