Chapter 36: A beaten wolf’s fantasy.

As morning drew near and Edward started gaining control back over his body, Echo woke up from her light sleep and grabbed one of his front paws before placing her tablet near the floor.

As the whole opened once more, she quickly pulled Edward out and jumped away. She then waited for his transformation to finish and, when she saw him open his eyes, asked: “Are you all right?”

Edward nodded and, doing his best to ignore the sore feeling in both of his legs, he said: “Thank you for keeping watch over me the last night. That probably ended up saving my life..”

Echo nodded towards him while saying: “It’s fine. We’re even now.”, before standing up and extending a hand towards him.

Edward grabbed her hand and did his best to stand on his own legs, but a sudden jolt of pain made a frown appear on his forehead, a frown Echo immediately noticed.

“So you are indeed injured. Stay still.” Said Echo as she knelt in front of him and placed both her hands on his legs. As a thin white membrane extended from her hands and covered his legs together with his lower abdomen, Edward started feeling his pain go away but immediately tuned his eyes away from Echo, indecent images passing though his head.

Echo noticed his skirmish behavior and said in a threatening tone: “If you keep thinking that I’ll break all three of your legs and let you crawl back to the safe zone!”

Edward felt the hair raising on the back of his head and quickly started nodding in a panicked manner while doing his best to keep his mind free of any indecent thoughts: ‘but how did she know about it?’

Eventually, the pain was gone from Edward’s legs and Echo stood up. Turning around, she said in a serious tone: “Let’s head back. The others are probably waiting for us.”

Edward nodded and followed after her, unaware of the almost unnoticeable blush that appeared on Echo’s face.

By the time they both reached the safe zone, they were greeted by both Ingvar and Kara waiting just outside. Seeing the two return safely, Ingvar asked: “Is everything alright?”

Echo nodded and said: “Yes. He turned but the wolf is indeed not that strong, just as Edward said. I easily subdued it and managed to get it stuck inside the dungeon floor throughout the night.”

Ingvar nodded and they all went back to looking for monsters to hunt. As the party was roaming around the safe zone’s surroundings looking for lizards, Ingvar and Echo were chatting in front but Edward and Kara were following right after in silence. Edward, no longer being able to endure the awkward silence, pulled out his status tablet to check on the amount of life force he needed to level up.

‘Only 160?… this will take a while…’

Luckily for him, a few short minutes later, a group of six lizards appeared in front of them. They quickly engaged the enemy in combat, but the group was a little too small and, after a round of attacks from Echo and Ingvar, they were quickly taken care of. As Edward absorbed the life force from the dead lizards and they started looking for more enemies to fight, Kara asked: “How much until you level up?”

“I only have 172 out of 450…”

Kara nodded in reply and didn’t say anything else. The day went on uneventfully as Edward was forced to put on with the awkward silence of the back line. By the end of the day, Edward amassed a total of 344 life force, bringing him ever closer to leveling up. The lizard groups were indeed a bit smaller as they hunted closer to the safe zone, the biggest one they encountered only having a total of ten lizards. This made hunting quite a lot easier and safer as they would be able to quickly return to the safe zone.

In the evening, as they were returning to the safe zone to sleep, Echo slowed down her steps and came near Kara and Edward.

“Edward, do you need me to watch over you again tonight?”

Edward shook his head, “I’m not going to sleep tonight. Since I didn’t use that much mana, I’m not that tired and can go one night without sleep.”

Echo nodded without asking anything else and sped up to reach the front once more. As he was left alone with Kara again, Edward let out a sigh and started praying they will reach the safe zone quicker.

They, in fact, didn’t have to walk for too long before the save zone appeared in front of their eyes. After finding a quiet place inside to rest, Ingvar bought some food, to which even Edward himself partook this time since the wolf didn’t get anything to eat last night.

As they were all gathered in a circle, only Echo and Ingvar were chatting, with Edward and Kara sitting in the same awkward silence that plagued them the entire day.

Once they finished eating, Edward thanked Ingvar for the food and said: “I’m going to take a walk around the safe zone. I’ll be back a bit later.”

Seeing Ingvar nod, he turned around and was about to walk away when Echo said from the back: “Do you mind if I accompany you? I also feel like moving my legs a bit after all that food.”

“Sure.” Said Edward as the two of them started walking away. After getting far enough from Kara and Ingvar, Echo asked: “What’s going on with you and Kara? Didn’t you guys already made up?”

Edward sighed and looked in the distance as he said: “We kind of did, but it’s still awkward. I don’t know why, but I can’t find anything to speak to her about and her grumpy expression is not helping either…”

“Do you want me to ask Ingvar to swap positions with you? You might be able to even hit the enemies from close range and it’s not like Ingvar ill have a hard time taking your role.” Said Echo with a chuckle.

“Haha, very funny. I would actually prefer that but sadly…”

“Hey, don’t worry. It will be fine. She’s probably a bit mad and at the same time scared. That thing you turn into, while looking like a wolf, it feels different…”

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Edward didn’t really know that much about how he looked in his wolf form and got intrigued as he asked: “What do you mean different? I don’t really know how it looks.”

“It’s not the looks itself. It’s the eyes. The way it looks at us, like we are nothing more than food in it’s eyes, it’s quite discomforting…” replied Echo, a slight shudder still passing through her body as she remembered last night.

Edward nodded absentmindedly and asked: “Then what about you? Why are you not scared?”

“Who said I’m not? I’m also scared, but I know that it’s not you. Last night, even after I managed to overpower and block the wolf in the closing floor, the look in it’s eyes never changed, like it was telling me I will eventually still end up as it’s food.” Replied Echo, her mind traveling back to last night’s fight, “That undaunted look, the carnage and hunger contained inside, it’s not something one easily gets used to…”

Hearing Echo’s words and turning towards her to see the scared look on her face, Edward looked towards the ceiling and said softly: “I’m sorry…”

Echo was brought back from her thoughts by Edward’s soft whisper and, giving him a slap on his back, she said: “Don’t go sulky on me now. That thing might be scary but I still beat it’s ass.”

Edward gave Echo a grateful look and nodded slowly. Seeing that Edward still appeared a little down and they were now just outside of the safe zone, Echo said: “Hey Ed, how about we spar a little?, my mood always improves whenever I fight. Maybe it will also work for you.”

Seeing the excitement in Echo’s eyes, Edward sighed and nodded: “Fine, but I don’t really want to waste my mana since I don’t plan on sleeping tonight…”

“That’s fine, we’ll just fight without weapons or magic. Just a small brawl.” Replied Echo as she undid the straps on both of her shields and let them fall to the dungeon floor with a thud.

Edward, felt a bit awkward having to brawl with a girl but still got into a fighting stance with his fists raised in front of his face.

Echo gave Edward a strange look as she saw his stance, but didn’t comment on it and simply said: “I’m coming.”

As her words ended, she dashed at him. Edward felt she was a bit too fast for him, but moved his fist forward in a punching motion towards the direction she was coming from. Echo, whose dexterity, strength and even experience were a lot more expansive, easily caught the incoming fist and moved to strike with a punch of her own towards Edward’s lower abdomen.

Soon enough, Edward felt his fist getting wrapped in something warm and a bit hard at the same time, but before he could realize what was going on, a jolt of pain came from his stomach and he flew backwards a couple of feet.

*Argh.* a small grunt escaped his lips as he placed one hand on his stomach and said: “Are you trying to kill me? Don’t you know I’m a mage?”

Echo laughed out loud and said: “For now. Once you level up you should also be able to fight in close range and the practice will not really hurt you. Again.”

The two of them exchanged blows, more like Edward kept getting pushed around non-stop. Half an hour later, the two of them were sitting on their backs looking at the ceiling with Echo happily smiling while Edward was grimacing in pain.

“That was fun.” Said Echo, words that almost made Edward spew a mouthful of blood.

“Easy for you to say when you are not the one getting beaten up. If you just wanted to beat me up, you could have said so from the start.” Grumbled Edward from the side.

“Hahaha.” Echo, apparently not bothered by Edward’s grumpiness, started laughing out loud while holding a hand on her stomach.

Looking to the side, Edward was slightly mesmerized by her pure and free laughter, feeling that paying with a few bruises to see that sight was not a bad deal at all. As a small smile appeared on his lips, Echo also turned her head to the side and their eyes met.

As they both stared into each other’s eyes, Echo’s laughter stopped and a silence encompassed the slightly dim dungeon. With the distance between the two not being that large, they were able to feel each other’s warm breath tickling their faces.

Edward fixed his eyes on Echo’s slim lips, and felt his heartbeat slowly increasing, prompting him to slowly bring his head closer to her face. Echo’s eyes also glazed over slightly and moved her head closer on instinct, but just as their lips were about to touch each other, Echo blushed fiercely and drew back with a panicked look in her eyes.

Sitting up in a hurry, she said: “We should head back. It’s getting late.”, and started walking towards the safe zone.

Edward also got up, feeling a bit awkward and followed after her. The journey back went on in complete silence, neither of them knowing what to say.

As they reached Kara and Ingvar, Echo said: “I’m tired. Good night.”, before moving to the side and sitting down to sleep.

Edward also moved to a silent corner and sat down, prompting Ingvar and Kara to look at each other with confused looks, wondering what just happened.

Since Edward was not going to sleep tonight anyway, he sat down as images of the scene just before kept passing though his mind. The temptation of Echo’s lips from his memories, made his heartbeat increase once more as he turned to the side and fixed his eyes on Echo that was already sleeping a couple of feet away.

It was a long night for Edward, as he spent it all staring at Echo with myriad thoughts passing through his mind and one word escaping his lips:

“Unlucky…”

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