Chapter 180: The Long Way 7 – Expanding Survival Skills

As could be expected, they went through more activities than simple bathing. Along with the clothes, all bets were off and it only took ten minutes for Aclysia to have her darling inside her. Reysha felt challenged and things escalated from there. By the end, they were exhausted, clean and happy, the perfect combination of attributes for a long rest in a relatively safe environment.

“Meeeowwwwrrrr,” Reysha yawned, purred and stretched, all at the same time, her naked body exposed to the air. It was less humid than they were used to from healing fountain chambers and a little bit colder, but not cold enough that they had to wear clothes. “Hmmm…” she looked back and forth between Apexus’ crotch, the healing fountain and the tunnel they had come from. Lust, hygiene and hunger fought inside her. ‘I’ll still need my teeth,’ she thought, letting the unlikely contender win.

Taking a pocketed twig and a strip of cloth out of her inventory, she wetted it, covered it in some ash, and scrubbed the insides of her mouth with the coarse result. While she made sure her sharp teeth were in pristine condition, Aclysia turned to the slime. “Darling, would you bring the bear we left behind yesterday?”

“Cahld breakfasht ish grosh,” Reysha complained, slurring past the stick in her mouth.

“More for me,” Apexus said and got on his feet. Before he left, the slime restocked on fresh water. He didn’t really need it. It was more of an excuse to kneel down next to Reysha and scratch her ears. A deep, steady purr came from the redhead’s throat. He rubbed her soft ears between his fingers, scratched the base of them with pleasingly vibrating fingernails and generally caressed her into a deeply relaxed state. She leaned into it, turning her head to make him scratch specific areas. Her eyes closed and opened slowly. Apexus kissed her neck, got dressed, and then finally went underway.

He followed the scent trail he had left behind to where they had their last fight yesterday (or at least what the group perceived to be yesterday). Trailing back was a lot quicker and he soon found the White Ice Bear corpse. Ice had, over the several hours they had left it laying there, come to cover much of its motionless form. Peculiarly, the ice was noticeably thicker on the ground level. It was less a natural phenomenon than a cocoon spun around the corpse.

‘The dungeon is integrating the monster back into itself,’ Apexus realized and looked around. ‘I wonder what happens if it gets done? Does the ice melt or is this part of the process of reshaping the layout?’ The white ice of the dungeon would eventually fully hide the bear inside it, making the corpse nothing more than another proverbial brick in the wall.

Returning his analysing gaze to the frozen corpse, Apexus wondered if he should bother breaking it open. He couldn’t imagine that the meat was still in a particularly good condition. Neither was the fur and skin, by his estimate. Reysha wanted a warm breakfast and Apexus had been able to infer that Aclysia wanted them to skin the monster. The corpse would do poorly to satisfy either demand.

‘I can at least check,’ the humanoid slime thought and walked towards another corridor of the dungeon. It didn’t take long for him to find another chamber filled with monsters. Two bears and two wraiths, more than he was comfortable taking on his own. He retreated back to the chamber he came from and walked down another path. At the end of that one, he found a single bear with two wraiths. That, he could deal with.

The chamber had a donut shape, a large central ice pillar making it one go-around. Bored, the bear walked in circles, while the two Frozen Wraiths were hibernating, two skeletal, blue shapes attached to the white walls. Neither noticed the slime, hiding behind one of the rocks jutting out of the corridor walls. There, he made his preparations.

Apexus counted the seconds needed for the bear to make a single round. Once he was comfortable in his estimate, he waited for the bear to be halfway around the pillar and charged into the room.

The Frozen Wraiths detached from the walls, their thin limbs cracking as they were spread out and their icy veils covered them. Taking full advantage of this waking period, Apexus leapt and grabbed one of the monsters by the thigh. It was pulled down to the floor with him. Its shriek pulled the warmth from Apexus’s body. Grabbing its skull, the slime shattered it against the ice pillar with one heavy blow.

The second skeletal creature hovered away, shrieking and causing Apexus’ body temperature to drop further. The slime had anticipated this happening and raised his body temperature in advance. He became slower because of the cold, but rather than becoming sluggish, he was merely brought down to normal speed. That was still quick enough to chase after the second Frozen Wrath and catch her by the foot.

Apexus smashed her down on the ice and rock floor. Dazed, the monster struggled to fly away immediately. The slime first stomped down on its back, immobilizing it fully, and then on its skull, breaking it.

As quick as he had been about all of this, Apexus knew that the next part was inevitable. The bear had charged around the pillar and was now slamming into the slime’s open back. Between dodging the assault and finishing off the wraith, Apexus had made his choice.

He paid a price for it. Acting swiftly, the bear ripped off one of Apexus’ wings before the slime could fully recover from the fall. Before his neck or second wing could be taken, the slime ripped his right elbow backwards. The point rammed into the bear’s face, keeping it away for long enough that Apexus could turn on his back. The jaws came for his throat and Apexus let it happen. Ripping out a mouthful of acidic slime, the bear snapped back in pain and confusion. The biomass turned into harmless water before it could deal more than bothersome damage, but it was enough for the humanoid slime to get up and charge at the startled bear.

Extending the nails of his thumbs Apexus grabbed the monster’s head and aimed at the eyes. A gruesome squelching sound accompanied the gouging of the soft and delicate flesh. The bear tried to pull away, but it was already too late. Apexus let it go.

Thrashing around, the opponent did as they all did once blinded, retreating until they had their back against the wall and swinging at the blackness they now perceived. Apexus waited for an opening and swung his massive fist at the bear’s head. The impact caused the imbalanced monster to fall over. Exhausted, it struggled to get up. Apexus delivered a quick stomp to the neck, breaking it and ending the struggle.

Apexus grabbed the ripped off wing and re-attached it to his back. It would take a bit to move it back into the correct spot, but less time and energy than to regrow it entirely. His throat, on the other hand, was back already. The teeth had missed the bone. Slime and membrane were simple to replace.

Moving the bear was a bit complicated, given its size, but combining his strength with the slippery floors let Apexus drag the mountain of fat and muscle along. Halfway back, he met Aclysia, who had wondered what took him so long. She did her best to help move the bear back to the healing fountain. Primarily, her help consisted of nudging the bear so it didn’t get stuck on any rocks.

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Reysha came running over at one point, completely nude. While Aclysia could put on her robes and underwear and be protected enough, the tiger girl would have needed her complete regalia to comfortably cross even a moderate distance. To no surprise, she quickly dashed back into the warmth of their ‘camp’. Even exposed to the icy air, she took the time to laugh, make a joke at Apexus’ expense, and slap Aclysia’s butt though.

Once the bear was inside the chamber, Aclysia and Apexus took a well-earned break and Reysha grabbed a dagger. Having only a rudimentary idea about what to do, she cut the bear open at the belly. Before worrying about what else to do, they had their breakfast. Reysha stuffed herself with as much as she could handle. As per usual, that was more than what should have fit into her stomach. The Noir condition caused a fair chunk of what she ate to dissolve into magical energy at a rapid pace. It was the lack or overabundance of this energy that caused her to suffer from depressive episodes or benefit from sharper senses.

Apexus ate the rest and, because he was flexible and thorough, hollowed out the fur in the process. That wasn’t exactly the usual procedure to skin an animal, but it worked well enough. Cutting the remaining fur open so it could be sprawled out with the insides exposed, Reysha then got to work. As much as he tried, the slime had trouble eating things he couldn’t envelop and the remaining fat that stuck to the skin fell into that category.

Reysha did her best to scrape the remaining gunk off. The result was a White Ice Bear fur with several holes and slices in it. Some of them were owed to the crystals that grew out of the monster’s bones, the majority came from the redhead’s inexperience at the craft. “You sure you want to use this?” she asked, trailing a hand over the still moist skin. “It’s kinda gross.”

“Gross is better than freezing,” Aclysia told her. “Perhaps it will be better once it's dry?”

“How would it get dry in here?” Apexus asked. “It will freeze or remain moist.”

“I will experiment,” Aclysia told them and kneeled down next to the fur. Spreading her hands out over it, she concentrated magic in her palms and formed it into gentle, warm sunlight. The two predators of the group made a sound between respect and awe. They waited. Then they waited in the pool. Then they waited with Reysha busying herself with a cock in her throat.

Their breakfast experience prolonged their resting time by several hours. When Aclysia was done, they had a fur that was dry, difficult to bend, patchy, but no longer extremely gross. Whether it would last longer than a month was doubtful, however. It lacked all of the treatments that made leather soft and durable.

Even rolling it together was impossible, which meant it was equally impossible to stuff into an adventurer’s bag and therefore impossible to transport. “A beautiful failure!” Reysha exclaimed.

“It appears so,” Aclysia agreed.

“Yes,” Apexus nodded.

“Ya aren’t bothered by that, bubble butt?” the tiger girl wanted to know.

“Failure is the first step to wisdom,” the metal fairy responded, walking over to where they had left their things and packing them up. “While the fur itself is useless to us, we are now aware that we can, in an emergency case, produce something like it. Next we stock up on supplies, I will ask a leatherworker for basic sewing equipment and a tannery for chemicals or tips on how to make the skin more flexible. What is important is that we gathered additional knowledge that will help us survive.”

“Aren’t we lucky to have ya looking out for us?” Reysha hummed and tapped over, giving the white-haired angel a sudden hug.

“We’re lucky,” Apexus confirmed for the redhead, soon closing his large arms around both women at once. “Are we in a hurry to move on?” he asked.

“Not necessarily. Why, darling?” Aclysia answered with a question of her own.

“You should be rewarded for your care,” the humanoid slime told her, “and I spent all morning tending to Reysha’s needs already.”

“To be fair, I am fairly needy,” the redhead joked.

“I… wouldn’t complain about some additional attention before we continue,” Aclysia smiled.

So they did that and moved on about thirty minutes later.

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