Chapter 78

After recovering from being caught completely flatfooted I cleared my throat. "I'll... consider talking to them about it but it's probably too soon for that. Not that I'm... completely disinterested..."

He grinned with a smile that looked genuine but I couldn't help but interpret as smug. "No problem! I don't mind waiting and if you and your group aren't interested that's fine too. No hard feelings either way."

My face felt a bit warm so I quickly decided to move on from this subject. I felt a little bad about waking the twins but I was feeling rather uncomfortable leaving Bella alone for too long. I decided to prepare a couple of bowls of food for Bella and her mother as a peace offering. I had no idea if it would help but it couldn't hurt either.

I set them aside and gently woke the twins. They were both up quickly and were on their feet, barely acting as if they were tired. I suspected they had been trained to be light sleepers but I decided not to ask about that right now. The two girls eyed the bowls of stew and I could tell they wanted to take them from me. I didn't offer them up and carried them myself. Tarklin quietly fell in with us, not so subtly watching everyone we walked by. As we approached the medical tent I could hear someone raising their voice.

"-no longer have a son. I gave up all of my ties when I joined the church. And good riddance, all that little girly boy ever did was give my ex-husband a reason to beat me more often. I wouldn't care if I never saw that freak again."

Before we could enter Bella ran through the door right into me, spilling stew all over the both of us. Before she could say anything I just wrapped my arm around her and pulled her away from the tent and into a dark space between two tents around the corner.

"Shhh." I whispered in her ear and pulled her into a hug.

"Lilith! I'm so sorry, your clothes..." Bella started fussing with my clothes, trying to wipe off the bits of stew.

"It's okay, I don't care about that. Are you alright?"

Bella looked down before burying her face in my chest. "...no." Her voice essentially came out as a sob. I wrapped my arms around her again and kissed the top of her head.

"...how much did you hear?" she whispered.

"Just the end but probably enough to know what happened."

Her hands balled into fists in my shirt. I just kept holding her, I would keep holding onto her as long as she needs it. She quietly sobbed into my shirt for a while. None of the others spoke. I noticed Nora had come over at some point and was making sure no one came near us.

"H-how long before we can leave?" Bella whispered next.

"We should leave soon, I'll go ask Yefen if we can leave right away." She nodded quietly into my shirt while I stroked her back.

Torien stepped forward. "Lilith, I can go ask for us. He probably wants to send a letter back with us. I can go handle that for us."

I looked over at Nora, she nodded in return. "I'll go with her."

"Thank you Torien, Nora."

Torien and Nora quickly walked off while Morrigan shifted uncomfortably. She looked like she wanted to help somehow but she also didn't want to butt in unwanted. 'It's okay' I mouthed to her while continuing to stroke Bella's back.

After a few minutes Bella pulled away. "Thank you Lilith." She sniffed and cleared the tears from her eyes. "I... I don't know what to do."

"It's okay, you don't need to do anything. Let's just wait for Torien to come back so we can all go back ho- back to the inn..."

She quietly nodded in return. Morrigan stepped up to her, looking meek and apologetic. Rather than say anything Bella just smiled and pulled Morrigan into a hug too. "Thanks for caring Mori. Thanks for being here..." Bella's voice flagged at the end, Bella was fighting off falling into another crying fit.

"You're welcome Bella." She kissed her on the cheek. "I know I don't know the full story but I want you to know you can rely on me. I'm your girlfriend too you know."

Bella smiled and returned the gesture, kissing her on the cheek as well. After a moment she smiled apologetically, "Kissing feels a little strange as a beastfolk."

Morrigan laughed it off but I saw Tarklin's eyebrow raise at that. I was starting to notice a tell. The two turned looking at Tarklin and froze, only now realizing what they did in front of him.

I patted Morrigan on the shoulder. "Don't worry, he told me this morning he was a follower of Morkinnen. He won't judge us for our relationship."

"Quite the contrary, I do judge you to be all the more appealing for it," he said.

I rolled my eyes. "Uh huh. Don't push your luck, it's not really the time."

He cleared his throat. "Right. My apologies."

We sat in the awkward air for a couple minutes before Torien came back holding a stack of letters. "Good news! Yefen said he briefly talked to the Tamin church paladin from yesterday and they quote 'are satisfied with the results in the dungeon regarding the team of adventurers.' so we're free to leave. He also gave me three of those mana potions as additional compensation for Bella's healing and asked us to go with this stack of letters to the guild. Reports, casualty letters, and a few other things for the guild master."

I sighed in relief. "Thank god." I noticed a few confused looks before I realized my slip of tongue. I thought it was better to brush past it and let them stay confused. "Alright everyone, lets get out of here."

We didn't have that much to carry, we quickly picked up the bags we had left at the campsite and began to leave the dungeon area. Nora was her same old self but Tarklin looked significantly more relaxed than on our way up. He still looked ready for anything, one hand on his sword at all times. But he wasn't as chatty as he was on the way up or looking around constantly like he had been when we first entered the dungeon camp. I felt like this pretty much confirmed he was trying to take the attention of the Tamin church adherents away from us. That or he just felt like annoying them the entire time, based on his behavior it could probably be either.

It was still early morning so it was a bit cold out. Despite the... light nature of most of my party's clothes it didn't seem to bother any of them. The few monsters that popped out were quickly killed by Nora or Tarklin depending on who was closer at the time. It was a little odd being escorted by adventurers as adventurers but I didn't mind considering the emotional rollercoaster this short trip had been. I put my hand in Bella's, happy that I no longer had to worry about constantly being watched. Along the way she had handed Mimi's sheathe and sword belt back to me and I refastened it to myself.

Torien and Morrigan kept yawning on the way back but Bella seemed the most tired of the three. It had been a really long night and none of us has really had time to recover. I didn't feel sleepy but my muscles were pretty sore by now, all of us have been up for more than 24 hours and it really showed. I briefly considered staying at the bathhouse again but I think at this point everyone would rather just collapse on a bed and sleep for the rest of the day.

The trip took several bells, a bit longer than usual with our sluggesh pace. Since we left so early in the morning we at least didn't need to keep an eye out for a rider, we would make it well before the guild master expected us to return. Soon enough the walls of the city started to come into view. It was maybe a few bells before noon still so there wasn't much competition to get into the city, especially from this side. Behind us was the frontier so the only people that really come and go from this side are other adventurers and most would be unlikely to be either coming or going at this time of day.

The six of us walked into the quiet adventurer's guild. Mirianna was quick to spot us and waved us over. "Good to see you guys back safe and sound. The guild master wanted you to debrief when you got here, so please follow me upstairs to the meeting room."

I inwardly sighed, I kind of hated this meeting room by now. The six of us tiredly climbed the stairs and sat down at the table. The four of us were wiped out but our two escorts looked perfectly fine as if they hadn't been up all night fighting along side us. I wonder if it's a level thing.

"You guys look like crap," Raksha'va said when she walked into the room.

I smiled wryly. "I feel like crap." She snorted in amusement and sat down.

"I take it there were no issues? The Tamin church get what they wanted?"

"Hardly." Tarklin laughed and Torien walked over handing her the stack of letters.

The guild master's brow furrowed when she looked down at the Yefen's personal seal on the letter before opening it. We all just sat quietly as the tiger woman read through his letter. When she was done she sat the letter aside and looked up at Tarklin. "This is serious? Yefen's not fucking with me?"

He nodded. "We fought off demons all night. We'd only been finished for maybe two bells before we decided to come right back. I suspect a large portion of the people working at the dungeon camp now have the demon hunter title and I can guarantee the six of us sitting here have it too. They were absolutely swarming out of there, it's the first time I'd ever seen a dungeon break in person."

She sighed. "And the bigots?"

"No way they think this group here are demons anymore. They might still want to question them but it's obvious their priorities have completely changed. I also now know why the church were so suspicious of them. Now that I have the demon hunter title myself I can see some of the miasma clinging to them. Moreso than the amount you might expect from them clearing the dungeon. The whole thing was a ruse to interrogate them just like you thought. There's obviously a demon hunter in town, probably has been for a while. They watched us cut down demons all night last night though and these four were one of the first people to throw themselves at the horde of them. Good thing too, this cute doe here was the first to put up barriers and light them on fire. We were in sight of each other for nearly the entire dungeon break. They would be crazy to think this group are demon summoners now, more likely to be demon hunters previously, though I doubt that as well."

Raksha'va looked at me. "Care to explain?"

"Uhh..." I just kind of dumbly looked to my party for support but none of them really had an excuse for it either.

The guild master just waved it off. "Forget it, there's no way a demon summoner would kill demons till they got the demon hunter title just to throw people off their trail. That'd be stupid."

I was confused. "Why not?"

She smiled. "And that question confirms it. Demons can tell when someone is a demon hunter. Summoning demons is rather risky in the first place, I doubt you would want to increase the risk by getting that title and attempting to summon a demon when they would know you've killed over a hundred demons." She shrugged. "I suppose I don't think very highly of demon summoners' intelligence in the first place but that just seems too far fetched to me. you would be asking to get killed for it."

"Is the demon hunter title dangerous too?" I asked.

Raksha'va shook her head. "No. If anything it would be welcome here on the frontier since there are so many reported demon sightings lately. It might be enough to get the church off your back too. They are more likely to be at least courteous with you because of it, beastkin or not. They may dislike beastkin but they hate demons even more. I wouldn't do anything to provoke them of course but they should give you some space, at least for a while."

I looked over and noticed Bella was on the verge of passing out next to me. "Is there anything else or can we go now? As you can see my party members could use some sleep after last night."

She nodded. "This whole mess with the dungeon would be a good excuse to leave for the capital. I could have you deliver some letters for me and you could get that cartography training. Come back tomorrow and I'll have the job for you. You four are dismissed. Tarklin, Nora, I still want to talk to you."

The four of us finally got to stand up and leave the guild. It was time to go get some sleep.