Chapter 22. Another SSS-Rank, and This One Could Crush Me With Her Tits

Chapter 22: 22. Another SSS-Rank, and This One Could Crush Me With Her Tits

Elsbeth had finally reached us, breathing hard, with fresh cuts on her arm and a streak of blood across her cheek. She dropped to her knees beside me and pressed her palm over the wound in my side, and I made a sound that was only partly dignified.

"Gghh!"

"Hold still."

"I honestly don’t think I can move right now..."

"Good... For once, follow an order."

"That’s so mean... I’m literally dying."

"You are not dying... You are bleeding loudly."

Behind her, Magnara kept advancing. The commander tried to rally his men into a new line, shouting orders that sounded more desperate with every word.

She raised the axe and brought it down in front of them, and a crack split the ground between her and the front rank.

"Another step," she said, "will be your last mistake, you lowly humans!"

The line broke.

A few of them dropped their weapons and bolted. A few more ran backward in a sort of horrified shuffle, and the commander finally screamed at everyone to fall back before someone got killed.

They scrambled toward the compound in a mess of dropped swords and torn cloaks, and I watched the last of them disappear through the gate.

Magnara didn’t chase them. She only stood there, breathing evenly, until she was sure they weren’t coming back.

Then she turned around and looked at us.

Ding!

I almost cried with irritation. Of all the times for a notification to just fucking appear.

My system had picked the one where I was bleeding on a hillside and trying not to pass out.

[LUST SYSTEM: RADAR ALERT]

[SSS-Rank Target Detected]

[Name: Magnara]

[Species: Minotaurkin]

[Gender: Female, Adult]

[Rank: SSS]

[Threat Assessment: Extremely High]

[Warning: The target’s combat capabilities exceed the current host assessment. Approach with caution.]

I blinked at the screen. Then I looked up at the woman who had just made thirty armed men run away by saying a few words and hitting the ground.

’Another one? ’I thought. ’Another SSS-Rank?’

’And it’s a strong one... maybe top 10 or 5...?! Can see that she’s probably stronger than Elsbeth."

Then, very slowly: ’Oh, I understand why it’s warning me.’

The system also had the decency not to promise anything. It didn’t say Magnara would like me, and it certainly didn’t suggest she’d want anything to do with the idea of being my partner.

It only said what it always said, which was, ’Here’shere’s a very powerful woman, good luck, try not to die.’

Which was fair, because I was currently doing a fantastic job of dying.

I glanced at the corner of the display where my Lust Energy sat. It read 93/100, with a faint flicker beside it labeled ’passive decay.’

I was bleeding badly and half dead, but at least the system wasn’t about to murder me from the inside tonight.

I decided to count that as a small mercy and to deal with the bigger problems first.

"If anyone has... gughhh... healing magic," I said weakly, "I’d really appreciate it..."

Magnara stopped in front of me.

Up close, she was even bigger than she’d looked from the ground, and I had to tilt my head all the way back to see her face. Oh wow... even her tits are fucking gigantic that they can crush me at any time.

She studied the blood soaking my shirt, then my rusty sword, and then the girl who was hovering over me with tears running down her cheeks.

"You’re a... human," she said.

"Last time I checked... it’s verified, yes."

She didn’t smile. "And you risked your life to free those prisoners... beastwomen prisoners."

I looked past her at the little group huddled at the edge of the trees, the women I’d gotten out. Then at Millie, who hadn’t left my side once.

"They shouldn’t have been in cages in the first place anyway," I said.

Magnara went still.

I couldn’t read her expression, but something shifted behind her eyes. It wasn’t warmth, exactly.

But it was more like she’d been looking at a coin for a long time and had just turned it over to see the other side.

She ordered the prisoners to gather in the shelter of the rocks and sent Elsbeth to sweep the area for stragglers. Then she crouched in front of me, balancing on the balls of her feet, which brought her face almost level with mine.

"There is a place," she said, "that can shelter them..."

"A place that will not hand them back to the slavers..."

Elsbeth had come back in time to hear that, and her ears went flat against her skull. "You mean to take them ’there’?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure? They still refuse humans... there’s no way this human can stay alive with hundreds of human haters there!"

’Human haters...? That some kind of a racist word thing too...?’ I thought.

"I know." Magnara nodded.

Elsbeth looked at me, and I could see the calculation behind her eyes. She wasn’t just thinking about the danger to me.

She was thinking about whoever vouched for me and how much trouble that would cause.

"I watched what this man did tonight," Magnara said, her voice flat and sure. "He did not come here to buy them..."

"And he did not ask for payment like any human would." Magnara crossed her arms. "When the guards surrounded him... he chose to stand in front of beastwomen who could not even run."

She looked at me dead in the eye, and I had a sudden, powerful urge to sit up straight.

"A human like that is rare... and I won’t call it a lowly human."

I raised one trembling hand. "For the record... I really wanted to run."

"But you did not."

"...Well, yeah... That’s also true."

For the first time, a corner of her mouth moved. It wasn’t quite a smile, but I got the feeling that it was the closest thing to one she’d allowed herself in a long while.

"Then I will take you to our home," she said. "The prisoners will be sheltered and healed."

"After that... we will see whether you are worthy of our trust."

She stood up, and the shadow of her horns passed over my face like a cloud.

I leaned back against the rock and let the weight of what she’d just said sink in.

The night had started as a simple, stupid rescue mission, and somehow I’d ended up with a promise to enter a place that wanted nothing to do with people like me.

My side was on fire, my head was spinning, and my best friend in this world was a wolf with a sword... I had absolutely no idea what I’d just agreed to.

I had a feeling that it was going to be a lot for me to process.

...

We left Frosthaven’s lights behind before the reinforcements could organize. Magnara led us along a narrow ravine that cut between the cliffs, a path I’d never have found in a thousand years living here.

It was barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, and the walls loomed overhead like the sides of a giant’s throat.

She walked in front without a lantern, with the axe on her shoulder and the confidence of someone who could navigate her own home in her sleep.

Elsbeth walked among the prisoners, steadying anyone who stumbled, murmuring quiet words to the ones who looked like they might collapse.

She had bound my side tightly with a strip of cloth and a very small amount of salve from her pack, and the pain had faded into a deep, sullen throb.

Apex Physique was doing its best to knit me back together, but even it had limits, and I was leaning heavily on a walking stick that Millie had found.

Millie insisted on walking next to me. She didn’t say much for the first hour.

She just stayed close, matching my slow, shuffling pace, and every few steps she glanced up at my face to make sure I hadn’t collapsed.

"You shouldn’t have done that," she said, finally, in a very small voice.

"Done what...?"

"Gotten hurt for me... for all of us..."

"If I hadn’t, you’d have gotten hurt instead."

"But I..."

"Millie." I stopped walking, which took some effort, and turned to look at her properly. "You went back for somebody who couldn’t walk."

"You were terrified, and you did it anyway... I don’t want you to think you did anything wrong just because I ended up with a hole in my side."

She stared at the ground, twisting the edge of her shawl between her fingers.

"I was... so scared," she whispered.

"Me too..."

Her head jerked up. "Really?"

"Yep. Even the bravest person can be scared..."

"Like... Are you kidding?! When I saw that spear coming, I nearly pissed myself." I laughed and then winced when it pulled at my stitches. "I’m just really good at pretending that I’m not scared."

"It’s one of my skills as a human... I’ve been working on it my whole life."

She let out a little breath that was almost a laugh. I saw her shoulders relax, just slightly.

She had probably spent years being told that fear was weakness and bravery was something other people had, and here I was admitting that we were both terrified and had done it anyway.

But it seemed to help.

Up ahead, Elsbeth was walking a few steps in front of us, close enough to hear every word. She didn’t turn around.

But I saw her ear twitch, and I had the distinct impression that she was thinking something she wasn’t going to say.

We rested in a hollow beneath an overhanging cliff, a dry, sheltered space with a flat rock floor. Someone passed around water and strips of dried meat from Magnara’s pack, and the rescued women ate with the careful, hungry silence of people who still expected the food to be taken away.

Magnara went off to scout the next stretch of the trail, her heavy footsteps fading into the dark.

Elsbeth sat down next to me and began to check my bandage again.

"I need to tell you something," she said.

I gave her a suspicious look. "If this is about the meal you promised me, I haven’t forgotten that, you know."

"It is not about the meal."

"What a shame."

She sighed, but it wasn’t a real sigh. There was too little irritation in it.

"There is a place beyond the northern mountains that is not on any human map..."