Chapter 235: I Always Believed In You, Host

’What the hell is a Sponsor?’

[Host]

[This system has always believed in you]

[?( •? ? •? )?]

Tera blinked.

’Excuse me?’

[From the very beginning, this system knew you were destined for greatness!]

[This system is so proud of you, Host]

[I knew you would be able to kill that beast with utmost certainty!]

[(????)]

[This system knew you would succeed!]

Tera’s confusion deepened into genuine suspicion.

’Hold on a second. You have NEVER said any of this. Ever. Not once. You literally—’

[This system is shedding tears of pride]

Tera narrowed her eyes.

’What is a Sponsor?!’

’System.’

Nothing.

’Hey!’

Tera’s eye twitched. It had disappeared somewhere again.

’Are you ignoring me?! You can’t just say that sentimental garbage and disappear! SYSTEM!’

Before Tera’s mind could spiral, her mates brought her back to the present.

"TERA!"

Three pairs of hands grabbed her at once.

Xavi’s arm locked around her waist from the right. Ermin’s hand closed on her left shoulder. Calis’s fingers wrapped around her uninjured forearm from behind, pulling her gently toward his chest.

All three of them froze.

They looked at each other.

Tera looked at all three of them.

"What... are you doing?"

They started to inspect her.

"You are hurt." Xavi’s expression turned thunderous as he saw the acid burn. "Is it from that thing?"

"It’s fine, I—"

"It is not fine." Ermin had moved around to look, and his face had drained of colour. His hand found the nick on her shoulder, and his jaw clenched. "You are bleeding here too."

’Oh. I didn’t even realise...’

"That one is just a scratch—"

Calis hadn’t spoken, but his grip on her forearm had tightened, and his nostrils were flaring as he scented the wound.

Tera sighed. She just wanted to sit down.

"I am pretty tired and would like to sit."

Before she could lower herself to the ground, all three of them shifted simultaneously. Xavi’s arm scooped under her knees, Ermin’s hands braced her back, and Calis pulled her toward his chest.

They collided.

Tera found herself suspended between three beast men who had all tried to pick her up at the same time and were now locked in a silent, physical standoff over her body.

"What are you doing?!" Tera shrieked.

"Carrying you," Xavi said.

"I was also carrying her," Ermin said.

"I am carrying her," Calis added.

All three males turned to stare at each other with identical expressions of disbelief. But Ermin and Xavi were more bamboozled by Calis’ audacity, and frankly, the wolf did not care.

"You did not have her first," Xavi said.

"My hand was on her arm before either of you lifted her."

"That is not carrying. That is holding."

"The intent was the same."

"Let her go," Xavi said to both of them. "She would be more comfortable with me. I am stronger, and I can carry her."

Ermin’s ears shot upright, and he gasped, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Why are you acting as if I cannot carry her? I am just as strong!"

"I did not say you were not strong—"

"You said it."

"I only said I was stronger."

Calis, who had been quietly using the distraction to inch Tera closer to his chest, nodded thoughtfully at both males.

"The two of you should stop fighting. I will carry Tera for you both. Problem solved."

Xavi and Ermin whipped toward him with expressions of pure, unified outrage.

"YOU—" Xavi started.

The argument was reaching a volume that made Tera’s already pounding head want to split open when a shadow fell across the ground in front of her.

A wolf had prostrated itself at her feet.

Not in the casual, bowing way the wolf pack greeted their alpha. This wolf was flat on the ground, belly down, legs splayed, chin pressed to the dirt.

"The ground is too dirty for our saviour to walk on," the wolf said, his voice muffled by the earth. "You can step on me."

’WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!’ Tera nearly screamed.

Was everyone high on drugs?!

A second wolf scrambled forward, throwing himself down directly behind the first, creating a line.

"I will make a path behind him!" the second wolf announced. "She can walk on both of us!"

Tera opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

A sharp crack rang through the clearing.

One of her clan members smacked both wolves across the back of their heads with an open palm.

"She said she was tired, you idiots!" he barked. "She is not going to walk!"

Both wolves rubbed their heads, looking shocked.

The beast male turned to Tera, puffing out his chest. "Leader Tera, allow me. I will carry you back to the clan."

Before anyone could even pay him any attention, he shifted into his beast form and trotted to stand before Tera, waiting for her to climb his back.

’What the hell?!’

Tera looked at the males at her feet and the ones who were still holding her. They were also taken aback by what had just happened.

’Well, this is messy...’

Tera smiled and carefully extricated herself from six hands. "Let me save you the trouble of making this decision."

She immediately climbed onto the male’s back, who was looking extra proud as if he had just done the greatest task of his entire life.

"Let’s go back."

- ※ - ※ - ※ -

Of course, it wasn’t that simple.

The beast’s remains couldn’t be left in the open. Even dead, the acid that ran through its body had seeped into the ground around the pit, and the poisoned bamboo scattered across the battlefield was a hazard.

Tera used her remaining portal passes to bury the worst of it, displacing chunks of clean earth over the contaminated pit, and sealing the acid beneath layers of packed soil. The poisoned bamboo went next, buried deep enough that nothing would dig it up by accident.

She laughed nervously as she surveyed the aftermath. The bamboo forest behind the swamp had been thick and dense when she arrived. Now there were visible gaps where she had cut through entire groves during the fight. Especially toward the end, when she had been pulverising the beast in the pit and had been throwing stalk after stalk through the portal like ammunition.

She was lucky that the forest was as vast as it was. And luckier still that the system’s portal pass calculations measured bamboo by mass rather than individual stalks. A bundle of bamboo constituted a single pass rather than each stalk counting separately. If it had been one stalk per pass, she would have burned through her entire month’s allocation.

But even with the mass calculation, her passes were spent. The fight had drained this week’s allocation and a significant chunk of next week’s, and there was nothing left for the return trip for all the beasts.

Which meant they would walk the same way the two clans had come before.

But the journey back would be stress-free and relieving, unlike the tense run earlier.

However, Tera did not stay conscious for most of the journey back.

She drifted in and out of sleep on the beast’s back, her eyes falling shut no matter how hard she tried to keep them open.

She was very tired from the fight, and at some point, Ermin had taken over with carrying her.

At some point, Tera woke to the feeling of cool water on her skin.

She was at the lake, and her mates were washing her body. It felt very nice, but she noticed Calis wasn’t there and wanted to ask where he was, but she had drifted off again.

- ※ - ※ - ※ -

When Tera’s awareness surfaced again, she was in her shelter.

The familiar ceiling of woven silk leaves swam above her, and the furs beneath her back were warm and soft. Her body felt like it had been hollowed out and filled with wet sand. Every joint protested. Every muscle hummed with a deep, bone-level exhaustion that made even breathing feel like effort.

She still felt sleepy, and her body was a lot more comfortable now.

’System?’

Nothing.

Still gone.

Tera closed her eyes as her thoughts wandered lazily. The beast was dead, her clan and the wolf pack were safe for the foreseeable future, but there was still much to do.

Even she was looking forward to a proper housing space with walls and a proper roof over her head.

She was drifting off when she felt a presence.

{※Host No. 874532842 has gained a Sponsor※}

’Wait... WHAT?!’

If she wasn’t mistaken, she already saw this earlier too.

[BeastWorldAddict peeks down at you]

Tera was immediately weirded out by the concept of something blatantly STARING at her. Peeking down? Was it looking from above?

What the hell?

Where was that system when she needed it?

[BeastWorldAddict turns to PervyGoddess and asks if this was the one]

[PervyGoddess nods enthusiastically with gleaming eyes]

Tera stared at the words hanging in her vision, but before she could do or say anything, sleep pulled her under.

What the fuck were those names, though?