Newly Summoned Demoness - Chapter 41 – Darkwalking (Patreon)

Unfortunately, whatever Joren was up to didn’t take long enough, and he immediately began to bug her just as she was dozing off. “You’ll frighten Taniel if he wakes up with you hovering over him.”

What was the problem with that?

A sudden icky smell wrinkled her nose, and she realized it was the scent of fear coming off the three novices. They each were peeking out from their chamber’s divider. Why did they have to be such scaredy-cats?

She decided to inform them of their failings with a low roar, which elicited a series of shrieks and their disappearance.

Joren gave her a reprimanding look. “Don’t scare them like that.”

Hmm. Well, she’d consider it. Her tail swished back and forth as she followed him to the waystation’s entrance. “Why don’t you go keep an eye out and make sure no more [Razorscale] sneak up on us? I’m hoping Taniel wakes up soon.”

She tilted her head in curiosity. He wanted her to leave? Hunting for some creatures outside was tempting, but she wasn’t hungry.

Tilting her head to the left, she turned and found the corner and curled up into a ball, ignoring Joren’s demands. It was a pleasant corner, and she wanted to do what she wanted, not what she was told.

Eventually, the novices came out of their hiding space but did not stop with their wary glances at her. The smell of cooking tickled her nose, but it was mostly the spices that were appealing. There was no way she wanted any of the vegetables or bread they prepared.

A nice [Ralfot] steak would be perfect, but she didn’t think there were any nearby.

Eventually, Taniel woke up. She ignored him. She didn’t like him.

Her catnap lasted for a while. How long didn’t really matter, but when she stretched and looked around, it looked like everyone was getting ready to leave.

They’d get to travel! That would be fun!

Excitement ran through her, and she quickly padded over to her chamber. Her stuff had been touched, neatly rolled up into a bag.

That was a problem… she didn’t have any way to carry it. At least not very well. She nipped her pack and picked it up with her mouth, then padded over to find Joren. He almost fell over when she rubbed up against his leg.

“Elania! Stop! You’re too big,” Joren complained.

She was not big! She was perfectly sized. Annoyed, she tossed her bag of stuff up onto whatever the thing was that he had been working on. Then she sat down on her haunches.

He started to move the stuff, but she let out a warning growl.

Joren sighed. “Okay, okay. We’ll find a way to move your stuff. I’m already going to be carrying an extra [Glow-Moss Basket] so we will need to make a backpack for you… or something.”

“Why are you bothering? She’s obviously going feral. We need to get rid of her,” Taniel muttered.

Elania’s ears perked up. That was not what she wanted to hear. Especially not after he had tried to hurt her! Whirling around toward him, she loped forward and smacked into the monk. He went off balance and then she pawed him in the side to make sure he fell.

Without her claws. He tried to scramble away; she’d won via a complete surprise attack. Unwilling to let him go, she pounced carefully to land on his back, then sat down on him.

She was much heavier now that she was a [Darkwalker] and he wasn’t able to dislodge her. The frantic yelling from the monk had everyone else in an uproar, but she ignored them all in favor of licking between her claws. A triumphant sense of satisfaction filled her. He squirmed, but she paid him no mind, doing her best to put on an air of indifference.

Joren hurried over to intervene. “Elania!” he shouted. “Get off him!”

Why should she? She was comfortable, and Taniel had been asking for it. But seeing Joren’s pleading eyes eventually broke her down and made her reconsider. With a reluctant growl, she lifted off of him and padded over to Joren.

Joren ignored her and checked on Taniel, who was gasping for breath as he sat up. It was hard for her to rectify his previous shouting, with her being too heavy for him to breathe, but whatever. Joren looked at her with a frown. “Elania,” he said firmly. “That was unacceptable. You can’t just attack people because they say something you don’t like.”

Her ears fell back, and she let out a warning growl. It wasn’t about liking or disliking what Taniel had said; it was about respect and not being a prick. She tilted her head to the left in defiance.

The monk sighed.

Everyone finally got about packing their things and Joren brought her pack and two leather straps. The pack went on her back, and the straps went around her middle. When he pulled out a smaller set, she recognized it as a collar and sniffed it warily.

“It is needed to keep the weight from rolling the pack off your back and under your belly,” Joren explained.

She huffed and sat on her haunches, and let him wrap it around her neck. A length went around it to snap to her pack and then he tightened everything. To confirm it was suitable for their journey, she did a few hops and jumps to test the balance and security and was impressed it worked as well as it did.

With everything in place, she decided she didn’t want to wait anymore and headed outside before the others were ready. Sniffing the air told her there weren’t any nearby dangers outside the waystation, and she prowled around the pond to get a drink of water. The horrific bloody scene from before had been washed away by the steady underground stream’s constant in-and-out flows.

When the party of monks finally came out to travel, she hurried to jump in front of them to lead the way. Several times, Joren or Taniel had to shout at her to come back and take a different branch in the path, but she didn’t mind. They were too slow anyway.

The journey to the next waystation was supposed to be short. Less than a day. That had very little meaning to her, though.

The scent of Ralfots wafted through the air, threatening to draw her away to hunt, but she resisted the call. At one point, she smelled evidence of a mated [Darkwalker] pair and let out a threatening, angry roar as warning for them to stay away.

The panicked monks had no idea why she roared, and she didn’t feel like explaining. So, she just moved on without paying them any attention, expecting them to follow. Which they did.

Vibrant shades of blue, green, and yellow filled the air as the biome changed, and when Joren called to a temporary halt for the novices to rest, she stopped.

For a few minutes.

It was boring, so she decided to explore, despite the monk telling her to stay. The nearby chambers were mostly empty except for the thick carpets of moss—not glow moss. That had slowly tapered off to nothing. Now it was just normal green moss. Ironically, it made the caverns even darker as she relied on the bioluminescence of the fungal growths.

The deep caverns were better lit than the higher levels. That was funny.

When her eyes fell on a stonework built into the side of the cavern, she froze. They must be getting close! Mostly, she had been ignoring the stonework, but this time there were small alcoves with strategically placed fungus that provided light. It was, in a word, pretty to her [Darkwalker] eyes.

She bounded back to the group, but smelled fear on them, so she immediately became alert. Voices reached her. Voices she didn’t recognize.

Carefully minding her step, she prowled around until she found a hidden spot to view the exchange.

[Mercenary - Human - Lvl 223]

[Warrior - Human - Lvl 319]

[Ranger - Human - Lvl 231]

She listened to the words but found them much less useful than the emotions exchanged. Taniel and Joren were wary, the novices afraid. They were always afraid, though.

More telling was the group of three men smelled like predators who had just found prey. One of them kept patting his sword sheath threateningly as they argued.

Maybe they wished to fight. She moved to a better position behind the interlopers, her red eyes glowing in the dark. Since she was at their back, and she made no sound, they suspected nothing.

She could tell the moment Joren spotted her. He froze mid-sentence and looked directly at her, and panic-smell flashed off of him.

Elania licked her sharp teeth in response. She was ready.

When Joren recovered, he looked at Taniel, and she could sense the hardening of their resolve.

Before she could pounce, Taniel spoke. “Our other companion has arrived; you should move along and mind your own business.”

The mercenary didn’t seem impressed. “Methinks you’re lost, monk-boy. No ranger to guide ye? We’ll do so—for half the value of your goods. Ye really shouldn’t look to argue, not with the beasties around here, any hap.”

The ranger, however, looked over his shoulder and spotted her. He grabbed his companions and turned them around to point at her.

Now the fear-smell shifted from the novices to the harassers. A prick of annoyance filled her though. Why had they given up her chance to ambush? To intimidate was nice, yes, but ambush would have been more direct.

Stupid humans.

The trio excused themselves and fled.

Pleased with herself, Elania strode out of the shadow and approached the monks. When she didn’t get the head scratch she deserved, she bumped into Joren hard enough to nearly knock him off his feet.

“Hey! Watch it,” Joren warned.

She bumped into him again. And again. Until he finally got the idea and praised her and distributed the ear scratches.

“Yeah, I think this confirms what kind of demon she was before eating a bunch of humans,” Taniel said sarcastically.

Anger flashed through her. She was not a [Darkwalker]! She was a human person.

There was a sudden pulse that shook her entire body, and then a [Power] fueled cloud enveloped her as her body suddenly yanked itself into a new shape. The sensation was weird, as if she was disembodied and watching it happened to herself, until suddenly she popped back into her own head.

Kneeling on the floor, she stared at the monks before getting to her feet. They stared back at her.

Her loose pack sat on the ground by her feet.

“Uhm, Elania,” Joren said.

She looked down and sighed. She was completely naked. Again.

After the shock wore off, all the monks turned beet red and looked away. Somehow, she managed to not panic. So, they’d gotten a good look at her, so what? It didn’t cool down her cheeks, but at least she didn’t freak out.

“Your clothes were shredded from the first transformation…you can have one of our spare robes,” Joren finally stammered. Taniel turned around silently while the other monk searched for the outfit, then handed it to her without turning to look at her.

Was chastity one of the monk-virtues along with demon-hating?

She hastily pulled on the outfit and tightened it with the cloth belt. “Who were those people?”

Taniel grunted. “Ranger mercenary team, looking for loot, beasts, or…lost expeditions they could extort.”

“Your ambush worked well. They didn’t know what to make of you,” Joren said.

“You can all turn around now. My nakedness won’t assail you anymore,” Elania replied glibly. A fresh sheen of embarrassment appeared on the novices’ faces. Somehow that seemed a bit endearing, because she doubted that the rough looking other group would have given her the privacy.

A sense of relief filled her. She was back to being human… normal. Not that being a [Darkwalker] had been bad…but her memories of the experience were heavily tinted with… feline Darkwalkerness.

“Are we almost there?” Elania asked.

Joren nodded. “Next cavern, actually. Wouldn’t be surprised if that group had been using the waystation earlier.”

That led to her next question. “What happens if a waystation is in use when another group shows up?”

“Either the group inside can lower the protection magic and the groups can share, or… the outside group is left to their fate to continue or find a new place to camp,” Taniel explained.

Ouch. First come, first serve.

That probably wasn’t a problem for the more distant waystations, but if they were taken as they got closer to the city, she’d have to be on much higher alert if they camped in the open.

She stuck to her own thoughts as they continued forward. The world seemed intent on destroying her clothes, most of the time with an audience—would it be possible to find some type of magic that made her outfits survive?

The monk outfit was nice. Nicer than anything she had worn in Eladu so far. It was oversized on her, and the pants were baggy and pooled out slightly, but she tucked that into the fur-lined boots. She suppressed the uncharitable thought that they had been making her go barefoot the whole time so far.

The top was a cloth doublet, and she added a wrap around her torso to keep things from flopping around. The travel cloak was a delightful addition, although the orange material stood out a bit to her eyes.

She hoped they didn’t expect her to return it in one piece. There was a fat chance of that happening.

There wasn’t much time to tidy up and customize things further, and the group continued. A little while later, they arrived, but her heart jumped a little when she saw the blue shimmering field already activated.

It felt like a kick when they saw who was inside.

“Marcus,” Joren said flatly. Apparently, the monk wasn’t happy with the man.

“Ah, my wayward charges, I’m so glad to see that you’ve made it to safety!” Marcus replied jovially.