Chapter 45: Wolf Meets Dungeon
Chapter 45: Wolf Meets Dungeon
A week had passed since the wolf-eared beastkin woman known as Wolf, or whom was assumed to be a beastkin, entered the dungeon.
She had nonchalantly agreed to live there under Styx's impromptu conversation cues via Therina, as if it were decided upon a whim.
Since then, she would mysteriously vanish and reappear in the dungeon with no particular consistency. Whilst in the dungeon, she would either follow around Therina, watch the elves training, or simply studying the dungeon's design. When she disappeared, not even Styx could tell how she did it despite his constant omnipresence throughout the dungeon.
She seemed to have an endless curiosity toward the carvings on the walls and the ceilings in the area being expanded, often asking Therina about it. Therina naturally could only ask Styx, who then spun a hocus story about a legend from a land far away which sounded like rubbish to Therina, but Wolf nodded her head along with the story and even her eyes seemed to gain some life in them.
"Therina, bring Wolf over to the new area being constructed at the back of the maze," Styx spoke directly into the elf's head.
The two immediately headed over to the new room. It was wide, with a giant ornate stone bridge running down the center of the room.
Along the large carved railing of the bridge, there were periodic pillars, a large ball of light constantly floating above each one and lighting up the room. At the end of the bridge there was a raised platform a dozen steps up. A giant stone throne with an excessive amount of padding to cushion the seat was situated at the end.
Large platforms where flowers were still growing were attached all over the walls. Brightening up the grand hall with color and will also increase the local mana density considerable once the growth period is complete.
Styx's plan was to situate his dungeon crystal in a secure cage near the ceiling, the increased mana density also increasing his mana regeneration speed.
After a weeklong wait, his new avatar was finally created and sat atop the throne in a grandiose manner with one leg crossed over the other.
Therina had already seen the room during construction so she was unsurprised by the design, but Wolf was deeply interested and kept turning her head to look around in curiosity. The use of manasteel, celandine clay, and black sand in the design was an extravagant expense of materials for this room, and it payed off by interesting the wolfgirl greatly.
"It is a pleasure to finally be speaking to you personally," Styx said in a commanding and arrogant tone atop the throne.
Wolf looked at him curiously and briefly nodded her head. She had previously seen him just outside the dungeon "dead", which sparked her curiosity enough to actually appear in front of the group.
"We have many matters to discuss, but first, become mine!"
Wolf appeared in front of the throne without warning or any signs of movement. Previously, she was with Therina, and then she was simply before Styx. The movement caused him to almost jump in fright, but the woman didn't seem to be intending to harm him at the moment.
She inspected the dungeon's avatar with a great deal of curiosity, even sniffing him from time to time.
"You are emitting a lot of hormones. Do you wish to mate with me?"
"Of course!"
"I refuse."
She didn't even hesitate, nor show a change of expression as she responded to his desire as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Styx was also unperturbed by this, continuing their conversation without faltering.
"It does not matter, becoming mine is more important."
"How does one become yours?"
"You simply let me inside of you."
"Isn't that mating?"
Wolf tilted her head in confusion, her ethereal voice only serving to spark the dungeon's desires even more.
"It is different," Styx said as mana tendrils extended from his hands and reached toward her. "This is a piece of me becoming a part of you, sharing a permanent bond."
Wolf deftly avoided the mana tendrils with little effort while inspected the mana constructs extending from the dungeon cum human avatar.
"It is strange, yet interesting."
"I have been studying you for the past week, you know? I have come to understand you."
"How so?"
"You are simply bored, are you not?"
Wolf nodded her head in response.
"You seemed interesting, and are. It is fun watching everything."
"I can provide you plenty of other interesting things, you know."
"I have nearly seen everything here already."
Wolf tilted her head and Styx sat back down on his throne, indicating for her to come closer with the curl of a finger. Wolf simply headed over toward him without putting her guard up.
Styx wrapped one hand around her waist and pulled her over onto him, or at least he tried to. She was like a pillar of steel sticking out of the ground and didn't budge an inch.
"Ahem, you are meant to follow along."
As if by cue, the resistance in her body vanished and she was pulled over and sat atop Styx's lap sideways, one of his arms supporting her back.
She looked at him with a curious gaze in her otherwise lifeless eyes. With her face this close, Styx truly appreciated her otherworldly beauty which surpassed everyone else he had ever seen other than his former goddess.
Styx knew the woman now sitting on his lap was so powerful he would never even be able to resist her should she decide to kill him, and probably wouldn't even realize if she did even in his final moments. Despite that, his desire for her, which was further enhanced by the Lusty Dungeon title, overwhelmed any sense of fear and dominated his thoughts.
"First, shouldn't I give you a name?"
Wolf thought about it briefly before nodding and waiting for him to suggest something.
"From now on, you will be known as Aviry."
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I don't like it."
"Very well, I will choose something else. How about Sarah?"
"No."
"Hilda."
"No."
"Everi."
"No."
"Lidia."
"No."
.
.
.
"Xeleroth'ar Geneva Lithika."
"No."
"What do you want, then?"
"I don't know."
Therina watched the two interact while sighing. She had wanted to leave long ago while Styx ran through an endless list of names, and Wolf rejected them all, both as tireless as one another. Styx had commanded her to stay however, as he had a task for her to complete. That was an hour ago, as he still wasn't done dedicating his attention on the wolf-eared woman currently known as just Wolf.
"You're not a beastkin, aren't you?" Styx suddenly asked, which Wolf immediately answered.
"No."
"You're a monster from deep in the Abyssal Forest, right?"
"Yes."
"How old are you?"
"241."
"You seem like succinct answers."
"Yes."
"How did you become a beastkin?"
Wolf seemed to ponder this question, but didn't have an exact answer.
"One day, I no longer had anything to do, so I decided to explore outside. None of the humans were welcoming though, so I tried to become more like them. Eventually, I was able to get close."
"Did you eat any of them?"
"A few."
"What about elves? Did you eat any of them?"
"Occasionally."
Answers of a true bona fide monster came out of the wolf-eared woman's mouth one after another, causing Therina to eye her with trepidation.
"Then of course they would not welcome you."
"Because I ate some of them? Do they not eat high level monsters, too?"
"I will explain it to you over time. Most of these matters, especially to humans, are subject to perspective."
Wolf nodded her head in understanding, but Therina felt like they were breaching into a particularly strange topic that only the two of them understood.
"More importantly than that, do you have a tail?"
Wolf simply nodded in response as if saying, "Of course."
"Can I see it."
From under the hem of the worn out robe, a tail a meter and a half in length and covered in a thick brush of abyssal black fur appeared. It became a furry mass on both her and Styx's body due to the posture she was sitting in.
Both Styx's and Therina's eyes seemed to drop of out their sockets while the former exclaimed, "Where in the nine abyss's was that hidden?!"
Wolf didn't answer as Styx brushed it with the fingers of his spare hand, feeling the soft fur brush between each digit.
"It is a beautiful tail, you should show it more often."
"It gets dirty when it isn't covered."
"How so?"
"Sticks, leaves, dirt."
"I will brush it for you to remove all of those."
"How does brushing work? Is it like picking them out?"
Styx then proceeded to explain the brushing process before abruptly changing the subject without warning again.
"So what do you think, will you become mine?"
"No."
"Don't be so abject to it. I will provide lots of fun things for you, and my dungeon will only continue to get larger and create new, more interesting things."
Wolf didn't respond and Styx took this opportunity to extend his mana tendrils into her body. She watched the ethereal, nonphysical constructs of mana reach for her stomach, but were then unable to penetrate inside.
Styx felt like he hit a brick wall, one in which the bricks were made with worldstone. His mana tendrils were unable to enter her no matter how hard he tried.
Seeing his concentrated face, Wolf did her best to control her body and help pull in the mana tendrils. She had absolute confidence in being in control of the situation but more so than anything, it was interesting. She enjoyed talking with him far more than her expression revealed, and being able to talk to him at any time in her head like the elves was desirable to her.
Styx's mana tendrils were suddenly sucked into her body and he got to witness her mana network. It was enormous, but even that size reference didn't do any justice to the sheer size of her mana channels. Her mana network was like cosmic rivers expanding through the universe, an impossible size to fit inside of any physical body.
His mana tendril was like a small boat on the torrential ocean of mana and sheer lifeforce, the only reason he did not capsize was due to how welcoming it was of him. Even the slightest resistance, and it would be instantly crushed.
With a cold sweat on the forehead of his avatar, he controlled the mana tendrils to navigate the treacherous seas for a long time before he finally reached her core. He entered deep inside and left a fragment of himself to become a part of her, a familiar process. The core was welcoming of this, and kept the piece of himself safe within itself.
"Can you hear me?"
"I can."
Wolf distinctly responded, the trace of a smile revealing itself of the corner of her lips.
The beautiful sight of her fleeting smile caused Styx to lose control, he stopped combing her tail with his spare hand and went to grasp her large breasts that the worn out robe clung to. Halfway there, Wolf simply caught his hand in hers and a trace of killing intent immediately descended upon the room.
This killing intent broke Styx out of his lust, but he was still deeply and inexorably infatuated with her.
He grabbed her hand back, pushing his fingers between hers. She watched the action closely while her killing intent vanished as quickly as it came.
"This is where you hold onto my hand."
Wolf followed this process and grasped his hand, he slender fingers with sharp, claw like nails grasping onto his hand in a vice like grip. This action didn't seem to be intimate to her, and was treated as another normal thing.
"Like this?"
"Yeah just, a bit gentler. No, a bit gentler than that too"
Wolf could tell how badly he wanted to mate with her. Not only could she smell it, there was a very large object that had been pressing against her backside for a while now. She deeply like this new friend of hers and even accepted a piece of him into her mind, but she truly held no desire to mate with him.
Even for a monster, they had a rigid sense of criteria in whom they would take as their mates. The more intelligent the monster, the stronger that criteria was.