Natalie helped undress Ana. Or undress herself. Because it was her armor, and her body. But that didn't ge the fact that, more than anything, it felt like she was strippieammate.

  What a mess.

  Sensing Natalie's awkwardness, Ana politely avoided looking down at her body—Natalie's body—as she undressed. It was clearly for Natalie's sake.

  Natalie sighed. "You don't have to do that. You look. There's no point tip-toeing around each other."

  Ana studied her for a moment. "I agree. But if you're unfortable with it, then you're unfortable."

  "It's whatever."

  Slowly, Ana nodded. "Then, it is rather difficult to avoid," she admitted. "Especially with how much you have up top. There's too much to not actally look." To emphasize the point, she cupped her breasts and bouhem, showg Natalie's unwieldy assets.

  Natalie stared at her, disbelieving of what the clueless girl had so casually done. She shook her head in incredulity, then tinued helping Ana unstrap her gear. This girl.

  "Then again," Ana ented idly, "maybe you're just saying I look so that you look."

  Natalie started to protest, but stopped before the words came out. Despite Ana's faatalie's face?—being passive, like it always was, Natalie detected a hint of sparkling eyes.

  "You're messing with me," she said in realization. "Wait. All of it? The boung too?"

  "Yes," Ana said. "I would think that was obvious, but I've been told it's difficult to tell when I'm joking. So I uand."

  The words were delivered with a plete deadpan. Natalie stared at her, then gave a short, incredulous ugh. "Difficult. That's putting it lightly. Anyway," she said, happy to grab onto a versational topic to distract from the fact she was helping peel armor off of Ana. "You do joke, then. What about that stuff with Sofia?" She hadn't been able to tell.

  "My offer to be her owner?" Ana asked. "And my stating that the situation was humorous?" She hummed. "It depends what you define as a joke, I suppose."

  It took Natalie a sed to uand what she meant. "The offer was real, but you were also teasing."

  "More or less."

  "But, you meant it? You wanted Sofia as a pet?"

  "Who wouldn't?"

  That was fair. But Natalie was more than a bit shocked to hear Ana state it ht.

  "After all, she's a profit duelist," Ana said. "And ara pair of hands never hurts. She'd make an excelle. One of the best familiars I could imagine, down in the dungeon."

  Ana mao make an impassive expression look tauntingly i.

  Natalie narrowed her eyes. "Stop messing with me." Disregarding the teasing, though, Natalie was still curious. "You're attracted to Sofia?"

  "She's objectively an attractive woman."

  "But you're serious about wanting her," Natalie pressed.

  "I'm usually serious."

  "You prefer women, then?" That much was obvious by this point, but she wao ask ht.

  "Yes. Does that make all of this more or less awkward?" She quirked an eyebrow as she looked down at her body, which was losing piece of armor after piece of armor.

  "Uh." Natalie wasn't sure. "Both."

  Ana snorted. "Don't worry," she said dismissively. "I already know that Sofia is yours. I'm not infatuated with her—she's just pinly a beautiful woman. But I won't intrude. I have little i in roman general, for that matter."

  There was a lot of revetions about Ana to take in there. Though, oidbit felt more important than the rest. Something that needed immediate crification.

  "Sofia isn't mine. Why would you say that?"

  Ana paused, giving Natalie an odd look. "I see."

  "What? She isn't."

  "Okay."

  "She isn't."

  Ana shrugged.

  Natalie narrowed her eyes at Ana, then, after a brief internal debate, dropped the topic. She didn't want to venture down that path. Sofia was a sticky topic even with Jordan, who Natalie trusted with just about anything.

  Soon enough, the two finished undressing. They pced their gear in the marble bin, but kept their ons. Natalie stalwartly didn't look down at herself—at Ana's body—despite having told Ana it wasn't a big deal. Not that she could avoid everything, sina wasly ft. Natalie caught plenty in her periphery.

  Why were all four of her delving teammates drop-dead geous? And two of them so generously bestowed? She'd known Ana had an amazing pair of tits, but getting to see them from a first-person perspective was something else.

  At least she didn't have a cock to give her thoughts away. That would've been embarrassing.

  Natalie's eyes also shied away from Ana—from her own body. Why Natalie would be awkward at seeing her own body naked, she had no idea. Ana's curious looks, and the way she urposefully refraining from asking what Natalie's deal was, made it so much worse.

  It was as if Ana's plete disregard for the situation was making it worse for Natalie. That all of the embarrassment the mage should have been feeling was siphoning straight to Natalie, so that her cheeks were burning hot enough for the both of them.

  "Ready?" Natalie asked, staring forward at the door, purposefully avoiding Ana. "Be ready for anything. It's letting us keep our ons, which makes me suspicious."

  "I'll be ready."

  Nodding, Natalie pushed through the door, holding her hammer at the ready.

  She'd been right to be ed, because not two steps in, skittering and scratg noises appeared at the far end of the room. Her eyes tched to a small, shin-high opening, which a swarm of crystal spiders were scurrying out from.

  She spared a moment to wo the ridiculousness of her life. In an instant, she was transitioning from blushing at Ana's nakedo readying herself for a fight against a crowd of magical crystal spiders. Her life had really bee so absurd.

  At least they weren't real is. These ones were just made of crystal.

  Though, it wasn't all good news.

  "Swarmers," Natalie grunted. "This is gonna be annoying."

  Natalie smashed the first spider with a solid downward swing—it took the small beast out in a si. Unfortunately, there were at least two dozen of the things piling out of the opening. Of any enter type, their team was worst against swarmers. Natalie, Sofia, and Jordan were all specialized in siarget damage, which was generally good for bosses—the most important enter type—but that lopsidedness did create problems for situations like these.

  Though, that was one of the major reasons Ana had fit well into their team. She had a suite of area-of-effect spells that shored up their primary weakness.

  Ribbons of bck light writhed up from the ground, then started sshing at the ining horde. Natalie smacked down on a sed spider, then spped away a third that lunged for her. Its sharp, crystalline legs scraped her as she batted it, but it didn't draw blood. The spiders were far weaker than they normally would be—designed with a two-person, naked squad in mind.

  Still, she wasn't happy about having to fend off dozens of quick, sharp-edged spiders while naked and swinging around a giant hammer. Auro dust as she smmed her on down, and she kicked two more. Several slipped past her, headed for Ana, and there unfortunately wasn't muatalie could do to stop them. An [Illusion], maybe, but that didn't feel appropriate without a greater threat—she should save her mana.

  The mage jured bergy to defend herself, backtrag as she kited the persistent mini-mobs, but when they lunged and snu attacks, Ana wasn't durable enough that she could brush their attacks off like Natalie had; they drew blood. Natalie trailed after her and tio do her best to clear them away.

  She really hated swarming monsters.

  It was hardly a lethal enter, though. Soon enough, all of the aggravating, vicious crystal monstrosities had been pulverized or sshed in half by bergy.

  The two girls panted iion, watg the st corpse dissipate into bck smoke.

  A loud click rung through the room, making Natalie jump. An even louder crash followed right after, and Natalie spun to see a wooden treasure chest settling onto the tile floor. Had it dropped from the ceiling?

  Not a sed round of monsters, then, but their first reward. A progressing series of challenges? Maybe with better rewards after ea?

  Regardless, Natalie hefted up her hammer and approached the chest, curious to see what they had earned.