Despite having escaped the Hellhound cave, the dungeon wasn't quite finished with them. But its temper was at least cooling. The enters thrown at them were successively easier—if still far more difficult than usual. Malice's cim that its moods were 'ephemeral' seemed to be accurate. Inte fast-passing.

  When they finally found a portal and threw themselves through, Natalie's entire body was ag. She was used to ing out of dungeon expeditions exhausted, but not to this extent, having undergone a vigorous sex fight followed immediately by the dungeon's vengeful wrath.

  The good news, if there was any for su onsught, was that they had racked up a lot of kills. The dungeon's temper tantrum had resulted in quite an effit leveling expedition.

  Materializing in a random spot ihe rge chamber that served as Aradon's dungeoranatalie finally allowed herself to rex, swaying on her feet. She looked around, cheg in on each of her teammates. They were all alive and oo badly hurt. That was all that mattered.

  They had stored Maliside the Capture Core just before exiting. Natalie didn't want to deal with expining how a definitively non-humaure had apahem outside the dungeon. Now or possibly ever. Malice's existen general posed a whole slew of plications.

  "Alright," Natalie said. "To the healers."

  Their team was hardly the first to stumble from the dungeon in poor shape. For exactly those situations, there was a healer's hall ected directly to the main chamber. There were even medi standby to rush to a delver's immediate aid if necessary. They weren't in that bad of shape, though. If admittedly Natalie wobbled on her walk over, feeling light-headed.

  They passed the squat obelisk of bck stohe actual portal that led into the dungeon—as they went, then promptly had their wounds teo. Liz had been g for them as well, alongside health potions. bined with the higher-level spells from the healers servig the dungeo, Natalie would be sore when she woke in the m, and possibly have a few faint lines oomad thighs to remember the wolves' vicious cws by, but otherwise, she'd be fihey all would.

  Scars were cool, anyway.

  After getting patched up and staggering into the evening air of Aradon's streets—feeliimes more exhausted, now that adrenaline wasn't holding her up—Natalie aeam said their goodbyes to Leah. The rescued party poured their thanks onto them, trying to insist on payment, but they deed. As far as they were ed, Natalie aeam had only done what was expected of them. They would hardly leave a group stranded in the dungeo was entirely within their capabilities to help. And the actual chaos had been of their own making. The mundane challenges associated with saving Leah's team hadn't posed much difficulty at all.

  The team of five trudged back to the Te campus and vened in Natalie's shared dorm. sidering the amount of grime, blood, ash, and other uifiable messes that had e with their advehey peeled out of their armor, stored it in monster cores, and took turing ed up so as not to ruin the furniture and fl of the dorm.

  Finally, they colpsed in the living room. Sofia took the reer, and the rest of them piled onto the couch. It wasn't meant to seat four people, but they crammed in anyway, exhausted enough that they didn't care that their shoulders were toug. For a while, they simply sagged into the soft cushions and stared vatly into the distance, depressing.

  Even Liz and Ana, the mages of the group, were worn out. Magic didn't drain the body in the same hysical activity, but too much exertion of that inexplicable muscle would definitely y a person on her ass. Natalie would know. She was drained in both ways.

  But Liz especially had been casting nonstop, having to patch up a group of ten. Her mana pool had likely been pletely emptied. She'd overextended herself for certain. Like all of them had, t degrees.

  After several minutes of exhausted silence, Sofia finally asked, "Loot?"

  Liz groaned, wiggling on the couch, venting her protest. "Five more minutes?"

  "Let's get it over with," Natalie grunted, f herself to sit up.

  Jordan shough even that sounded exhausted. "This has to be the first time a group didn't want to sort through their boss earnings."

  "I don't know about 'don't want to'," Liz said. "I mean, they're even Natalie items. So they're gonna be good. Just … ugh."

  "Ugh," Jordan agreed sympathetically. "The sooner we sort everything out though, the sooner we crash."

  "It's definitely gonna be an early night," Natalie said.

  She was so tired, in fact, that it might be the first time siheir arra had started that she didn't take advantage of having Jordan in her bed. The thought felt nearly bsphemous, but in her current state, knog out early really did sound like the highest form of bliss ience. Better even than sex.

  "Should we bring Malice out?" Ana asked. "In what way do we sider her part of our team? Does she get loot?"

  That suggestiht a brief sileo the room.

  "Of course she gets a share," Natalie said. "She's risking her life alongside us. She's not our pet."

  At the word 'pet', the group paused, their attention turning to Sofia. Sofia's eyes narrowed, and she gred at each of them iurn, a blush rising on her cheeks.

  Except, Natalie was too tired to tease Sofia, even with su easy opening. She hadn't thought that would be possible, but apparently it was.

  "Is she risking her life, though?" Ana asked. "If she dies, wouldn't her soul be recimed by the dungeon? Who knows how dungeoies work? Much less captured ones."

  It was a good point, Natalie supposed. But it didn't matter.

  "She's still out there, fighting with us. She's a full member of the party."

  "Of course," Ana said smoothly. "We'd be stupid not to equip her anyway, sidering her tribution in bat. But I'm stating relevant facts. This is a discussion that o be explored properly. It's an unpreted situation with far-reag implications. A sapient dungeon monster, extracted from her home."

  Which, again, was fair.

  " she even be released while we're outside?" Jordan asked. "I wouldn't be surprised if she couldn't."

  "I don't know if I get my brain to think about all this stuff, right now," Liz groaned. "It's maybe better we put this off till tomorrow."

  "And leave her trapped in the orb till then?" Natalie asked, frowning.

  "We don't even know what that's like," Jordan said. "Maybe she's sleeping."

  "You let her out and ask," Liz said. "I just meant … the full discussion. Her dynami the squad. To what extent we reveal her to the outside world."

  That st part was the more important one. As far as Natalie was ed, the wolfgirl was a full member of their adventuring group—but permaly freeing her from the capture core aing her wander around with full autonomy? She wasn't their pet, but the possible ramifications of that were too big to ignore. Everyhat.

  Natalie almost hoped the capture core didn't allow them to free her outside the dungeon. It would simplify things. At the same time, she obviously didn't want that to be the case—primarily for Malice's sake.

  They o talk with Malid get her opinions oter, as well as how the core worked itself.

  "Loot first," Natalie said. "And then I'll chat with Malice. Privately. The specifics depend on how she feels about everything."

  Sofia grunted. "Loot first, then."