TDH Vol. 2 pt. 2

“I love you, Woofen.”

Thirty seconds later.

“Woooofen, I love you.”

Another thirty seconds later.

“Have I mentioned that I love you?”

Not even fifteen seconds later.

“I love you, I love you, I love you!”

About five seconds later.

“I love you more than anything else in the whole world!”

I couldn’t handle it any longer. At first, it was nice to hear a woman say that she loved me. What man didn’t want to hear that? It was great. But, apparently, Elanah decided to play a game with herself where she thought of all the different ways that she could tell me that she loved me. And she was like that for minutes already.

Literally all I had to do was exist within her line of sight and she couldn’t shut up about how much she loved me.

You’re annoying, woman! Seriously annoying! And you made those words lose all meaning! Being told you love me doesn’t even make me feel anything anymore! They’re just words! No, they’re worse than just words. You’re starting to make them sound weird from how much you’ve been saying them! You’re legitimately ruining them!

“Woofen, guess what? I love y—”

I turned around and placed a paw on her foot while looking up at her.

I know. Please. I know. Just… stop. Let it be over. You’re going to make us lose audience support by annoying them at this rate. So, please. Please. I’m begging you. Enough with the love. You can’t possibly love me any more than you already do. Just... just stop. You don’t have to keep doing this. You’ve done enough.

Elanah smiled, leaned over, and picked me up to hang me in the air in front of her face. “Ehehe… I love you!” She kissed me right on my snout. “Okay, I guess I should stop. I don’t want you to get tired of hearing me tell you how much I love you.”

It’s too late for that!

“But it’s so hard not to say it… I love you more with every single second that passes…”

That’s impossible! That’s seriously impossible!

She turned my body a little so that she could plant a large, dramatic kiss against the side of my head before setting me down and nodding. “Alright! Let’s hurry up and finish clearing the dungeon! Then we can enjoy our bodies as much as we want without worrying about guards or an audience!”

I mean, that sounds nice and all, but I doubt we’re going to get out of here this attempt. Though, we can at least make it as far as possible. I want to see what the next boss is like so I can start thinking of strategies to use against it.

That was what I did while walking with Elanah whenever we didn’t have beasts to fight or traps to avoid. I thought up as many strategies for fighting Cheese as possible. That last battle with her was too close for comfort and I had to rely on the sword we stole from that other bastard to win. If it wasn’t for that sword, I had no idea what we would have done to win.

So, that was why I needed to think up strategies ahead of time. Strategies that relied only on our natural skills rather than anything like items we might get.

But it was hard to focus on thinking up strategies when I had to listen to Elanah say things like, “Ah… your butt is so cute. I love watching you walk.”

If I could blush, I probably would have been from sheer embarrassment. I didn’t want somebody talking about my ass, especially when it meant calling it cute, in front of an entire audience!

But it was impossible to stay behind Elanah. Every single time I let her take the lead, she’d subtly slow herself down until she was behind me again. She refused to let me out of her eyesight for more than a couple of minutes at a time. No matter what I tried, I ended up always being in front of her which meant that I always had her eyes staring at me with all sorts of intents that no normal woman should have when looking at a beast.

Then there was all the creepy giggling I’d hear while she was behind me.

Then there was her whispering to herself about our future life together and all the kids we’d have.

Then there was the occasionally moan whenever she was being quiet for too long, which I learned meant she was probably fantasizing about doing things with me.

It never ended. She was absolutely obsessed and finding peace from her obsession was impossible.

“Wait!” Elanah shouted.

I froze.

“Geez, Woofen, I told you that you have to pay attention! You almost stepped on another trap.”

I looked at the ground in front of me and she was right. There was another suspicious lump in the dirt that was probably a disguised trap just waiting for me to step on it.

As obsessive as she was… she somehow still found a way to pay attention to our surroundings at all times, even while being weird about me and making me feel violated just by walking in front of her.

I don’t get how you do it. I seriously don’t.

She reminded me of just how incredible she was. At least, I assumed she had to be pretty incredible going by how she could watch out for traps while also mumbling to herself about everything she wanted to do to my body.

But while she might have been able to detect traps better than me, I could detect enemies thanks to my heightened hearing and smelling.

I looked up at her and then at the corner up ahead. Apparently, I had a “l0ok” in my eyes whenever there were enemies that she could understand.

“How many?” Elanah asked.

I tapped my paw against the floor twice.

“Then it’ll be easy. I guess there aren’t many beasts on his floor since it’s a combination of them and traps.”

From my understanding, the more traps there were on a floor, the fewer beasts there were and vice versa. Some floors could be entirely beasts. Other floors could be entirely traps. Though, the lower people made it into the dungeon, the less it mattered since there were usually sizable amounts of both.

Too bad they’re smart enough to avoid the traps. I’m guessing they know where every single one is, and they know to never step on them even in the middle of fights.

We went around the trap and approached the corner as stealthily as we could. Even though we handled all the beasts up until that point without issue, we still had to practice being at least a little bit careful. The beasts were harder now that we weren’t only on the first five floors anymore, and I could easily imagine them overwhelming us if we were caught off guard even if that hadn’t happened yet.

The two of us got right up to the corner and then peeked around it together.

Two enemies, both that were never seen on the first few floors. One of which was an enemy that previously killed me thanks to going up against it not only sooner than I should have, but while it had an item that made it stronger the closer it got to death.

There was one cursed hound and one rattler. Rattlers were serpentine beasts with tails designed to make a sort of rattling noise with such a high pitch that it made it hard to focus in fights. It was especially effective against me given my hearing. Then again, Elanah had pretty long ears. Maybe her hearing was better than a normal Chosen’s, too.

Elanah crouched down over me and whispered, “I’ll take out the rattler with the opening attack. Think you can handle the hound?”

I nodded and tightened my grip on the sword’s handle in my mouth.

Elanah nodded back at me before summoning a couple of daggers within her hands. The next moment, she jumped out from behind the corner and threw her daggers at the rattler before her feet could even touch the ground to alert the beasts of our presence.

They only noticed us once they heard her land, but it was too late at that point.

Elanah’s first dagger tore straight through the tail underneath the rattler’s rattle.

The noise the rattle made from shaking after it hit the floor still hurt my ears, but it didn’t last long and was out of the fight after that.

The cursed hound charged at Elanah without any hesitation. That meant it was time for me to jump out and intercept it with the sword, causing the hound to jump to the side to dodge my attack.

Since the sword was too heavy for me to use against an enemy as agile as the hound, I dropped it after that and jumped up toward its neck while it stood next to the wall. The hound managed to dodge that, too, but it wasn’t expecting me to use the wall as a board to jump off of right onto its back. Digging my fangs into the back of its neck after that was easy.

As for the rattler, it managed to avoid Elanah’s second dagger thanks to how thin and quick it was, and now it slithered across the ground toward her while spitting a stream of venom at her.

With another two daggers, all Elanah had to do was hold them up in front of the incoming venom. The venom went straight into her daggers and disappeared into the void that they were made out of.

Though, a few drops of it that were underneath the main stream splashed onto her skin which burned her.

She could have easily dodged out of the way… but she was trying to look cool by using her daggers to erase the venom from existence.

And that pissed her off.

Getting hit by something that she could have easily avoided wasn’t what pissed her off, no. It was getting hit by an enemy at all that pissed her off, placing all the blame on the enemy itself. “How—how dare you taint my body that only my fated can touch?!”

There it is, I thought just as the hound shook me off from its neck.

I still had a broken rib, or something broken inside of me from my fight against Cheese, so I had to try and finish each fight before the pain from that became too extreme. Honestly, that meant I needed Elanah’s help. I wasn’t in good enough shape to handle the hound all on my own. I barely even managed to make it bleed by attacking the back of its neck.

The problem of going up against larger beasts like the hound was that the size difference of our bodies served as more of a negative thing than a positive thing. Sure, being so much smaller made dodging their attacks easier, but my main weapon was biting my enemies. I couldn’t do much damage by biting them since my fangs were small to match the size of my body, and their bodies were thicker which meant more to tear through to deal any serious damage.

Fortunately, Elanah was already ready to prove how scary she could be. She summoned two more daggers and used one to trick the rattler into dodging to its right just in time for the second dagger to pierce its body as it moved right into its path. All she had to do then was collapse the dagger into nothingness which sucked in its surroundings, and its surroundings just so happened to be the middle of the rattler’s body. She effectively cut it in half which did enough damage to take the rattler out of the fight.

Then, while I focused on dodging the hound, she summoned another two daggers that she threw into its side before doing the same thing. She collapsed them and took two chunks out of the beast’s body with them. That left the hound’s internal organs exposed to us and created an opening for me to jump up underneath the hound to latch onto the underside of its neck.

That ended up hurting. Seriously hurting. I dangled in the air underneath its body while shaking my head to try and tear into its neck. I felt like I was probably doing more damage to myself than the beast by doing that since every single shake of my head caused my entire body to shake, and being shaken around while having a broken rib wasn’t very enjoyable.

Fortunately, Elanah finished the beast off with a dagger right into its skull.

I dropped to the ground and got out of the way before the hound’s corpse could land on me.

Damn it. I barely did anything that fight. All I got to be was a distraction, but I don’t want to just be a distraction. I looked the hound’s corpse over. It really did just look like a way bigger version of me. That meant it had way longer fangs and claws than me. As nice as it is being this small… I’m starting to wish I was that big. Being that big would probably make everything easier. It would make eating easier since I wouldn’t have to rely on others getting food for me and picking me up to put me on the table. I’d be able to reach enemies without having to jump all over the place. I wouldn’t have to worry about being crushed by them. I… I could also probably do more with Elanah whenever we have some privacy… and if my whole body is bigger… then it means that is probably going to get bigger, too, right? I mean, it’s already the size that looks like it belongs on this hound instead, so if it gets any bigger… that might start causing problems. But at the same time, what man doesn’t want that to get even bigger?

Scenes of what I could do to Elanah with a bigger body and bigger tool flooded into my mind, so I had to quickly shake my head to get rid of them before they could make me embarrass myself in front of the audience. They already had to listen to Elanah talk about my ass, so I didn’t want to give them anything else to talk about by getting hard.

But seriously. I need to get bigger. Being small is great for being a lap pet and all… but I’m in a dungeon fighting for my life to escape and earn my freedom. Staying this small isn’t going to do me any favors in here. It’s either get bigger or stay small but get seriously oversized fangs, and I’m pretty sure it would look seriously stupid if I stay small but get even bigger fangs. Wait… I wonder if it’s possible for me to learn magic somehow. Normal people can learn magic with enough work, and beasts can evolve to get magic, I think, so why couldn’t I? Maybe I should try that. Though, I have no idea where to even begin when it comes to learning magic.

“Woofen!” Elanah shouted, grabbing my attention.

I looked up at her with a tilted head.

“Are you alright? The side of your body is getting all swollen.” She crouched down and pointed at where it felt like most of the pain from my broken rib was.

Unfortunately, I had to shake my head. I seriously wasn’t alright and it was getting to the point where even breathing seriously hurt.

“Is this from when we fought the boss?”

I nodded.

“How dare she… if you’re in this condition, we probably won’t make it past the next boss. But we can at least make it to her so that you can see what she’s like.”

I nodded before looking at her thigh where the venom hit her. It left a small burn that I made sure to lick at. She was concerned about my health, so it was only right for me to be concerned about hers as well.

But that was a mistake.

It didn’t matter that she was burned.

It didn’t matter that I had a broken rib probably bulging against my side and causing me serious pain.

It didn’t matter that we were watched by an audience with the bloody corpses of slain beasts next to us.

All that mattered to Elanah was that I just licked her thigh.

And that… that turned her on.

I immediately recognized the look in her eyes and the sound of her heavy breathing.

“Woofen… you’re so bold,” Elanah panted as she rubbed her thighs together. “But if you want to lick me… you can lick more than just my thigh.” She began opening her thighs which meant that it was time for me to turn around, pick up the sword, and walk away.

That was the only way to escape dangerous situations where she got excited.

Running away.