Harmony: Harmony Book 1, page 36
Leah, in panic, moved closer to Nate to assess how serious his injuries were. He honestly wasn’t as badly wounded as she first feared when she saw what he was doing, but he still had his face covered in burns. And she bet the same was true for his torso and arms, although she couldn’t see them behind the armor that definitely had also suffered from the flames.
She was really afraid of what his injuries would mean for him in this situation, but all that fear vanished and was replaced by relief when she saw him take a healing potion from his spatial storage. In her panic to see her friend in that state, she had even forgotten about the potions they both carried. Promising herself not to make that mistake again, she watched as the burns began to recede and unharmed skin began to grow in their places. In moments, the man had his handsome face back. A face Leah was seriously considering punching.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Leah blurted out as she caught her breath. “And you say I’m the reckless idiot.”
“You are,” Nate joked with a laugh. “When I do something like that, I’m a gallant hero.”
“I thought we agreed that I was the gallant hero?” Leah decided to join in the banter.
“Only when the other option is to be the harassed girl,” Nate informed her with a shrug. “In any other situation, you’re demoted to damsel in distress. Sorry, but those are the rules.”
“These rules are sexist!” Leah exclaimed and shook her head.
“Complain to whoever made them,” Nate shrugged. “I just follow them.”
Rolling her eyes with a giggle, Leah continued to swim in the direction where she didn’t hear anything approaching from. With Nate’s spell being the only source of light, they had to rely on her hearing to guide them. They had to make some minor course adjustments due to Leah hearing boats that had managed to intercept them from the front, but overall they were following the same direction all along.
The minutes began to blend together more and more, causing both of them to start worrying about just how vast this place could be exactly. Nevertheless, they continued on their course, with Leah spotting all the approaching boats and Nate destroying them as soon as they became visible. He had learned his lesson about prioritizing those with cannons, so they managed to avoid any other situation like the previous one. It also seemed that there were only these two types of boats, as no others approached them.
“Hey, I think I see something!” Leah suddenly commented excitedly, causing Nate to strain his eyes through the darkness to figure out what she saw.
After a few seconds, he also managed to distinguish what looked like the end of the lake they so desperately wanted to escape from. It was still far from their only source of light, but he was hopeful that soon he could get out of that icy water. Well, he had more or less gotten used to how cold the water was, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to get out of there.
“I think we finally found the way out of this lake,” Nate said, smiling. “Just a little more and...”
When Leah realized that Nate cut off what he was saying, she turned to him to find out what was wrong. What she found, however, was an empty area where the man should have been. What had happened became obvious when the sphere of light that used to float above Nate plunged into the water after its caster.
Fighting against the panic that threatened to take over her mind, Leah took a deep breath and then dove after her friend.
Chapter 40
What Leah found as soon as she dove in was exactly what she expected to see. Well, maybe not exactly, but it certainly matched the general idea she had in mind about what had happened to Nate.
A little below her, she saw Nate struggling against a tentacle coiling around his torso. The way he had been ensnared by the tentacle, with his arms pinned to his body, meant he couldn’t really use his hands to try to free himself.
With the light ball illuminating the waters, Leah could see more than just the tentacle. The creature that had captured Nate wasn’t really a creature. Instead, it was a golem built in the shape of an octopus. It appeared to be entirely made of wood and was large enough to wrap one of its tentacles around an adult man more than once, which she estimated to be 4 meters long each. Fortunately, that was the limit of its size. As far as she knew they could have encountered one of the legendary giant octopuses capable of sinking ships, but luckily the only thing this octopus was capable of sinking was, well, Nate.
Leah wasted no time in swimming to her friend’s aid. Making a mental note to thank her parents for forcing the younger her to take swimming lessons, Leah reached Nate and grabbed onto the tentacle squeezing him. Looking into Nate’s eyes, she found them widened with clear signs of panic, but he seemed to calm down a bit upon seeing her there, even easing his desperate struggle against the tentacle.
Diverting her gaze from the man’s face, Leah focused on the task at hand. She had no doubt that under different circumstances she could have simply punched or slashed her claws against the tentacle with all her might and it would have splintered into wood chips. Underwater, though, such blows would be weakened by the resistance she would have to fight against with each of her movements. So, Leah had to use a different approach to free Nate.
Holding onto the tentacle swaying in the water with her left hand, Leah used her right hand to attack it. Like a predator eviscerating its prey, Leah used her claws to scratch and tear at the wood. She felt splinters and small chips of wood hurting her hand, with even blood starting to appear in the water, but she refused to stop. Even though the wood was tougher than she expected, in seconds, her claws had carved halfway through the wood.
She was confident she would finish the job in a few more seconds, but she should have known things wouldn’t be that easy. The moment she heard Nate screaming underwater as a clear warning, she stopped tearing at the wood and used the tentacle to propel herself upward without even thinking about it. In the next instant, a tentacle passed where she had been and struck Nate hard, causing him to release all the air he still had in his lungs. Leah’s mission had just become even more urgent.
Leah began swimming back down, but another tentacle appeared from her blind spot and hit her, throwing her away. The impact, which hurt more than she expected, was enough to disorient her for a couple of seconds and make her release the air she was holding. For a brief moment, the lack of air in her lungs made her feel an almost overwhelming fear of drowning, but the part of her mind that was still functioning rationally made her realize that the tentacle had thrown her closer to the surface.
Knowing she would be of no help to Nate if she herself drowned, she quickly swam to the surface. Reaching the air, she stayed there just long enough to take a good breath before diving back down after Nate. The golem octopus had stopped being so passive, however, and she was met with another tentacle quickly coming her way.
This time, though, she had help. Before the tentacle could reach her, a spear of ice struck it. Wood chips were thrown through the water and the tentacle, though not severed, had its course altered enough that it missed Leah. But the golem didn’t seem to like that, and pulled Nate closer to its head at an angle where he couldn’t help or even see Leah anymore.
Although she had managed to withstand one of the attacks with no more than a temporary stun, the alpha werewolf knew she would never be able to save Nate while having to dodge so many tentacles like that. Perhaps if they weren’t against the clock she could have destroyed tentacle after tentacle until she reached the one holding her friend prisoner, but every second she lost there was a second less that Nate had. And her air wasn’t infinite either. With renewed motivation, Leah swam as fast as she could towards Nate.
Deciding to use her trump card as soon as she saw the octopus attacking again, Leah brought her hand to the pendant hanging around her neck and activated its enchantment. Thus, when the tentacle was close to hitting Leah, it collided with an invisible barrier surrounding her.
To Leah’s surprise, the impact was enough to destroy the tentacle and fill the water around her with splinters and pieces of wood. Nevertheless, she had continued to swim unhindered. She found it quite curious and it made her wonder exactly how the barrier worked, but she knew that this was neither the time nor the place to contemplate that. Besides, she was sure Nate would know the answer.
Her opponent seemed to understand that striking her in that way would lead nowhere. So, it changed its approach. Instead of trying to treat her like a baseball, the octopus tried to ensnare her with one of its tentacles in the same way it had done with Nate. The golem also failed there, as the barrier surrounding the werewolf girl was more than enough to keep one of those tentacles far enough away from her to create an area through which she could swim. She encountered a small obstacle, however.
Although she thought the barrier always moved with her, she discovered in the worst possible situation that this wasn’t quite true. For some reason, having a tentacle around the barrier was enough to keep the barrier stationary, consequently making it collapse once Leah moved out of its area of effect. Leah didn’t think that made much sense, but she wasn’t the magic expert there. No, that was the guy who allowed himself to be captured by the low-budget Kraken.
Leah didn’t know how many more times she could activate the enchantment of her pendant before it needed to be recharged, but she would have to risk it. There was no other way she would reach the mage, after all. Twice more a tentacle tried to coil around her only to be stopped by the barrier, but she had finally achieved her goal.
Holding onto the tentacle that imprisoned Nate, she assessed his condition. To her slight confusion, he seemed better at that moment than before. He still looked like someone fighting not to be crushed by a wooden tentacle, of course, but he wasn’t nearly as panicked as before. She thought he would be desperate for air by that point, but the man must have had a much larger lung capacity than she had imagined.
Not giving it much thought, Leah quickly returned to work. With a few more seconds of effort, and a few more painful splinters in her hand, the werewolf girl managed to break the tentacle apart. Smiling at Nate, who smiled back, she then began unwinding the tentacle from around him. She half-expected the tentacle to become a single solid and unbreakable piece of wood now that it was separated from whatever magic fueled the golem, but that wasn’t the case.
Nate, finally freed, let out a sigh of relief. To anyone else, it would have been a foolish waste of breath, but for him, it was different. Earlier, as the panic he felt began to fade, he realized he had forgotten something very important: he wasn’t a normal human. Well, he wasn’t even fully human anymore.
He might not have had a way to use his magic to free himself without seriously injuring himself in the process, but he could use his powers to create air directly into his mouth. And, just like that, Nate discovered how to breathe underwater.
The moment he did, the situation he found himself in became much less terrifying. Sure, he was still being held prisoner by a giant octopus, but the golem couldn’t crush him outright with just one of its tentacles, and he wouldn’t drown until his mana ran out. That gave him the time he needed to think of something. That is, if Leah hadn’t managed to free him.
He had to admit he thought she was abandoning him when she swam to the surface, but when she returned to help him, he understood that she had simply run out of air. He should have known better than that, really, but he couldn’t help the stab in his heart when he saw her leaving him behind. The moment she returned had been one of the greatest reliefs Nate had ever felt in his life, and he didn’t know what that meant.
Leah, in turn, was relieved to see that the man was okay. She had worried that the octopus had caused some serious damage by squeezing him that way, but apparently Harper wasn’t exaggerating when she talked about how resilient he really was. Well, at least Leah hoped that’s what Harper meant, and not whatever those two did alone behind closed doors. Leah didn’t like to think about that.
Well, she had to save those thoughts for later, as her lungs would soon start screaming for air. And, as if that wasn’t enough, the golem octopus wasn’t happy that its prisoner had been freed. It had tried to lash out at them with one of its tentacles, but Nate wasn’t so defenseless anymore. Even before the wooden tentacle reached them, Nate had shot a precise ice spear to intercept the telegraphed attack, severing the limb and making both parts pass by them without even coming close to the barrier Leah still held.
Nate didn’t stop there. Seeing how effective his spell was, he wasted no time in launching more ice spears against the other tentacles. Not content with simply breaking off pieces of the tentacles, he attacked all of them near the base. When he was done, all that remained of the construct’s tentacles were 8 small stumps that posed no threat to the two adventurers.
His luck with his aim seemed to have run out, but he still managed to destroy the tentacles before his mana ran out. Not that it was an insurmountable problem, as Nate simply retrieved one of the mana cores he had collected during the dungeon exploration and began consuming it to regenerate his mana. The golem octopus, such a big threat just moments before, now found itself helpless and unable to even move.
Ignoring the twinge of envy she felt every time she saw someone using magic, Leah grabbed Nate’s arm to get his attention and then pointed first to her nose and then upwards, making it clear what she needed. Or at least that’s what she thought.
Before she began swimming towards the surface, Nate placed his hands on either side of her muzzle and started bringing their faces closer together. Caught extremely off guard by what was happening, Leah didn’t react when he pressed his lips against hers.
For a mere second, she thought he was just taking advantage of the opportunity she had given him by saving his life to make a move on her. He wouldn’t be the first or the last maiden in distress to show gratitude to the hero with a kiss. She had never kissed anyone in her hybrid form, which made the situation a bit strange, but if he didn’t mind, she wouldn’t either.
Before she could even think about how to reciprocate the kiss with a mouth so different from his, she felt air entering her mouth. Quickly, things began to make a bit more sense. He wasn’t kissing her; he was blowing air into her mouth! Likewise, the hands around her muzzle weren’t a gesture of affection, but were there to prevent water from entering while he shared air with her.
The disappointment Leah was feeling, which was much greater than she was expecting, didn’t stop her from taking gulp after gulp of the precious air. She didn’t know how Nate could have so much air in his lungs, but she supposed the answer to that was quite simple: Magic.
When the burning sensation in her lungs had subsided, she took one last deep breath and then tapped Nate’s arm, signaling that he could stop now. Understanding the signal, Nate separated their faces and smiled at her. Leah just rolled her eyes and pointed upwards again, but Nate shook his head and pointed downwards, towards the golem octopus that was sinking further now that it couldn’t maintain swimming.
Not understanding what Nate really wanted with the golem, Leah just shrugged. The young mage took this as acceptance and began swimming towards the octopus that moments ago had been trying to drown him. The octopus seemed to still have some limited capacity for buoyancy even though it couldn’t move freely, which made it easier for the two of them to reach it since it wasn’t sinking too fast.
Able to focus on the golem without worrying about its tentacles in the way, Leah and Nate could see that although the golem had the overall shape of an octopus, that was all it had. The construct didn’t have eyes, a beak, or any other parts a real octopus would have. Pausing to think about it, they realized that the golem’s tentacles also didn’t have any suckers.
Leah didn’t know what Nate was planning exactly, but his plan became clear when he used one hand to brace against one of the stumps that had once been a tentacle, while his other hand launched ice spears at point-blank range into the golem’s head.
Leah’s eyes widened, and worry flooded her heart when she saw his hand being shredded by both the wood splinters and the ice shards resulting from the attack. She half-expected him to stop, to give up when he saw that each attack hurt him more than the golem, but he just gritted his teeth, furrowed his brow, and kept up his assault.
Nate didn’t know how long he stayed there, casting spell after spell at the golem’s main body. He just knew he was glad that the construct’s tentacles were nowhere near as resilient as its head, or else he would never have been able to destroy them so easily. That probably had something to do with them being malleable enough to be used as real tentacles, but that was something he could study when he got back home. So instead of dwelling too much on it, he kept up his attacks, with each spear penetrating deeper into the golem than the last. His hope was that eventually he would hit something important, and when that happened, the medallion he held between his hand and the tentacle stump would store the entire golem.
And that finally happened. In a moment, he was casting a spell at the hole he had created in the construct. In the next, the spell had continued its path unimpeded because the golem had disappeared. Turning with a smile to Leah, he received a thumbs-up and a lupine smile from the girl, even though her eyes were fixed on his injured hand.
Up until that moment, he had tried to ignore the state his hand was in. Fortunately, upon finally assessing the damage, he realized it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Yes, his hand had been pierced and cut many times, and there was a lot of blood leaving him and spreading through the water, but he hadn’t lost any fingers. The potion they bought would regenerate any fingers he had lost, he knew, but growing bones was supposedly slower than just fixing them. Not that he had firsthand knowledge of that, pun intended.
Retrieving a potion from his spatial storage, Nate uncorked the bottle and quickly used his finger to stopper the opening and prevent the potion from dissolving into the surrounding water. He managed to bring the item to his mouth without much of the potion being lost, and soon he saw his hand healing. It had always been curious to him how such a serious wound that would take weeks or months to heal on Earth could be healed so easily by mixing a few plants. Or at least he thought the potion ingredients were plants, but he hadn’t really asked for the recipe. Pharmaceutical industries would have a terrible day when the secrets of magic and the supernatural were finally revealed to the population of Earth.
