As his words ended, Edward’s body started making weird popping noises and Ingvar dragged Kara a bit further away while carefully observing the situation.
“Do you know what is going on?” asked Kara as she also fixed her eyes on Edward a trace of apprehension hidden behind her voice.
Ingvar shook his head and continued staying silent while observing the transformation. As the joints of his legs started turning in a weird way, hair started growing out of all the pores of Edward’s body and his mouth started extending forward. Ingvar brought his twin-blades up, the scene unfolding in front of him bringing him a sense of danger.
At this moment, Kara remembered Edward’s status tablet and said: “I think this is his unique class, called shape-shifter. He has a skill called Wolf Shift and this looks to be it.”
“But why is he using a skill now? And why is his breathing completely normal even after losing such a heavy amount of blood. Something is not right.” Said Ingvar, the frown plastered on his face deepening even more.
As the two were speaking, the transformation finally ended and in front of them, a three feet black wolf opened his pure black eyes and looked at them.
Seeing the hungry look in the wolf’s eyes, a shudder passed both Ingvar and Kara’s backs as they tightened the hold on their weapons and took another step back, ready to attack at a moment’s notice.
The wolf looked at Ingvar and Kara that were only a couple of feet away from him and growled slightly as he stood up on all fours, but he didn’t move to attack. He looked just as apprehensive to make a move as the two siblings.
Kara mounted an arrow on her bow and said: “I think we should attack.”
Ingvar placed a hand to stop her from raising her bow to aim and didn’t say a single word while staring into the wolf’s eyes.
The deadlock continued for a few good seconds, time in which neither the wolf or Ingvar made a move, but as more and more time passed, the hunger in the wolf’s eyes grew stronger and stronger, before eventually, without breaking line of sight with Ingvar, it brought it’s head low and started munching on the dead lizards that were laying on the ground next to it.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t attack?” asked Kara once more after seeing the way it devoured the lizards on the ground.
“Not yet. Even if it behaves like a wild animal, it’s still Edward. Let’s continue observing and only respond if he attacks us first.”
As the two were looking at the wolf eating the lizards, Edward was listening to Fenrir explaining what was happening.
“Sigh.. I guess the wolf’s out of the bag now… at least they didn’t attack me right after turning... Fenrir, what happened just before I passed out? How did I turn but I could still control my body?”
“You overdrafted your stamina and started shifting into wolf form during your desperation to save that girl. This allowed you to increase your agility and strength for a few seconds, but took a huge toll on your body.”
“So that’s how it happened.. How long will I be out?”
“Did you forget about the wolf? He’ll recover both your mana and stamina while devouring the corpses of the lizards. I think you should be up after he finished eating around two or three of them.”
“Good. At least I don’t have to worry about going too far from them and running into other lizards…”
“You should worry about how to explain your transformation to them first…”
“Can’t I just blame it on my unique class and play the fool?” said Edward with a pensive look on his face.
“You could, but they might not necessary believe you. You can consider telling them the truth, you know?”
“The fact that I turn into a hungry, crazy wolf every time I pass out or go to sleep? Yeah, that will make things better…”
“You’re probably going to stay in the dungeon with them for a while. It would be better if you told them the truth since they can keep watch over the wolf at night and it’s not like you can run off every time you need to sleep...”
Edward let out a sigh before saying: “Maybe, but not right now. I don’t know if I can fully trust them yet and I don’t want to scare them away right after finding quite a reliable party….”
As Fenrir and Edward were talking, the wolf finally finished eating the second lizard and slowly closed his eyes while sitting down. As the hair on his body started receding and he slowly started turning back into Edward, Ingvar, Kara and Echo, who eventually healed enough to join the other two, stared with nervous expressions at Edward’s body in front of them.
Edward slowly opened his eyes in the real world and saw everyone staring at him unmoving, weapons at the ready.
Wishing to defuse the awkward atmosphere, Edward said: “Why is everyone looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?”
His try to be funny didn’t really catch onto the others, but they at least relaxed the hold on their weapons as Ingvar got close and extended a hand to help him up.
“Careful.” Said both girls, still obviously apprehensive of what happened earlier, but Ingvar just ignored their words. Edward grabbed the extended hand and stood up as he took a look at his half naked body before releasing a defeated sigh. Seeing that he at least still had his underwear, his mind drifted to a story of a huge green monster from back on earth that always kept his pants after turning back to human form.
“Are you all right?” Ingvar’s question brought him back from his thoughts and he nodded while summoning a water ball to clean his body of the blood it was covered in.
“I’m fine, thank you.” After replying to Ingvar’s question, he turned to look at Echo, only to release a sigh of relief after noticing that she also appears to be all right, with flesh and skin actually slowly growing back in the places the lizards bit it off.
“It’s good that you are all right, Echo.” Said Edward, a trace of relief in his voice, happy not to have lost another one of his party members. Echo nodded back towards him but she didn’t say a single word in reply.
Seeing that, besides Ingvar who was still relatively all right, the two girls were still quite scared of him, Edward looked to avoid the conversation and said: “Shouldn’t we head towards the stairs? It’s already almost night outside…”
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Ingvar gave him a deep look before nodding and turning towards the girls: “Let’s go. It’s not safe to remain out of the safe zone during the night. Edward quickly absorb the remaining lizards’ life force.”
Seeing the girls nod, after Edward absorbed the life force, Ingvar started leading the way with Echo walking next to him, leaving Edward and Kara in the back. They walked slowly in silence for a while before Kara gathered her courage and asked: “Edward, what exactly was that?”
Edward played the fool and turned around while asking with a confused look: “What was what? ”
Kara stared him in the eyes for a good moment before turning her head forward once more without answering him. She looked pissed, but Edward didn’t really want her to keep asking about it, hoping to come up with a good excuse by the time they reached the stairs and everyone started interrogating him.
After walking in awkward silence for a quite a while, they reached the stairs without encountering any other group of monsters or adventurers. Edward figured that happened because as the adventurers started walking towards the safe zone in the evening, they also ended up cleaning all the monsters on the way.
After passing through the safe zone membrane, Ingvar led the party towards an empty area. After sitting down in that place, Edward noticed two adventurers approaching their group.
The two adventurers came in front of them and one of them asked: “Are you interested in buying any food?”
While Edward was confused why there were people selling food so deep inside the dungeon, Ingvar took out some coins and bough some food for everyone to eat.
After the adventurers took the coins and left, Edward couldn’t rein in his curiosity anymore and asked: “Who were those guys?”
“From the forth floor onward, there are people bringing food from the surface and selling it here. While it’s quite expensive, it’s handy to not have to travel back every time you need to eat or to carry food with you as you walk deeper.” Replied Ingvar while as he placed a wooden plate with food in front of Edward.
Edward shook his hands and said: “You guys eat. I’m not hungry.”
“I would think so after eating two whole lizards…” mumbled Kara as she took her food and moved to the side to eat, evidently still grumpy.
Edward’s expression became a bit awkward but he didn’t say anything as he laid down on the floor and stared at the ceiling. Echo, following a subtle sign from Ingvar, took her food and joined Kara in eating a bit further away.
Feeling Invar also laying down next to him, Edward said: “What is going on?”
Ingvar stared at the ceiling as well, staying silent for a while before saying: “You know, you can play the fool all you want but the others will have trouble trusting you if you don’t at least give them an explanation, especially my sister since she would be the one fighting near you.”
Hearing his words, Edward sighed and pondered for a moment before saying: “It’s something I would really prefer not to speak about…”
“We all have our secrets and I understand you are no different, but this could endanger the safety of the party. If you can’t at least give us an explanation…” Ingvar let his words trail off at the end, but the meaning behind them was clear for Edward. He would be kicked out of the party.
After staying silent for a little while, Edward figured that lying to them now will actually bring him nothing but trouble and said: “What you guys saw was a curse placed upon my soul… if I fall unconscious or go to sleep, my body would turn into a wild wolf that is plagued by an insatiable hunger…”
Ingvar put on a surprised expression and turned towards Edward as he asked: “A curse? And are you saying that happens every time you fall asleep?”
“Yes. I usually go to sleep deep in the forest or mountains to keep it away from people. The wolf is not that strong and will usually not attack someone he can’t win against, but that usually relies on it having something to eat.”
“Is there a way to control it or remove that curse altogether?”
“There is, but I will need to grow strong enough to kill the one who placed the curse in the first place… it’s a really long story and I would prefer not to go into details if possible…”
Ingvar stayed silent for a good while before taking his food and standing up: “I’ll go and explain it to the girls as well…”
Edward nodded, not moving his eyes from the ceiling until Ingvar turned around. Being left alone, he lifted his arm up and mumbled: “It looks I still had to tell them the truth in the end. Let’s hope this was the right choice…”
It took around a quarter of an hour until the other three finished eating their food, time in which Edward just stared at the ceiling lost in thought. Once they were done with the food, Echo was the one who came back next to him and sat down while saying: “Ingvar told us…”
“So, am I being fired?” asked Edward, not looking at her and getting ready for the worst.
Echo hugged her knees with her arms and fixed her eyes forward while saying: “Kara proposed it and Ingvar is trying to convince her to let you stay, but I don’t know what they will decide in the end…”
“What about you?” asked Edward.
“Me? It would be a lie if I were to say I was not thinking about it, but you still risked your life to save mine… in the end, I abstained, told them I wouldn’t mind if you stayed and let the other two decide. Thank you by the way, for jumping in there for my sake.”
Edward nodded in reply and they both remained silent, lost in their own thoughts. It took almost an entire hour until Ingvar came back alone and said: “Edward, Kara wants to speak with you alone”
“Huh?“ exclaimed Edward as he turned towards Ingvar with a confused look. Seeing Ingvar shrug his shoulders, Edward sighed and stood up before heading towards Kara which was waiting a bit further away.
“You said you wanted to speak with me?” asked Edward as he reached her, but Kara just turned around and started walking towards the edge of the safe zone.
“Follow me.”