Next, we go sell the flowers at the shop that Margit recommended.
The shop itself is near the Perfume Alley, a street near the main market that you can smell from blocks away. But the Alley is only for expensive stuff, so shops with cheaper alternatives have opened up all around it, and this must be why Margit knew about this place as we can both easily imagine her scouring through these shops, looking for cheap, girl stuff.
The shop itself is a nice, large greenhouse with a cute sign above the entrance that says "Bucur Flower Shop."
Sounds like a beastman last name.
We promptly enter, and we're greeted by rows upon rows of pretty flowers, but I don't know the name of even a single one. The air is also thick with sweet-smelling pollen, which is nice, but I think it would irritate my nose after a while.
Then the shopkeeper arrives, proving true my assumption about the shop's name. She's a homely, mature, half Beagle woman with a pretty smile and a petite build.
"Hello, how may I help you?" she kindly greets, and I see a cute tail lazily wag behind her.
"We want to sell these flowers. They're Stranglers," Sis immediately answers and shows a small bouquet, allowing me to admire the cute woman for a little longer.
But though her behavior is amiable, her eyes become sharp at the prospect of business, and she inspects the flowers thoroughly. "Ooh~… That's a lot of Stranglers. I guess the rumors that the Roaming Rain passed through the Forest were true."
"I heard that, too. That's why we went exploring and stumbled upon these," I reply absentmindedly. This woman really is nice on the eyes.
Anyway, the Roaming Rain is exactly that, a big, magical cloud of continuous rain that just wanders around the Broken Realms, though it's most often seen around Vorosza. It's one of the Wandering Elemental Gods, and the most benign of them.
Then Miss Bucur's sharp eyes analyze us. "By your gear, you look like hunters, but you sound so young."
"New hunters," Sis explains with a smile, and the cute shopkeeper hums in understanding.
So I promptly continue, "Margit recommended your shop."
And Miss Bucur's expression softens up with a wistful smile. "Ah, I remember her. She's like a tall flower with a pretty set of long, brown petals."
I like her analogy.
"That's her," I hum with a nod.
But then the mature woman grins in a worryingly sadistic way. "And she's also the kind that sells to me the pretty and expensive flowers she receives so often."
"That's her," Sis hums with a nod as she grins.
But before I can make a comment, Miss Bucur gently claps her hands and turns to the Stranglers. "Now, let me take a closer look at your little blue pretties."
--
"These are quite energetic, and there aren't any plants attached to them for the Stranglers to… well, strangle," she expertly analyzes, then she gives us an intense stare as her tone becomes solemn. "I trust that you didn't steal them, but be careful with whatever you're doing. Magical plants require delicate and specialized care, which will attract the attention of those who know what to look for."
Oh, I guess it's noticeable that these were cultivated instead of gathered in the wild…
And I reply in kind, "Yeah, we get it. We chose you to sell these to because Margit says that you're trustworthy."
"Indeed. Shops that sell weapons have a tendency to be more aggressive with their negotiations," she replies and flashes me a smile, then her expression becomes gentle again. "Now, I can pay about eight hundred leafies for these. It's a fair price, and you won't find Stranglers being sold for much higher, so my profit margin is reasonable."
That's a fucking high price. Imagine a whole damn farm of Stranglers, or better yet, a farm of actually valuable magical plants. Stranglers are magical weed, yet they pay almost as much as a fucking rare catch from hunting. No wonder everyone wants a piece of magical plants; it's money that grows on trees! Or the ground! Or on moss!
Thinking about the future, I make a sober proposal to ensure our safety, "If we sell these regularly to you, can you keep our involvement a secret?"
And Miss Bucur is mighty pleased with my forethought. "Certainly. I grow Stranglers myself, so I have good cover."
"Then I hope we'll make a lot of profit together," I huskily state with a grin as I extend my hand.
She unhesitatingly takes it with her own little furry one. "I'm sure we will, tiger."
--
We leave the shop mighty happy with our new pile of leaves, but a new thought takes over both of our minds.
"Gun," I hum.
"Gun," Sis repeats.
Who's going to fuck with the naked tigress with a lead-spitter on her waist? There are some idiots who think that getting scratched is no big deal, but not that many think the same about getting shot. It won't stop harassment completely, but it should at least reduce it.
So we go to the gun store next.
--
"We're hunters, and we need something to help her defend herself against both monster and man in an emergency," I eagerly request.
The fat, bald, bearded, human shopkeep smiles, showing yellowed teeth from tobacco, but even though he's ugly as butt, he's surprisingly kind-looking, and I'd rather stare at his face all day than Fodor's. "Oh, we get this request a lot, so I know exactly what you want," he happily answers and goes off to get the guns. The shop doesn't stay empty, though, there's a mean-looking, wrinkly old man by the corner smoking a pipe, and he's letting his holster take a peek, but there's something about him that tells me that he's a better shot now than when he was younger.
We'd rather not stare at that one, so we just take a look around as we wait. The store smells of powder, leather, and tobacco, but it has an oddly comforting mood. The floor is mostly occupied by gun displays as if it was some sort of museum, but even I can tell that the weapons have all been handcrafted with a lot of love and skill, so I understand the intention. It's the ones at the walls that grab my attention, though, as they seem to be the kind that you'd actually take to a hunt and use instead of turn into an heirloom you display above the fireplace.
And the shopkeep quickly comes back with a roll of leather filled with hand cannons.
He puts it down on the counter and unrolls the roll, then organizes the cannons as he happily explains, "First thing you need to pay attention to is the grip. These are all 'hand cannons,' which need to pack a lot of punch to even harm big game, so you must be able to get a good grip or you'll lose the gun after firing once."
"We know nothing about guns, so something easy to use and maintain would be nice," I reply as I raise my eyebrows at all the different choices he's showing us.
And he lets out a nasal snort. "It's funny that all beastmen ask for that, too."
I grab a cannon, which feels like a toy in my big, furred hands. "We're not delicate, and our hands are big," -I wave the cannon to make a point- "so little things like that one look like they'd break if we squeeze too hard."
He nods in understanding but politely remarks, "You'd be surprised at how reliable these weapons are."
Now it's my turn to snort. "Hopefully. 'Surprised' feels like a good thing."
And the fat man opens his arms wide to follow his wide grin. "Now that's 'a smile for Gra-ah.' You beastmen are always so easy-going."
"This one," Sis states as she raises a hand cannon. It's merely a wide brass tube with a thick wooden grip, but it looks very sturdy. Then I become curious as I realize that the barrel is wider than the hand cannons I've seen humans use.
And the shopkeep assumes a gentle, fatherly tone as he explains "gun stuff," "Looks like a good choice for you, miss. These cannons fire slugs or shots, but I really recommend slugs for beginners as shot has a tendency to cause a lot of damage to the area around your target."
"We don't know what either of these are," I hum with a frown, and Sis nods.
He lets out another nasal snort, which sounds a bit disgusting. "Shot are little pellets like these," he continues with the same tone and puts on the table a bunch of little metal balls. "So image a bunch of this going anywhere around your target, which would include you" -he points at me- "if you're fighting something close range while your… pretty kitten shoots. It got killing power, but it's dangerous. While a slug is this big boy" -and he puts a cylinder of metal on the table- "which is accurate but a bit less deadly."
I blink blankly as I process his explanation, but Sis already has a response.
"Both."
"Yeah, that's what everyone gets," he replies with a nod.
I hum thoughtfully, but there's no reason to not get both, so I curiously point out, "These bullets are bigger than what I see humans use."
He grabs a very small gun from under the counter and puts it beside Sis's cannon. "Humans use 'pistols' like these, which are weaker but lighter. You beastmen got arms like logs, so you can handle the kick of an actual cannon like your gun here, so it's a waste to give your kind a little pistol."
The Scriptures didn't say anything about guns, so all I can do is let out a "Huh…"
"Also, hand cannons use 'shells,' not 'bullets,'" he wryly adds and flashes a yellow smile.
So I nod. "Got it."
"I've never fired one, can I try it?" Sis calmly asks, and I think she hasn't listened to a word we've said.
He kindly hums, "Sure. You gotta pay for it, though."
And now it's Sis' turn to go into the firing range.
--
Unlike the previous range, this one is underground and guarded by a heavy door. It smells of cigars and gunpowder, and the mood is a lot gloomier than the shop above.
But Sis doesn't care, and she eagerly listens to the shopkeep explain how to open the gun and insert the shell, then the safety measures to not accidentally shoot me in the heat of battle.
She raises her arm, giving the shopkeep a peek of her pussy and tits from under her poncho, then flexes her muscles to keep herself steady and pulls the trigger. A painfully loud boom echoes throughout the range, and then a hole appears in the middle of the paper target in the distance.
"You're a natural," he hums as he glances at the target then resumes staring at her sexy bits. He seems to know beastmen well to be so unashamed in doing this.
"My shoulder actually hurts," she complains and gyrates her arm to deliberately give the ugly man a better view. I feel like he's earned a peek considering how kind he's been to us.
And he gives her pretty face a glance. "That's normal, but you'll get used to the kick. Now imagine how much worse it is for humans to deal with it."
"Big guns for big beasts like us," I hum with a snort.
"Exactly," he hums back and also snorts, though his really sounds disgusting.
--
The thing about hunting, though, is that guns are too finicky to take during a hunt because of all the mud, rain, and rough physical combat. The shells of a hand cannon are even worse because the "casing" that keeps the slug and the gunpowder together is made of paper that tears up if it gets wet, and if mud gets on the "hammer" (a little metal thing that punches the shell to blow it up), then it won't even fire.
But the rugged hand cannon deals with the "rough physical combat" problem, while special (and more expensive) shells deal with the mud and rain problems. This shell is actually reusable, so Sis will have to collect them after every shot, and the hammer needs to be sharpened regularly to be able to puncture the butt of the shell, so that's more work doing maintenance, but it's either that or we risk dying when the gun doesn't fire when we need it the most.
Three hundred leafies for the cannon, fifty for a holster that fits the gun and four shells, a hundred for twenty-five slugs, and two-fifty for twenty-five (very lethal) beastshot. It's literally named "beastshot" because it's made to kill beastmen like me, and I don't know if I should feel creeped out by this fact, but I am happy that this shell exists.
Anyway, shells are fucking expensive, but they're ten times as lethal as a fucking thrown pebble, so I'm a bit jealous. Though, I know that mages are more powerful than guns simply because of how everyone fucking fears a magus but not a hunter, so I guess I still have a lot to grow.
And the shopkeep was so nice to us that I let her flash him, though we almost make the old man by the corner have a heart attack, so we gotta be careful with her sexiness.
--
The presence of a cannon on her waist instantly changes how others deal with her. She can't carry a load while working as a waitress (heh, both meanings work), though she wasn't the best at actually waiting tables since lots of humans dislike her furry hands carrying food, so she didn't do that often. But in every other situation, the moment they get a peek of her pussy lips from under her poncho, they also get a glimpse of her holster, and now peeking is as far as any sane man will try to go.
Still doesn't stop the insane, but then again, nothing else but a punch to the mouth would.
But Sis loves her gun so much she acts like a child with a new toy and promptly shows it off to Mom the moment we get home.
"Please tell me you aren't carrying it loaded," our caring mother immediately blurts out.
And we share a look as we smile at each other because of Mom's cuteness. She isn't scolding us for buying a gun, she just wants us to be safe.
So Sis wryly soothes our gorgeous and angelic mother, "No, Mom, the shopkeep made it very clear that the priests would give us a beating if we did."
But she doesn't care that we're smiling and continues her questions with an adorably serious face, "And what about pointing it at someone?"
"Worse than putting a dagger against their throat," Sis calmly answers. I'm thoroughly enjoying Sis' warmth as she makes herself comfortable on my lap, so I'll let her do the talking.
And Mom's red eyes become sharper. "And do you understand how easily you could kill someone with it?"
But my tigress is unfazed. "I have a shell literally named 'beastshot' because it's made to kill beastmen."
"Gods, that one sounds horrifying," Mom mumbles and gives me a glance in disbelief, but I just shrug.
"It kind of is, yeah," Sis actually replies with a disgusted frown that shows her little fangs, her mood soured for a moment.
"Now, what else…" Mom thoughtfully hums and looks away, then she brightens up adorably. "Ah, did he tell you how to store the bullets properly? They can blow up if they get close to a flame."
But her behavior is making me curious, so I ask and point out, "Why do you know that? Also, these are 'shells' not 'bullets.'"
"Your father had a pistol," she answers with a wistful smile.
"I didn't know that," Sis hums in surprise.
And Mom's smile becomes cheeky. "He kept it locked up when he was home because a snoopy little kitten would've found it in an instant, otherwise."
I was too young at the time, so it's obvious who she's talking about, and the kitten in question can only hum again, this time in embarrassment, "Oh…"
The fact that he had a pistol instead of a cannon is curious, but it's late, and I'm getting horny for Sis, so my red cock starts to peek out. Mom immediately notices it, and she decides to leave us alone because she's still too embarrassed about it.
"I'm going to ask Mom to help me with you," Sis casually hums as she looks down at the long meat club appearing between her legs.
"I don't think you need the help," I huskily reply as I rub it against her hot pussy lips.
"No, but I want her to help," she states with a wry smile and aims it up for me.
Then I thrust and penetrate her. Sis' pussy is the best.
--
We focus on taking care of the flowers for the next few days, though Sis is eager to find something big to test her cannon on. Fodor doesn't appear again at the gates for a while, but when he does come back, I go back to being worried about our safety. There's just something about him that unsettles me, and the way he tries to ignore us feels worse than when he stared.
To distract myself, I start to think about what we could buy next to make us safer. Well, the whole point of this is to save enough money to pay for my tuition, but we can't do that if we're dead, so more magic would be nice, but it's still expensive as fuck and we need to keep some reserve money in case the shithole floods.
Which sounds uncomfortably like a prophecy because we soon find out that something has eaten all our flowers.
"GODS FUCKING DAMMIT!" Sis howls and slams a furry foot into the soft dirt in pure rage.
I'm not one to steam, Sis already does that for both of us, so I just frustratedly point out, "The flowers were in the wild, Sis. We got lucky, repeatedly lucky."
And she glances at me as she angrily shouts, "No, you don't get it! Someone stole them!" Then she turns around and starts to search for a tree to scratch.
But I calmly point out, "I think they were eaten."
She freezes in the spot and jerks her head towards me. "What?"
I crouch before the patch and point a claw at a rapidly growing little green stick. "The roots weren't taken, so the stalks are already regrowing, see?"
And she immediately brightens up, but in the next second, her grin becomes uncomfortably evil as she pats her holster like she does my cock. "That's better! We can hunt the cunt, then! It may even be nearby, considering the flowers have just started regrowing!"
But I frown. "How do you even propose we do t-…"
"Tracks!" she suddenly interrupts me and runs off.
"Of course, you found tracks," I mumble with a sigh.
But then a glint grabs my attention. A smoky glint.
Wait, my magicsight is tingling!
Between the paw prints on the soft, wet dirt, I find a drop of some liquid that's releasing a faint magical smoke. It feels similar to the Strangler's magical energy, but there's also something else there…
"What are you doing?" Sis asks as I touch the magical liquid, which she doesn't know is magical.
And the moment it touches my paw, I feel as if I immersed it in moving water.
"I found a drop of a magical liquid, and it feels similar to the Strangler's energy," I mumble back, entranced by the feeling in my paw.
But the smugness in her laugh breaks me out of it, "Hah! Then these are the actual paw prints of the cunt that ate our flowers, and it looks to be some sort of big, clawed, bipedal!"
I decide to deliberately ignore her for now because a weird feeling starts to take over my finger, so I focus on it, and Sis becomes quiet once she notices my serious face. It's a… hunger. My finger "hungers" for more of this liquid, and the rest of the Strangler's energy inside me is starting to react to the hunger, too. Or maybe it's a thirst?
Then I catch another glimpse of a wisp of magic, and I find three more drops of liquid, which promptly touch. The "thirst" increases with every drop, and it's like the Strangler's energy begins to boil, but it isn't a bad feeling, in fact, it excites me.
"Find more tracks, Sis," I request with a serious tone, and she does it in just a few seconds, giving me more drops of liquid to absorb, which makes me feel so good that I get an actual boner.
"You want me to suck you off before we go after it?" she dryly asks, serious but not amused.
I have a feeling that if she starts, I won't be able to stop until she's broken, so I shake my head and decline. "No, I'll force it back in, so just find me more tracks."
She hums and crosses her arms, teasingly pressing her bare tits together, then she motions to something behind her. "That's going to take a while since the cunt crossed this little brook, so I have to guess where it got out."
But then I get an idea. No, more like an intuition.
I press my hungry hand against the wet dirt, then I release the Strangler's energy. It wants more of the magic liquid, so I'll let it find it for us.
"Veins" come out of my hand and spread out with a frightening speed under the ground, creating a network just like roots. But then they touch the water, and they almost immediately find a trail of magical liquid that has seeped into the dirt at the bottom of the brook.
A trail that goes along with the weak flow of the water, deeper into the Dark Forest.
"Oh, Gods, don't tell me your veins are inside the dirt! EWW!" Sis shouts and scowls in disgust.
But her dumb face annoys me. "Shush. It's working, and I can find where 'the cunt' left the water for you!"
"Still, ew…" she more quietly repeats.
But, like I said, it works, and we soon find ourselves hot on the trail of this fucking cunt.
--
Each time that Sis loses the tracks, I find them again with my veins, which spread faster and further each time that I use them. Then I notice that my veins are mixing with that of plants and trees, and I start to instinctively recognize the roots that I come across, which sounds useful in identifying plants. But it doesn't stop there.
I feel like I grew a big, thick limb a few meters away from me, then I sense something scurry about my new body. I look in the direction of the limb and see a squirrel going up the trunk of a tree, but it takes me a moment to link what I feel to what I see.
Just like how I "took control" over Sis body with my veins, I might be doing the same with the plants… and that's fucking insane.
My net of roots goes further and further away, to the point that I can almost track the cunt just by myself, but only because it's dripping a trail of magical liquid wherever it goes.
"What is going on with you," Sis worriedly questions seeing my mad grin.
"I'm learning how to use the Strangler's energy in a new way, and it's awesome…" I whisper back excitedly like a child with a new toy.
My veins spread for dozens and dozens of meters in mere seconds, so I push further and further because I can barely feel the amount of energy in my body decrease. Then I realize that the veins are also absorbing sap from the plants to fuel the spread, so I can do this for who knows how long?! I can basically scout half the forest by myself!
But then I get a taste of something very not nice.
It's like getting a rotten chunk of fruit in your juice, and it even hurts to spread over there, so I pull back. It isn't in the direction the cunt has gone, so there's no reason to have my veins spread out so much.
But the rotten juice starts to spread into my veins, and that gives me a big scare.
I immediately cut the veins off from my hand and abandon them there. I'm not messing with that, and it's best that we move away from where we are as soon as possible.
"I might've angered something bad, so let's run," I fearfully warn Sis.
"Wait, but the cunt?!" she shouts because, of course, she doesn't care about the danger.
"We can run towards it, as long as we get away from here!" I shout back and start running.
--
I've learned my lesson, so now I'll be more careful with how I spread my veins. I don't go wide with them because I just need to keep following the tracks the cunt left.
And soon we finally find the fucking vagina.
My veins find a puddle of the magical liquid, and there are no more droplets to follow, so we approach the location very carefully, and we manage to get a good look at the cunt without it noticing our presence.
It's some sort of bipedal naked rat with a coat of leaves covering its back, and it wields a spear of… water? But the monster is about as tall as me, and fairly muscular, though nowhere near as strong. Still, that spear is trouble.
"Sis? What the fuck is that?" I very quietly whisper, slightly afraid. The rat thing is eating a dead deer, and it's making a lot of disgusting slobbering sounds.
"I don't know. It must be something new," she whispers back, slightly excited.
And I grumble stubbornly, "I don't want to fight it."
Which makes her seethe at me and almost shout in anger, "Fucking…! I've seen a similar monster in the book, but not exactly like that! We can make assumptions about how dangerous it is, and I say we can take it!"
I give in and decide to just question her thoroughly, "How?"
She grabs the monster notebook and finds the relevant entries with surprising speed. "It has the body of a Rat Water Tribesman, and the leaves look similar to those of a Caped Lunegru, which uses them as both armor and camouflage, but his front looks completely unarmored." Then she raises her head and gives me a very serious look. "You keep the spear busy while I unload on it then another shot at its face once it falls down. The spear can extend and bend, so it's a dangerous thing, but its body is weak, especially the head, so I guess you can pelt it with stones to keep it disoriented."
We bought the gun for emergencies, but I reckon we're in one, an emergency of stupid, but still an emergency. "Open up with a slug. Take a clear shot while we can."
She slaps my shoulder in approval as she whisper-shouts, "Good idea!"
And I snort. Of course, I always have good ideas.
Then she becomes serious again, though I still see a hint of a sadistic grin in her lips. "I'm going to make a sound so that it looks over here, then I'll shoot at its chest."
I nod. "Go for it. I'll charge right after you shoot."
We're both now armored and armed, so there are no more preparations to be done. We need to shoot it before it smells us, or something.
And so Sis moves around a little bit to get a better view of the monster, then she loudly snaps a branch from a nearby bush.
The rat beastie immediately turns to face her as it growls, still crouched, then I hear an explosion, and it suddenly flies back, falling on its ass a meter away. Now that's a kick, though it doesn't fly far considering its body was close to the ground already.
And I immediately charge forward, spear pointing forward and ready to summon a rock.
I was expecting the monster to remain laying down as it writhes in pain, but it immediately jumps up onto its feet and meets its water spear with mine, pushing my weapon away as it screeches like nails against a blackboard.
"REEEEEE!" And droplets of blood fly from its mouth, only to fall on my gambeson and fur.
This quick reaction surprises me so much that I launch my rock at its face and nick its forehead, briefly stunning it, so I thrust my spear at its chest and sink the tip into his lung.
But then I notice that there's a leaf covering the gunshot wound, and my magicsight tells me that this one is very magical.
Uh oh, Sis didn't say anything about that…
The rat beast even recovers faster than I anticipated and sinks its water spear into my right arm before I can pull back. The cotton armor slows the blade, but I still feel something cold bite into my flesh for a second.
"Agh!" I groan in pain and pull back, then I hear another explosion, but this time, the beast doesn't fly away.
It merely takes a step back and looks down at its own body. I can clearly see that the slug has been caught by a leaf on its chest, and there are many more leaves growing all over its front. Magical leaves.
"FUCK!" Sis swears, then I hear her hurried footsteps approach.
"DON'T GET CLOSE!" I desperately warn her.
"DISTRACT FOR BEASTSHOT!" she shouts, clearly not going to step back.
"KREEEEE!" the rat monster screeches again in rage and attacks me again.
FUCK!
I answer with a stab, but then its spear bends like a noodle and pushes the mine away, making me miss, while its magical weapon snakes back and bites into my gut. I'm so stunned by the crazy move that I almost forget about the pain.
But then I see its eye turn to Sis, and something… wild takes over me when I realize she's in danger.
I grab the water spear with one hand and let my veins infiltrate it, then I release my spear and summon another rock as I extend my arm as close as I can to the rat's bloody face. Its beady little eyes turn to me again, and I sense it try to pull back the water spear, but now it's too late, the spear doesn't budge, and I release rock directly into its right eye.
"KRAAAAA!" it roars in pain as it steps back and grabs its crushed eye.
But then Sis presses the cannon against its other eye and pulls the trigger.
*Boom*, rat pieces of brain and skull spread everywhere.
The spear almost instantly dissolves into normal water again as the body goes limp and falls on its back, but I just remain standing as the heat of the fight immediately goes away and a weird feeling takes over me. I'm not talking about the pain, which is a bitch to deal with, it's something else that I don't really understand.
"Bro!" Sis shouts and rushes to me as she realizes that I'm bleeding.
"I'm fine," I mumble and wave her away, but she doesn't step back, so I let her inspect the gut wound. Then I realize something important, "The Strangler's energy will heal me, but you need to stop the beast from bleeding out because the blood is valuable!"
She freezes, unsure of what to do, but decides to trust me. "O-okay… but tell me if you're feeling bad."
I nod. "Sure, now get to work while I heal."
But I don't just stand there. I decide to pull out a knife, then I let my instincts take over my hands, and they open a hole in the monster's chest. I frown at what my instincts want me to do next, but I suck it up, and Sis just stares at me in confusion as I sink my hand into the body and seek the heart out.
After a few disgusting seconds, I find something hard, so I grab it and pull it out, then my magicsight goes crazy as a weird, "watery" blue smoke covers my view.
"It's a magic source!" I exclaim in surprise and excitement.
"OH, FUCK!" Sis howls, actually more excited than I am about it.
But there's something "weird" about this little (blood-covered), semi-transparent, blue sphere. It doesn't "respond" to my thoughts, though it feels like it should, but the Scriptures of Magic once again have the answer. A wild magical source is a hole in reality that warps everything around it, but if you clean it up and make it all pretty, it stops giving out diseases, and this analogy sounds a lot dirtier than I thought it would.
Anyway, a monster's body adapts to be able to use a wild core, but for normal people who don't want to develop Magical Energy Morphism, the Scriptures also say how to "purify" a core: you need to overwhelm it with your Lifeforce so that you can draw the wild energies to it then discard the tainted energy. I don't know how to use Lifeforce, but the Strangler's energy is reacting to the core, and I feel tempted to let it do what it wants.
It's the Strangler's specialty to infiltrate things and steal resources, so it might be as effective as Lifeforce at purifying things. It just makes too much sense to me to let my cautious side win, so I let the energy run wild.
My veins cover the little sphere, then I feel it drain the source of all its energy, but that's not right, so I take control of it again.
"Ew…" Sis moans, which is rich coming from her since her hands are covered in blood and bits of brain and skull that she's collecting in case they're still valuable.
The source's energy feels like it's a turbulent current of water, which means that it's unstable, but a source is still a source. And as I ponder on how, exactly, to purify the energy, I start to get a feeling that this water is "dirty," which might be exactly what I need to remove.
Alright, Strangler energy, pull the dirt out of the water.
And the energy obeys, but it pulls the dirt into my body, and I start to feel really weird. Almost like when I let the Strangler's energy get to my cock, it makes me feel angry and rape-y, but the strongest feeling is "filthy" and… "murderous."
Fucking get away from me!
I push the dirt back into the veins then swing my arm as I detach the tainted red "flesh" from myself. Sis makes another groan as a string of veins flies off towards the nearest tree and they stick to the bark like bloody entrails, but then they start to dissolve into a dark liquid that lets out a rotten stench, which smells frighteningly familiar to that "rot" I found with my web of veins as I scouted for the monster.
But I don't let my thoughts stray as it seems that the water source is now responding to me, so I turn back to it and eagerly absorb the little sphere into my body.
"I did it!" I happily exclaim and imagine a spear of water, just like the one the monster did, then a gush of water comes out of my palm and takes the exact same shape as the weapon the monster had.
She smiles excitedly as she washes her hands, but then her worry comes back again. "Damn! That's cool! But… are you still wounded?"
"Huh…" I hum as I look down into my gut. I bled a little, but now it has stopped on its own, and it only stings a bit. "I'll be fine. It wasn't deep and the Strangler already took care of most of it. Though, I'll need to harvest some energy to replenish what I used, so our next harvest should be delayed even further."
She kindly accepts, then tilts her head towards the headless rat, "That's alright. I bet this body will net us a good amount of money considering the leaves are magical."
"Hopefully," I hum absentmindedly then pull out the water source again to stare at it for a bit.
"Hah, so you can purify the core…" a low, growling voice suddenly comes from far away.
It gives us such a fright that Sis pulls out the cannon and I create a water spear that I point towards the source of the voice as I push her behind me.
"I'm not hostile, you skittish 'impure men,'" the voice dryly states.
And then our eyes strain to see whatever the fuck it is we're seeing. There's a pair of yellow cat eyes floating in the middle of a dark cloud while a fan of white feathers gently circles the edge of the cloud. It's clearly magical, but my magicsight isn't activating.
"The fuck are you?" Sis grumbles angrily and hisses as our tails reflexively touch each other in search of safety.
And the voice speaks again, though I sense a purr in its "r's," which makes it sound like a cat who just learned how to speak, "The ownerr of this territory, and you've intruded into it, though you killed the 'tainted' beast, so I'll allow you rremain as a rreward, forr now."
"Oh, it's an Ascended Beast!" I excitedly exclaim, but then I tense up because it's still a dangerous being.
An Ascended Beast is an animal which has learned magic and become intelligent enough to speak, though the fact it speaks our language says that someone taught it. It's said that the Shadah Dynasty of Fae forced humans to mate with Ascended Beasts to create us, beastmen, but nobody knows for certain.
"Yes, that's what yourr kind calls mine," the feline voice tiredly answers, and we see the pair of eyes "nod."
"We'll lower our weapons, so maybe you can stop using your illusions?" I carefully suggest.
The floating eyes narrow in distaste. "Hmph. Impudent, but rreasonable. Let me rremind you that yourr kind likes to hunt mine forr sport and greed."
And I undo the spear while I push Sis' cannon down, then she frowns at me and puts it back in its holster. The Beast hesitates for a second, then I hear a soft sigh as it undoes the cloud, and it reveals a wolf-sized black cat with a really long tail that ends in a fan of white feathers.
Now my magicsight activates and tells me that the fan is very magical, which explains why hunters would salivate at the idea of capturing an Ascended Beast alive.
"You said this thing was 'tainted'?" Sis curiously inquires and points to the corpse.
The big black cat raises its lips in disgust, and it looks awfully similar to Sis when she does the same. "Yes, the demonic taint has seeped into the forest, and darrk, ominous clouds gatherr on the horizon."
Oh, fuck! I absorbed demonic taint into my body! AND THIS IS FUCKING BAD!
No, no, wait… it takes a lot of demonic taint to fuck someone up… but I don't know how much, and also if this monster had enough. So there's hope, but I fucking hate "hope."
And Sis' eyes open wide in realization, then she starts staring at me, her gaze asking the obvious question, but even I am a bit scared of answering her.
The cat actually smiles smugly as it lets out an infuriatingly annoying sigh, "Hmph. I see you didn't know it was 'tainted.' I tasted of this kind of monsterr before, and its blood had a 'harsh' and horrible taste, but the taint wasn't even enough to make me dizzy, so a little source wouldn't do much to someone as big as you."
I release my breath in relief, but Sis remains frowning in concern.
There's still another problem, though, so I point out, "But demonic taint is still a bad omen."
The cat nods, and, thankfully, stops smiling smugly. "Yes, which is why I'll be leaving this territory soon. The taint will only get strongerr, so I'll take my kind and follow after rthe Rroaming Rrain in search of safety."
I don't know how to take this, but I didn't forget my manners, so I nod as I politely reply, "Thank you for the warning."
The cat lets out another smug snort, and I sense that Sis really doesn't like it. "Hmph, a mere gift forr getting rrid of this troublesome monsterr. Now, I must go, and don't attempt to track me like you did for this one."
"Sure," I hum back and stare at the entrancing moves that the fan of white feathers is making.
Then the dark cloud suddenly appears again, shrouding the Beast from view, and I realize that the yellow pair of eyes at the center are also fake. Likely bait to draw attacks from an enemy.
But I barely have enough time to analyze it as the cat silently disappears into the forest again.
I turn around and see Sis staring at her (still) bloody hands with worry. Morbid curiosity takes over me and I lick one of my bloody fingers, and the blood does taste quite spicy and even rotten, somewhat similar to the rotten energy I pulled out of the source, then I spit it.
And Sis gives me a stare of disbelief.
I shrug. "What? A little drop wouldn't do anything after what I did…"
But her cute frown of worry breaks my heart, especially the way her furry ears fold in sadness. "Bro… I'm worried about you."
I wince as I look away for a moment, then I do my best to gently soothe her, "Look, the priests hate to talk about it, but demonic taint is just like poison. It won't do anything in small quantities or else the whole forest would be tainted already. Bugs, plants, other animals, they all eat tainted monster meat, but a single monster isn't enough to make the taint spread."
She doesn't know enough about the taint to argue back, so she decides to trust me, but she also makes it clear that she's still a bit worried, "Just… just tell me if you feel different, okay?" And her pretty yellow cat eyes stare intensely into mine.
"Yes, I will," I warmly whisper back and use my non-bloody hand to pat her head, then our tails seek each other again.
--
We don't want to lose all the blood, so we quickly take the monster's body back to the town. We get excited greetings from the guards once they see the body and my wounds, but our mood is a bit tainted by the warning and the taint, so we don't spend long with them.
Next, we go to the Hunter's Office, and we're let into the usual warehouse to sell the body.
"Oh, so you got the source?" the Appraiser asks as he notices the cut at the body's chest.
I see that he's not wearing gloves, so I put a hand on his chest to stop him from touching the body and lower my voice as I confess, "Yeah, and… it had a bit of a demonic taint." I can't just let the man touch the tainted blood without knowing the danger.
He freezes and gives me a curious look as he adds one and one then comes to the obvious result. "Huh…" But it'd be impolite to confirm, so he just puts gloves on and continues doing his job. "I'll test the blood for magic and toxicity, and that'll increase your reward if you're right."
The monster's blood is clearly magical considering he could grow those crazy leaves in just a few seconds, but I find it concerning that potential taint makes it more valuable.
And we get a nice reward of a thousand and five hundred leafies. Would go up to potentially four thousand if I didn't take the source.
--
I have to check the Scriptures again to read the part about demonic corruption, but I have to be careful to not just confess to the priests that I might be tainted. Crusaders kill people who are too tainted to be healed, which is why Sis is so worried about me.
And tonight's breeding is especially passionate instead of wild as she shows through her pussy how much she cares about me.
But the very next day, we regret ever going after the rat cunt bastard as we see a very smug Fodor leading two familiar-looking men toward us as we attempt to leave town. I quickly recognize the pair as being the (potential) Crusaders I kicked out of the inn a while ago.
"Are you the pair that hunted a monster tainted by demons yesterday?" the blondie scum immediately questions us harshly as the three stop and block our path.
Oh, fuck…