Office Romance with a Werewolf - Chapter 159

He screamed at his men, hoping that closing the tunnels would be enough to stop those horrors. They were confuse for a moment due to the fact that there were still several thousand men in the mountains, but seeing the marks of his body moved to do as he said. It didn’t take long for the sounds of explosives to echo out, and the tunnels they worked so hard to claim were closed.

They then started the retreat, so that Ranz was able to report what he saw in the mountain. He felt as if he forgot a very crucial detail though as he thought back on it from his recovery bed. It wasn’t until much later that he saw how those things marked his face and body, and he swore to have his revenge.

Back at the battle however, Ranz was experiencing a mixture of horror and shock at the sight of Randell and Nida. Randell wielded an axe in his left hand, and Wendell’s hammer in his right, while Nida just tore through the the opponents with her claws. Though they never harmed any tikbalang, just seeing them tear through the army as if they were nothing on a beastly rampage was enough to inspire both terror and awe in the horse tribe people. He had wondered what set them off, but when he saw the hammer Randell used was Wendell’s realization dawned on him, and he shed a few tears for his fallen friend.

He decided to leave the main tunnel to the two of them, and focused on the ones he was in charge of. The plan was to use the magic muskets on waves so that there was no gap in reloading. These weapons Randell brought them were a real game changer as he puts it, he said they required some other form of power before, but they used magic crystals and runes to replace them. As the battle wore on the humans began to dwindle in number due to Randell and Nida. They had long since cleared the main tunnel, and we’re now roaming the numerous routes to find more enemies to kill.

Randell woke on a cold stone floor, naked and covered in blood. He saw Nida not far away in the same situation. He realized that she must’ve shifted right after he did. He couldn’t even recall what happened after he changed, he looked around and saw the axe and hammer nearby. He felt the sudden pang of the loss of Wendell, and would’ve cried if he didn’t have Nida to take care of. He crawled over to her and gently woke her up.

The first thing Nida did when she woke was start heaving. Randell was scared that she would start throwing up parts of people, but was relieved when it was only dry heaving. After she spent several minutes trying to clear her empty stomach Randell went to find something to cover her nakedness.

When Ranz reached the workshop the dwarves had taken, he was greeted with the sounds of metal striking metal as they hammered away. He walked though the area, unable to use his nose due to the high amounts of heat and sweat in here, until he found Wendell. When he also saw Ranz approaching, Wendell quickly finished what he was working on before making his way over with a grin on his face.

“Finally, we get to start working on your personal weapon, this ought to be a masterpiece.” Wendell was born after the dwarves quit working with adamansteel, and so he never worked with the material and was looking forward to the challenge. He was also looking forward to using the chance to forge a masterpiece that would please his patron God, Hephaestus. He was also excited, as if Ranz accomplished what he swore and killed Arthur, then his weapon would most likely be the one used to do so. Ranz was excited, as according to the dwarves an adamansteel weapon would last him his whole life.

“First we need to see your fighting style, to know what dimensions would be best. After that we’ll take your measurements as well as any preferences you have for your own blade. It’ll take us a couple weeks, but it should be ready in time for the attack.” Ranz nodded, excited. As they were talking, Randell joined them as he was a fellow smith and understood what the dwarves wanted for references best.

The two faced each other, Ranz had a larger practice sword and Randell had shorter ones in each of his four hands. The two rushed at each other, and Ranz swung first. Randell used two of his blades to block him, and the other two lashed at him from the sides. He danced out of the way, and swung once more from the side. Randell swept his own swords, and Ranz’s swung by him harmlessly. He then used Ranz’s momentum against him, and swiped at his shoulder. Ranz ducked and was about to attack once more, until,

“STOP!” Wendell called out. The two stopped their movements, and turned to look at him. Wendell then said,

“We should have what we need, now it’s time for the measurements.” Ranz nodded and walked forward after putting the practice sword away. Wendell surprisingly did everything himself, as hehad Ranz hold his arms out, and took his measurements. Ranz then asked,

“Don’t you have any assistants?” Wendell nodded and replied,

“Yep, but they wouldn’t be of any real use here. I plan to do everything to make your sword myself, as it’s harder to make a masterpiece if there’s holes in the process from others helping.” Ranz nodded in understanding and didn’t ask more. After the measuring was done, it was time for the rough draft to be drawn. Wendell got out some paper and started drawing. When Ranz looked over he saw a large sword curved to look like a fang. If he understood the dimensions right, it would be so big that he’d need both hands to use it, but he would only need one hand while transformed. He was excited to see that he would be able to use the sword in both of his forms, he wouldn’t be able to use it as much inside, but that’s what his claws were for.

Nida returned to the room later feeling a sense of relief. She almost ran out of time to make the tea and received quite the scare from it. She put that matter aside, and set to packing for the upcoming trip. They had just under a week before leaving and they would be in the labyrinth for around three this time once again. What she worried about though was when they reached LARO, as she would have to keep her hood up or be identified as a mutant. The one most concerned though, was Hilda as she didn’t want Nida to walk right into the slave Capitol.

Over the winter the two had grown much closer, seemingly to make up for all of the time they lost. She also grew closer to her brothers as well, by teaching the three of them how to use chi. She had even taken Michael out into the forest a few times, to learn more about the native animals like tusk Giants to learn about taming some of them. When Ranz mentioned it he seemed to have an excited glow in his eyes as he talked about the possibilities from using the tusk Giants muscle. As she expected, after returning from Lucy’s Hilda was waiting for her. She stood when she saw Nida and said,

“No matter how much I think about it, I still can’t get used to the idea that my daughter became a queen, even if Ranz hasn’t been officially coronated yet. A queen that’s going to march into battle no less.” She finished with tears in her eyes. The idea of a queen fighting wasn’t strange in the past, in fact during elder grandmas time it was almost expected. Only royalty that would spill their own blood for their citizens were respected, man or woman. She had been told all this of course, but Hilda couldn’t help but have the thought that she was going to lose her daughter again right after getting her back into her life.

After moving here she never spared a thought for what happened to Shane, a state of mind shared with her sons. She was shocked to see the change in them after moving, as due to their father all three grew up cold and silent. However after moving she saw each of them smiling more and even caught them flirting with a tikbalang or beast girl on more than one occasion. She didn’t discriminate of course, as all she wanted was for all her children to be happy.

The mother daughter duo then spent the rest of the afternoon speaking to each other, treasuring their time together before being split once more.