“I can’t feel my legs,” Reysha purred, vocal fry dominating her voice, as soon as she had the breath to spare to talk. The victory celebrations had continued for half an hour and Reysha was laying on top of a hastily made pile of blankets in the middle of the land segment of the cave. It had been used for the second half of the proceedings. There had been pounding involved that, on the raw stone floor, would not have been comfortable.

“I could fix that for you,” Aclysia offered. Thanks to her nature, the post-coitus stage of exhaustion mostly affected her mentally. Both girls were still getting their breath back under control, both were sweaty and both had their pussies filled, but one was definitely less threatened by short-term physical effects than the other. Even the marks from whatever manhandling Apexus had employed disappeared faster on the angel.

“Nah, girrrrrrlll,” the tiger girl continued to speak with vocal fry, rolling over on her back to have an easier time breathing. “Imma enjoy that feeling for a little bit. Maybe in a minute.”

Apexus, proud of his work, looked down at his two pleased partners. There was a mild urge to continue, there almost always was, but there was no need to overdo it. Plenty of opportunities would be had later. “You mind if I check out the loot?”

“Uhh, gimme a sec,” Reysha slightly repositioned herself so she could look at the area of the room where a couple of stone barriers created five narrow corridors. They doubled as a place to sleep in relative privacy and as the place where the dungeon’s boss chests were stored. While it was highly unusual that such chests would be outside the dungeon proper, they still couldn’t be opened without defeating the boss first. “Alright, now ya have my permission.”

“I didn’t know I needed permission from a woman that forgot how to walk,” Apexus joked.

“I didn’t forget, boytoy, and it’ll come back to me in a couple minutes and then I’ll kick your ass!”

“We will see about that,” the slime said, a tad too seriously. He was eager to establish physical dominance in their relationship again, since he had lost their last playfight. From the standpoint of less ‘savagely’ minded people, like Aclysia, the humanoid slime had proven his superiority in that regard over the course of the last thirty minutes. Logic like that wasn’t exactly involved in the process though.

Apexus headed to the leftmost chest. It was a simple stone block of a dark colour. Fused to the main chest, the lid was only visible courtesy of a line that was etched along the side. Apexus took a moment to inspect the design and wonder how he was supposed to open this. ‘Divine designs always work somehow,’ he thought, finally deciding to just give it a shove. Reacting to his intent and registering that he had indeed slain the boss, the lid of the chest simply disintegrated.

Bowing over the resulting opening, Apexus looked into the chest. The inside walls were unnaturally black, courtesy of not being walls at all. The inside of dungeon chests had never quite made sense and it didn’t start now. Half-hovering, half-laying at the ‘bottom’ of the chest was a two-handed sword. It had a simple cross-guard, a leather wrapped grip and the blade was iron. Apexus had to angle it to pull it out, as the blade was longer than the chest was wide. A small amount of cold mist trailed in its movement. Apexus didn’t have to test if this item was enchanted.

“Do you suppose that would be a weapon appropriate for your usage?” Aclysia asked, hopeful he would say yes. Up until now, Apexus had only fought using his own body and while that tended to work out, courtesy of his unique or highly unusual traits, the metal fairy did not like seeing him torn apart or otherwise hurt. A weapon, and the range it offered, would go to some length helping with that.

Apexus immediately made a sour face and inspected the two-hander further. Although the ice enchantment instinctively repulsed him, It was a weapon appropriate for his size and stature. Heavy, it would be able to land quite a blow, but it also wasn’t so overly weighty that the slime felt pulled down by it. Swinging it around, he found he could even wield it with one hand.

‘Sloppy technique though,’ Reysha couldn’t help but think, watching the slime swing around the sword with the same level of skill a ten-year-old had when playing knight with a stick. There was no unnecessary shouting and Apexus was an overall more intimidating figure. ‘Not that he’ll need the best technique with the amount of brute force involved there. Plus, he could learn.’

Apexus’ sour face only deepened and he stopped. Similar thoughts were going through his head. He put the two-hander down. Utilizing an ‘appendage’ he couldn’t feel with to fight just didn’t feel right to Apexus. He had heard Reysha talk about how weapons could become an extension of oneself, but the slime had a hard time setting himself in that mindset. Weapons were tools and tools were objects to achieve specific goals or improvise with. Relying, permanently, on a weapon over his own body was alien to the chimera. “I won’t use it.”

Sighing, the metal angel accepted this. There wasn’t much sense in arguing over his preferences. She just wished that his fighting style would be less self-harming. “It would be prudent to assume that enemies in these dungeons will eventually be too strong to be taken head-on like you currently do, darling.”

Apexus raised his hand and looked at the skin. It turned translucent, revealing the dark blue slime underneath and the bones within. “I evolve and become stronger myself. Yet, I do know that you are correct.”

As it currently stood, Apexus was stronger than the average adventurer. Extreme regenerative abilities, a multitude of tools and muscle strong enough to wrestle even with supernaturally empowered bears all elevated him above the rest. In one way or another, the advantage he had in these regards would diminish with time. Although his regenerative capabilities would likely remain above almost anyone else, other adventurers would grow incredibly resilient in their own ways. His biological tools would compete with growing magical arsenals. In the realm of physical strength, he wasn’t that far ahead of other people of his size and group role to begin with.

Dungeon monsters were created to force people to grow and therefore needed to pose a challenge. If Apexus kept relying only on what his body was equipped with, he would fall behind and eventually find a foe too strong to just trade upfront blows with. Magic, in particular, was a threat. In this low-level bracket, magic in enemies wasn’t overly strong. It was only a matter of time before that changed. The number of vast improvements Apexus could make to his physiology were limited as well. Muscles, bones, eyes, all of these and other things could only be acquired once. They became stronger with him, could even be improved with additional Growths, but there was a point at which things naturally had to slow down.

“Well, he looks like a person now, so maybe we can find a teacher of some martial art class once we get out of here,” Reysha suggested. “It’s not like all Classes utilize weapons.”

“That is true,” Aclysia nodded along. They had talked about this before, so there was not much more that needed to be said. Guidance from a teacher would serve them all well. Aclysia and Reysha could learn some new spells and skills, while Apexus still had to figure out how to utilize magic properly in the first place. The sooner they got those conditions cleared, the better. None of them were experienced enough to discover or formulate new magic on their own. Aclysia got close, but even she only improved on things she already knew how to do thanks to her divine origin.

“Would you want the sword?” Apexus asked, while making his way to the second chest.

“Would you?” Reysha asked Aclysia with a giant grin.

“The question was obviously directed at you,” the metal fairy said and hovered over to the water. She had recovered enough now to clean herself.

“Yeah, but why would I acknowledge the obvious when I can make a cheap joke?” The angel and the slime didn’t answer the question, they knew that was the quickest way to get an answer to their own. “Anyway, I don’t like big swords, so nope.”

“I’ll carry it to the next city then,” Apexus said. While size was not really an issue, adventurer’s bags could only carry a certain weight, about 25 kilograms for the standard bag, inside them. The sword was about five. That was above average for a sword of that variety but Apexus’ bag was scarcely filled. “Only money in this one. 100 silver, I estimate.” He threw the purse next to the sword, for Aclysia to pick up later, then moved onto the third chest. He pulled a crystal pendant out of that one. Beauty was its only value, as Apexus could sense no magic from it. They resolved to sell it later.

The fourth chest had something more interesting. A blue, one-piece dress from a soft, smooth fabric, similar to silk. It would have been appropriate for any noble lady to wear and was worth more than either the money or the pendant by a longshot. After a short discussion, they decided to keep it. Ironically, the discussion stemmed from the obvious recipient, Aclysia, insisting they could use the funds more than a dress too fancy to wear while travelling. They countered that they didn’t need money that badly and there was no telling when they could use a fancy dress. As she also lowkey wanted it, Aclysia relented after some pushback.

The last piece of loot was a steel stiletto – a dagger whose ‘blade’ was more of a three-sided thorn. Like the two-hander, the stiletto exuded a cold aura. “Yeah, I call dibs on that one,” Reysha announced, unsurprisingly. Having a close-range stabbing weapon was never wrong for a Rogue.

With all of the loot out of the way, Apexus returned to Reysha and picked her up. The two then joined Aclysia in the water for some additional fooling around and cleaning. Nothing as excessive as their earlier engagement, but enough to distract them until they inevitably got hungry again. The crystal in the ceiling had dimmed to a dark blue in the meantime.

“Alright, magic girl, hit me up with your healing hands,” Reysha finally declared and got proper feeling back into her legs. They got out of the pool, put on their winter clothes, and headed towards the right of the two exits. “Time to see how long we can camp out in here.”

The warmth of their safe chamber was gradually replaced with the cold they had come to know so well these past days. Howling wind echoed in the distance, then around them, as tumbling snow was blown into the winding passage. They saw the mountains beyond the exit, their white covering basked in silver light. Then they saw the entire vale.

They emerged on top of a solid stone plateau, an eighth up the way of one of the many mountains, overlooking a valley between several of the stone giants. A river, fed by a neighbouring glacier, fed water into a lake below that bubbled and steamed from seismic activity. The resulting heat had allowed some plants to take root around. It was far from a paradise, the plants were generally small and hard, but it was enough to sustain a herd of mountain goats that cared neither for the snow nor the threat of falling into one of the gas vents.

“Think those goats are magical?” Reysha asked. She could eat them either way, but would much prefer not to in one case.

“I’d assume so, given the way they scale the walls,” Apexus stated.

Aclysia wasn’t convinced on that alone. “Goats are quite famous for their ability to move up near vertical surfaces.”

“How about upside down?” the slime asked and pointed at the goat that made him make the comment in the first place. It was walking up a cliffside, the tip of which jutted out several metres from the rest of the mountain, by just putting one hoof in front of the other. Each time, it had to secure its position by letting its legs freeze to the stone, a deliberate and magical process, but it did still climb at an angle that left its long fur dangling.

“…I support the theory of a certain degree of magical ability,” Aclysia conceded.

“Next question is if we can hunt one,” Reysha said and looked down at the vale. “Not sure I can move down there. Too much superhot water. I guess I’ll have to leave it to you two.”

“As long as the wind plays along, I can do it,” Apexus assured.

“Long vacation it is then!” Reysha grinned.