◈ Chapter 90:

Layers of lathered soap rolled across the top of Rain’s black fur, white on black, until it was wiped away with a splash of water. Clean, so satisfyingly clean.

He sighed blissfully as the last of the dirt left him. The warm hot spring was wonderful, and made all the better by Opal sitting in his lap vaguely washing at his thighs with her hands, although admittedly seeming far more interested in grinding her rear up against him. He lazed back against the pool edge basking in the summer sun that warmed the tranquil glade.

“D-do you want some h-help?”

He lazily turned his head to find Lyra standing by the pool. She was naked, completely stark naked... for public bathing reasons obviously. Rain eyed the sheep girl's entirely exposed body, moving from her bare muff topped by a square of fluff on her mons which moved side to side due to her nervously shifting hips, then up to her heavy breasts that rose up and down as she breathed deeply, near hyperventilating, then finally to her blushing face.

She held out a bottle in two shaky hands and Rain tilted his head questioningly.

“It-It’s shampoo! F-for fur! Like last time, I thought I c-could help maybe, that is if you want m-me…to.”

“...Sure. But I want to ask you some things about leveling, and about levelers.”

Lyra blinked. “Uhm, okay?”

After a moment of no reply from Rain she stepped forward, slipping down into the hot spring beside him with a splash. She fiddled with the cap on the bottle, having trouble opening it as the cap was now slick with water.

“...Are there leveling addicts where you come from?” began Rain, lazing a paw over Opal’s thigh and eyeing the sheep girl out of the corner of his eye.

She paused. “Leveling addicts? As in they can't stop leveling? I mean, isn't that everyone? Nobody willingly wants to stop leveling, if you have the means you go find monsters and you uh-” her eyes drifted to Opal but the Goblin wasn’t paying attention, instead furiously wiggling her hips against Rain.

“I suppose that’s true, but did anyone you know ever go further, seem willing to do things that others would never? Like an opium addict might go to extremes to pay for their addiction?”

Lyra’s hand came to a slow stop on the unopened cap. She looked up at Rain. “Yes, my father, he… he cared more about leveling than anything,” her voice dropped, “He cared more about leveling than he cared about me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you think it was all his fault?”

Lyra narrowed her eyes at him.

“That came across in the wrong way. I mean do you think he was fully in control of himself? An opium addict is a kind of victim of what opium does to them, they struggle to break free of its grasp, they’ve lost some amount of control. Could leveling do something similar?”

“I’ve lived as a leveler for my whole life and I have never ever felt that way, there are urges but it’s not- it’s not like that.”

“But there are urges?”

“Yes! Why wouldn't there be? You must know what it's like, surrounded by it, that anxiety to keep up, to keep up and keep leveling or get crushed by your peers. I didn't go into a dungeon when I was barely more than a child for nothing, I was terrified of being left behind, that everyone would overtake me, that I would get stepped on.”

Rain shook his head, “Not like that, that’s fear, I understand that. I mean an addiction to how it feels to gain levels… to see your numbers change. Do you feel anything like that when you level up?”

Lyra’s eyes drifted back to Opal, thinking, after a moment she spoke softly. “Yes, it does feel good, it’s satisfying to see your numbers go up, to feel more powerful, more free to do as you wish. I’ve even fantasized about it, dreamed of becoming a high leveler.” She looked down and fiddled with the shampoo cap. “I’ve even bought books.”

“Books on how to level faster?”

“N-not quite, books about people leveling and becoming strong…”

“To learn from?”

She bit her lip. “No, more like, erm, to live vicariously through. Most of them aren't real stories, but reading about a leveler’s numbers growing, it… feels good, to see, uh, read of them growing, it’s hard to explain… I like that the numbers grow larger, and m-more powerful.”

“I didn't know that was a- wait, Is this just a you thing?”

“No! It’s not just a me thing at all! In Florens they are really popular- Everyone- Hey it’s not my fault you don’t know about it out here in the backward ass sticks!”

“Alright I believe you. But do you think that's the same thing as seeing your numbers go up?”

Lyra hesitated. “...Not exactly, the giddy rush from seeing your own numbers go up is different, it’s euphoric… addictive in a way I suppose, yes.”

“So your father might not have been entirely to blame for how he acted?”

A flash of real anger crossed Lyra’s face, the first time Rain had seen such an expression on her.

“Don’t say that. Even if it were true it’s not like everyone else doesn't deal with the same thing, it’s a universal feeling, everyone has it, if someone can’t stop themselves from becoming obsessed with it then that is their own fault.”

“I… I don’t know if it is universal... I’ve known opium addicts in the low leveler slums before. A man I knew of was strong willed, a will like iron, never backed down from anything and was always upbeat. The other low levelers thought he was going to escape, level up enough to get out and that he would one day be one of those looking down on us. But then he fell in with a gang, and then, later, he found opium. He became a husk of a person in less than a year, a beggar on the street. I knew to always keep away from the stuff after seeing that, but then, then I found out one of the women who worked at the building I lived behind did opium, many times, then just... stopped, because she felt like it, she was so- I wouldn’t have predicted that happening.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Rain sighed and ran his claws through Opal’s already clean hair.

“I don’t know. I think some people are more susceptible to addiction than others.”

Lyra made an unhappy scowl and tugged the cap off the shampoo then shook the gooey blue contents over her hands. She buried her hands in Rain’s fur, barely hesitating to touch him she was so distracted by his words.

“You don’t know that, leveling is different, it’s not the same, they are just numbers, even if they make you feel good that's not addictive, it’s not real.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, not enough to do what he did, it’s not a real reason, no addiction no matter how ruinous is enough to do what he did, he did it all through his own choice. I can’t believe otherwise, I just can’t, I don't want to feel that way about him, even slightly.”

“Yes, my father was a real bastard…” muttered Lyra.

“No, not him, the Ran-k-!” he faltered as Opal shoved her hands down below her rear and began feeling at him, exploring, and not gently.

In response he wrapped his paw around her chest and then squeezed his digits together, mauling at her breasts and pinching her nipples until she let out a gasp. She escalated her desperate fondling in response, pushing back on his sheath, dragging it backward until the tip of his massive length was pushing free, stretching his sheath wide as it swelled in her small hands, pushing up at her rear.

“Dammit Opal, what’s gotten into you?” he growled, although it was said with a fond edge.

Opal leaned her head back and looked up at him, hair falling across his body, a wide grin appearing on her face.

“You need to learn how to relax wolfy. You just took out a sworn enemy, you're free to kick back and not worry so much, wallow in feeling good for a while.”

She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at him and he couldn't help but snort a laugh.

“You really can't get enough can you? Fine, you do kind of have a point. Bath time is for comfort.”

“All kinds of comfort,” smirked the Goblin girl as his length grew between her thighs rising up and pressing between her cheeks. She put her hands between her legs and cupped the head of it in her palms, trying to keep it in place but finding no matter how she tried she couldn't prevent it from parting her hands as it grew and pushing them out from between her legs.

Soon she was straddling his length, legs hanging down either side as her muff kissed the top. She ran her hands down to where it stuck out from beneath her, circling her hands, or rather trying to and failing, her fingers unable to meet around his girth.

“Sheesh, you’ve gotten so big, it’s like I have my own dick,” she muttered, caressing the inches that protruded from beneath her, her thighs squeezing around it.

Rain leaned his head forward, his head beside hers. “Don’t say that. Besides you haven't even got my knot out yet.”

Opal shivered, feeling the rumble of his words through her body, the heat of his length pressing up bare and raw against her leaking cunny.

Beside them Lyra felt like her head was about to explode. The damned monsters were doing it again! While she was right there next to them! They were completely and utterly shameless and had zero sense of proprietary. This just wasn’t dignified, she had offered to shampoo Rain’s unreasonable quantities of fur to help out, not to get an eye full of that massive throbbing vascular member that filled between the Goblin girl’s trembling thighs, pressing up into her, lifting her up in the water as it tensed, making her squeak and giggle.

No, Lyra was just a respectable sheep who cared about good fluff care, and absolutely not because she had been hoping that the same thing would happen agai- NO, she shook her head and tried to focus on lathering Rain’s fur, feeling his broad heavy muscles beneath, more than strong enough for the now nearly nine foot tall male to lift her into the air and use her, or pin her down and-

Gritting her teeth she began scrubbing furiously, trying not to look down at what the wriggling Goblin was doing.

Of course, she was only scrubbing with the one hand, the other hand having long dipped below the water line, down her stomach, over her mons, where her fingers were making circles around her love bean which was periodically peeking from beneath its hood, more so as she applied increasing pressure, dancing her fingertips up and down, smearing her softness, her breath rising higher.

She couldn't help it, her eyes moved down, magnetically latching onto that fat fucking length now mostly above the water. Opal was enthusiastically masturbating him, her hands running up and down, squeezing, fingertips tracing veins, faster, until little surges of clear precum were spraying from the tip, spattering across the water’s surface.

Why couldn’t she keep her eyes off it?

Something was wrong with her heart, it wouldn't stop beating like a blacksmith’s hammer, heavy and swift. In fact the thing was beating so hard that she could practically feel it against her ribs, her mind faltering as she stared, blood rushing in her ears.

Lyra could feel herself becoming more and more heated, her muff swollen, dripping, a deep burning itch below her gut that was driving her to distraction, her breath becoming ragged, her large breasts capped with stiff pink nipples wobbling back and forth as her chest rose and fell.

She licked her lip and her hand moved down, pushing fingers up into her snatch, one, then two, then three, then all of them, until she was plunging knuckle deep into herself, stretching herself, just like he c-could, like he-

She had to slap her free hand over her mouth as a moan tried to escape her lips, eyelids fluttered, flashes dancing lights crossing her vision as she peaked, her back arching, shivering as her thighs clenched together, knees touching, fingers being crushed as she squeezed down.

Her shoulders slumped as she found relief, her breathing ragged. She could never ever admit it to herself, but she had never been so turned on in her life, sneakily intruding on the monster pair, like a dastardly voyeur, taking advantage, they had absolutely no idea that she was-

She turned her head back to find a massive wolf like head leaning down and peering at her, luminous yellow eyes staring directly into hers, noses touching.