I waited for Greta before I approached the guard and the woman. Of course this confused them and got them to freak out even more. A large bipedal transforming creature was walking towards them with an orc. The guard start trying even harder, the arrow must have embedded itself into the wood pretty deep if he is having this much trouble. I don’t understand why he wasn’t just breaking the arrow and pulling her off of It instead. We were only a couple feet from them now and the woman was practically crying. She kicked the guard off of her and screamed at me.

“Please just eat him and leave me be! I don’t taste good!” She was sobbing uncontrollably at this point.

“I don’t wanna die..” She kept repeating this as she cried.

I looked at Greta and then the guard at my feet. Greta was just standing beside me looking at her feet. I hope she isn’t scared of me now. The guard was looking up at me, he kind of looked like he was prepared for death. There isn’t really much point in killing these two, I already have plenty of biomass from the dead. There were even more bodies closer to the carriage so I don’t really need these two. I remembered that I understood what they were saying now and I can transform into a human. I decided to try and talk to them in this form first.

“Rrrr-rrramee?......” I guess I need to transform first.

I almost started when I remembered something. Looking around I noticed that some of the bodies I absorbed left their clothes behind. I picked up the cleanest pair of pants I could find, I avoided touching the underwear at all costs. I slipped on the pants which was a little difficult with wolfman legs so I ripped them a little. But they would cover what I want them to. Greta is here and I'm not really comfortable being naked as a human in front of her. As a wolf it was normal of course, didn’t really feel weird either. The woman and guard watched me put on pants, Greta did as well. I am probably going to be seeing that expression a lot. Once I was decent I started the transformation. I focused on how I wanted to look. I made myself about 5 11” and reasonably muscular. I imagined myself with tanned skin and black hair. Focusing on that image I felt my body start shifting.

A couple minutes later it stopped and I opened my eyes.

‘Oops, I forgot to design my face.’ I realized as soon as I opened my eyes. I felt my head and realized that I didn’t have to. I was expecting to be a ken doll with the face rubbed off. Luckily that didn’t happen.

All three of my spectators had their mouths wide open. They looked kind of funny so I smiled which cause them to stiffen up. Greta even took a step back.

‘I knew it, I scared her’ I felt kind of bad about it because despite the drugging she did take good care of me for the past little while. She kind of feels like a little sister at this point. I ruffled her hair and turned back to the guard on the ground. Let’s try this again.

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Travis couldn’t believe what he had just seen. The monster that overpowered one of the most famous bandits in the kingdom just transformed. He assumed it must be a new sort of demon, one that had a little orc follower. The demon was terrifying, seeing it change forms so easily without a spell or a ritual sent chills down his spine. This shouldn’t be possible, but he just witnessed it. He was expecting to be killed on the spot, maybe devoured. What he didn’t expect was for it to talk to him. Even his orc follower seemed surprised. Its voice was soft but he could feel the power behind it. It only said one word.

“Name?”

I immediately stammered out an answer.

“I a-am Travis Broodwen Level 5 K-Knight of the royal g-guards.”

The man nodded at me and then looked expectantly at the mage stuck to the tree. I looked at her and saw she was just staring at him, eyes wide open in fear. She said nothing for what felt like a long time but couldn’t have been more then a couple minutes. I felt like she was going to piss him off so I decided to say something.

“Uhh, Sir she is Riane the 3rd ranked mage in the kingdom.” He looked at me again and simply nodded. Then he walked right up to Riane, causing her to start freaking out and beg for her life again. He simply ignored her and grabbed the arrow protruding from her shoulder. She screamed and he snapped it, pulling her off of the shaft and letting her crumple on the ground while clutching her shoulder.

“You should fix her shoulder before she bleeds to death.’ He turned and walked towards the carriage. The little orc at his side staring at him the whole time.

Travis was stunned silent, until the soft sobbing and curses coming from a lump of upset mage reached his ears and reminded him of Riane. He grudgingly got up to help the rude mage. Although he swore that if she tried to sacrifice him again she was getting a swift kick to the arse.

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I led Greta to the partially destroyed carriage to see if there was anything I could use. On the way she tried talking to me. I wish I could understand what she was saying because she got really excited and wouldnt stop asking me questions. I haven’t been able to absorb any orcs yet so I would have to learn her language manually until then. She seemed to realize that I couldn’t understand her after a while and grew quiet. I felt bad but there was nothing I could do at the moment.

I walked up the carriage and inspected it. It was covered in some nice carvings and decorations. It was a very fancy carriage I couldn’t see through the window on the door, so I walked around to see the other side and found a huge gash in the carriage. I wonder what weapon the bandits used to make this hole, it doesn’t look like the leader powered up and smashed it. It was more like something ran into it at high speed. I looked into the hole and saw a woman crumpled on the floor. Her dress was stained red in multiple places with debris from the carriage sticking out of the wounds. She was clearly dead, a large chunk of wood was partially embedded into her head. I thought she was some unlucky noble until I noticed her clothes. She was dressed as a maid.

Then something the guard said popped into my head. He said he was a royal guard. Why would the royal guard be escorting a maid? Unless I was missing something here. I saw a piece of cloth that looked out of place underneath the woman. I crawled into the carriage through the hole and lifted her body. Revealing a small girl of about 12 years old I think. She was covered in the maid’s blood but she was unhurt.

As soon as I saw the little girl the clues started spinning in my head.

“I just saved a princess…IM OUT!” I said to myself. I know how this turns out. I am not going to be bound to some kingdom. Just as I was about to leave the carriage the girl opened her eyes, looked at me and noticed I was only wearing pants and screamed. Startling me and Greta. I just jumped out of the carriage, however Greta reacted a bit differently. She ran up to the still screaming girl and gave her a punch. Knocking her out cold.

I was honestly suprised at her. Greta didn’t notice me and just climbed into the carriage. A moment later she started throwing stuff out. After making a small mountain of bags and boxes and such, she started climbing out of the carriage. She was carrying the girl with her and set her to the side before going she started going through the mountain of stuff. Opening bags and discarding the ones without anything useful in them.

I was still shocked at how easily she just ran up and punched her. I’m pretty sure she was some sort of princess. Hopefully this wont cause problems later.