Lilith Chapter 133 Cut content (Patreon)

<~> Chapter 133 cut content

Author's Note

Originally I wrote this part right after chapter 132. When I got to a stopping point I was satisfied with I put it down. After thinking about the scene between writing sessions I decided it ended up being too similar to the last time Lilith was in a dungeon. Despite that, I almost left the scene in anyway because I thought that it would be a good chance for interesting character development with Mimi. In the end I decided to cut the scene but I plan to work the situation with Mimi in somewhere else.This also derailed the whole search the castle mission. On one hand I didn't want to spend all that much more time on this part, but on the other, I feel like I introduced too many loose ends that needed tying up and I would have pushed back the character I had intended to introduce.Because this section was cut I didn't do any editing so there may be things that don't make sense or there may be more repetition than normal. Either way I hope it's interesting!

The the bookshelves around the room violently exploded and before I knew what was happening, pain blossomed in the right half of my body. The extreme pain I felt was so intense that I blacked out immediately before I even knew what hit me.

When I opened my eyes the first thing I felt was an intense flood of relief that forced tears to flow from my eyes. It took me a while to realize that it wasn't my own emotions I was feeling but Mimi's. They hit me like a ton of bricks through our bond. I turned to look at her, she was crying and the entire left side of her body was smeared in blood. I looked down at myself and realized the blood splashed all over her clothes was from me. There was a pool of blood under me but my body was all in one piece. My right vambrace was sitting next to me, crumpled and smashed flat, also covered in blood. All of the cloth attached to my armor was shredded along my right side but it looked like my breastplate and pauldron survived.

I looked over to see Bella was sitting on my left, two empty mana bottles were on the ground next to her. She had a smile on her face but had deep bags under her eyes and she looked exhausted. Jasper, Silva, and the twins stood a bit farther back with with grim looks on their faces but Morrigan had a pained smile and unshed tears in the corner of her eyes.

I took a breath. "What happened?" My voice was more hoarse than I expected and my mouth felt dry.

Morrigan stepped forward and quickly wiped the tears from her eyes. "When Mimi... cleared the knot of mana, the spatial expansion in the room collapsed instantly and you slammed right into her side. Uh, she wasn't hurt though, don't worry."

I turned to look at Mimi but she turned away before I could see her face. I could feel the complex emotions going through her right now like a huge weight, even when trying to clamp down on the bond, they felt so intense. I reached out and placed my hand on her leg. "It's okay Mimi, it was an accident. It wasn't your fault."

She turned back to me, her eyes were puffy from crying. "B- but!" She couldn't say any more, her emotions were so intense she was having trouble speaking.

"Shhh, it's okay." I tried to sit up but I felt really light headed and so weak I couldn't even lift myself.

Morrigan came over and helped me sit up before letting me lean against her.

"Water," I croaked.

Torien brought my waterskin and held it to my lips. The water felt amazing going down my throat and I felt a little refreshed from the fluid.

Bella touched the side of my face and smiled. "You've lost a lot of blood. You're going to have to rest, my magic isn't as good at replacing that so you'll have to recover the normal way... It was close, you almost lost too much."

Jasper kneeled next to me so I didn't have to look up at him as much. "We should get you back to wherever you're staying. We still have the bottom floor to clear but you're not in a position to continue anymore. And it looks like Miss Bella and Mimi aren't either... You've done more than enough here, we can handle the rest. Morrigan was telling me the miasma concentration has lowered considerably since Mimi cleared the mana knot, she says we're unlikely to run into any more large demons. I consider what you've done to be above and beyond our original agreement, don't worry."

I nodded. Even if I wanted to argue, I felt like crap, even I couldn't pretend I could keep going. Silva came over and lifted me up, holding me against her muscular chest. It would have been a bit more arousing if I didn't feel like I had been run over by a truck. Honestly not that far from the truth. Mimi's body was so hard and dense under her disguise, it was like running into a pole at 60 miles an hour. As we were leaving, I could see the room we had fought the dullahan in was now an office again. It was completely devoid of any furnishings, just an empty room with nothing in it except for a big blood stain where I had fallen. Mimi was holding hands with Bella but her eyes didn't leave the floor in front of her.

I sighed. How do I keep almost dying? I didn't even do anything all that stupid this time. At least, not anything that seemed unreasonable. No one tried to stop me or talk me out of it, I don't think any of them thought I would get hurt like I did. Thinking back, we had time to exit the dungeon after destroying the core before. The dungeon remains as a ruin even now, did the spatial expansion go back to normal instantly because the dungeon hadn't completely formed yet? Was the spatial expansion actually unstable?

I was struggling to focus on my thoughts, I was exhausted and still had a headache from everything. It wasn't long before the gentle rocking against Silva's strong form made me relax and slip back into a deep sleep.