Chapter 156

“I don’t think anything,” Natalie said, looking around. “A rest stop, I guess. A safe room.” There weren’t any visible indicators of danger, and a single door on the wall nearest to them led out.

The rest of the team peered around to make sure of that, but they found nothing worrying.

“Okay, then,” Jordan said. “A chance to reconvene. What’s all that?” Jordan gestured at the items littered around the floor—Natalie had lost her grip on them as she tumbled down, and they’d been spat out alongside her. At least the bags hadn’t popped open and spilled coins everywhere.

“Our loot,” Natalie said. “Lost my grip.”

She collected them from the ground and stored them, to be looked at later. Scooping up one of the bags and peeking inside, she breathed a sigh of relief—the stat-boosting potions hadn’t broken during the tumble. That wouldn’t have been exactly fair if the dungeon had thrown them into an angled stone slide through the darkness and broken their delicate belongings in the process, but nobody ever said the dungeon strove to be fair.

“We’ll look through them in a second,” Natalie said. “We don’t even know what they are. But first, what happened with you three? Anything important we need to know?”

“Not really. We were just, you know, fighting for our lives.” She snorted. “While you two were out frolicking and fornicating. And I bet you two got better loot than us, too. How is that fair?”

“Be serious,” Natalie said, though her heart rate picked up at the accusation. ‘Fornicating’? That had just been a guess, right? Jordan didn’t actually know she and Ana had done—well, everything they had, right?

“I am serious,” Jordan said. “There’s not much to say. Nothing special happened, not besides the class and body swaps.” She wrinkled her nose. “I will admit that I like being back, though.”

Sofia grunted in agreement. She rested a hand on her rapier, finding comfort in her weapon’s familiarity. She’d been the worst off from the body swaps, Natalie knew, having to take up Liz’s mantle. Sofia was many things, but a competent spellcaster wasn’t one. There wasn’t a much bigger paradigm shift needed than going from a one-on-one physical duelist to the team’s support mage.

“Speak for yourselves,” Liz complained loudly. “I kinda liked being tall, for once.”

“I’m not tall,” Jordan corrected. “I’m just not tiny.”

“And have boobs, too.” Liz glared at Jordan’s chest, then down at her own, and Jordan laughed, patting her on the shoulder—which only made Liz pout harder, though her lips were twitching in amusement.

Sofia spared a quirked eyebrow for the interaction, then faced Natalie. “And you?” she asked. “Is there anything we need to know about your...” her nose wrinkled, “adventures?”

To Natalie’s side, Ana twitched, as if she’d remembered something.

“Oh,” Ana said. “Yes, actually. I need some of that infertility potion.”

Natalie winced.

Right.

That had been the entire reason they’d fled the challenge early.

But had Ana really needed to blurt it out for everyone to hear?

Face coloring, Natalie murmured at her, “Some subtlety would be nice, you know.” She dug around her pouch to pull the monster core out.

“And you’re still wearing my weapon,” Ana said. “I’d rather we didn’t get ambushed without having it equipped.”

Natalie groaned.

“You found a new weapon?” Liz asked innocently.