No more random spirits rushed into the camp that night, no Wyvern was hounded over to us to try and roast us alive; there weren’t any Cultists roaming around sharpening their knives, and there wasn’t even a pack of wolves roaming around looking for their next meal.

The forest was silent and contained the lingering acrid tang of all the various things that had been burnt in our earlier fight, but even that tang was chased away by the cold night air... and it was really chased away by the greasy meat roasting over the campfire.

The paltry few herbs that had been scavenged from the area gave it a little more flavor, but apparently - despite being a rather lean looking monster - the Wyvern was packed with fat in the right places, giving its meat a really juicy and tasty flavor.

When I was handed a skewer of the meat I was actually very surprised by the way it seemingly melted on my tongue, reminding me of the more expensive and sometimes not that worth it cuts of meat that people raved about in my old life.

This though... it was bursting with flavor and utterly delicious, but on top of that the mana inside of the flesh rushed into your Core and rejuvenated you, adding another layer to this meal that just pushed it over the top for me.

It was hands down one of the best things I had ever eaten before, and when Taji leaned over to whisper "You’re making it look like this is better than sex, Natalie~!" I didn’t even care, just nodding and tearing out another chunk since... honestly speaking, it might just be better than sex.

I could tell that everyone else was enjoying it a lot too since no one else said a word, just devouring what they had and stealing glances at the meat that was dripping fat into the fire, waiting as patiently as they could for it to be ready.

The excess of mana that was coursing through my veins stayed my hand though, because even though it was so delicious I felt like I might burst if took another bite; I chalked it up to having a smaller mana capacity compared to everyone else, but after a moment I realized everyone else was gluttonous.

Bo’Katari was rotating flames between her palms and the campfire, Kha’Miero was shaping and destroying small rock figurines in her hands, Regina was just expelling wind straight up into the air...

Everyone was doing something that took some of that mana they ate and pushed it back out of themselves, giving them the space to ingest even more without worry... and if it wasn’t something that was so smart I would have been a bit disgusted by how gluttonous they were being.

If I also didn’t understand that eating this meat gave you some small boosts in strength, that is, so I mentally scolded myself for not thinking of this too and promptly got to work, deciding to practice a little as I waited for the next round of skewers.

I took some fire and carefully maneuvered it around myself time and time again, expelling a steady stream of mana as I watched the skewers cook over the flames; when they were ready I gave my flame a bit of extra juice and cradled it between my hands, watching it flare up before it began to die down rapidly as no more mana trickled into it.

With that I found myself capable of eating another, though where everyone went for thirds I just decided to call it a night and went into one of the tents, peeling off my gear and flopping down onto a bedroll as I let the darkness consume me.

Sleep came and went like a loading screen, the darkness claiming me for only what felt like a minute before I was awake, light trickling into the tent I was sleeping in and showing off the impressive musculature of Kha’Miero beside me.

The Draconian stirred the moment I sat up, and when she cracked her neck and rubbed her shoulders she gave me an inquisitive look, asking if I was going to help her or not... and if I wanted some help as well.

She welcomed me as I crawled onto her body, swallowing her cock like always while rubbing myself against her face, putting us into a mutually beneficial position that lasted a few minutes as we both came twice.

After that though we were quick to gather our things, figure out how to best transport everything we could from the Wyvern, and then set out for Mythia as quickly as we could; we weren’t running but we weren’t being slow either, and the distance we covered...

If this had been my previous life I most likely would have fell to heat stroke relatively quickly, but being able to have someone constantly pelting us with a breeze while we had practically infinite water kept that from happening.

My body still hated me though, and I knew that the moment I returned to the Academy I was going to need to take one long bath - maybe two - and just sleep the day away, because this hike back home was grueling.

Uneventful... but still grueling.

I counted my lucky stars for that, and by the time the walls were in view I was ready to flop down and go straight to sleep, but we still needed to get to the Academy itself... thankfully a merchant offered their cart to us, taking us there faster and thanking us for our help in keeping the city safe.

I wanted to stay with everyone and give the report to the Headmistress and others, but I was swaying on my feet and panting like a dog, so Kha’Miero helped me back to my room and slid into the bath with me.

Not even to do anything fun, but just to get clean and relax; even she was drained from earlier, and although she was hard - as was I - neither of us had the energy to get up to anything, so we just soaked in the bath until we realized we needed to get out.

Then we flopped into bed together and passed out before our stomachs could demand something delicious like Wyvern meat...

It made me dream of it though, which was a twisted thing for my own stomach to do...