Chapter 167 A Trip With A Princess
Given the fact that we were in an area my magic wasn’t going to work in, we had to swim all the way. The princess was naturally faster than I was, but I managed to keep up with her since she couldn’t go too far from my view. We managed to make some progress, whilst also getting information from the princess. This meant I finally got a gist of the state of affairs in Atlantis.
Her father, the King of Atlantis, announced that he would be stepping down as King to allow one of his children to take charge. Naturally the right to succeed would be passed down to the first born, however she was more popular than her brother, so the people wanted her to become princess. Basically, those in support of her brother were trying to get rid of her.
Her supporters arranged for her to escape, but during her escape, she was kidnapped by the bandits from SharkFang. She assumed it was her brother having planned for her escape, but fortunately, Sunalla got us to rescue her before anything bad could happen to her. Why we were headed to Atlantis even after her brother was trying to get her killed confused me till she explained that her parents had gone on a trip and were now returning.
The real reason she left temporarily was that she wouldn’t have her parent’s protection. There was going to be an important feast once her parents returned and she needed to be present for that one feast. What exactly for, I didn’t know, but she was adamant on not telling me. I couldn’t really complain since she had given me a lot of information already.
She told me that she would just tell her parents to grant my wish for me, which meant there was no need for me to betray her. Then I did a bit of thinking with the information and we came to a conclusion. I would still betray her. My guts simply didn’t sit right around her and since her father basically gave up the throne, it would be better to get the prince on my side, especially since the court mages were on his side. Also, wasn’t it only better to have the obvious future ruler on my side?
The princess had the majority for now, but the prince’s faction was more influential. Now, all I needed to do was to confirm the competence of the prince. Although my faith in him wavered since he didn’t execute the princess immediately after her capture.
When we got hungry, I was forced to go hunting so I found some weird fish. They were called gartarangs. They were strangely flat fish that lied on the sea bed, but were as tough as steel. I managed to slice through it with a bit of a struggle. Since neither I nor the princess knew how to cook it, we were forced to eat it raw. Well, I normally ate raw food so I didn’t feel any different. The princess on the other hand was hesitant about it, but eventually gave in due to hunger.
The gatarang tasted like what I would expect a piece of metal to taste like. At least I got some useful skills out of it: [Steel Scales], [Bubble Space] and [Multi-Eye]. [Steel Scales] was so basic it didn’t really require any description, but for those who didn’t know, it simply gave me… well… steel scales. Next was [Bubble Space] which was essentially useless on the surface. It created a large oxygen bubble to suffocate its target for a meal later on. [Multi-Eye] was a tricky skill that allowed its user to have… multiple eyes? It gave the user a spare eye in case they ever lost one.
At first, I assumed that was a very weird skill to have till I found out that the gatarangs usually get attacked by lumors. They were some fishes whose self-defence mechanism was to shine brightly, blinding their opponents. So, the gatarangs gave up a pair of eyes for new ones just to capture the lumors for a meal. It was their favourite treat, so now I was interested in finding lumors to eat as well.
After that, we continued for a while. I hadn’t noticed it was late till the princess told me. Guess not having the stamina stat draw me back anymore was one of the best things that happened to me. We decided to just sleep on the sea floor, behind some rocks. Hopefully Daxia wouldn’t find us tonight, but just to be safe I went to search around a bit more after leaving Kawaii behind to protect the princess.
DAILY ACHIEVEMENTS
[The skill [Good Mana Control] became [Good Mana Control Level 9]]
[The skill [Slime Body] became [Slime Body Level 8]]
[The skill [Soul Guard] became [Soul Armour Level 1]]
[The skill [Mid-Cold Resistance] became [High Cold Resistance Level 1]]
FUSION
[No Fusions were performed today]
FAMILIA
[Two goblins evolved into Hob-goblins]
[90 Rat men evolved into Tunnelers]
[100 Giant spiders evolved into Black Spiders]
[90 Giant Centipedes evolved into Centichurs]
[Your familia received 50 familia points]
STORE
[The weapons store has been restocked. There are new items on display]
Day 48
The moment the princess woke up, she was served with an all you can eat buffet of giant crabs. Their name made me wonder if there were normal crabs around, same for giant centipedes. They attacked the princess while she was sleeping, but I dealt with them swiftly. Their defences were a bit hard to crack, but with the right amount of speed and power, I was easily able to break them before they could touch the princess. A few more days to go till we reached.
Just how big was Daxia’s chaos energy’s reach? I’d been traveling for more than 20 hours straight and I still couldn’t use magic, although Akira and Akkun were working on it. My only job was to drive the body. I really was their friggin’ mecha.
Today was mostly uneventful, with me only getting more gatarangs and finding weird plants with varying effects. For example, there was a poisonous plant here called the Barbed Rossiete. It looked like a really big cactus with red roses growing on it. There were some poisonous fishes living on it, but they didn’t attack us and since the princess was with me, I decided it would be best to not do anything reckless. We just carried on naturally.
I tried talking with the princess. She was reluctant at first, but eventually broke. Well, I managed to get her to break, but when she did, I didn’t know what to talk to her about. I was suddenly feeling shy around her. What the hell was up with that?
The princess got annoyed with me and decided to bring up the topics for conversation instead. Maybe it was because of her class [Orator], but I ended up talking to her quite a bit. She asked me about how my life on the surface was. I told her about the past events on top, but made sure to leave the last bit about Minerva out. I was trying to create the impression that I was strong.
What she ended up hearing was that I was a terrible leader. I tried telling her that I wasn’t any leader, but she lectured me on being a leader. She offered to personally show me how to rule. I had nothing better to do so I listened to her. I learnt several interesting things. For example, it was always best to maintain a façade of ultimate power in front of your subordinates or anyone for that matter. That was probably the reason she used her [Cry of Discord] on me earlier, although that was a very dumb move on her part.
In fact, most of the laws she was teaching me were very retarded. Maintaining the lie of possessing ultimate power would only make people follow you either because they were scared of you or they revered you. Either way could go badly because once they found out you weren’t the almighty being you claimed to be, their behaviour towards you would make a drastic change. Still, being a benevolent leader with no power was also simply idealistic in my eyes.
That was when I realised that she was trolling me. I gave up after noticing that detail and decided to just ignore her for the rest of the day.
I found some giant crabs again. We had a good meal and I finally levelled up again. Maybe I could evolve before I went back. Well, I doubted that given the fact that I had no plans of spending more than a week on this.
Kawaii was also starting to get restless after being silent for quite a while. She told me that she’d be going off somewhere to train a bit. I shrugged, telling her not to go too far. The princess and I settled down somewhere for her to take a breather. She said she was feeling cold, but given the fact that she had [High Cold Resistance], I took it as her just being annoying. Again, I ignored her and just went about my business.
DAILY ACHIEVEMENTS
FUSION
[No Fusions were performed today]
FAMILIA
[General Arisu used [Absolute Command] on familia servants]
Day 49
When Kawaii came back she was in the B- rank. I was surprised, confused and speechless all in one. Straight from C- to B-. She wasn’t a normal slime in the slightest! She had evolved! Over the course of a night! Wasn’t she only F rank a few days ago? Barely twenty days now! She was going to get stronger than me quickly! I couldn’t stand for this. I needed to power level as well.
I left the princess in the hands of Kawaii after asking her what exactly she did to reach such heights. Apparently, she just ate everything she saw, so I decided to do exactly the same. I wasn’t going to allow her to get stronger than myself, although if I considered my [Shadow Being Summon] skill, I was technically well beyond her capabilities. In fact, if I fought Goliath without his [Overlord] skill, would I have been able to win in a fight?
Well, no point in mauling over useless things. Either way, Goliath was not a threat now.
In fact, why didn’t I eat his body? I could just eat it and get a boost in power and a lot of his skills, right?
When I went out to go hunting, I kept thinking about things like this. If I had done certain things differently, would I be here right now? Would I be chasing fishes at quite possibly the bottom of the ocean and helping an annoying mermaid princess get back home? Would Minerva be missing?
Well, no point in mauling over simple possibilities. All of that has already happened.
In the end, I managed to go up only three levels putting me on level 76 and level 37 in the racial department. I was curious to what my future evolutions would be. Maybe I could become a sort of sort of demon phoenix? Yeah, I might go for such an option.
There were also a large number of skills I acquired.
I returned to where the princess and Kawaii where. The princess and Kawaii were both fighting. Or more like, Kawaii was in the process of eating the princess. I had to separate both of them, but I found it curious that we simply couldn’t get along with her. She just had a very infuriating aura around her. She needed to be humbled down, but I couldn’t do that.
DAILY ACHIEVEMENTS
[Tori acquired the skill [Omni-Directional Movement]]
[Tori acquired the skill [Hyper Burst]]
[Tori acquired the skill [Ink Creation]]
[Tori acquired the skill [Umbrella Mouth]]
[Tori acquired the skill [Luminosity]]
[Tori acquired the skill [Impact Absorber]]
[Tori acquired the skill [High Force Impact]]
[Tori acquired the skill [Gravity]]
[Tori acquired the skill [Diamond Scales]]
[The skill [Super Stealth] became [Super Stealth Level 2]]
[The skill [Constriction] became [Constriction Level 3]]
[The skill [Crush] became [Crush Level 2]]
[The skill [Matter Ingestion] became [Matter Ingestion Level 5]]
[Hinotori became level 76]
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