Bastien let out a sigh. It had been some hours since the baby kraken had gone off to a decent distance. He sighed, disappointed that what he assumed to be a worthy opponent was nothing more than a barking puppy dog.
He was blind, so he wasn’t really certain how his men were after the fight. He noticed that a decent number of them had died, and the separate gangs were mourning their losses. Still, he didn’t expect Sunalla to attempt to recover the princess. He couldn’t figure out what her plan was.
‘Did Sundale not inform her?’
He found himself thinking deeply about the issue. But a thunderous boom made him stop thinking.
“What happened here? Why does this place reek of death?”
A vicious growl sounded, sending waves in the water. Even with blind eyes, Bastien could see the owner of this voice. That was because she was blacker than the blackness that blindness cursed him with. Her tail flicked impatiently, demanding answers.
If Bastien could sweat, he was certain he would fill several buckets.
“T-The princess…”
He stuttered. Daxia looked towards the tower. The princess was no longer there. Her burning gaze returned to Bastien.
“What happened?”
“Atlanteans.”
“Atlanteans?! You lost to Atlanteans?! You?!”
In disbelief, her body started to tremble. Bastien was not certain how to respond to this. If he admitted to letting them go, he would be in trouble. And if he admitted to losing to them, he wasn’t sure how she would react. In such a dilemma, the best possible decision to make was to keep quiet.
Daxia was about to swim away, but Bastien spoke out, failing to understand something.
“Why?”
He muttered out, pausing Daxia in her tracks.
“Why are you getting involved in this?”
His question entered her ears.
“Why?”
Daxia repeated his question mockingly. Slowly, she turned her head back and grinned. To Bastien, this was nothing more than a black mass smirking eerily at him. It gave him chills down his spine. Leaving it at that, Daxia swam away faster than Bastien could keep up. He let out a sigh and looked back at the others.
They had stopped mourning the dead and were looking at Daxia. Some were growling, feeling quite angry by Daxia’s lack of care. Bastien noticed this quickly, but showed no emotion. He kept looking at that darker than black figure swimming away.
A fishman swam up to his side. This fishman was one of the leaders of the various gangs that lost the most members.
“Bastien-”
He was cut off by Bastien raising his hand to him.
“Before you say what you are about to say, do note that I will not hesitate to cut down any of you if you speak ill of her.”
He warned, unnerving the gang leader. Frustrated, the leader roared into the ocean and swam back to attend to his grieving members. The others noticed this and backed down, refusing to even attempt with him.
***
Day 46
In the end, I had to run away from them. It wasn’t as much as a fight as it was a thrashing. That Bastien guy was simply too strong. Even with a rank lower than the baby kraken, he managed to beat it up. Apparently, he was using his techniques, skills and area to the best advantage, which would explain why he was so confident originally. Luckily, he didn’t chase us the moment we started to withdraw.
We got the kraken back to its home, but it kept crying a lot because it lost a tentacle. A lot of black blood was lost, but it’s [Ultra Health Regeneration] came through. It managed to heal up and grow a new tentacle.
‘Sorry about today.’
I apologised to it just before we left the [Legendary Domain]. After having made the baby kraken my familiar, I considered taking on the quest, but according to the agent, my chances of survival after making it my familiar dropped to 5%. That was an abnormally massive drop, so I didn’t even venture. I wondered how it performed its calculations and was starting to consider if it was possible for it to go wrong. However, Akira confirmed for me that the agent wasn’t wrong.
‘NO. WORRY. SEE. YOU.’
It waved at me and I left the [Legendary Domain].
[You have left the [Legendary Domain]]
I activated my teleportation, my target being where Yokino was. The distance was quite massive, so it took away quite a bit of mana, but nothing that would hurt me in the long run. When I got to her side, I was surprised by a large person sitting on a bed rock.
She was undeniably the prettiest person I had seen in both my lives. Even the recent Zana was outdone by her. Her torso was that of a busty bikini model with sea shell bras. The scales on her tail were a mix of gold, blue, pink and green, with films of cloth wrapped around it. Her sea blue hair lied on her shoulder and her disgusted gaze terrified me though. Her irises were silver, but grew dull golden towards the pupil.
“Ew, is this what we were waiting for?”
Her horrible voice asked me. I immediately developed a certain hatred for her. She looked like the type of girls I hated most. The haughty type.
‘Ugh, is this the princess we were searching for?’
I asked Yokino. The spider came out and wrapped herself around me.
‘Yes. Exactly your type.’
She made a weird comment, before leaving me and swimming away.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She ignored me completely.
“You’re back.”
Sunalla swam over to my side. I nodded and for some reason, I could feel Kawaii trying to melt my skin.
“Good. We’ll take a break today and we’ll start on our journey to Atlantis. It’s a five-day trip.”
‘Hmm? A 5-day trip? Then why don’t we head out right now?’
I found it odd given how restless she was about us getting the princess back. Wouldn’t the best option be to start the trip early on especially if the distance was that far?
“I’m waiting for confirmation?”
‘Confirmation?’
“Yes. That’s not important now.”
She told me and swam towards the princess.
‘Oi, I need to know stuff about this or else I can’t help.’
“Don’t think too much about it.”
The princess grabbed Sunalla and brought her up to face level.
“Susu, that thing is ugly.”
She commented about me.
“Yes, yes, ignore it. It’s just till we get back home.”
‘Come on, Sunalla. If you won’t tell me anything, I won’t help you out anymore!’
I threatened. Sunalla glared at me from the corner of her eye and sent killing intent towards me.
“Your help was not necessary. Don’t forget who is doing you the favour here by allowing you to be here.”
She tried to make it seem like retrieving the princess would have gone smoothly even if I didn’t provide them with a distraction. I was starting to get offended, but decided to let it go till I could hear a snicker. Looking back, I found the princess smirking wickedly at me. Her gaze was just like that of the bullies from my previous life. Those at the top of the food chain that never suffered for anything in life and decided to abuse the weaker members.
“What are you looking at?”
The princess asked me after noticing my gaze. I was about to say something, but I just shrugged and swam away. Her name was Elriek Sox Den Anon Yorul III and she possessed the class [Orator] with the jobs [Governor] and [Singer]. I was surprised that there was a job called [Singer] in this kind of setting, but I had the agent explain everything to me.
The [Orator] class was the class that focused more on manipulation of people’s decisions than fighting like any would expect. Under the [Orator] class were several jobs you’d expect politicians and the likes to possess. The job [Governor] meant she was part of the administrative powers of a society and the job [Singer] implied that her voice could affect the [Status] or mind of whatever heard it. She was basically the embodiment of the kinds of things I hated the most.
‘Ugh, I’m considering dropping this entire quest now.’
‘Then let’s do just that.’
Akira agreed with me whole heartedly.
‘If it weren’t for Minerva, we could have done so easily.’
‘Hmm… do we really need to do this for Minerva? She hasn’t really done much for us.’
‘What do you mean she hasn’t done much for us?’
‘Hmm, I mean I just can’t see what benefit meeting her had for us. Sure, we didn’t die that night because of her, but other than that, if you didn’t stupidly fight something stronger than you, we would still be fine.’
‘Oi, oi. What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that there’s no reason to get yourself killed for someone you’ve not know longer than a month.’
‘Are you stupid? You should know that I can’t just…’
‘I don’t have your emotions, sorry. I can only see things through logical analysis. The best thing to do would be to develop our skills and familia so something like this will never ever happen again.’
Akira revealed something shocking. At least I now understood why he couldn’t understand my reasons for doing somethings. No… this had to be a lie. Akira had shown emotions before. Why he was lying right now made no sense to me. And asking him that would be pointless as well since he would only deny it.
I was about to call for the new guy, but…
DING!
[Notice: Sensing Incoming Wave of Chaos Energy]
The system perked up.
‘What?’
<<Alert: Teleport away immediately!>>
The agent warned. Normally I would ask why, but in times like this, it was best to act rather than ask.
‘Yokino! Sunalla!’
I called for them, but from the look in their eyes they had already noticed what I was saying. My body trembled unconsciously and Yokino was making a portal behind us. I blinked, but when I did, I saw something coming towards me in the darkness. I didn’t know how to describe it, but it was blacker than the darkness.
When I opened my eyes, there was still that dark spot approaching me quickly. I tried to look at it with [Analyst], but I received a surprising alert.
[The skill [Analyst] has been blocked by the target]
‘What?’
I was immediately petrified. I couldn’t remember anyone ever successfully blocking this skill completely. Even Goliath only hid some of his skills and noticed my scanning, but this was completely blocked.
[You have been inflicted with the status [Absurd Fear]]
[You will not be able to move till you overcome this fear]
I only heard the message; my eyes couldn’t shift from their sockets.
‘Maswtewr!’
For the first time since yesterday, Kawaii spoke while yanking my frozen body towards the portal. Still, I only just stared at the approaching figure. As it got closer, I could make out its features.
The creature was a shark. Well, it looked like one, but it was a fishman. Like some sort of ghost, its eyes left a trail of purple as it came towards me. It was cloaked in a transparent black aura, as its back fin cut through the water at an absurd speed. Its claws were raised for my neck and there was simply something about it that made me feel like giving up entirely.
‘How useless must you be?’
I felt something latch onto my back and pull me in harder than Kawaii did.
<A/N: I feel like I should have given this warning before we started this arc. Well, here it is.
WARNING: This arc is big. Like really big. Well, if you understand that, enjoy yourself. Please leave a comment or review to help in getting more readers! Also join the discord here: https://discord.gg/Ew44jhbVym or message me on discord here: Rados47#5271 to get invited>
