Day 62
Today started out a bit weird with Ulva running away from Grimm and Kara. She said she was tired of learning magic and wanted to hang out with Sylvie more.
I wasn’t sure how to take that since Sylvie was kind of busy with making the potions for the army. To cure her boredom, I offered to spend the day with Ulva. I originally had plans to go to the North to talk to its Tyrant, but that was sort of risky since I didn’t know what kind of character he was.
Everyone said he was like Goliath, being the second oldest Tyrant and all, but he was also a bit crueller than Goliath was. His territory was mountainous and very close to the Mystic Peaks, so I could sort of understand why he’d have to be stricter. Imagine facing wyverns on the daily. It’s more than enough to make someone turn into a brutal savage.
Ulva and Arisu, who hadn’t really interacted much with each other hit it off brilliantly. Their first topic was the fact that they both bore fangs. Upon closer inspection, I realised it was like I was going around with 2 vampire kids. Very creepy.
At least, Arisu now had someone of a similar mental level to play with. As old as she was, she really was a child. That was probably the cause for her form being so tiny. We went to check out the goblins. They really were being put on the brink of death by my shadows. I’d also given the command for wolves to stop hunting meals for the goblins.
They were to find their own food. This way, they’d be forced to grow faster. The first week they’ll receive the minimum amount of help from my shadows, but in the second week, they were on their own. They would have to come up with tactics to get their meals.
Oki wanted to argue over the danger, but Taiku restrained him as he agreed with me. Arisu was ready to rip him apart, but I smacked her in the head so she could calm down. She really was loyal to me. Over time, I decided I wanted to see Ulva’s progress for myself, so I took us to my dungeon.
There, I summoned the lowest rank shadow I had, a lesser shadow soldier, so she could fight. She was excited. Someway somehow, this cute brat had become a battle junkie. Hopefully she wouldn’t become too much of a problem in the future. I ordered the shadow to show some restraint against her.
She called for her scythe, then cleaved the shadow in half in one sharp move. I was impressed, but that was too easy for my liking. She was C+ so fighting a D+ monster wouldn’t really help me get an estimate in her true strength in an actual fight.
I summoned a Greater Shadow Demon Soldier. This beast was a C+ rank just like Ulva, so it should be a relatively equal fight. This time, the soldier was to go all out, but not kill Ulva.
Their fight begun properly and Ulva really was nothing to laugh about. The Greater Shadow Demon Soldier relied on his claws for fighting. With them, he struck fiercely, though Ulva managed to parry them easily with her scythe. She swung it around madly, giving the shadow little opportunity to get close.
The shadow was more creative than Ulva had planned though, using the darkness of the dungeon to his advantage. Ulva could sniff him out though. Something about the shadow stinking like old blood. I didn’t expect that, but she was able to ward off each and every single one of the shadow’s attacks. And to make matters worse, she fired off some magic icicles to keep the shadow pinned down.
Things weren’t looking good for the shadow as Ulva went in for the kill. What Ulva didn’t take into consideration was the possibility of the shadow being able to change size. He shrunk to avoid the attack, then created a fresh wound on her abdomen. She was flown back with enough force to crack the wall of the dungeon.
The shadow broke free from its temporary restraints and released a barrage of attacks on Ulva. Even if she was quick to recover, there was no way to complete avoid all the attacks. In my eyes, she had effectively lost, but her form begun to change into something more grotesque. Her hair turned from its usual mixture of black and white to complete grey.
Arisu’s ears perked up with interest for the first time since we started.
Easily, she grabbed the shadow. Her blood was floating in the air and she made them into needles, which stabbed into the shadow. For some reason, the shadow was unable to escape from her grasp. Its body shook violently, before exploding in a very bloody fashion.
The blood went back to Ulva and sealed up her wounds before reverting her back to her normal form. She rushed towards me and took off her mask to smile.
“How was that?”
She asked.
I quietly patted her on the head. Grimm’s training had been working wonders for the kid. And that form. [Lamprey Form] as it was called, was horrible scary. Her physical stats and blood magic control shot up by a high margin, which allowed her to easily deal with the shadow. At least, I knew the average human was no trouble for Ulva. The only issue was the people Grimm was talking about.
Arisu grabbed Ulva with excited eyes. Something about Ulva’s form looking very familiar. She herself wasn’t sure why she was happy seeing it, but I guess she had a high affinity towards Ulva. That was when the great me came up with the idea of making Arisu Ulva’s bodyguard/playmate/second teacher. She already had Kawaii, Grimm and Kara doing that, but none of them really had the appearance to look like her friend. I preferred someone who didn’t look dangerous at all, but could easily protect her.
Also, it was my own way of getting rid of Arisu for now without interrupting anyone’s work. Grimm could also train Arisu since she wanted to get revenge on Hefla and all that. If Ulva had someone to learn magic with, maybe it wouldn’t be so boring. Arisu had to potential to learn magic, so it should be an interesting experience for them. And the best part was that friends tended to rub off on each other. I was hoping Ulva rubbed off on Arisu and she became less violent, more likeable by the others.
Sometimes my genius was simply too much for this world.
I took them back to Grimm and explained the new situation to him. The vampire was excited at first, having Arisu who was as strong as him, to fight with in case of anything, but he got agitated by the fact that he had to train her. If anything, I’d just given him a sparring partner. He was to break the news to Kara and Kawaii himself.
Speaking of which, I hadn’t spoken to both of them in a while. Curious what they were up to, I went to investigate. Kara was in the library as always. I took the time to talk to her and see how she was.
She told me just how things were when I left off. It was kind of hard seeing everyone else in such bad conditions. And the only person she really communicated with, Aeri, had left off to go do something else. It made her feel sort of lonely, but since I did come back that one time to talk to her and Tsuna, she felt at ease knowing I hadn’t left her alone.
We spent the time talking about idle things like what she’d been eating, if she’d found anything interesting and so on. I was really bad at conversations so coming up with topics took a while and it would lead to an awkward pause.
Kara tried to bring up what happened in the dungeon, but I cut her off and asked her about the East. She was adamant on talking about the dungeon, and I couldn’t fathom why she wanted to. I thought she was embarrassed about it as was I. I didn’t hear her out. I forced the topic on the East and she lost out to my persistence.
She explained that the East was in a relatively poor state due to how her father handled its resources. Sure, the forest could regenerate, but there was a limit to how fast it could. He had been exporting more than the forest could heal up. Really, he was scum of the earth.
It was unknown how things were as of now since her father was personally scolded by Goliath, but now that Goliath was dead, that was unknown. Knowing her father, he would have probably killed a few people already and returned to exporting the goods.
The chances of him allying with me, who disgraced him, was very low. But I had to try something and since I actually had information on him unlike the Tyrant of the North, I wanted to take my chances. Kara was seriously against the idea, but she lost out to me again.
We would go see the East before the meeting with the leaders to see if Krull had any interest in it. I myself was interested in seeing the East.
I left off to find Kawaii and she was talking to my treant spawns’ spawns. Something about them calling her grandmother. I knocked some sense into her and took her back to Ulva.
DAILY ACHIEVEMENTS
[Fusion] + [Synthesis] = [Skill Alchemy] (Advanced Skill)
FAMILIA
[80 new goblins were born into the familia]
<A/N: Hmm, do forgive the disgusting goblins in the next chapter.>
