Day 72
I received good news. My dungeon core had awakened, meaning it now had a conscience. One that I could talk to. I was so happy, but decided to put that off for after I had finished this current mission.
When morning came, the cyclops leader decided to gift us with a breakfast buffet of all sorts of cyclops delicacies. It came as a surprise that he could have so much food prepared as soon as he requested for it.
Turns out one thing the cyclops valued more than the minerals they mined was food. They had several stalls with chefs, providing enough food for every single one of the villagers. The mining was simply a means to make a wide array of items ranging from armour, to weapons to even bolts and nuts.
This is a secret and he didn’t even tell me, but when I read his mind, it turns out that he had been selling some resources to the demons behind everyone’s back. In exchange, the demons would provide him with sea food from their ports and some of the demonic beasts that roam their lands.
He really was the chatty type up in his head, but fortunately he didn’t know that I could read minds. At least, now I knew the best way to ensure we remained allies was through food. However, the location of the West didn’t allow me to provide the kind of food he was looking for. Unless…
Anyway, he boasted of how excellent his chefs were so we spent a good while eating. I think I regretted that decision a lot, as it was the first time I’d eaten till my hunger disappeared. That only meant I’d need more food the next to satiate myself.
Afterwards, I requested to see the smithy and how they worked. He wasn’t too keen on showing it to me since I had nothing of equal value to offer to him. Our only common ground was the fact that we wanted to keep our people safe from those who would do harm.
So rather than rushing things and creating a new enemy, I asked for the location of the wyverns. There were apparently 5 tribes of wyverns all around the mountain, but they answered to the King of wyverns who lived at the top. Relatively close to the griffin tyrant’s abode.
If we wanted an alliance, we needed to talk to him and no one else. However, he was sort of a tricky opponent. It’s been quite literally a decade since anyone last saw him, but we were well aware of his presence in the North.
The wyverns kept a strict status quo that was unmatched and by all rights, he should have been the one the chose as tyrant of the North. Take away the tyrants, and without a doubt, he was the strongest creature in Larm. So now that Goliath was gone, seemed like the best time for him to take over.
With the way the wyverns had been quiet, there was a high chance he was planning something against Sora. If that was the case, we needed to be in on it.
I called for Ulva’s wyvern. She named it Dharm. That took quite a bit of mana from her, but he was registered as a servant once that was done. It would seem that if a family member recruited someone, they’d become a servant rather than a minion and they’re commanding officer was of course, the one who made them their servant.
Dharm belonged to one of the lesser wyvern tribes. They were weak individually, so they all flew in packs whenever hunting. However, they still ended up losing to Ulva and the griffins. Dharm was completely overwhelmed by the intense might she showed and decided to beg for his life when all his comrades were killed.
I can’t say I really liked his character. Watching his closest friends die and begging to live at the end of the day. It reminded me of… well, me.
Now those are some depressing thoughts.
Back to the matter at hand, Dharm knew where the Wyvern king was. As a matter of fact, every single wyvern knew where the king was. They simply wouldn’t ever try going there since there was a nasty rumour flying about that the wyvern king eats other wyverns.
If that was truly the case, we had a theory that this wyvern king wasn’t actually a wyvern. The reason no one had seen him in over a decade was most likely due to him evolving into something that wasn’t really a wyvern. But if that was the case, it still wasn’t a good enough reason for him to not come out of the shadows.
Maybe he was scared the wyverns wouldn’t follow him for not being a wyvern? Maybe there was something keeping him at the top of the mountain? I wouldn’t know till I actually saw for myself.
I ordered for Dharm to take me to the wyvern king. He told me he wouldn’t take orders from anyone but Ulva and when I read his mind, it was obvious he was trying to use her as some sort of shield seeing how I adored her.
To use his shield against him, I had Ulva make him do as I say. She happily obliged, that is if I let her go along with me. She was still going on about making herself useful to me, but there was nothing for her to prove. She didn’t seem to understand that and it was starting to get annoying.
I could have shadows scout the entire mountain, but that would take longer than it needed to. In the end, I agreed to her terms. I originally wanted to set off that very moment, but Ulva, Arisu and Maou were having fun exploring the village. It was so advanced and far apart from the West that they couldn’t help but be excited by everything.
In the end, I caved to their wishes. I mean, it’s not like missing just one day would change anything, right?
DAILY ACHIEVEMENTS
Day 73
Early in the morning, Julian requested for Maou. He wanted to begin the kitten’s training as early as possible for him to take over in the next 6 months.
Maou didn’t want to, but I had no real purpose for him on this trip, so I threw him at Julian.
We moved out immediately, leaving only Grimm behind since he didn’t want to go through the cold areas again.
I was starting to see Grimm as a walking contradiction. He hated oppressive villains, yet worked with Percy McAllister and the sub-circle. He hated the cold, but his affinity was cold. He claimed to that he didn’t really care about anything but himself, but I heard he’s been trying his hardest to make friends with everyone back in the West.
Even now, that he said he wasn’t interested in following us, I could sense him trailing behind us from where he assumed was out of my range. 120 metres from us. I don’t know when he found that limit, but it would seem he was much keener than I’d expected.
Unfortunately for him, with my indirect lordship over Larm and title of one of the kings of Larm, my powers whenever I was in Larm had been boosted drastically. I could sense everything within 1 kilometre of where I was.
Luckily the headaches that came with that were handled by the agent. If there was anything dangerous, I would be informed.
It took a while, but we got to a point on the mountain. There was a path leading up, that seemed to have been unnaturally made. It was as if a dragon burnt up a path, which meant we were on the right way.
Dharm said that was as far as he could go. I couldn’t blame him too, because the moment I crossed the line he drew, there was a heavy pressure surrounding the area. It didn’t really cause any effects to me since I’d faced much more terrifying enemies, but it was still there.
I looked at the wyvern that was about to piss its pants and ordered him to take Ulva back. She was enraged by my sudden “betrayal”, but I laughed it off and her wyvern took her flying. With that, I set off toward the top with Arisu alone.
Grimm had stopped before the line and was just standing there. I didn’t know if he was going to follow us or Ulva, but whatever choice he made didn’t really change things for me.
After that, it was a few minutes of flying with Arisu on my back before we arrived at a place that had several wyvern bones and burnt leather.
The sound of flesh being ripped apart filled my ears as I descended. A small figure was crouching, apparently eating. They threw a big bone far away and kept eating. They were naked and skinny to the point their bones were uncomfortably visible.
Arisu’s ears perked up the moment we landed about 50 feet from the figure. She was shivering and her mind was screaming “Run!”. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was here, I was certain she’d be speeding down the mountain at light speed.
Even I took a gulp as it had somehow evaded my earlier scans of the area.
“Power. Food. Hungry. Need more. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power. Hungry. Hungry. Greed. Hungry. Need. More. Hungry. Power. Power. Hungry. Need. More. Need. Power. Hungry. Hungry. Food. Food. Gold. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power.”
It muttered such things. What I found interesting was its yellow skin and the golden chains that bound its wrist and legs.
Even then, the scariest part about this entire situation was the corpse.
[Name: Mandrake]
[Species: Great Fire Drake King]
[Status: Dead]
[A king among the powerful lesser dragon species, Drake. They are rare, but a Great Fire Drake King is capable of matching a dragon youngling in terms of fire power. Their scales are one of the hardest known materials and used in forging legendary armour. Their fire breath melts rock and they are said to be so powerful their aura spreads for a large distance, warding off weaker creatures.]
That was the corpse of the original wyvern king.
And, no matter how hard I tried to scan this new presence, all I got was
[Error! Error!]
This, was possibly the first time I’d ever received an error of this level from scanning something.
‘Arisu. I’m going to teleport us out of here. Just don’t freak out. It seems to not have noticed us.’
As soon as I said that, our shadows swallowed both of us up in an instant. Our next destination was the cyclops village where Ulva was currently headed to.
At least, that was what I thought, till when I was spat out in front of the yellow person.
“Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.”
It appeared in front of my face and glared into my eyes with its yellow eyes, muttering “mine” over and over again. To my side, Arisu had been wrapped up in their golden chain and was hanging above my head.
“Ever heard of personal space!?”
I kicked the yellow person as hard as I could, while also shooting a thread for Arisu in an attempt to bring her back to my side. That was a failure though and yellow man skidded to a stop.
He looked at me and started screaming.
“Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Power! Hunger! Gold! Gold! Power!”
He clawed his face, and his power exploded while he threw what I presumed to be a tantrum. The energy he was releasing reminded me of Daxia’s chaos energy, but weaker. Somewhat diluted, but still terrifying nonetheless.
But in a sense, he was scarier than Daxia because of how unhinged he was. Still, with chaos energy that weak, I couldn’t be scared or Daxia would be disappointed.
I drew my sword and pointed it at the yellow man.
“I guess I’ll call you Mine then, since that’s all you shout. Return the loli, or face my steel.”
