Story: I'm a Daemon, so what?
Disclaimer: I do not own the original setting.
Chapter 169: Return to Cardinal World
Solo Leveling arc, done. It went on way longer than I wanted it to initially, but I had a lot of things I wanted to write about, so I tried to do them all (wrong move). Led to the arc being a bit inflated, but hopefully I've learned from the experience for the next world trip.
To those who stuck around, thank you, and to those who didn't, it's entirely understandable and I still appreciate everything you all have done for me!
______________________________________________________________________
- Felix -
Well, that was anticlimactic.
I hovered above the calm ocean for a few more seconds, as I processed what happened, just watching the last of Cornu's aura traces fade out of existence.
The water still hissed from the residual holy energy, and faint distortions rippled across the horizon where our clashes had distorted space, but other than that, I had managed to mitigate most of the effects of our probably literal world-ending fight.
World-ending for this world at least. My skin still hissed slightly from the sheer holy energy in the air. Even his holy energy was at the Ultimate-level, and while I could prevent it from even touching me with Infinity, I wanted to examine his energy a bit.
It was certainly potent, and slightly more holy than even Hinata's holy energy, and she was a Divine Human and a True Hero. Plus, she had a massive affinity for holy energy too; one of the greatest in the Cardinal World, in my opinion.
That went to show just how holy the other Primordial Angels could potentially be as well. And from what I'd heard, the others would likely be stronger than Cornu.
Dino didn't count as his Harvest Festival essentially reversed his alignment.
"Guess that's that." I muttered as I waved my hand, repairing all the surroundings with Brahma, Lord of Creation.
After a couple moments, this portion of the world was back to how it was prior to my fight with Cornu. The barrier contained pretty much all the effects of our fight from spreading outwards to the rest of the world, but this tiny segment of it was pretty messed up until I fixed it.
There were a lot of dead animals, but I made sure to collect their souls during the fight and rebirthed them when I was fixing everything up.
I dissipated the illusions I had placed over myself, returning my Aura signature, my voice, and my appearance back to normal. "Man, I really thought he'd put up more of a fight. Primordial Angel, huh? More like Primordial tantrum. What a bum."
"Corn-y." I said aloud again with a grin. "Still funny." At the very least, calling him that seemed to piss him off quite a bit.
I felt an incoming Thought Communication from Megumin. "Milord! The Rulers are being a bunch of cry babies, one of them incarnated in those pesky vessels to check in with us. They thought the entire ocean was about to evaporate or something. Anyways, did you beat the guy already?"
"You could say that. Unfortunately, he ran away back to his dimension, but I imagine that he won't be back." I could sense a bit of his mental state when I pierced through him. Safe to say he would be traumatized, which was an odd thing for me to consider.
"Mou, I wanted to have a go at him!" Megumin said with some disappointment.
"To be honest, I don't think you missed out on much." Maybe Cornu's true body was more impressive, but that Split Body was just a bum. Some of his techniques did have potential though, at least if powered by way more energy, energy that he likely has in his main form.
The only thing that gave him a tiny chance of even challenging Megumin was the authority he had to elevate his existence to the Ultimate-level, and he didn't use that as well as he could have. Though his knowledge in regards to spells was certainly impressive, I'd give him that.
With that authority, I imagine that all the Primordial Angels probably had no need for Ultimate Skills at all, since anything they did would already be at the Ultimate-level. Even the True Dragons as Ultimate Lifeforms weren't quite able to do that. Though if they intentionally wanted to do so, then it was easy.
"Will you be coming back soon, Milord?" Megumin asked.
"I will. I'm just going to check the Chaos World a bit to see if I can find any more traces of the Phantoms."
"Mkay, see you soon, Milord!"
"See you soon."
With that I teleported myself to the Chaos World.
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"Ooh, what's this, Master~?" Lalatina asked as she held up the Cup of Reincarnation that I was examining.
It had been about a day since I slapped Cornu around and went to the Chaos World.
In the Chaos World itself, it took a bit of time due to my limited form, but I did eventually find some traces of spatial disturbances that led me to the area I believed the portal used to be. It seems that in order to bring someone as strong as Cornu to this world, the portal pretty much dissipated as it couldn't handle all that energy.
Up until now, all the Phantoms I'd encountered and heard about in this world were all rather weak. Cornu was the special one among them. Most didn't have much of an ego at all. They weren't even able to assimilate the identities of those they possessed very well.
The portal the Phantoms used was different from what I was used to. My Planeswalker sub-skill was rather special in its ability to create a portal that could safely carry me into other universes without risk as it was innately powered by myself.
So depending on how strong I was, it would accommodate for that by pulling from my reserves to make the portal strong enough to handle me. Whereas from my analysis, the portal the Phantoms made use of were a bit more finicky, which explained why they didn't just dump their strongest here from the start.
Querehsha had explained a bit more as well, and said that Scorpius, the Phantom "leader" in this universe was "feeding" hordes upon hordes of monsters to the portal. Essentially draining their lifeforce into it by force which slowly strengthened it.
But that didn't matter at this point, though it was something I'd keep more of an eye out for in my future world trips. Phantoms were clearly a bunch of parasites in this multiverse, plaguing multiple universes.
"That's one of the things I came to this universe for. It has some time abilities that lets it rewind this universe's timeline, though Spiritual Lifeforms keep their memories, but its main function is apparently meant to balance or reinforce a universe when it's first being created. I was told that it was created by Veldanava."
Lalatina looked at the Cup with renewed interest. "Oh?"
"It's pretty much out of time juice now though."
"Hmm, I see." She said as she threw the cup up in the air and caught it. Othinus and I had been analyzing the Cup in my Infinity Space all this time, but I generally had an easier time doing so with the item in front of me.
Though we hadn't gotten a whole lot more out of it, which made some sense. It was a Divine Artifact of Veldanava's; it was going to take me time to understand all of its underlying mechanisms.
Hell, its ability to rewind time at a universal scale was merely a side-effect of its power.
"Are we leaving soon?" She asked.
I nodded. "Yeah, I just want to see a couple of people off first, but I've done everything that I wanted to in this world, and we've been here for quite some time now."
I met some interesting people, had some fun-ish fights, got some new interesting data, and more. At least I got to learn that sealing my power by using a Parallel Existence did not, in fact, allow me to enjoy lower level fights more.
Alucard lied to me!
I wasn't going to try to do that anymore. I suppose I'd have to get my enjoyment in regards to fighting people from people that could actually give me a bit of a challenge, but it is what it is.
There were other things in life that I had to enjoy, even if fights against my equals became rare.
In fact, I'd say the level of ease at which I'd beaten the people I'd fought in this world would have been the same no matter if I was in this Parallel Existence or my main self. I would have used the same amount of power and similar techniques either way to test who I was fighting, so it was all pretty much pointless.
Oh well, c'est la vie.
Examining my actions in this world, I was able to see some other character traits I've worked hard to suppress come out as well. I was acting just like Granbell and Yuuki were in regards to thinking everything was in the palm of my hand.
I genuinely believe I was able to control everything. I was an overpowered Demon Lord with an overpowered Manas, but I'm sure that was the same line of thinking as Yuuki and Granbell.
I'd have to watch myself more closely from now on.
Now I was content to leave this world alone and let it figure itself out. Most of the people in power now were responsible, so they could manage. Probably. Plus, I powered Lucian up by giving him a name, though I did restrict the amount of growth I allowed him so he wouldn't get too strong right off the bat from the naming.
His potential certainly got expanded though. If he trained, I wouldn't be surprised if he grew to the level of being able to take on all the other Rulers at once, not that I thought it would ever come to that.
The effects of my fight with Cornu were also affecting this world. Apparently, some countries had satellites trained on my fight with him, and now videos of that fight were circulating the web.
Countries seriously had no information security. At least they caught my good side. There were other effects too, but I didn't bother with them. The Rulers had thanked me for dealing with that mess, and that was that. I already told them I'd be leaving today, and they seemed relieved about it, which was fair.
I had already said my goodbyes as well since I already knew I was going to be leaving today, though it was nothing special, as I wasn't particularly close to anyone in this world, not like I was with Satoru or anything. Although, I didn't try to really become friends with anyone.
I had only become acquaintances at most with the people I interacted with in this world. The sheer power dynamic between our two parties made things difficult on their end, but I didn't come here to make friends, I came here to have fun, learn new things, and just relax with everyone I brought over.
Though Jin-Woo did seem to take my words to heart, and was certainly carrying himself differently. I did wonder how that would change things for this world.
And speaking of Satoru, I did want to visit his world again, my "birth" world. I was a bit curious on how deeply I changed things for that world. Plus, I wanted to see the old man. It had been a while, but I knew I would see him eventually, which was why I was never in a hurry in the past.
Maybe I'd stop by for a day or so in the near future. I was curious if Satoru grew stronger as well. I'd also get to visit my mother's grave again.
Back then, I did think about displacing it and moving it to my Infinity Space, but in the end, that didn't feel right to me. She was born in that world. She deserved to be allowed to stay there rather than move around at my whims due to my selfishness.
That was ignoring the fact that her soul had long since been reincarnated already as well.
After some time, I eventually got up and stored the Cup back in my Infinity Space. I wasn't going to make much more progress now, and I was getting a bit antsy to get a couple things done back in the Cardinal World. I had decided to even give my direct subordinates Sacred Gears as well if I thought the Skill in question fit with them well enough.
That way, unlike a Unique Gift, they wouldn't have to pay any of the energy cost of forming a Skill, but they'd still be able to benefit and make use of the Skill I wanted them to have via the Sacred Gear.
Two birds, one stone. Saeko would be good with Footman's Amplifier, for example. I enjoyed and appreciated the vacation, but I'm pretty sure I was a bit of a workaholic. Not work in the same sense as what Arcueid did, but I always wanted to be making progress towards something.
In this case, it was strengthening my forces in preparation for whenever the Eastern Empire attacks, even if it wasn't necessary.
I didn't believe we would lose, I was confident enough to be sure of that, but a cleaner victory would be nice.
"Can you call everyone, Lalatina. I think it's time to leave."
"Hehe, okay! I'll finally get to rub in Arcueid's face that my minion is better than hers!" Lalatina said with a grin. She was of course talking about Querehsha and comparing her to Moss.
Those three were competitive over the weirdest things. I guess it was just ingrained into them at this point. It was all harmless, so I didn't mind.
After a couple of minutes, Lalatina returned with everyone that came with me to this world in tow, plus two more in Sirka and Querehsha.
The two of them were somewhat awkward around each other, so that made for an amusing pastime to watch, Querehsha acted all haughty around her, and Sirka more or less kept to herself or stuck with Milim. It was mostly the latter. Sirka was the most introverted of all of us and only seemed to be comfortable when Milim was around.
She latched on hard.
"We finally going back, Milord?" Megumin asked.
I nodded. "Anyone you want to say goodbye to? We can come back in the future if anyone wants to as well."
Everyone but Milim shook their heads, with Sirka and Querehsha not responding at all. The latter had no choice in the matter, anyways.
"Ooh, can we make all the sweets that I had here? I tried a bunch of good stuff that I never had before!" Milim asked as she bounced around.
I nodded. "We can. I took note of the sweets you seemed to like, plus Rimuru agreed to have his sweet chef teach you a bit on how to make them."
Milim grinned in excitement. "Yipee! Thanks Felix!"
"Kyuu!" Gaia squealed as he rubbed himself against Milim's cheek in excitement.
I just smiled at their overreaction.
No one else had anyone that they wanted to see. Megumin just sparred with a few people, and that was more just her passing on a few lessons due to her own amusement and nothing else, so she wasn't really close with them.
Milim was only close to Sirka and Thomas, and she had already said goodbye to Thomas yesterday.
She even offered him the opportunity to become one of her minions, something that few in the Cardinal World got, and many would literally kill their blood relatives for, but he rejected her.
Milim was sad, but she understood. It was a lot to ask for someone to move their entire life over to another world, leaving everything they knew behind. Plus, he was a prideful person too. Submitting to Milim would also be tough for him, even if he knew she could beat him with her pinky.
"Hmm, let's go then."
Querehsha didn't have any minions she wanted to bring along with her. In her own words, none of them would be of use to me, and I agreed. I already had enough underlings to take care of. I didn't want or need more, at least not in a large quantity. One or two here and there was the most I would accept.
Between Rimuru, Guy, and I, we had pretty much stripped the Daemon Realm dry of any and all Daemons with even a lick of potential.
If she wanted more bugs, there were plenty similar creatures in the Cardinal World for her to tame.
Though how Querehsha was acting now was a rather large shift from how she was acting originally. Before, she seemed cautious and had some longing towards me, or rather what I made her feel (oopsie).
I had quickly realized why I was feeling deja vu in regards to how I recruited Querehsha. It was rather similar to how I recruited Lalatina, in that I fought her, and accidentally brought her an unreal amount of pleasure. At least Querehsha reacted differently from Lalatina.
I only needed one Lalatina, after all.
Now Querehsha was playing the part of a loyal subordinate. The longing was still there, but there was more to it now. She didn't know I could sense her emotions, but I was rather curious about what she was planning. Lalatina also had her own plans with Querehsha, so I was just along for the ride at this point.
Querehsha's emotions weren't traitorous exactly, but she was still going to try and take advantage of me for sure, not that I minded.
If she grew stronger, it was better for me, as she would always be bound to me, whether she wanted to or not. That was just the nature of the relationship we currently held, and one she agreed to on the condition that Lalatina spared her life.
It probably wasn't a very nice thing to do, but eh, I was a Demon Lord, Lalatina was a Primordial Daemon, and Querehsha was a pretty bad person herself, so I didn't feel guilty about it at all.
I snapped my fingers creating a portal back to the Cardinal World, specifically Milim's territory first to drop her off. I also wanted to give Middray the sacred gear I had developed for him, as thanks for all he'd done for me.
Even excluding him mentoring Raiden and teaching her everything he knew, and that too without holding a thing back, he had also helped me in the past. He used to be my sparring partner of choice since I couldn't really learn much from fighting Milim due to how overpowering she could be back when I was a Daemon Duke.
It wouldn't be wrong to say that he helped develop my entire fighting style, and I was rather curious what he could do with a sacred gear with the power of Amplifier in it. He was already a beast that could fight in the same class as True Demon Lords and True Heroes.
"Come on Sirka, I need to introduce you to Frey! Hehe, I'm sure she'll like you!" With that Milim, immediately dragged Sirka through the portal, ignoring what I had told her earlier about the process likely being straining for Sirka.
I imagine that Sirka would be "registered" into the Voice of the World as a resident of the Cardinal World in the same way otherworlders were. There likely wouldn't be any evolutions, but it would still be disorienting as Sirka was adapted to the different power system.
Milim told me that she also planned to name Sirka, just as I planned to do for Querehsha.
Recruiting from other worlds really was convenient in regards to finding potential future powerhouses. Even Luminous benefitted from this, though not on the same level as Milim did.
I'm sure she'd find someone good eventually though. I did plan to bring her along on future trips too, after all.
"Come on, let's go." I told the rest. "Lalatina, you're responsible for Querehsha."
"Yes, Master!"
With that, all of us walked through the portal, returning to the Cardinal World and leaving the world of Solo Leveling behind for the time being.
Once we entered, I immediately dispelled my Parallel Existence and swapped my consciousness over to my main self. I kept my promise to use that form in the world of Solo Leveling, and I probably was never going to do that again as there was no point in it.
Though Parallel Existence was still an incredibly useful Skill, I couldn't send a body made with it far from me, at least not without there being consequences. But even in the midst of a fight, throwing out a random Parallel Existence could serve as a decent distraction. And in those kinds of fights, even a minor deviation in focus could be catastrophic.
Lalatina and Megumin seemed to be enjoying the different atmosphere of this world, whereas Querehsha's energy circulation was going haywire as her energy was automatically guided to help form a Skill.
I placed a hand on her shoulder and smoothened the flow of her energy down, guiding the energy into the proper state needed so that the energy could fuel the Skill-creation that was going on inside of Querehsha.
After a moment, she calmed down and regained control over herself. "Wh-What was that? What happened to me!?" She asked in a shaky tone of voice, probably the most panicked I'd seen her since I showed her how helpless she was if either Lalatina or I wanted to do something to her.
I raised a brow. "Lalatina didn't tell you?"
"Oops?" Lalatina said as she stuck her tongue out.
I rolled my eyes. "She can explain it to you now. I'll name you once you have a better understanding of the nature of this world." I said while giving Lalatina a look that said "get to it".
She pouted but pulled Querehsha to the side, so I returned my attention to Milim who was dealing with Sirka. Similar to what I did with Querehsha, she was helping Sirka's energy flow smoothen while Skills were developed. The flow wasn't smooth in the first place because both Querehsha and Sirka began panicking as their Skills took shape within them.
I really wondered why Veldanava made Skills only a phenomenon local to this universe. Skills generally were scaled based on computational power, magic power, and total output, so I was curious to see how much stronger Querehsha would be after I named her.
Though I didn't have a very good idea about Querehsha's computational power, as that was entirely separate from EP, but no less important. In fact, it might be more important than total energy reserves.
After a few moments, I sensed Middray and Frey both quickly approaching. I had teleported us into Milim's personal study so they were quite close by.
The door burst open and both Frey and Middray came rushing in.
"Milim!" Frey said as she sighed in relief. "I'm glad you're back." She said with a smile, then her eyes went to Sirka. "And who is your new friend?" Frey asked with narrowed eyes.
She wasn't jealous of Sirka or anything. No, she seemed more worried than anything else.
- Frey -
She stared at the girl that Milim was next to with narrowed eyes. She wasn't upset that Milim brought someone new back with her from another world. No, she was more worried than anything else.
Milim had a good heart. Frey didn't want that to be taken advantage of. It was partially why she had chosen to become Milim's minder of sorts, though Frey knew that it was Milim who allowed their relationship to continue as it was. She truly liked Milim and was wholly loyal to her.
"Who is your new friend?" She asked politely.
Milim beamed at Frey, making her smile. Milim's energy was always energizing. Gaia flew over to her and gently cuddled up against her. Frey smiled as she patted Gaia. She always had an affinity for winged-creatures, and that showed in how much Gaia took to her.
It was hard to associate that unstoppable Chaos Dragon to the cute Dragon flying around her now.
"She's my new friend. She's going to be one of my minions, just like you!" Milim said with a laugh.
Frey's lips twitched at being referred to as a "minion". Though it wasn't wrong per se, but she was still a Demon Lord once upon a time, and was still getting used to her new status. She blamed Felix for introducing that word into Milim's vocabulary, as Milim in the centuries Frey had known her, she had never used that word until Felix appeared.
Frey just sighed. She wasn't sure what would happen when Milim told her she'd be going to another world with Felix to have "fun".
Leaving her seat of power for a long time could have possible negative consequences. Even Frey herself only left her kingdom to tend to Milim, and there was a reason no Demon Lord did such a thing until now, but Frey couldn't bring herself to rain on Milim's parade since she seemed so excited.
So she decided to prioritize Milim's happiness and hope that she wouldn't be gone long. The reputation of The Destroyer, Milim Nava alone tended to be enough to protect anything and anyone associated with her, but Frey couldn't help but worry.
Now she was suspicious of her new "tag along". She knew that Milim could at times be excessively friendly and liked to act at her whims, but Frey didn't want Milim to be taken advantage of. So it seems she would have to do her duty as Milim's minder to make certain of that.
She had done such a thing numerous times already in the past, even before Frey had officially resigned from the Ten Great Demon Lords. She had even done something similar with Felix, even if he may not have realized it.
The Aura the being was releasing immediately told Frey that she was strong, strong enough to be a threat to Frey, but she would still do her job; that was why she was there.
And if she was wrong, then that would be great. Despite not needing more raw power, it was always good to have more powerful subordinates as a show of power and status.
- Felix -
Frey was totally overthinking things. Oh well, not my problem.
"Lady Milim, I am glad to see you return without harm, not that I believed anyone is capable of harming you in the first place!" Middray said as he walked up to Milim.
"Middray!" Milim said as she glomped him in a hug. "Look, look! My new minion is strong isn't she!?"
Middray hugged Milim back as he gave Sirka a once over. The two of them had always been close, to the point Milim seemed to treat Middray as more of an uncle than anything else, something she herself told me. The guy had been watching over her for 2,000 years.
Sirka herself seemed to be a bit embarrassed. She avoided looking at anyone. Her introverted nature was showing again.
"Hmm, she seems to have potential." Middray said after a moment with an approving nod. "I look forward to working with you as one of Lady Milim's subordinates." Middray said firmly as he offered her his hand.
By this point, Sirka had gotten more accustomed to civilized customs, so she took his offered hand and shook it without any fanfare.
With their introduction done, I spoke up. "While I have you here Middray, do you mind if we speak in private real quick?" Giving him the gift now would be a bit mean since I didn't prepare any such thing for Frey. We weren't particularly close, but it cost me nothing to not intentionally be a dickhead.
Middray raised a brow and looked at Milim who nodded with a grin.
"Very well then."
I turned to Lalatina and Megumin. "You two stay here for a couple minutes, I'll be back." Once I said that, I grabbed Middray by the shoulder and teleported him a little ways away from Milim's palace.
"Let me give you this, at least if you're fine with having it." I told him as I held up a glowing orb in front of him. It was the sacred gear in as physical a form as I could get it.
Though I wasn't entirely certain if Middray would even accept. Up until this day, he had always trained his physical body, and battlewill. Maybe he didn't want any Skills or Skill-like things at all.
Middray looked at the sacred gear with narrowed eyes. "What is that? I can sense something odd about it, but I am afraid I am incapable of understanding more."
With that, I explained what exactly the version of a sacred gear I had recreated was. I made sure to tell him that he would lose no energy of his own, which happened with the traditional formation of Skills, and that he would still need to master its power on his own.
The sacred gear would just give him initial access to make use of Amplifier. Once he had it, it was up to him what he made of it.
After a moment Middray smiled. "Even borrowed power can be made one's own. Since you have prepared such a gift for me, then I will not reject it. Thank you, Lord Felix." He dipped his head.
I waved him off. "It's no problem. It's the least I can do for you."
Middray nodded. "Very well, I will not say anything more then."
With that, I practically slapped the sacred gear into Middray. It was designed to automatically slot into his soul. It wasn't anything as solid as a real Unique Skill. It could likely be yanked out of him by someone experienced enough, but it would do for the time being.
Middray gasped as the information of Amplifier flooded his mind and the sacred gear latched itself onto his soul.
"If you want to experiment and test it out and Milim is busy, you can come by my territory. I recruited a new subordinate that I'm sure you'll get along with."
I did wonder how Damrada was doing under Arcueid's care. Last I heard from her, he was operating for her in the Western Nations, mostly gathering information and organizing the new Council of the West.
Middray nodded. "Very well. In that case, I will impose upon you."
"Don't worry about it. Let me know if anything feels off about the sacred gear I gave you. I did test it a bit, but it doesn't hurt to be careful."
If there were no issues in Middray's use of the sacred gear, then I'd likely end up mass producing and distributing them to my military. That would be a qualitative increase in combat power, even though most would only be able to handle the power of an Extra Skill-level sacred gear at most.
Maybe I was going overboard, but that was better than them not being strong enough since I did plan for my military to have some sort of role in the upcoming war.
Or else their existence would kind of be wasted. I'm sure none of them would take it kindly that they had been training their asses off, only for their hard work to never be appreciated. They should be able to handle the Eastern Empire's mostly mortal army hopefully, while everyone else handled the rest.
As for Middray's sacred gear, if I wanted to, I could connect the sacred gear to Brahma, Lord of Creation as that was what I used to make the sacred gear. If I did that, I'd hold a similar level of control that I held over Damrada, but there was no reason to do that to a person like Middray. I trusted him and I didn't want to abuse that trust that he gave me by accepting without a second thought.
"I will." He nodded as the Fighting Spirit began to gather around his fist. Knowing what he wanted to do, I took a step back. He began to grin as more and more Fighting Spirit gathered around his fist.
Amplifier would allow Middray to amplify the momentum of pretty much anything he could put his mind to, even energy.
Middray's grin sharpened as his fighting spirit flared, wrapping his arm in blazing light. When he punched forward, Amplifier did the rest, the momentum was multiplied, and the air cracked from the boom his movements alone caused.
The wind and shockwave alone uprooted the trees and boulders around us and cracked the earth around us, which was saying a lot for the Cardinal World. From what I could sense, he was barely even putting anything into his fist.
His fighting spirit-clad fist exploded outwards as the power in his fist was amplified. I watched with a smile as his punch essentially detonated the entire area around us for miles to come.
It was a good thing that there was pretty much nothing in this area of Milim's territory.
Once the effects of his punch cleared, he was looking at his fist with an impressed look. "Quite impressive. I only used 1% of my total power, and yet that was around what I am capable of doing with 3%." He said with an approving nod. "Once again, thank you Felix."
"No worries. Why don't we head back now?" And with that, we returned back to the others.
By the time I was back, both Querehsha and Sirka had seemed to adjust to the process of coming to this world. They weren't like Kanae who, all things considered, was an inexperienced Human without any power of her own.
Querehsha and Sirka were just minorly transformed when entering this world in comparison, if you could even consider acquiring Skills as a transformation.
Once Middray and I were back, we said our goodbyes with a promise to meet again later. Milim had to introduce Sirka to this world, and probably name her, so she didn't throw a fuss about me leaving.
Then with that, the rest of us finally returned to my territory. It felt like it had been a while, but it really hadn't. Still, it was nice to be back. In the end, I considered this world to be my home.
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I made my way towards where Lalatina and Querehsha were. Lalatina had been teaching Querehsha the ropes of what her role would be from now on. We didn't really need more spies, and it would be a bit of a waste to have someone as strong as Querehsha as just a spy, so Querehsha was going to be taking on some of Lalatina's own duties.
Managing the information that was received, and complying reports for myself, Arcueid, and Lalatina.
It had been a couple days since I had returned to this world, and I had mostly just been getting up to date with things that I'd missed.
"My Lord, thank you for coming to see me." Arcueid said as I entered her office.
"No worries. You said you had something for me?"
I had already seen Arcueid since I'd gotten back, of course, but she hadn't talked business.
Arcueid nodded. "Yes, I wished to inform you of the details regarding the arrangement with Lord Dagruel."
I sat down as she served me some wine. "Go ahead."
"As you decided upon, this nation has agreed to provide various resources, mostly food and water. And in return, we will receive the valuable ore that grows beneath the Holy Void that Dagruel and his people call home."
"That sounds perfect. Good job arranging this, Arcueid."
"It was no trouble, my Lord. They may not have seemed it, but they were rather desperate for aid. And seeing our no strings attached hand, they had no reason to reject us."
I shook my head. "You say that, but I'm sure even the most skilled of diplomats would have had trouble navigating things with someone like Glassord."
Arcueid smiled. "Fufufu, I will accept your praise then. Glassord did reiterate that Lord Dagruel wished for you to visit him."
I nodded. "I'll do so soon."
I was a bit curious about how his territory looked with what Milim did to it. That, and I was curious about the Heaven Tower.
Other than that, I also spoke with Rimuru to let him know that Milim was still interested in the cooking lessons, so he was going to set that up. I was quite curious to see what sort of sweets Milim could make. She was a genius and hardworking so I'm sure it would turn out great.
If even Saeko could learn to cook, then Milim can make sweets. Though she was probably busy at the moment with Sirka's Snow Elves.
A couple days after we got back, I went back to the world of Solo Leveling with Sirka to essentially move the entire Snow Elf country over to Milim's territory in the Cardinal World.
Thankfully, Milim had plenty of open land, and it wasn't hard for me to use Brahma, Lord of Creation to permanently alter the weather of where the Snow Elves settled. Who would have thought they preferred the cold?
Rimuru also mentioned that Chloe's control-training was at a point that she wanted to fight me. Less to show off, though, which is why she wanted to fight me originally, or at least that's what I thought. It was probably to impress Rimuru or something, but now she just needed someone to push her in a fight to serve as a stimulus.
Rimuru said she'd fought Veldora as well, and that their match ended with Veldora's victory, which wasn't surprising with how much work Veldora had been putting in. Plus, his Probability Manipulation was broken. Despite that, Chloe still wanted to fight me apparently, which I was fine with.
She'd serve as a good opponent to test out some more of my time-related abilities on. Maybe even Time Stop as my mastery of that could still be improved upon, and time stop was something that you needed to actually repeatedly use if you wanted to master it.
And at the very least, I wasn't opposed to helping her grow stronger. She was an ally in the end, and I believed she'd remain that way. One didn't go through thousands upon thousands of loops to keep us all alive only to completely flip up on that. Though I didn't doubt that she'd follow Rimuru rather than me, and that was fine.
Our fight was planned for in a couple days, enough time for Rimuru to make preparations to reinforce The Dungeon, since if I went all out, I could easily cut through at least a few dozen floors, let alone what Chloe and I could both do. Because of that, heavy reinforcement was needed.
Rimuru also told me how the monsters born from my aura were doing, but that was a minor thing all things considered. I was mostly just waiting for the day any of them developed even a hint of an ego, as without that, they were little robots who followed preprogrammed actions inside of them.
I didn't truly consider them my children in the first place, nor did anyone really who created monsters with their aura, but I was still curious about what they could become.
That was all I really talked to Rimuru about. It wasn't as if it had been a while since we met, anyway.
After that, I checked in with Hinata who seemed to be mostly focused on getting Kanae up to speed about how this world worked, as well as getting her strong enough to actually be useful. According to Hinata, she was making remarkable progress.
Other than that, we just talked about more casual things, like how some of her training was going and what kind of dates Hinata would be interested in for the future. Hinata even said that she wanted to make plans for the next date, so I was looking forward to that.
Overall, I hadn't done a whole lot the past few days, but that's honestly how most of my days went. It was only occasionally where I had super productive days, otherwise I mostly just trained, had sex, went on dates, and hung out with friends.
A pretty awesome life, if you asked me.
Before long, I arrived at the headquarters of the department of my kingdom that Lalatina led. It was on the grounds of my palace.
As I entered, Lalatina immediately called out to me. "Master~!" Querehsha was standing submissively behind Lalatina, and also greeted me with a seductive smile and a deep bow. "My Master~"
I rolled my eyes at her clear exaggeration. It wasn't that she wasn't loyal to me, because she was, mostly because she respected the strong, and knew either I or Lalatina could swat her like a bug, but there wasn't any deep loyalty cultivated in Querehsha. Not yet, and maybe not ever.
But she was Lalatina's pet project, so I was content to let her do her thing, and Lalatina most certainly had a plan. Knowing her, it was probably at least partially sexual in nature.
During the time we had been back, Lalatina had been giving Querehsha the run down about this world and how it worked, including its power system.
Querehsha developed a powerful Unique Skill as well, one that was likely capable of operating on the Ultimate-level, similar to the sin-series Skills as well as a handful of other Skills.
Her Unique Skill was more or less the combination of all of her abilities, optimized and fit into Skill form, as well as somewhat strengthened according to Querehsha herself.
The Unique Skill itself came with a few sub-skills. Thanks to Othinus, it had the entire starter kit; that being Thought Acceleration and All of Creation, which according to Querehsha had already increased her combat potential; something she learned in a fight with Lalatina. Though she still got stomped.
Other than that, it had sub-skills like Insect Domination, Magic Insect Creation, Magic Insect Domination, Poison Refinement, Spatial Manipulation, Multilayer Barrier, Ultraspeed Action, which greatly enhanced her momentum, as well as a few more smaller things that took the form of Intrinsic Skills and Extra Skills.
Whether she'd get an Ultimate Skill was up to her, but even without one, Querehsha would certainly be absolutely terrifying to fight.
She could literally make someone inhale a host of parasites or parasite eggs, and then just have them erupt from inside her victim, or she could revive bodies into mindless undead with parasites, with the parasites being capable of using some of their host's power.
I wasn't quite sure what I could have Querehsha do at first, but Lalatina saw some serious potential where I didn't.
In fact, out of all the Monarchs, Querehsha was probably the best one I could recruit, as the rest didn't really have any unique aspects that would add something to my forces, whereas Querehsha had her bugs, making her an excellent spy, and she could fight in unorthodox ways. Plus she was hot, which was a positive.
Overall, she was a great recruit.
Other than Skills, Querehsha learned about everything else as well, like the Demon Lords, Heroes, the various kingdoms, monsters, and just the general state of the world, as well as what my interests were and what my place in this world was.
There was a lot of information to go through to be honest, but Lalatina could be rather competent and dedicated when she wanted to.
It was a bit heartwarming to know she did it all for me. She really was a good girl.
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Author's Note:
Sup everyone, back with another chapter. Felix and co finally return back to the Cardinal World! The solo leveling arc stretched on a little bit longer than what I initially wanted, but in the end I believe it added to the story, and I hope you, the audience, feel the same way.
Now there are a couple smaller arcs I want to do in the Cardinal World before the next world jump, which will comparatively be way shorter, hopefully only one to two chapters.
Also, Querehsha can really be pretty scary when you think about it. Either that, or the thought of eggs hatching inside of me and eating me from the inside out just freaks me out.
Anyways, thanks for reading, peace!
Thanks to @Salante and @Flowerman for beta'ing this chapter.
Last bit of editing -Omnax
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