I woke up and instantly fell down. Another dizzy spell. It was happening quite frequently now. Did I get a concussion? Do I need to visit Healerguy?

Yeah, that is never a good option. I might take that option if I had to choose between dying or visiting him. Although death would probably be less annoying than him. I applied the cosmetic illusion to my hair and tails and stepped outside my hut.

I chatted with some nature spirits. I asked them if they knew a spirit by the name Cee Horze or Starbolt. None of them seemed to know. They did mention that a very obnoxious dog spirit had appeared recently. I feigned ignorance about this obnoxious dog spirit. I had noticed something off with the dimensional fabric. The vixens were just looking at it and doing nothing. Are they just listening to Neia and leaving this be? It had opened up quite recently and small so I reversed time on it, torched the ugly orange scar and kinda fixed it. I collected more of the strange rocks.

The vixens had to go back to help their other sisters running the Floating Fire Lotus. It seems that it had set Dumbass on fire and that they had a good laugh. I wish I could’ve been there to see that.

The elves also were preparing to return to their forest.

Aww is everyone going home already?

An elf perkeed his ears and turned towards Raishin. “You can join us in our journey, you’re always welcome to our village.”

Ooh, can we go Greg?

You will have to ask Agnis, he’s the leader of team Hourai.

Ugh.

Raishin ran at me with a hopeful look on his face. Hey Agnis! Can we go?! Maybe we can find you a fitting girlfriend there!

How about I consider going there if you stop this girlfriend project of yours?

So, no elven village then, where are we going next then?

Wow… I didn’t expect that response.

Hehe, you two are more important to me then some random chicks.

Didn’t you sell us out to Charlize and Cecilia in Boshi town just for some female attention?

Uhh, I was young and in a dark place, I’m better now!

Hmm, I don’t know if I buy that, do you Greg?

Yeah, he hasn’t changed since then!

The elves left and so did we. We looked back on the permanent mark we had left on the continent. We decided to head north and visit the city of Fahjin. Greg was against visiting another city at the ocean because things didn’t work out the last time we visited the ocean. Raishin and I ignored Greg and went to Fahjin.

What is this place's specialty Greg?

I don’t know. I’m not too familiar with places this far up northeast.

We just have to prepare ourselves. We’re on the northern part of the continent so slavery is quite common here. This city also is located relatively near the elven forest.

I thought about my encounter with Sylvana. We might encounter elves that weren’t as lucky as her.

Hmm, this part of the continent is quite strange yeah, it still has slavery but since we’re this far east there is acceptance towards non-humans.

Does that matter if they're also getting enslaved? I guess they are at least equal in enslaving humans and non-humans alike.

Maybe we should go back to the south, I don’t want to see another slave market…

Let’s just do a quick in and out. We can just nuke the whole city if they try to enslave us.

Ok…

With that decided, we just had to get there. A full moon had appeared halfway our journey and I spent the whole night using [Moontalk] and attempted to find Thalia. I couldn’t find Toxic Donkey this time but since I know he’s alive, I decided to believe in him. I had looked at what the events that might have led to her disappearance. She had arrived Alledra during a full moon. She had bought some supplies and jumped into the big lake. That’s all I could find out.

She either is still down there somewhere or she had escaped and traveled mainly during the day or on days where the sky was cloudy. Rainfall around the year is quite common in the Aquini Kingdom, so this isn’t completely surprising, it’s just annoying.

The sun started to rise and my connection broke. Fahjin could be seen in the distance. We will arrive there in 2 days. I have noticed that the 3 of us felt like we lost a driving force. Now that Neia is looking for Hourai, there is less of an importance for us to do the same. Finding out where it actually was located was big, but we can’t even get there because we don’t know how and even if we did, there is just a hole… Are we strong enough to fight off whatever will attack us there?

This fight against the gods has demonstrated that we have no clue what we’re doing. Especially me. I created a foxfire flame on my hand and looked at it.

I couldn’t even identify that it was both regular magic and spirit magic. It looked unlike any of those, yet I could freely control it as if it was part of my body. No mana control needed. No messing with its mana rune structure. It did seem to solve a lot of problems when I try to fix the dimensional fabric. Out of ideas? Blast it with foxfire! I wonder why I never did this in combat. I always resorted to frost magic in that situation.

I got another brilliant idea! What if I could combine frost magic and foxfire! It will become the ultimate god killing tool! There is one problem though. I thought back on the conditions that needed to be met to craft Shirayuki. I looked at my katana which was sheathed in the scabbard, decorated with snowflake patterns and blue foxes.

It had taken so much to just get here. Will I need Nilah’s help to achieve that? Will she have to do something stupid again like fusing with my mana? I don’t know. I briefly tried to combine them. It was partly successful to my surprise. If foxfire categorizes as spirit magic, then it doesn’t automatically get cancelled out by frost magic.

I tried a normal flame and frost magic. The flame instantly died as all its mana got sucked up. Maybe this is what we should do. Just get better at our specialties. I could learn new skills but I already have so many and I don’t even use all of them. I could learn spirit magic but how often am I going to use that? I could teach Raishin and Greg Dragonvein, while Greg is probably going to use it where he can, Raishin won’t and he doesn’t need to.

Same with me, Greg could teach me more about shadow and dark magic but I use it mostly for utility and not offence. My foxfire and frost magic, however. I abuse them in the need arises. I also need to expand my frost magic move pool. I have my triple clones [Kryokym] and [Nilah] as skills that deal a lot of damage.

Wait! I had archived the magic circle of Cygnus’ stupid frost laser mana blackhole ultimate skill. The magic circle is scrambled but I think I can crack it and learn it. My days at the Misha Academy are proving to be invaluable. How did he call it? [X-1]? It’s short and easy to remember.

I had spent so long not using magic, learning Dragonvein to avoid using magic, and now I’m back to a situation where I probably have to use it a lot. Although, I only need to watch out with using fire for nausea. If I need any other element, I will use Dragonvein.

I enjoyed the cool sea breeze as we walked into Fahjin. It was a busy city. It looked a bit old. It didn’t seem as if the Yttroz Industries have had their hands on this city. Most buildings were made out of primitive bricks or even wood. The main color themes were dark brown and red brown. The roads looked paved but most had a layer of mud and dirt on them and weeds were taking over the edge of the roads.

It looks like this place needs to still catch up with the rest of the continent.

While market stalls were common across the continent, this place took this to the maximum. I didn’t see any buildings that could function as stores, all were residential. I did see something that looked like a church in the distance.

I don’t like this city…

It was not as if the inhabitants here were poor it was just… they seemed to live by completely different standards than we were used too. Most people were dressed very simple some even in clothing that could be described as rags.

And what stuck out the most was that there were slaves everywhere. We recognized them by the magic mark on the side of their neck. Their color indicated what type of slave they were.

Let’s buy something to eat and get out of here.

Yeah, I did not expect to find this. I feel awfully uncomfortable here, even in our casual clothes we stick out.

We look like rich guys with our casual clothing.

I identified a street rat who tried to pickpocket us. I pickpocketed Raishin’s wallet back from him and I also pickpocketed all his valuables.

12 bronze, eh? Can’t say that is something impressive.

Did you just steal from a poor kid?

Occupational hazard, expect things to get stolen from you if you steal from others. Raishin pay more attention else you will be robbed clean. I discreetly handed him his wallet back.

I noticed that we were being watched. Not by anyone specifically, everyone was watching us. I counter pickpocketed 3 more street rats. I had gotten 58 bronze richer since coming here.

We bought flatbread from a stand. It did seem like they were ripping us off but since they don’t seem to have a sense of money, they didn’t realize that by ripping us off they asked for a price that’s normal for flatbread.

This bread is so bland…

Just bear with it we will get some proper food later on. Let’s check out that church, it must have historical value.

How about we stay away from any churches, didn’t Bellia say that tomato goddess has a religion? I don‘t want to deal with cultists if I can avoid it.

Hmm, ok a brief look and we will get out of here. Preferably more south.

Oh no… look, those poor elf chicks.

We saw some guys walking around with slave elf girls. The light seemed to have vanished from their eyes. They looked like soulless puppets following every command. Their body was in a poor state, injured and malnourished. Their eyes still glowed purple to me but it didn’t seem intimidating to me because there didn’t seem to be any vitality behind those eyes. How sad.

Let’s move on Raishin, we can’t help them…

But… ok.

We did our best to avoid getting into trouble. We had to ignore the poor state this city was in. I spotted a building collapsing in the distance. What has this country been doing? Doesn’t it care for its citizens? What would Shania think if she saw this city.

The queen will probably be a good regent but she doesn’t have much to work with and she needs time. I don’t know how long but I don’t think anything is going to happen for at least 2-3 years. I also noticed something strange.

Hey Greg, why are there so many people here that seem like they are getting close to mana intoxication?

Can you link me up? The ambient mana feels fine, nothing else suggests that they could get mana poisoning from the water or anything else.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

I linked him up but neither of us could identify the cause. We walked onto a plaza that was leading up to the church. I instantly regretted coming here. I saw a familiar cultist outfit. I instantly covered us up in illusions but he had already seen us.

You guys should have gone with me on my school trips, you’re missing so much context now.

These guys were dressed the same as those Biian followers in that arena place. He called another cultist and talked to him.

Guys we need to go now!

So, we did run into cultists…

We ran away but soon every street seemed to have cultists walking around and running around. No this was wrong. They have always been here. I thought this city was just uncomfortable but they had used an advanced type of illusion. Unfortunately, the slaves were real.

Ok I did not see this coming and my intuition didn’t tell me anything.

This divine energy might be responsible. I think this might have been a trap specifically made for us.

Most still seem to be almost mana intoxicated though.

Several cultists collapsed due to mana intoxication and their mana started to become corrupted.

Zombies and cultists, great, what more could go wrong?

The slaves started attacking us.

I think this counts, right? Do we hit them back?

Absolutely not! We run!

Says the slowest member in Team Hourai.

I grabbed Greg and we started running.

How did they recognize us?

“We have gotten a blessing from our goddess, those [Biian’s Judgement] stacks on you acts as our beacon! How bright you are! I understand the mission now!” I kicked the annoying yet helpful cultist away.

Does that answer your question? You two don’t have these stupid stacks on you. I will distract them and you get away.

Is that a good idea? We have just escaped the clutches from her, if she comes back and you’re alone you’re toast.

I will be fine. I don’t know much about her but I can trust in her pride and her love for high quality fur. If she could she would probably retrieve me herself but she obviously can’t so she sends these cultists risking that they might damage my fur.

So?

She can’t come and these guys are probably not allowed to hurt me. I spread out my wires and made many cultists trip. I swapped some slaves away from me and used the wires to cut some cultists in pieces.

“Oooh! How bright!”

I had gotten more of these obnoxious stacks…

Also, don’t hurt these assholes or you will also get these stacks on you.

After splitting up from Greg and Raishin I wondered what to do. None of them could keep up with Raishin and they gave up on chasing them. If I hurt them, I get stacks, if I kill them, I also get stacks. So, what if I make them all slip and freeze their butts to the floors and roofs. I was jumping from rooftop to rooftop. I froze the rooftops and they slid off. Some fell off and broke their necks and died. No stacks.

I smiled. As long as I kill them indirectly, I won’t get stacks! I kept roof hopping freezing all the roofs making them extremely dangerous. I also spread some ice caltrops in the floor below to test if this would work. It’s not a direct attack.

More cultists slipped and fell. They fell on the big caltrops and expired. No stacks got added on me. Not that it matters because I was probably still a beacon to them. I tried to escape while in stealth. It seems they could still track me. This actually sucks. It might get me into trouble if I don’t address this.

I tried illusions but my illusions were getting peeled in an attempt to keep this beacon effect hidden. The moment all layers got peeled off was when they could find me again. Illusions work but they are limited. I tried to escape the city and prepared to drop 20 layers of illusion on myself to hide afterward when I stopped. I was looking north and an enormous army was approaching this city.

They all wore cultist clothing. I can’t escape from them as long as I have these stacks on me, can I? I forgot to ask Greg if he could get these off me. I covered myself in 20 layers of illusions and reapplied some whenever half of them peeled off.

I gave them the slip and located Raishin and Greg.

Yoo!

Agnis? Why are you disguised as a street rat?

Can you get these stupid stacks of Biian’s bullshit off me? It makes me unable to hide from those cultists. Only illusions work and it’s peeling the layers off.

We stopped and Greg started with whatever he does when he starts dispelling curses.

Hmm, this is not a curse, it’s also not a normal status effect. It might take some time before I can get this off you.

How long?

Uhh, 2 months if I’m lucky. A god is responsible for getting this on you after all.

Aaah! Why?! How am I supposed to stay hidden from these assholes for 2 months? Reapplying these layers gets quite tiring after half an hour.

Greg [Shadow bind] him before he does something stupid like taking his distance from us so we don’t have to deal with this!

Greg used [Shadow Bind] on me.

Damn this overpowered intuition!

Good call! Thanks, Raishin!

Oh, look an army of cultists.

Oh right, I forgot about that, they have sent an army after me…

Raishin, can you distract them? Don’t hit them or the city. I will think of an idea on how to solve this.

Raishin went off to meet the army.

That is the crest of Bizax’ Papal Jurisdiction… This is the Holy army…

This isn’t a crusade against us, is it?

Looks like it… We might need to take up the elven invitation.

And have them go to war against Bizax?

No, I thought they told you that it’s impossible to find their village unless you’re accompanied by a spirit or are an elf yourself.

So where do we find a spirit to lead us?

Greg smacked me. You are that spirit!

Oh, haha I knew that! I guess Raishin will be happy. Can’t we just kill all of the cultists?

I have read that Bizax has over 44 million inhabitants that are highly dedicated to the bitch goddess.

So, hiding in the elf village it is… I will have to find out how to avoid helping them for as long as we’re there…

Why is that? Just help them and they will be thankful, will make it easier for us to stay there.

Uhm, no it’s just going to make things awkward and we might even get kicked out… Greg sighed.

What did you do this time?

Hey! I had no choice!

Why are you getting so defensive?! Now I’m even more curious!

Keep it a secret please…

Sure.

So, you see I visited Eslana Village because I needed a flower that could only grow where the ambient mana is pure and they had it. They would give it on one condition. If I helped them with their dwindling population.

And this is related because?

It sounds bad unless I give the reasoning of course! So, they wanted me to help repopulate them, literally. They wanted make some 9t elf hybrid. I’m sure they would look cool but I wanted none of them so I helped them differently. The end.

You still didn’t tell me what exactly you did…

I ehh created a powerful illusion on the whole village which made everyone extremely horny and made them fornicate for 40 minutes. The illusion also made them extra fertile for those 40 minutes…

Greg had a complicated expression. He always has this expression where the result is favorable but the means are questionable.

I will pretend that I didn’t hear that but, in that case… do it when we leave…

Thanks!

I guess there is more pressure on me to get these [Biian’s Judgement] stacks off you. Freeloading at their place for 2 months to then drop them into a village wide fornication event doesn’t feel good to me.

Raishin returned. Guys! There are too many of them! Also…

He pointed at the army who seemed to give off a golden glow. Divine energy was leaking out of them.

They all got a mysterious golden buff…

I think it is time to run then, Agnis if you would be so kind?

Refreshing these illusion layers constantly was tiring so I was happy that we could flee. I took off my shoes and dashed toward the elven forest.

They had lost us completely. We entered the forest and I put Greg and Raishin down. I noticed elves lock on to Greg and Raishin the moment we arrived.

Hey take out your tails.

The elves relaxed the moment Greg and Raishin did so. As usual they didn’t notice me. It would be a problem if they got visual confirmation. I had no idea where this village was but somehow, I had no problems in just walking toward it. I felt that there is no way that I wouldn’t be able to find it. We got stopped by 2 elves when we were getting close.

“Who is that guy with you 2? Why can’t we sense him?”

I stopped suppressing my smell.

“Byron has told me to let an individual that smells like an autumn rain inside.”

What’s that about?

Don’t worry about it. Hey Mr. elf. I’m covering myself up in illusions for a reason. Something has put a mark on me to locate me. Does your village have something to counter this? If not, I can’t enter your village.

“Oh, Bellia had told Byron that that would be the case, we have just finished the maintenance of our barrier, it has successfully updated and you can freely move around within the barrier."

Oh, finally good news.

You guys sound like you were updating a game!

We stepped inside the barrier and I was expecting to be surprised but it looked similar to Eslana village. A big tree in the middle. The tree was casting the barrier. Getting bad memories from trees casting barriers.

The houses were made out of huge leaves or they were trees themselves. Houses were carved into other trees and this village had a lot of verticality to make sure it didn’t cover much area. I assume it has to do with the big tree, they might not want to get too far from the big tree. I dropped the illusions.

“Welcome to Nuverna Village! I will bring you to our elders.”

Wow look at all those chicks!

This place is fascinating!

I decided to not say anything because I’ve seen something similar before.