A heavy gust of cool sea breeze hit them across their faces as Kai and Meg stood atop one of the Guardian Columns of Alto Mare.
Kai shivered.
He was wearing a pink shirt imprinted with foaming waves and Meg had a blue frock over her curvaceous figure, her long hair blowing in the wind like thin strands of red silk. They had come to this height to say a last goodbye to this unfortunate town that had gifted them so much.
Kai looked down and saw the entire town was almost underwater.
If it was before, by now the entire town would have lit up under the bright light of many street lamps, making it impossible to realize that the night was approaching. It would take a lot of time and unending efforts to go back to the same lifestyle as before, he knew. He could already see many of the residents migrating to the main landmass in their ferries.
-/I have seen enough,/- Kai declared.
Meg sat down first, her long legs dangling down from the column's edge.
Kai lay down on his back and put his head on her lap. He sighed and then whiffed deeply. She smelled of the wet earth after the pitter-patter of the first rain. He stared at the sky beyond her face and looked at the stars, as thousands of questions related to the things that had happened in the last month ran havoc in his mind.
-/Are you sure I can't store you in my Inventory?/- Kai asked Meg, adjusting his eyes to look into hers.
The question felt too absurd to ask even to him, let alone to Meg, who couldn't help but smile wryly upon hearing that. Yet Kai's intention was plain. She was his Item now, and Kai would do anything to get his hands on a way to store a live Contestant in his Inventory.
If there was such a way, then Meg didn't know it. "No." She shook her head bluntly. "You can't, master. But there is another way to have me with you in your next Side Mission."
-/Is it related to me becoming a Captain of Guard?/- Kai guessed.
When Kai had come to this world, the System had changed his Side Mission to an Officer Qualifying Mission.
Kai later found out that the High Priest of the Temple of Hastur was behind this change. Then he had sent Meg to monitor Kai, and if necessary, kill him.
Kai had turned all that into a mummer's show by making Meg betray the Temple instead.
Now that she was his slave, it made little sense to even think what her response would be at the end of this mission. Kai already considered himself a Captain of Guard. Though, in reality, he would only get the rank after leaving this world.
Meg nodded. "A Captain of Guard can form a Party of up to 4 members, master," she reminded him. "You can ask Chaos to add me as a Party member, to which I will assent despite being in the Primordial Tower."
"The next steps are simple," Meg continued, biting her lower lip. "After two weeks, you can create a Side Mission, specifying that you need the help of a team. In these cases, Party members of the Captain of Guard are given priority. Chaos would send me to you with that Side Mission as my floor-ascension mission. The timing should match, though. So you must wait for at least two weeks."
It was a straightforward process, Kai realized. He just wondered why someone like Arlen did not have Party members with him during his Initiation Mission.
Arlen Silvas is a man of a hundred secrets, Kai thought, taking his eyes off her. Whenever I think I have figured him out, there always surfaces something new and baffling about him. He is not an ordinary noble, that I am sure of.
-/Two weeks are too much,/- Kai told her. -/Can't you complete your Kill Count in a single battle? They are just a bunch of 3rd-floor rats, aren't they?/-
Meg giggled womanly. Only in these kinds of moments, and often when she bluntly rebuked him as if he was but a child in her eyes, did Kai recall she was not as she seemed. She was over 100 years old, and though in the grand scheme of things, 100 years was too little, it was still a gap not small enough to ignore.
Another gust of playful wind brought some loose hair in front of her eyes.
"I am but a supportive Contestant, master," she told him, curling back those hairs behind her ear. "I assist other Chaos' Contestants in battle. The System then counts my assists, those that result in successful kills, as part of my Kill Count. Without my other Abilities, it's too hard for me to kill that many in a single battle by myself."
Meg had already told him about these things. It was indeed as she said, Kai reflected. For her, killing so many Order Contestants in one week was stretching things too far.
Kai lifted his head off her lap, his face becoming hard. -/I want you there in one week,/- he told her, his hand flicking to take some things out of his MRB. -/First, as you told me, the High Priest will send Contestants after you. I know you can look after yourself, but now you belong to me. So you must have all the means to kill anyone whenever and however you desire. Second, I want us to reach the 4th-floor together. I am sick of having Items I can't use./-
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An even more important fact was that Kai needed to complete his last Side Mission as soon as possible. However, he didn't tell Meg that. Not yet. It wasn't in his nature to reveal all his cards to a single person. No matter if that person was his slave.
Two little boxes appeared in his hands and Kai placed them in between him and Meg. He opened the first one. It had little bone fragments that looked like finger joints and long strands of bright white tendons.
Meg gasped, looking at them.
These were the bone fragments Kai had taken out of the wings.
The wings of the legendary Pokemon, Latias.
The anatomy of Latias had bemused Kai. As he had cut her wings open, instead of finding a detailed bone structure as one could expect from a bird species, he had found these bone fragments. They were spread across her wings, connected with thin but extremely powerful tendons.
So these are the reasons for her unflappable wings, Kai had guessed then.
The number of these fragments was so low that Kai could neither use them to get himself a saber nor use them for some armor.
Though Kai couldn't see Latias' grade in System's terms, as she was a main storyline magical beast like the Ukrainian Ironbelly, she was still a legendary Pokemon.
After seeing the two Legendary Pokemon's souls, now imprisoned in the Eon Soul Dew, Meg had guessed the injured Latias was at least a C+ graded magical beast. The grades of the same magical beasts varied with different Timelines allotted at different Floors of the Primordial Tower.
-/Take them,/- Kai told Meg. -/Get yourself a bow. Yes. A bow should be your first choice. Remember to dispose of the smith after using him or her. We don't want high-floor Contestants to keep pestering us, do we?/-
"Master, I…" Meg gasped, her cheeks going pink.
-/Shut up./-
He passed the box to her. Then he opened the second box.
This time Meg neither gasped nor hinted of any refusal. Kai nodded to himself, seeing that. In the second box, there were two rows of tiny glass vials with 5 in each row. One row of glass vials had blue corks over them, and the other had white. Kai took out 3 blue-corked vials and one white-corked vial.
All vials had colorless liquid rippling within them.
He gave them to her.
-/The blue-corked vials have Light-Neurotoxin,/- he told her. -/I have already told you about it thoroughly before. Smear them on the arrows, and you won't have to worry about accuracy too much. We will worry about getting you an Ability related to Archery later./-
Meg nodded solemnly. "Yes, master," she said. "And this other vial…"
Kai closed the box, putting it back into his MRB. -/That's only for drastic measures,/- he explained. -/It has Selene's Soul Neurotoxin. Don't let it touch your skin, otherwise, it will melt into you. Find yourself a way to use it in a better manner. You are a smart woman./-
Meg took the compliment with a smile.
-/OK,/- Kai said, standing up, and Meg followed him. -/This will let you kill as many as you want in your next battle. You have no more excuses now. Meg… Mission Over./-
Meg kneeled and instantly a blue shimmer surrounded her. Her hands flicked, taking out the cream-golden egg that Kai had yet to touch. She put it on the stone floor and lifted her head to look at Kai.
Their eyes matched.
The blues became bluer, and accompanied by another salty gust, she vanished.
Kai stood there for a long time afterward, thinking about who knows what. But scarcely he brooded over something so much, and with such uninterrupted focus.
-/What do you think?/- he asked a few minutes later.
Petyr's figure walked out of him. "What is there to think, my lord?" he jested. "You should have claimed her maidenhood, as I suggested to you. Women like her are often weirdly attached to men they lose their maidenhead to. Virginity is both an enticing and frightening thing. And a juicy fruit like her won't ripen anymore but would only go stale."
Meg had told her that the Temple of Hastur's Priests and Priestess needed to practice celibacy for the first 100 years.
Kai pondered over those words and compared them to his lack of sexual interest in Meg.
-/No./- He shook his head. -/There is something wrong here, Petyr. Not having feelings for her is one thing. Not getting my dick up despite all the physical stimulations is another thing entirely. The Temple of Hastur only takes virgins as its members. The mystery lies here somewhere./-
There was always a reason behind Kai's actions; even those actions that made him seem a lecher.
Kai crouched down and touched the egg, waiting no longer.
…
[
Side Mission: The birth of Viserion
Side Mission Status: Success
Side Mission Rewards:
1. 300 Mission Credits
2. +2 Attribute Points
…
You can teleport to the next world now, Contestant Kai Stormborn
Time Limit: 1 minute
]
…
A blue shine covered Kai, marking his impending departure.
From his side, Petyr chuckled.
-/What's so funny?/- Kai asked casually.
"The question is not where the mystery lies, my lord," Petyr told Kai. "Rather, where lies her loyalty."
Kai snapped his head, his eyes narrowing. -/She is mine,/- he told Petyr. -/Even now I can feel my absolute control over her soul and flesh. Not to mention she has already betrayed the Temple of Hastur./-
This time Petyr guffawed.
His figure became blurry, but he did manage to pass his next words to Kai's ears.
"The Temple of Hastur is not Hastur, my lord," Petyr said coolly. "Can't you recall in whose name she swore the Soul-Blood oath?"
The Herald of Chaos disappeared.
Kai craned his neck, brooding over Petyr's question, and gazed at the stars. They were bright, with no shadow of any yellowness about them.
The blues of teleportation covered his figure, too.
As his figure blurred, the corner of his lips lifted into an imperceptible smile.
----------------------------------------
VOL 6 - THE BLUE SKINNED DEMON - ENDS!