~There was once a Foolish King~

~Who married a Foolish Queen and had a Foolish Child~

~He owned a Foolish Kingdom filled with Foolish People~

~One day the Foolish King became greedy~

~And gladly shook hands with the wicked demons~

~Ooh, What a Foolish King~

~Ooh, What a Foolish King~

~Ooh, What a Foolish King~

~Even when the demons killed his Foolish Wife and Foolish Child~

~He did not care for he was already cheating on her with 12 other woman~

~Ooh, What a Foolish King~

~Ooh, What a Foolish King~

~Ooh, What a Foolish King~

~Ooh, What a Foolish King~

~Ooh, What a Foolish King~

~Ooh, What a Foolish King~

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

"Who will protect the village while we are gone?"

"Scout said he saw the B-trio on their way back here. Great timing huh?"

That was a name I hadn't heard in a while. Yukari had breifly mentioned them before and now that I think about it, I never actually asked much about them, "When you say the 'B-trio', do you mean-"

"A group of three Baron fakes. Yes."

"What are they like?"

"Hard to say. If I had to pick a word, I would say...amusing. Quite fun actually. Don't worry, you might get a chance to meet them when we come back...if they don't randomly bail again, that is."

With that worry somewhat out of the way and a little bit of packing, the Reaper, Alfred and I waved goodbye to everyone before jumping into one of the Reaper's shadow portals.

We were given directions and a description but the last few leaf notes that the Scout gave us said, "You'll know when you see her. She's also friendly."

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

We emerged from the ground back at that same grass field that was covered in stone debris and boulders. We weren't there for long as we entered yet another shadow portal. This then brought us to a hot dessert biome which again, we immediately left by entering another portal that Yukari hid behind a cactus. We ended up on a some grassy hills that was located near a town. It was smaller than the main city but still quite large.

We walked through it, ignoring all the stares and whispers that ignited the moment we walked through a crowd of any kind. I was glad Alfred also decided to ignore it. He was clearly bothered by it though, it was something he never noticed back when he was a child. While many scoffed at us, there were understandably many eyes staring at Alfred with bewildered expressions. Perhaps it would've been better to give him a cloak. Fortunately, his appearance didn't cause any incidents. After all, who would waste their time interacting with fakes.

Speaking of other fakes, we did see a few. But not as many compared to the main city or other locations since this town barely had any connections to any of the Nine original heroes. The fakes here were most likely travelling through here to get to another location or trying to seek refuge, hoping that their chances would be higher since there aren't many fakes here.

There was also an adventurer's guild hall there but I didn't want to go there.

Once we had exited the town and followed a path, we entered one more hidden shadow portal before Yukari finally said, "Alright, we have to walk from here on out."

I'm guessing we were either going into territory that Yukari had never visited before or perhaps she simply had a maximum amount of active portals. Either way, we were currently walking through a mushroom biome. As the name suggest, giant mushrooms varying of all different kinds of colours like red, white, purple, and green were scattered all around. It is similar to desert biomes but instead of sand, there's this squishy, Ivory-brown, substance that covers most of the area. Stepping on top of it would cause your foot to sink slightly into it. It felt quite bouncy. I half expected Alfred to go jumping up and down on it but then I remembered he wasn't small anymore. You could also easily tear off chunks of the ground with your hand. It almost felt like rubber.

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Along the way we spotted a group of E-rank, hairless meerkats, staring down at us from above on one of the giant mushroom. They had red skin with white spots all over their body. They didn't bother us so we didn't bother them. But they are known to be quite hostile so we kept our guard up.

We followed a path for about two days, camping whenever it got late. I brought one tent which Alfred offered to carry it for me. I originally wanted to bring three but both Alfred and the Reaper insisted that they didn't need one.

"Hey Alfred? Where's your fancy, little fork and knife?" The Reaper asked half jokingly, while we were eating dinner once. My knight was eating the food with his hands just like us. He actually did prefer to eat with his personal cutlery, but the reason why he couldn't eat with them anymore was because...

Alfred answered the question by reaching for something behind his back. He then reached his arm out to the Reaper and opened his palm. At first it seemed like he was holding nothing but thin air. But then Reaper leaned in closer. There. In the middle on his palm...was a tiny, silver fork and knife. The same ones he used to eat with when he was small.

"...Pfft! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

We passed a few carriages here and there, but besides that, the journey was fortunately uneventful.

Past the mushroom biome, were several plain grass areas that all surrounded a few mountains. They all looked normal except for one distinct one near the middle. A blue mountain. To be more accurate, the forest that was on it was blue.

It was our destination.

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

After entering the forest, I looked up. It was clear that these tall trees didn't have leaves. Instead, their branches were covered in this blue, puffy, sponge-like substance. A substance that somehow illuminated white wavy lights that moved gently across it.

It was thick and took up most of the view that allowed us to see the actual sky. It was as if this forest had created their own different type of sky.

The sponge was moving in quite the gentle, wavy fashion. I wasn't sure if that was the just the wind or if they were doing that by itself. I then saw a...a fin?

Wait a minute...A fin?

I squinted as I looked closely up at the tree branches. Wiggling out of one of the blue sponges...was a shark. Many more fish revealed themselves from their hiding spots and "swam" away as the shark chased them.

I saw the outline of a stingray emerged from above the branches. Then a sword fish. A floating jelly fish. I then spotted a tree that had it's entire upper trunk covered in starfish.

They looked like regular sea creatures. The only obvious difference being that they still acted as if they were 'swimming' despite there being no water. I had briefly heard about them during my times visiting the guild but never saw them in person. All I really knew was that their species was simply named "Air Fish".

Alfred's helmet looked from fish to fish before turning to me.

"No Alfred, they won't attack us...Right?" I turned to the Reaper

"Yes. As long as we stay down here and away from those high branches..." the Reaper replied before grinning again, "With that said, you want to climb-"

"No."

We travelled through the forest was which was slowly inclining upwards.

I looked down to observe the ground. Contrasting to the 'blue sky', the ground was quite ordinary. Dirt path surrounded by green grass and overgrown bushes.

"Alfred?" I called out when I noticed that he had wandered off.

I spotted him not far from our path, kneeling down to inspect what looked like a small pond. Which was odd to see in a place like this.

"What is it?" I asked as I approached from behind.

"..."

The water was green but still perfectly clear and see through. Despite the small size of the pond, it looked quite deep. It looked bottomless in fact. But what we could was a small shadow, deep under the surface of the water. We leaned our heads closer to look at it.

The silhouette in the water was gradually growing larger and larger.

As it grew larger, I gently pulled Alfred away from the pond.

We backed away until we were about a 5 or so meters away.

It was the right move because right when we did, a large pair of long, sharp antlers protruded straight out from the water. It was a deer. it had two hooves on the ground while the rest of its body was still submerged in the pond.

Alfred and I drew out our weapons but instead of attacking, the deer simply looked at us for a moment before diving back into the water.

"Strange isn't it? They can't actually leave the water." We heard the Reaper say as she walked past us to look closer at the pond, "So try to stay-"

An elephant's trunk protruded from the water. It was aimed straight at her neck. But before it could get to her, the Reaper sliced it off clean off.

"So try to stay away from any bodies of water that you find." She finished her sentence as the disembodied trunk landed on the ground, "Unless you want to take a dive-"

"No."

We continued walking up the mountain. As we did, my mind wandered back to the topic that had been lingering in my head:

You have unlocked a new summoning slot: 1/1 - to - 1/2.

I couldn't help but think about this as we traveled. Another Alfred. Before this journey, I questioned whether I would be able to take care of two knights. But then it occur to me that Alfred can practically already take care of himself. So perhaps having another one wouldn't be completely out of control.

But again, I can't summon another knight. Why would the skill tree bother give me a new summoning slot if I don't have any skills to summon anything in the first place?

Another interesting thought that came to mind. Will the second knight be different? Or the same? When he was smaller, the tiny sword Alfred wielded was a one handed short sword, not a large great-sword. Will the second knight main a different weapon with they grow older?

There was no point speculating about it. But the thought always lingered in the back of my head. It's safe to say that I wouldn't be where I am now if Alfred wasn't always by my side. So having another knight... does sound very nice.

"How about you Alfred? What do you think?" I asked him as we walked, "Would you want another brother?"

I heard the Reaper suppress a laugh when I said that but I wasn't sure why.

"..." Alfred placed his hand on his 'chin'. He said the more allies we have, the better which was a very good point.

Overall, he was also looking forward to meeting a new knight who might be just like him. After hearing his thoughts, I couldn't help but feel more excited for it. Of course, I actually need to unlock the skill for it first. I just wished it would be soon.

...

-I-I-I-I-

...

At the end of the forest was what seemed to be an opened of some sort. After walking through the final few trees, we had reached the top. From there, we could see a wondrous view of the entire mountain and the distant grass-fields. We could see other mountains but none of them were blue like the one we were on. The area was considerably wide and there were no trees present. Surrounding the edge and perimeter of this area were light blue sponge-like bushes. Clownfish, goldfishes and other peaceful exotic species would poke out of them occasionally and swim around from bush to bush.

However, most of our attention was on her.

...

To be continued.

A/N Why was this chapter so short? Cause I already finished the next one, just needs proofreading. I have once again written a chapter that was too long and this time I couldn't find a good halfway point. Next chapter will come out very soon, mostly likely in a day or two. Quick head-ups that chapter 12 will be longer than usual chapters (about 6,000 words). I'll try to avoid that in the future.

This chapter was finished on 12/04/2022