I hopped back towards my town with Judetta and the blue-skinned girl with sunglasses on my back. Imu hopped next to me atop Goldie.

“So, you’re telling me you ate a Core because its dungeon was lazily put together?”

“That’s right,” I croaked in reply.

“I didn’t think it was possible for a Core to eat another Core,” the blue-skinned girl remarked. “I’m Belamouranthyne by the way, but you can just call me Bel.”

“I’m Toad!”

“I swear, I leave for less than a week and you take that opportunity to do the craziest possible things! I can’t leave you out of my sight!”

“You know about my little war and the rebellion too?” I asked.

“The what and what!?”

“Oh, you didn’t know. Well, yes, I defeated Earl Sharpee and ate him, then took over his territory. And, while I was waging war on him, the non-Toadkin in my settlement started a rebellion. I tell you, building that Minion Help Centre and Consultation Clinic really backfired! Who would’ve thought that a Therapist had the power to brainwash my minions?”

Imu pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly in response.

“Did you have a good vacation?”

“No.”

Judetta, the Missionary of the Church of Light, finally spoke up. “Sorry,” she said.

“I think I’m doomed to be miserable,” Imu remarked.

“It’s all a matter of perspective,” Bel told him.

“Did you all vacation together?” I asked, wondering why they had arrived together.

Imu sighed. “Judetta was trapped in the Paradise Realm where I landed, and Bel came to find me after you ate that Dungeon Core.”

“Are you a fairy too?” I asked the blue-skinned imp.

Belamouranthyne adjusted the sunglasses on her big nose, while wiggling her crescent-shaped ears playfully. “I am indeed a Guiding Fairy, although, like our dear Imu I am not a Myling, but rather Ignis Fatuus.”

“And how do you know each other?”

“Imu was my Guiding Fairy when I was a Core.”

I used my Appraisal on her:

Name: Belamouranthyne

Occupation: Guiding Fairy

Species: Ignis Fatuus (Sluagh)

Level: ????

Alignment: Giddy-and-fiery

Faction: Papa Magma and Co.

“You work for Papa Magma? Who’s that?”

“…One of Deathheim’s competitors,” Imu remarked coldly.

“Imu is just jealous because our upward mobility is better and we get more vacations and autonomy.”

“What kind of Core were you?” I asked. In the distance we could see the enormous Weeping Oak and the treeline of my forest.

“I had the fire element and had a Dungeon that the humanoids around me called the Hellpit. It was pretty popular for strong Adventurers to delve into, but none of them ever made it to my bottom-most floor, and eventually I amassed enough experience to evolve the final time. That was when Papa Magma scouted me. He loves fire elementals, you see, so most such Cores that undergo their final evolution usually work for him.”

“Hardly any do make it to that point,” Imu joked.

“Why not?”

He did a strange gesture of folding his hands and then moving them out-and-away from each other, while making a boom sound with his mouth.

I turned one of my eyes to look at Bel who was sitting on my forehead, “Is that true?”

Bel took one of her blue ears in her hands and rubbed it absentmindedly. “We have a certain personality type that usually leads towards self-destruction, it’s true… BUT! It’s only like seventy-five percent!”

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“That’s pretty bad,” I commented.

“You’re one to talk,” Imu replied sharply. “I still remember when the mortality rate due to dehydration was close on ninety percent amongst your minions.”

“Imu is defending me,” Bel mumbled starry-eyed. “He’s never done that before.”

“I’m not defending you. You fire elementals are trouble and you know it, but Toad is a uniquely terrifying example of how NOT to manage your people.”

“It’s so much better now,” I argued.

“Really?” Imu asked, raising a sceptical eyebrow.

“Yeah! Ever since all the non-Toadkin were executed for their rebellion, there’s only about twelve deaths per day!”

Imu sighed in disappointment, but I ignored him and continued talking to Bel. “Since Papa Magma likes fire elementals, does that mean that Blazing Blaine, the Core I ate, was favoured by him?”

“Not just favoured,” Bel told me. “Papa Magma loved that idiot.”

“Really?”

“Yeah…”

“So he’s upset with me?”

“Kind of, yep…”

“It’s just another Deity to the list,” Imu joked darkly. “We’re up to three now.”

“I don’t think Deathheim dislikes me,” I replied.

“You’re right. He hates you.”

“Aw.”

We made it to my Castle Town just as the sun was beginning to vanish behind the mountains in the horizon. As we passed through the gate, Bel jumped off my back and two strange wiry wings of bright-orange flames emerged on her back and she flew ahead.

“Why can’t you do that?” I asked Imu.

“Next time you evolve I’ll finally gain something similar to it. About time too… Normally I would already have my unique abilities, but it’s far more drawn-out with your kind of progression.”

“Speaking of progression,” I replied, “What does my evolution checklist look like?”

Imu waved a hand in the air and text emerged from his Encyclopaedia to the air in front of me:

[Evolution Requirements]

Castle Town => Capital

- Build 3 Farmsteads, 1 Hamlet, and 1 Village within your territory and ensure they are self-sufficient -

- Build 1 Siege Factory and craft Engines of War, and utilise your Beast Inventor Workshop to also construct Beasts of War by combining Beasts with Siege Engines -

“You actually did a lot while I was gone,” Imu remarked with quite a lot of surprise in voice.

“Why does it say I still need to make War Beasts? I’ve already made several!”

“Did you make any by combining Sieges Engines with them?”

I thought about it for a moment, then realised that I actually hadn’t used the Siege Factory once, as the harness I’d made for the Diplomat’s Jackicorns hadn’t actually used the building.

“We know what you have to do now then,” he continued.

It took a few hours, but then the Siege Engine Builder and his team produced a sleek ballista that could fire stakes of stone, iron, or wood from one end of my town to the other.

As I was looking for a suitable animal to combine with the newly-constructed ballista, my Mad Scientist came over to where I’d parked my shell and banged on it a few times, until I sent my essence back into it and turned to regard him.

“Look what I found!” he announced excitedly, holding aloft a hedgehog that definitely did not enjoy being picked up as it kept squeaking angrily.

“It’s perfect!” I told him, and, within a minute, a team of Builders had hauled the ballista into the strange domed Beast Workshop.

As they left, the Mad Scientist took the hedgehog inside and the gate closed behind them. There followed more angry squeaking, followed by the sound of projectiles flying back-and-forth through the air. Then the hexagonal plates of the dome lit up and smoke started billowing out the hole in the top of the dome.

Moments later, the gate sprang open and the Mad Scientist ran out with his new creation following on his heels angrily snapping its mouth at him, but failing to catch him.

Halt!

The Beast stopped in its tracks immediately and I got to have a proper look at it:

Name: Nibbles

Occupation: War Beast

Species: Ballista Hedgehog (Chimera)

Level: 55/100

Alignment: Angry-that-it-was-dragged-out-of-its-nest-where-it-was-hibernating-but-now-feeling-rather-splendid-thanks-to-growing-several-times-its-normal-size-and-gaining-awesome-powers

Faction: Toad Town

There wasn’t much changed about the hedgehog, other than its tremendous growth from a twenty-centimetre-tall critter to a towering three-metre-tall unit of a creature. Its spines had become a lot more flexible, as shown by Nibbles’ perpetual flexing of them back-and-forth, and as I looked closer at them, each of them had the shape of the projectiles the Siege Builder had test-fired across my city.

Nibbles! Release a volley of ballista at the treeline to the east!

Obligingly, Nibbles flexed his spines forward and fired row-upon-row, starting with the front-most, of devasting stakes of hardened keratin, which pulverised about thirty trees by the time the final volley landed.

“You went a bit overboard,” I told him, “but enthusiasm is good!”

Imu came hopping over a couple of minutes later.

“Toad, something happened to some of the Woodchoppers harvesting in the east, their bodies were totally—” He froze as he saw the Ballista Hedgehog with smoke coming out of hundreds of empty holes in its back. “Oh for Hell’s sake…”

“Erm, excuse me? What am I supposed to do?”

“How long has she been hanging on to your back?” Imu asked me as he noticed Judetta perched on the back of my vessel.

“I didn’t realise you were still there,” I told her. “But we could use more Preachers for my new religion.”

In one movement she had leapt from my back and landed in front of me, hands on her hips. “I’ll do it! You can definitely count on me to spread your good word!”

I cast a sidelong glance to Imu, but his head was buried in his hands.

“Welcome aboard, Judetta.”

“Thank you, your Toadness!”

I was pretty certain she had somehow lost her mind, but, then again, Imu did say she had been forgotten by her Goddess in a paradise realm for who-knows-how-long.