Epic of Caterpillar

Chapter 139: Forsaken Labyrinth 2/?

139 Forsaken Labyrinth 2/?

[Day 128]

This morning, I was greeted by a big pile of Human Assassins that my loyal servants caught for me. They were way more, but Guubo took care of most of them, he had a big meal.

I expected this but not so soon, it seems that the Champion of Psychic Eyes is trying to gather more information about me and my true appearance, but haven't got anything. Every brainwashed soldier that I sent back to Athetosea have their minds controlled, so they will never reveal my true appearance or that of my close subordinates and wives.

This woman really doesn't give up… Her organization is full of diviners and trackers, which she is making work every day in hopes to find any clue about me.

Its impressive how many assassins she has, to the point that she can send so many as if they were expendable.

Oh right, and about the Athetosea Kingdom state, it seems like the King alongside the Royal Family used the little power and influence that they possess to protect Nanako Maki from the nobles that wanted punishment for her actions.

The King has been trying to calm down the nobles without many results, the Rudhale house is still demanding compensation for the death of their golden boy. However, thanks to the Half-Dodomeki connections, she has managed to put the four remaining Champions on her side, including the most influential and stronger Elemental Knight, the Knight of Holy, Reynold Goodwill.

Talking about the Goodwill family, it seems to be a family that came from the Central Continent of Eden, directly from the Holy Kingdom Helgen. And after talking with Evan for some time, I discovered that his family, the Godfrey family, is a branched family from the Goodwill family and that the Elemental Knight of Holy is his stepbrother.

I never thought that Evan's brother would be someone of such high prestige, I always thought that it would end up being some cocky brat…

Evan always saw himself as inferior to his older brother, who used to call him trash and untalented. But now that he has discovered that he has the power to become a Hero in the future, he has gained confidence and he's training diligently every day in hopes to surpass the shadow of his older brother.

Due to the intervention of the Champions and the Knight of Holy, the nobles had to forcefully shut up and remain on their territories, leaving Nanako Maki in peace.

However, the internal disputes between nobles are still as hot, so a war is slowly approaching no matter what. Because of this, the Half-Dodomeki woman is trying to gather as much evidence about my existence before revealing it to the masses and the rest of the influencing Noble families.

Well, even if she obtains any proof, it will become useless. Alice has already brainwashed more than half of the Nobles and even if they are presented with evidence, they will most likely say that it's false while blaming Nanako Maki for her incompetence and that she cannot run away from her mistake by presenting fake proof about a demon that doesn't even exist.

The Half-Dodomeki woman has become wary. After the mistake that costed the life of ten thousand soldiers and three Elemental Knights, she needs to be wary. Her actions were too harsh, to be honest.

This is why she is doing it safely inside the Kingdom, with the help of her organization and the Royal Family funds, she is trying her best to contract assassin and spies to gather information about me.

The King seems to be extremely fearful of my existence and has even thought about completely leaving the entire Kingdom behind while he escapes to a friendly Kingdom or country. Thankfully, he was stopped by the Royal Family.

I wouldn't like such a delicacy such as the King to run anywhere. His royal bloodline and flesh must be quite exquisite.

Oh, and about the King of the Athetosea Kingdom, his name is Hunfray Athetosea XXIII. He is an old man on his fifties with a long blue beard and bald head. His expression is that of a stoic and serious man, but in reality, he is a coward and a backstabber, he didn't get the throne with fair tactics, but by killing half of his brothers by different methods.

His wife died long ago due to a strange "disease", but after inspecting the conversations of various royal family members using my Lesser Flesh and Slime Minions, I discovered that he killed his wife because she was planning on killing him first…

He only has one daughter, who he loves deeply. It's the princess of the Athetosea Kingdom and is most of the time treated as the most beautiful lady of the Continent. Her name is Ismenia Athetosea, it is said that her beauty has no equals.

She is a young woman in her 17's, she has a well-formed body with a nice and firm chest, her body is perfectly made and its size is almost too perfect to be real, resembling a doll. Her face is said to resemble that of a goddess, with pale white skin, a small and refined pointed nose, shining golden eyes, and a bright blue hair, which reach her feet.

Aside from her beauty, she is also strong. She was blessed by the Goddess of Wisdom and the God of Judgement. Her powers are still developing but it is said that she possesses a [Greater Epic] and that she is destined to lead the Kingdom to its glory as a [Legendary Figure], named [The Legendary Queen Heroine of Wisdom and Judgement]. Due to these factors and her bright future, she is often worshiped as a God's Apostle.

I wonder what [Legendary Relic] will I obtain if I kill her… Or maybe it would be better to enslave her and make her my wife? Hmm…

Well, it's too dangerous to do anything yet. If I ever try to abduct her, the five Champions will most probably ambush me alongside the Wind Hero and the remaining Elemental Knights. I don't know their full strength, but I'm sure that it would become extremely dangerous if I fight so many at the same time.

Although in this world one can overpower twenty hands with two, one always needs to be wary, even while fighting against those who are weaker than himself. If there are too many unknown factors, it's not worth the risk for the rewards.

Aside from this, today was a peaceful day and I dedicated myself to mostly supervise the construction of the walls while spending some time with my wives.

At around 5 PM, we had a small family trip around town, now that the Kingdom has expanded so much, there are over fifty different streets and more than one thousand houses and hundreds of establishments, shops, restaurants, and so on.

There is now a beautiful park where the Great Lake is, which surrounds it with a beautiful paved floor and several shops. There is a temple on the entrance of the Great Lake were the Merfolk that comes from Aquaria can easily enter my Kingdom and vise versa.

Meanwhile, there are now four "Kingdom Guilds", which are our own personal adventurer guilds that manage the influx of people inside of the Bloody Sacrifice Dungeon and the Forsaken Labyrinth Dungeon. We charge taxes, register new adventurers and knights, and manage the treasures that the adventurers and knights obtain in the dungeons.

And last but not least, the temple on the Dark Miasma Forest Swap was finally finished. This temple is a commemorative monument over Nesiphae's mother, where she can come and talk with her. However, sometimes, other people enter and pray to what they call "The Divine Snake Mother"… These people are mostly Lizardman and Snakeman, but Goblin and Trolls are beginning to come in here too.

It seems that I unintentionally created a religion over Nesiphae's mother… She seems not to mind it and even likes that other people worship her mother, so it's fine, I suppose.

Our family trip finished on a new Elite Restaurant that has extremely pricy menus and only the wealthiest of folks come to eat here.

We ended up reserving the entire Restaurant and ate the entire menu, even the storage food was completely depleted. My children are used to eat tons of food, which has become a small issue.

Nonetheless, the restaurant owner was happy, because I paid him for everything we ate. With so much money, he will most probably build even more restaurants and buy higher quality products.

.

.

.

[Day 129]

Due to the recent state of things, the Athetosea Kingdom knowing my identity and the impending danger of an invasion or war. I will stay in my Kingdom until things settle down.

Although I would have loved to travel even farther through this continent, passing the Vast Plains and into new lands, I will have to move these plans when I already have Athetosea on my grasp.

Until the internal war between the two sides breaks out, I will dedicate myself to train and reinforce the strength of my Kingdom, although I won't be going outside of the Grand Forest, there are already many things to do here.

Now that I am familiar with the [Forsake Labyrinth], I really want to explore it to the fullest, having a Dungeon so close to my home is convenient on a situation like this.

Although I could also explore the dungeon where the Wyvern Overlord was once sealed, that place is filled with many dangers and it's a fairly new dungeon compared to the [Forsaken Labyrinth].

A place that is capable of sealing an Overlord on its peak… It's not a place where I can be relaxed and have a nice time with my family. Some monsters surpass Overlords there and I don't want to even imagine the bosses… Although in that concern there is also interest in how tasty may those monsters be…

Anyways, I decided to bring my whole group of wives, this even including Altani, and my four children. Now that I've secured and tested the dungeon, I'm positive that we can clear this without many hardships. My children have grown very strong already and need to keep pushing their limits to break through their [Life Walls].

Although Altani is weak compared to all of us, she is still my wife and needs to level up to catch up with the rest. She said that she has not leveled up in many years, thinking that she has reached the peak of her strength, however, I'm pretty sure she has a lot of potential waiting to be unleashed.

Although I would like to bring Evan, Wagyu, and Kekensha, they are too busy attending their own families and activities. Evan said that instead of gaining levels, what he needed is to train his senses and techniques, so he's taking lessons with almost every teacher, even Truhan. He has also begun to show his talent with Light Magic so he has been taking classes with Meiji while slowly learning Light Magic Spells.

Well, on the way towards the dungeon, I suppose I can talk about the other important figures in my Kingdom.

Kusuri and Kajiya have successfully developed a fully functional [Spirit Awakening Ring], a "light" version of [Shadow Awakening Rings], that instead of using Demon souls, it uses Spirit Essence to function.

There are a lot of varieties, some can cast a powerful magic armor, others invoke a pair of elemental swords, and others can do both and more. However, although these don't suck people's souls, they absorb tremendous amounts of MP while using them, due to this, they still need to do some testing and try to alleviate this exigence.

However, even if they cannot alleviate this issue, these rings are still incredibly amazing. If we can manage to mass-produce them, we would be able to arm my entire army with them, and easily devastate any enemy army that comes our way. They will just need to pack some MP Potions.

Redgaria seems to have found some insights into his research but has a long way to go.

Yurei, the Slime Ghost girl has been quickly adapting to the Undead Team and she was welcomed on the group quite fast. Although some times she still comes to my room and sleeps with us in a non-sexual way.

The Rin sister's diligence has gained them a lot of [Merchant] related classes and abilities and it has helped them get better on their work. I've also designed some Flesh and Slime Minions using several Soul Cores and my own Aura into the mix, creating [Merchant and Business Clones].

Similar to Rydia, these Flesh and Slime minions were optimized to do merchant jobs and manage business alongside doing paperwork on the offices of the Castle. I've only managed to make five because they are very complicated to create, needing several ponds of my blood, flesh, and bones.

However, because they are Undead and at the same time can enter on an Ethereal Form, they never get tired and can work endlessly, completely alleviating the sister's work, to the point that they seem to be bored at times.

Well, I'm glad that they have some free time and can sleep the needed 8 hours per day.

Talking about Rydia, today in the morning before leaving towards the [Forsake Labyrinth], I "upgraded" her, giving her more Soul Cores as some already was completely consumed as if they were batteries. I can easily obtain Soul Cores by summoning Giant Undead Warriors, who have the biggest soul cores. Although these souls are of very bad quality, they suffice.

The upgrade that I gave her will let Rydia summon Familiars now. However, I didn't do this to accumulate them for war power, as Familiars need to be feed and the cattle animals are already enough. On the contrary, I made her able to summon an endless number of Familiars so we can eat them. She has suddenly become our endless meat machine too.

The familiars that she can produce are Sea Serpents, Lesser Thunderstorm Phoenix, and Lesser Draconic Lion Chimera. Fish, chicken, and land animals, the perfect balance. These familiars are "lesser" as they are weaker and smaller than the original ones, but still big enough to feed five families.

She can produce around three hundred of each one every day, which ends up at nine hundred familiars per day. This amount is incredibly absurd and there will never be food problems in my Kingdom like this. The good thing about these monsters is that nothing on them is wasted, their bones can be used to make equipment or furniture and their pelt and feathers into clothes and items.

This familiar meat will be mostly distributed for free, or sell at very low prices. And because of this, we can increase the prices of other types of meat like the cattle animals, creating the illusion of these being tastier and more worth it, generating more profits!

When we reached the dungeon, we quickly descended through the 1st to 10th floor. My wives were surprised about the dungeon environment and my children excited about the new monsters to kill and the treasures.

It seems that most treasures were already regenerated on every floor room, so we collected a fine sum of low-rank equipment, some gold, and gemstones. My wives and children stopped at each monster encounter and ate them immediately, gaining some levels.

Because we had to stop for every new monster that they found, we took more than I thought…

Well, killing so many monsters did indeed give a nice sum of EXP. I also ate more Mandrakes, Horrors, Tarantulas, Ants, and so on. Finally gaining some skills.

[You gained 6774310 EXP]

[You gained one level!] [LEVEL 028/250 EXP 3.708.365/57.000.000]

[Four families gained several levels!]

[You learned the following Skills]

[Ambushing Shadow Horror]

[Ancient Golden Thread Creation]

[Gifted Speed of the Girtablilu Lineage]

[Mimicry]

When we reached the boss's room, I had already told my family about the boss's stats, skills, and movements. Using this information, my four children were the first to fight the Girtablilu Empress. Although they were still surprised about her unnatural speed and fighting style, the four fought in perfect harmony and after half an hour, the boss was successfully slain.

I let my children kill the boss four more times before it was the turn of my wives, who killed it twenty times. Due to the absurd amount of EXP gained, Altani quickly gained several levels, obtaining extra stats. Something that she has not experienced in many years.

Altani had a different type of magic named [Starlight Divination Magic], which is usually used for divination. However, she can still use offensive spells, and with the support of my wives, she was able to kill the boss around three times.

We had a massive feast using this boss meat in different preparations. The scorpion half was surprisingly delicious when boiled, turning red, and gaining a lot of juiciness, it seems to be able to absorb water very easily. The legs and the claws were the meatiest, which turned red.

Her humanoid half was better prepared grilled, cut into thin slices, and then served with salty, spicy or sweet sauce.

Overall, this boss when cooked was a completely different experience than raw and satiated my [Insatiable Appetite] easily. It seems that cooking it gave me some new abilities.

[You learned the following Skills]

[Girtablilu Empress Sturdy Golden Shell]

[Desert's Adaptability]

[Water Seeking Desert People]

These skills were rather strange, it seems that they are related to the desert… Most probably Girtablilu lives in desert areas and possesses such innate skills for better survival.

I would like to meet Girtablilu's that aren't just automatically generated dungeon monsters, perhaps the women are beauties and could be a nice addition to my Kingdom as an army.

Well, the ones I can summon don't possess a will of their own and lack intelligence, so they are just food or cannon fodder at best. Perhaps for breeding, but I have not put them to test.

After our big dinner, I settled a solidified magic dome in an empty room and put on the tents. I left some Undead Skeleton outside as guards. These are the same ones I used on the Evergreen town dungeon; they are very strong now.

.

.

.