Chapter 224 Alerting The Forest
Day 59
The day started off with Amethyst making a huge ruckus in Zana’s cave, waking her up. She was surprised to see that I was there and I found it amusing. She herself was excited and jumped me, refusing to let go of me.
I threw her off when I was tired of being drenched in her sticky saliva. The little lizard was displeased but couldn’t do anything about it… My mistake, the giant lizard was displeased but couldn’t do anything about it.
She was easily twice as big as Shiroi now, even though she hadn’t undergone an evolution. It was simply her growing bigger overtime. Like how Oki was so big even though he was a hob-goblin like the others. It would seem she had been eating too much off late. The culprit for this was Zana who had apparently grown close with Amethyst.
Turns out Zana being a family member also gave her access to my personal familiars. Not only was she above all the servants, but she could use my closest aides too? Wasn’t that too good a position to be giving to anyone? Well, it was easily understandable that a family member would be receiving more protection than a minion, but still… I’d basically given Zana everything I had.
She was happy that I was still around when she woke up and organised breakfast. I wasn’t in the mood for it, but decided to eat. Some herbs and mushrooms. Surprising that a naga would be eating this kind of stuff, but everyone had their reasons for everything.
Once we finished, I asked her to call the copperheads together. I went to gather up the lizardman tribe I went to the last time. They hadn’t chosen a new leader yet, so I simply coerced them into selecting an impromptu one. He was one of their elders, who they claimed was a relative of the lizardman who revealed the truth. I’d forgotten about that guy completely.
The people had a new found respect for his relatives ever since it was revealed that the chief truly was dead. Though, I found it hypocritical of them, especially the elder who never once supported him. Now wasn’t the time for such things, so I had him round them all up in the centre of the village.
He informed me there were about 6 other tribes out there that he could not inform, as well as other sentient races like kelpies and voldvons who lived deep in the swamps just like the copperheads did. Though, they were the more violent and less talkative type. Sort of like the goblins of the swamp. He also warned about Marsh Rusalkies. They didn’t take too kindly to intruders on their turf. Even the necromancer had to avoid them.
If they were willing to form an alliance with me and the west, I guess we could rest easy knowing that the south wouldn’t easily be traversed. The whole point was to make Larm as inhospitable to humans as possible. Even worse than when Goliath and Minerva were around.
The only issue was getting all of them to meet up. I brainstormed multiple ideas, then Hyakkun hit me with one. The fog could serve as a broadcasting system. I rushed to Zana and suggested it, she told me it was possible and a talking fog was definitely more than enough to catch the attention of sentient creatures.
With that, my plan could officially begin.
I teleported the lizard men in front of Zana’s abode where the copperheads were now appearing. They and the lizardmen had an unspoken feud between them, but now wasn’t the time. I had Zana announce it instead of me, but when she tried, there was some muttering coming from the copperheads.
For some reason, I felt infuriated by the gross disrespect they showed to her. I was forced to emphasize the need to be quiet by directing killing intent to all copperheads. They were immediately put on high alert, but the power disparity also prevented them from making any rash moves.
Zana proceeded with the announcements. From inside her cauldron, I could see the other races. Although not a majority of them, those that did see the fog would definitely report it. The purpose of this entire announcement was to create a sense of agency amongst them and let them know just how bad things were going to be for Larm, before giving them hope.
I doubted the armies would start marching in this instant, but I couldn’t ignore the possibility. After the discussion, I also told them that I would be holding an important discussion in the West. If any of them felt like it, they were allowed to participate so we could formulate better plans. The discussion would be in a week from now.
Due to the distance issues, I wouldn’t mind personally coming to teleport them to the West. They just needed to tell Zana if they would participate from between now and then.
After that, the lizardmen and copperheads were shook. They were suddenly in a frenzied state, crying about how bad things would be since some of them hadn’t lived long enough to see the bad state of things. In fact, apparently the previous demon lord was so much of a pacifist, there hadn’t been a proper fight with demons for almost two decades now. There’d be the occasional fight here and there, but given the casualties from traversing these terrains, he decided it’d be best for them to mind their own business instead of fight for supremacy in a never-ending war.
The lizardmen and copperheads would select representatives to come to the meeting, with Daxia of course. Since the elder lizardman was an impromptu leader, they now had more time to choose someone else.
I chose to return to the West. I left Amethyst with Zana in case some one idiot tried to defy her. Zana was too much of a softie to fight someone like that.
In the West, everyone was up and at it. I messaged Shiroi on her whereabouts and apparently, she was off marking areas that her wolves and the Fenrir clan should constantly be monitoring. With them, she was sure they could expand the range of our safety by at least 10 times. She was basically saying the wolves would have no issues with protecting the entirety of Tokyo city with their numbers.
That was honestly terrifying, but given the state of things, it was good news. Ichi and Ni had their spawns all over as well, though most of them were house protection. Tsuna and Yuuna were training some hob-goblins that developed magic abilities. Oki and Taiku were busily training the other goblins in methods on fighting, trying to raise their levels greatly.
I checked on Reiman and his rats. According to him, he was busily monitoring Arisu so he’d left the intelligence to Nukeme, who had included some goblins in it as well. Nukeme’s logic was that there were goblins who had no chance of ever growing physically strong, so he’d simply use them for covert intelligence operations, such as spying, information gathering and so on. That was honestly a smart use of those goblins, though Arisu was starting to become a waste of resources.
I asked Reiman to leave her to me so he could take better control of things as a general. Though he’d already done a great job so far by giving all the commands he had.
So far there’d been no humans from a military. There were the occasional foolish adventures that entered the outskirts of the forest, but we could ignore those.
Once I had Arisu, I slapped her in the back of her head. She looked like she was going to get angry, but one look at her with [Dragon Eye] and she was silent. I gave her strict orders on how to behave. For now, she would be following me around and learning some manners.
I went into the mansion where the kobolds were busily keeping up with house maintenance. In the armoury, some were polishing the weapons. Amongst them was the human boy, Erwin Dolus. He was fitting some of the gear on some kobolds, probably just to see what fit who better. They saluted me once they noticed my presence and I did same.
Arisu wanted to eat the armour, but one slap to her head was enough to silence her. I went to the cooks and they were keeping up. Next was the inventory where we kept all our money. It was empty and as such, the harpies were busily sulking on the ground. I decided to fill up the inventory with a bit of the gold I stole from Makrov’s dungeon.
They were excited by what they saw, as was Arisu who tried to steal some. Another slap to the head and we were out of the there into the library, where Kara, Ulva, Grimm and Kawaii were. According to them, Kara was teaching both of them proper usage of magic. Grimm was an expert in monster subjugation through tools and sometimes magic, but his magical skills weren’t anything to boast about according to him, though from my standing it was sort of impressive. He was already in the B- rank, so he wasn’t a pushover. Ulva was still C in rank so she could benefit from it.
Though, the little girl just wanted to do more practicals with Grimm.
Also, an important thing I want to note is that I could see something next to Ulva. It was hazy, but there was definitely something next to her. It was probably because of my dragon eye skill and when I inquired, she told me that her the soul of her weapon, Nabe was there. Now, I could identify soul weapons merely by looking… I could always do that, but I could see their true form now… somewhat.
I left them to proceed with what they were doing. The person I was searching for in the mansion was Sylvie and I eventually found her in the labs down below the mansion. She was busily working on renosue potions. I decided to put my [Crafting] skill to use here and help her out with it.
We spent about 5 hours working and due to my skills low level, I was more of a hindrance than anything. We managed to make about 200, of which I only made 10. I also helped her out with making some weapons. Let me tell you now, sword making is not easy in the slightest. At least my [Crafting] skill went up two levels today.
Later, I went to check up on Yokino, but she wasn’t around at all. Fortunately, six of her generals were around. The ant general Inu, beetle general Kotetsu, bee general Hari, centipede general Nagai, mountain butterfly general Shippo, dragonfly general Kugun.
They were to follow my orders according to Yokino. Since I didn’t want to prolong things, I asked them to help out with the others. Kogun and another general had lots of subordinates in the south, so I wanted him to give a detailed report of things to Zana. Shippo as well had lots of subordinates in the North, an area I hadn’t really thought of given how it was connected to the Mystic Peaks. That might be a blind spot for me. The east was also under Inu’s command so she could help me out there with informing them of the imminent threat.
Overall, it was a hectic day and the coming days would be only tougher. I went back to the mansion to take a calm heated bath… at least I wanted to, but Arisu was being a pain in the ass about taking a bath.
DAILY ACHIEVEMENTS
[The skill [Crafting] became [Crafting Level 3]]
[Tori made 10 renosue potions]
[Tori made 1 [Normal Sword]]
[The skill fusion became [Fusion MAX]]
[The skill synthesis became [Synthesis level 10]]
FUSION
[Dastardly Bite] + [Monstrous Bite] = [Death Bite] (Advanced Skill)
[Dragon Razor Fangs] + [Lizard man Sharp Fangs] + [Fire Jaws] + [Poison Fangs] = [Smog Dragon Fangs]
[Quick Attack] + [Swift Movement] = [Ultra-fast Attack] (Advanced Skill)
[Multiple Minds] + [Super Thought Process] + [Wise Council] = [Supreme Logic Council] (Advanced Skill)
[Lethal Black Claw] + [Lizard Man Sharp Claws] + [Poison Claws] = [Death Claw] (Advanced Skill)
[Acidic Ink Creation] + [Petrifying Poison] = [Crumbling Stone Ink Creation]
SYNTHESIS
[Impact Absorber] + [Shock Absorber] = [Damage Absorber] + [Damage Counter]
FAMILIA
[Hyakkiyago Familia has gained 2000 experience points]
[[Shadow’s Crib] is getting jumpy]
<A/N: We\'re going to speeding through the days like I said earlier.>