Chapter 230: Change
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
Ever since I started becoming slightly famous, people would always put some descriptions in front of my name when mentioning me, such as “damned Roland,” “bastard Roland,” “why-isn’t-he-dead-yet Roland,” and so on.
It seemed that the closer someone was to me, the more they liked to use these types of nicknames. I figured that this was their way of showing their affection for me.
I understood that this was a friendly way of showing their closeness to me in an attempt to improve our relationship. After all, calling me “lovely Roland” or “wise Roland” to my face would be rather embarrassing, which was why they substituted other adjectives instead.
Yep, this was just a unique method of expressing the deep friendship between us. It definitely wasn’t because my friends objected to me or anything like that, such as the one on my head. Although she was a bit emotional right now, I staunchly believed that she was simply too shy and embarrassed…
“Um, isn’t that enough? There should be a limit to how embarrassed you can get. I know that you’re really grateful to me, so stop acting awkward… I’m bleeding again, stop biting! Hey, did you hear me?”
*Kacha!* *Kacha!*
What was it supposed to mean when she transformed her teeth to that size? Did she intend to cosplay as a saber-toothed cat? The transformation ability wasn’t supposed to be used that way!
Alright then, let us ignore the fact that my head was currently bleeding, as well as ignore the incredibly embarrassed (?) young elf on my head. At the very least, I had many other important things to take care of.
I hadn’t lied when I had Beifeng tell the others to go back first without me. For the time being, I wasn’t going to be able to leave the Earth Elemental Plane, so I could only have them go ahead first.
Even with the Earth Elemental Throne shard as a converter, my new world still required large amounts of earth element for its foundation. And the best quality and highest quantity of earth element obtainable was of course in the Earth Elemental Plane. My System had also given me clear notifications regarding this, telling me to stay in the Earth Elemental Plane without going anywhere else.
After Emordilorcan’s death, the connection between planes had already been recovered. A certain shameless Death God tossed the responsibility for cutting off the connection between planes to Emordilorcan, since nobody would dare to question Ayer about his possible involvement anyways. This matter would likely end just like that.
After the connection between planes was reestablished, I spent a lot of time dealing with questions from the mortal plane.
However, the news that I heard back from them helped me to relax somewhat as well, as the situation in the Northlands was going pretty well. Amelia’s new product had already been confirmed to be effective by the druids, and it was planned to begin planting her new seed everywhere during next month’s beginning of spring. My knights’ military restructuring work was going smoothly as well, and the Mist Alliance was formally beginning to be put into place. Everything seemed to be developing excellently…
Of course, even if most things were going well, it couldn’t be helped that there were some chaotic noises mixed within as well.
I might as well just tell the truth… I didn’t spend all that much time on serious affairs, instead using most of my time to defend myself against those rumors that spread even quicker than dimensional transmissions. The scandal between Prince Roland and the witch had reached its third edition, and judging by the tearing and wall-scratching sounds from the other end of the transmission, a certain Demon Marchioness must be rather angry. That was why, until she calmed down at least a little, I should temporarily avoid—cough—cough—I meant I should just cultivate a little longer here for the time being.
Since the Northlands didn’t have any military affairs that required my attention, most other affairs didn’t have too much to do with me personally. However, there was still some news that I paid close attention to.
“The Auland Empire’s plan to recapture their capital has failed, and the City of Rain is continuing to increase in size and area. Large numbers of the seafolk are now constructing defensive fortresses, and even ancient sea beasts have been seen aiding them. The tide and height of the ocean increase every day, and it’s looking bad for the humans.”
All of these were preliminary battles to the Holy War started by the Elemental Gods, but the result was quite different from the one in the Northlands. Judging from the news that I received, the Auland Empire was in a bad situation.
“The Queen of Storms has actually promoted in rank? Her divine power has gotten stronger?”
Perhaps it was because the seafolk had gotten more devout in their belief towards their Guardian God, or perhaps Chaos was rewarding her for her achievements. This female warrior Goddess, who was famous for having an inscrutable personality, had gotten stronger through battle.
“…It seems that Gods are indeed the critical point of battles. If Lorci hadn’t been killed by Karwenz for us, perhaps our straits would be equally dire right now.”
When I compared the two battles, they were actually quite similar. Both were battles started by a True God on the Chaos side, but unlike Lorci, who had caused her premature death with a double betrayal, the Queen of Storms was probably one of the most well-liked rising stars of Chaos. From a certain standpoint, she was getting closer and closer to the position of Sea God that she dreamed about.
“Oh man, that’s rather troublesome. How perfect! My world also requires sea-related divine power and Divine Spirits. It seems that we’re definitely going to have another chance to meet her again in the future.”
After all, there were significant grudges between us. The System had even reminded me in the past to not approach the sea, and the Queen of Storms was quite famous for being one to bear grudges. Just having the Borealis stop by the sea for some repairs had caused the Queen of Storms to send annoying sea beasts to attack it, and although we had won that fight, there was now a deeper grudge between us.
At the time, I didn’t have spare time to deal with her, but now it seemed like I could spare time for her. After all, my two quests where I needed to gather sea-related divine power from the Sea Gods and sea beasts probably had to go through the Queen of Storms, who had the title of being the leader of all the sea beasts.
“It’s a pity that the Auland Empire views saving face as more important than anything else, which is why they’re suffering. Not only did they not request aid from the Church of the Gods, but they even refused to accept aid from the other human kingdoms that volunteered to assist them.”
As a person who believed in logic and reason, I was utterly unable to understand those who put the concept of face and reputation above all else. However, since the Auland Empire insisted on taking care of their own problem, the other countries and the Church of the Gods indeed had no reason to intervene.
“What’s reputation supposed to be? Can I eat it?”—Roland Mist.
I shook my head and put this boring matter to the back of my mind. The other thing that slightly attracted my attention was something akin to a rumor.
“…Congratulations, Roland. Since you defeated Emordilorcan, you rose 6 ranks in the Calamity Rankings, and you’re now #27. You’ve actually entered the top 30 so quickly.”
I was unable to understand why Amelia seemed to be so envious when she informed me of this. Did she think that her ranking wasn’t high enough? That being a walking human calamity was fun? I’d scare every little loli while walking around outside—that would be a sin… whoops, I seem to have said something wrong. I hate naughty children the most!
“Harloys! How many times have I said it—I’m really not a lolicon. If you dare to imitate my voice and act as me again, and ruin my reputation, I’ll…”
Yep. The one who just said such a classical tsundere line was the “decoration” on top of my head. However, she didn’t even look in my direction when I threatened her; instead, she showed an obvious expression of disdain that seemed to say, “What do you think you can even do to me?”
After all, if I did truly did do anything to her, it would be bad for myself.
“I—i—I’ll make you wear an elementary school girl’s swimsuit while having cat ears and a cat tail, and I’ll make you imitate cat sounds and dog sounds in the middle of Karo City’s largest plaza!”
Even Harloys was scared witless upon hearing this. It seemed that she never expected even me to be so shameless and come up with this method to threaten her.
“You—you do have those types of thoughts about me, after all. For you to be able to come up with such a perverted method of playing around, you still don’t even dare to admit that you’re a lolicon!?”
Fine then, it appeared that my reputation was continually darkening. She was so scared that she instantly transformed back into a black cat, but I was tempted to tease her even more upon seeing such a rare scene.
“Hmph! You think that I don’t have any ways to deal with you if you change into a black cat? Did you forget that Beifeng is still in the Earth Elemental Plane…?”
Alright then, his name perhaps possessed more magical power than any forbidden spell. Harloys instantly changed back to her loli elf form and kept shaking her head.
“Don’t turn me into a cat and lock me together with that mega-pervert! As long as you don’t do that to me, I’ll listen to anything you want! That day—that day… Wahhh!”
It seemed that her memory from when she had just left the Underground had given Harloys such a deep impression that she instantly surrendered upon hearing his name. Not only did this give me the perfect way to control her in the future, but it also caused me to inwardly sigh in exclamation at how the name of Beifeng Herault had far surpassed his actual power level in being able to scare someone like Harloys to such a degree.
Looking at the current Harloys, I couldn’t help but inwardly exclaim. The mental spirit would affect the body, and the body would affect the mental spirit. After Harloys regained her life, she was affected by her physical body that was still rather young. She was now much more emotional than before, and often did some rather silly things.
This was a good thing for her. Although she recently did do many silly things, at the very least it made her seem more human. But, right now, I could only hope that her ability in magic hadn’t decreased together with her physical body’s age.
“Alright, then help me out here. You’re probably the only one who can help me with this.”
I indeed required Harloys’ assistance, and this was something that I absolutely couldn’t allow anything to go wrong with. It took me a lot of effort to figure out how to make her obediently work her hardest for me on this.
Right now, as one of the main locations where the battle had taken place, the area around the former Earth Elemental Throne had been cleared out and had become a forbidden zone with security patrols. The reason for this was the Seven Brothers of the Gourd that were fast asleep in the middle of the forbidden zone.
They laid there in all sorts of haphazard sleeping positions, and their snores were as loud as thunderclaps. As true world-level calamity existences, nobody wanted to see them suddenly wake up.
Obviously, making them hibernate forever was the safest way to deal with them, but I had promised Reyne to help her think of some idea to borrow their power.
“Impossible! Without even going into if it’s possible to summon them to the mortal plane, or considering the huge price that one must pay to summon such a high-level existence, the moment they appear in the mortal plane, there’s going to be plenty of fun in store for you.”
Harloys instantly shot down the insane idea of borrowing power from these Divine Sins, but I didn’t budge. I was well aware of everything she mentioned, but I had other plans.
“Of course, a complete summoning isn’t going to be possible, but how about a partial summoning?”
“Partial summoning? What’s that? I’ve never heard of it; just what are you talking about?”
For Harloys, who had the wonderful title of being “all-knowing,” to actually admit to never hearing of this concept, it seemed likely that it didn’t exist in the entirety of Eich.
“Summoning is a connection between two beings. Either the spell fails, or the entire body is summoned. What do you mean by partial summoning? Only summoning half of the body?”
Harloys was always easily excited about the topic of new magical knowledge. This time was no different. She seemed to have forgotten about how angry she was with me earlier, and was eagerly asking me about this.
I directly nodded at hearing Harloys’ question.
“Yep, summoning only part of the body.”
I ignored Harloys’ shocked expression as I began talking about my objective. And as I explained, Harloys’ expression changed from shocked disbelief to helplessness.
“It’s such an amusing plan. You’re the best at finding abnormal shortcuts. I’ve never seen you so serious when you were studying magic before.”
“Do you agree that it will work?”
“Although I don’t want to admit it, it’s highly likely to succeed. Go ahead and try it out. It’s impressive how many strange ideas you can come up with.”
I nodded in satisfaction. Since even Harloys was saying so, then that meant that the rate of success was quite satisfactory.
Actually, my plan was quite simple and didn’t even require any high-level knowledge. It only required the most basic knowledge about dimensions.
“First, open up a small dimensional connection through which only one of the Divine Sin’s limbs can pass through, and then have Reyne wake up the Divine Sin while she’s still in the mortal plane. When the Divine Sin wakes up, it’ll definitely attack everything in front of it instinctively, while that tiny dimensional connection won’t allow it to pass through; the dimensional connection will be the only way that it can vent its strength. Then, the enemy on the other end of the dimensional connection will naturally become the target of its wrath, and afterwards, Reyne just has to order the Divine Sin to hibernate again, which will basically end this partial summoning.”
The logic behind it was quite simple, and it was somewhat bending the rules, but it was fine as long as it worked and was practical. After all, even I wasn’t confident that I could survive a single attack from a Divine Sin.
“I’ve even prepared a name for it already—‘Look At My Golden Finger!’”
“Golden Finger? And I have golden legs—what does that mean? It doesn’t seem to fit at all.”
“…Then how about the Magically Appearing Divine Palm or the Nine Yin Divine Stomps?”
“Why don’t you just say that you’re an absolute failure at proving that you’re a genius at coming up with names? Those are even worse than Golden Finger!”