Chapter 109
“Destiny! Destiny!” For the first time, Shui’s voice came through the wall and sounded panicked.
I nudged her, and the shocked Destiny finally responded. “I’m fine! We’re fine! We’re stuck on the other side. It’s dark!”
“J-just stay there!” He declared. “When we escape in the morning, we’ll get a rescue party and come save you!”
“H-he wants us to stay here until morning?” Destiny gasped in the dark.
Of course, as brave as Shui wanted to be around his beloved Destiny, he didn’t want to risk his own life in the pursuit of looking heroic. Well, it’s not like I would blame him. If any of this risked my life, I wouldn’t be doing it either. I hadn’t expected the cave-in. Either the alpha wolf or someone else had used some kind of skill. I could feel a burst of mana immediately proceeding to the cave-in. It almost made me feel like it was intentional, although the alpha wolf ended up getting killed and Shui lost Destiny, so if it had been either of them who did it, it was a complete failure on their part.
“Let’s go.” I shook my head and turned away from the rock fall.
“You’re not waiting? Ah! But, we don’t know where to go, and it’s dark. I can’t even see a thing.”
I stopped after taking a few steps. With a sigh, I pulled the bag off my back and after fumbling for a bit, I was able to find a torch. A few rubs with the flint and steel and I had a fire going. I could see without light. A great deal of my time as a single-celled organism had been without photoreceptors, and even then, most of them were inferior to the human eye. I had long since learned to see with numerous other senses, including those humans didn’t have.
Whether it was temperature, mana sense, or hearing, I was capable of navigating with all of them. From the rumors I had heard, higher level evolved were similar, able to use mana to see and not depending on light too much. Thus, the cave was as easy to navigate as if we had been out in the sun for me. However, Destiny was only a low-level evolved, barely passed the mortal realm, and so she still depended on light. Once the torch was giving off a gentle light that filled the cavern, I grabbed Destiny’s hand and began to head forward into the darkness.
“Ah…” She seemed to hesitate for a second but ultimately allowed me to pull her along.
Of course, my mana was able to reach multiple entrances with ease. Like that, I was able to map out the entire complicated network of caverns. However, at some point, those caverns gave way to a complex of corridors that appeared man-made. It was organized with flat walls and corners that wouldn’t appear naturally. Moreover, my mana sense couldn’t proceed down into them very deeply, as if something was disrupting my senses.
I was naturally curious about it, and I also needed to justify spending more time with Destiny to continue to seduce her. At that moment, she was following behind me, her eyes kept glancing at my back and then lowering. I could detect her heartbeat was racing, and her cheeks were flushed. Although Shui hadn’t been completely wrong. Women did enjoy strength. However, what they cared about more than strength was reliability. No matter how strong someone was, if they saw him as unreliable, a lot of their interest would immediately disappear. This was why I had more success with women in college than back when I was a street thug.
It was true that women liked a bad boy, but they preferred a former bad boy who was in the process of fixing himself. It gave them just enough danger without feeling genuinely afraid. I couldn’t remember the number of ladies hung on my every word as I told them about my rough and violent teenage years. Those were the times.
“Are you okay?” Destiny asked.
I jumped slightly, realizing I had stopped at the most recent intersection while spacing out thinking about my glorious past. During my time in purgatory as a single-celled organism, I had far too much time to reflect on things. For a while, I had convinced myself that those years of isolation had been punishment for those four years of bliss. Being killed by my little sister and then having to live a life alone was atonement for the women I had used and thrown away. Well, the longer I remained human, the more my old habits seemed to resurface.
“It’s nothing.” I glanced at her a bit longer than was necessary, causing her cheeks to redden. “You’re very brave considering everything that has happened.”
“Hmph… that’s to be expected. I come from the house of Lou.” She declared dismissively, although her expression seemed slightly happy over the compliment. “You’re not so bad yourself. For a mortal, you should be terrified, but all of your actions have been clear, almost like you’re not worried about the infernal wolves at all.”
“Didn’t we have the protection of Shui?” I asked mischievously, pulling her along the path that led away from the wolves and toward the underground area.
“Tcht.” She made an irritated noise. “He’s the entire reason we’re in this mess. Besides, he’s not around. If we ran into another alpha, do you think we could survive?”
The reason we hadn’t run into any wolves is because most of them remained near the entrances. It felt like they were guarding them, waiting for us to try to escape through them. My mana detected an exit even though they didn’t have guarded, but that wasn’t my goal so it didn’t matter anyway.
“Hm? I thought the wolf alpha died back there?” I came up with an excuse.
She gave me a look, rolling her eyes. “You’re confusing a wolf alpha with a wolf leader. They’re different.”
“You’re saying that there is still a stronger wolf out there?” I asked, although even then I wasn’t worried.
“Of course, a wolf alpha is only the leader of a hunting group. The wolf leader is the head of the entire clan. There is usually one wolf leader and then multiple wolf alphas… unless..” She hesitated for a moment as if something just occurred to her.
“Unless?” I encouraged her to continue.
“Unless a king was born. King Sagebeasts are their highest evolution level. If this clan had a king sagebeast, then it’d be a real problem. They might even send out an S rank team just to ensure his destruction.”
“So, a sagebeasts limit is king…”
“Ah! It’s not the same king as our own. It’s just the limit for that species.” She explained. “Oh, and even kings can evolve past a king, but they just are no longer considered part of that species. If an infernal wolf king evolved, it’d be a higher-form monster. Well, that would be a disaster, and it’s why the city would take such care to remove a king before he had a chance to evolve.”
“Just the king?” I nodded to Destiny with a raised eyebrow.
“Why would they kill the rest? Their pelts are valuable.” Destiny gave me a look like this should be obvious.
It seemed like local monster populations were carefully managed. That was the source of income and likely leveling for most of the younger evolved. I had begun to realize that the so-called request list wasn’t intended to help mortals or even the ones making the requests but to help the younger evolved. The older evolved left some monsters nearby, and then occasionally left requests for their youngers to go cull the populations.
As a result, they got kills, absorbed mana, and continued to level and evolve. Furthermore, they’d get spending money to buy nice equipment to allow them to take on more difficult requests. Those with skill and potential would gain access to harder and better-paying missions, thus furthering the divide between the mortals and the evolved in a way that looked fair to the public. I could already hear their excuse. ‘If you wanted to have more money, you should just go kill some sagebeasts as we evolved had to do.’ It was no wonder that I hadn’t heard of the request board before when I was walking through the mortal realm, let alone their joule-based economy.
I felt like I had come to a better understanding of this world. I was glad I allowed them to drag me out on this trip, even if their intentions were bad. The pair of us continued. Destiny didn’t seem to challenge my choice of direction, and we continued deeper into the mountain. After about an hour of walking, the path let out into a large cavern, and at the end of the cavern was a doorway made of stone. There were large stone statues on either side, lions with wings and the tails of scorpions ending with a stinger. As soon as Destiny took in the sight, she couldn’t help but gasp.
“What is it?” I asked, watching her carefully.
“It’s… an ancient ruin. They’re the Antecedent.”
“Pardon?”
“Immortals. This is a buried ruin once occupied by immortals!”
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