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Several minutes later, Fufu’s general direction still hadn’t changed. Outside, the scenery had transformed from a vast blue ocean to a vast blue ocean peppered with white icebergs. Khrx pressed his face to the projection on the wall, but reared back when he realized it didn’t work like a window at all. Instead of moving his head around to get a better view of the scenes outside, all he had to do was swipe at the screen to pan through. Khrx sighed, his ears drooping.
“What’s wrong?” Duchess Rose asked.
“Everyone’s coming back from the dead,” Khrx said. “I wonder if Tsorfy came back too.”
“Hey,” Anaheim said to Khrx, turning her attention away from Luke who was forcefully trying to vomit out the specialized food pod. “You said coming back from the dead. Do you think Theda’s responsible for that in any way? You did say she was the goddess of death in [Resolution].”
Khrx tilted his head. “To open a portal from the underworld, something needs to be sacrificed,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything in the world that she could’ve exchanged to bring Niddy, Yiggy, and Fenfen back from the dead.”
“Not even if she exchanged all the mana she accrued in the moon?” Anaheim asked.
“Oh,” Khrx said and furrowed his brow. “I forgot about that.” Could a ton of mana replace a living sacrifice? Khrx closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to use his Co-owner of the Underworld skill outside of the game. A screen didn’t pop up in front of him, but something inside of him urged him to make a sacrifice. So Khrx offered up the mana that was passively leaking out of his body.
“Huh!?” Anaheim and Duchess Rose flinched as a portal split open in the middle of the flight craft. Duchess Rose exhaled when she realized the orange light wasn’t sunlight, but she decided to don her hood just in case. There were too many close calls, and she’d rather not have her face melt off. A white sword appeared in Anaheim’s hand as a figure suspended in the air floated out of the portal. The dimensional gap disappeared, and the figure fell to the ground with a splat.
Khrx opened his eyes, his gaze landing on the … thing he had summoned. “Is that … a turd?”
“Khrx! What the hell!?” Anaheim shouted as the top of the flight craft flew open. Wind rushed into the interior, but Anaheim was unperturbed as she grabbed the slimy object, with a thin layer of mana covering her hands, and tossed it overboard. Then she shone a beam of blinding light onto the residue it had left behind, fully incinerating it without a trace. The top of the flight craft slammed shut as Anaheim glared at Khrx. “I know you’re my pet, but I thought you were housetrained!”
“That was actually a slug,” Luke said, “from the Limus Period three hundred million years ago.”
Khrx blinked. “Huh? How come I didn’t recognize it?”
“They appeared from outer space while you were sleeping,” Luke said. “And they’re really, really vile creatures. Wherever they go, famine and droughts are bound to follow. I, along with a few other demons, exterminated them all to prevent the planet from becoming completely unlivable.”
“Uh, so I shouldn’t have thrown it into the ocean?” Anaheim asked. “Slugs hate salt water, right? It should’ve died.”
“No,” Luke said. “It’ll survive. The only way to kill one of those slugs is to apply enough pressure on it to turn it into a diamond. But it’s okay. The world’s already gone to shit thanks to Khrx. Another disaster doesn’t mean much.”
“What do you mean thanks to me?” Khrx asked with a snort. “You’re the one who woke me up.”
“I sincerely regret it,” Luke said, hanging his head. “If I knew waking you up would lead to this unimaginable suffering I’ve gone through, I would’ve planted a stake into your head to prevent you from ever waking up again.”
Khrx laughed. “Like Fufu would’ve let you.”
“I’m curious,” Duchess Rose said. “What exactly is Fufu?”
“Hmm? She’s a—oh, look! Is that a house? How close are we to Fufu?” Khrx asked, pointing at the projection on the wall. They were now flying over a sheet of pure white ice. In the distance, there was a mansion that was at least twenty times larger than the house that Julia Wonderful had gone to for an interview with Theda.
“You didn’t answer my question…,” Duchess Rose said. She sighed as Khrx stared at her with his big, round eyes, waiting for an answer. “If my skill isn’t deceiving me, the target should be running around in circles inside of that building.”
Khrx’s expression darkened. It looked like his prayer had gone unanswered despite him rubbing his lucky foot. But how was that possible? There should’ve been plenty of luck stored inside of his feet! And even if there wasn’t, it should’ve replenished while he slept for over two weeks in [Resolution] while he was riding that noble horse. “So Fufu’s not running around in circles eating the penguins?”
“Well, we didn’t see any penguins on the way here,” Anaheim said. “Maybe she already ate them all and provoked Theda’s wrath.”
Khrx sighed. If Theda really was going to act towards him like the hero acted towards Luke, what would he do? He already had Fufu; he didn’t need another lover. Besides, would Theda be content with him sleeping for thousands of years at a time? Of course not! If Theda really insisted, would he have to cut short his sleeping time? For a lazy dragon like himself, that was the worst pain imaginable. He’d rather die; then he could sleep for forever at least.
“It seems like you know what I’m feeling,” Luke said as he observed Khrx’s expression. “Misery really does love company.”
“The target is directly below us,” Duchess Rose said. “The target’s still running around in circles but definitely confined to that building.”
Anaheim grabbed the projection on the wall and placed it onto the ground, revealing the mansion beneath them. The front door opened, and Theda stepped outside. She raised her head and frowned at the flight craft before pointing at it with her finger. Anaheim opened the metal egg and shouted, “Wait! It’s me and Khrx!”