Chapter 475: I Love You, But I’m Sorry.

Instead of the corpses burning to ash, they rapidly began to melt. The flesh, bone, and organs entirely melted away and merged together to form a grotesque monster.

But this monster wasn’t huge at all.

In fact... it was really tiny.

It was barely around half a meter tall. It looked almost like a tiny creature made purely of raw red flesh and nothing else.

Seeing this, Yuusha raised an eyebrow.

"Something this tiny? Well, less meat to eat so that’s a good thing, I guess." he muttered before he dashed forward, covering multiple meters in an instant.

The moment he got close enough, he extended his arm forward to grab onto the monster by its neck.

But to his surprise, the tiny monster just disappeared.

It left a massive wall of mud splashing upwards in its spot. Yuusha tried to skid to a halt, but his forward momentum was so huge that he just ended up sliding straight through the mud until he slammed back-first into a thick tree on the opposite side of the camp.

He slowly turned his head to the left.

He saw tiny holes punched into the ground leading away into the forest. They were decently deep, almost half a foot straight into the dirt. Right around each tiny hole was a small crater. It almost looked like a tiny meteor had hit the ground and created an explosion with every single step.

Yuusha knew the truth, and he couldn’t help but feel incredibly annoyed.

He talked out loud as he stared into the forest.

"Last time it was a fucking turtle. I had to punch its back for hours on end. It took almost an entire day just to crack its shell. And this time it is a speed demon. Just great."

He clicked his tongue.

"At least the last one didn’t completely run away from me."

He sighed and swiped the mud off his shoulders.

"It is fine. It is totally fine."

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and started walking away in a completely random direction.

And on the way, he started whistling a cheerful tune.

"I will just find other tribes and take care of them one by one. Once I am strong enough, we will see where that little meat runs."

As he continued walking through the jungle, he couldn’t help but remember the six knights he had just taken care of. He stopped whistling as he thought about their armor.

’Right. Those guys looked like they were from somewhere near Crestwall. If I am not wrong, they should be the direct neighbors. I am pretty sure I slaughtered those assholes in my past life too.’

He smirked.

’But to think that they are all stationed here. And to think that three whole kingdoms formed a massive alliance to cross the ocean. It is pretty funny. I also saw the others around, so I shouldn’t ignore the fact that there might be even more high-ranking knights roaming this island.’

As he said this out loud, he couldn’t help but clearly recall Aria’s face.

"What I really don’t understand is why she is here. And so is Serena. This island isn’t great for mages at all. The fact that there are so many knights but just two mages doesn’t make any sense."

He snorted dismissively.

"But well, it is not like it matters. Even if they try to use their high-tier spells on me, those spells are going to be so much weaker here."

Back inside the bamboo hut.

Adrian stared up at the woven ceiling. He turned his head slightly to look at both of his wives sleeping on the bed beside him, and then looked down at Aria, who was sleeping peacefully right on top of his chest.

He just continued to gently pat Aria on her back as he closed his eyes and waited.

Almost after who knows how long, he could finally feel Aria stir on him. He opened his eyes to see her groggily sitting up on his stomach.

She rubbed her eyes as she looked sleepily down at Adrian.

"Papa, good morning."

Adrian chuckled softly. "Good morning."

The slight noise made the other two stir, but Claire and Serena soon went right back to sleep.

Adrian carefully got off the bamboo bed. He looked down at Aria as he walked toward the door of the hut.

"I will go talk to the chief again and I will be back. Until then, feel free to do anything you want around the place."

Aria nodded slowly, still talking in a heavy, sleepy tone.

"Yes, Papa."

She paused and rubbed her eyes again.

"Papa, yesterday I tried to use a few spells just to check a few things. Based on my experiments, I could easily tell that the overall strength of my magic is considerably lower compared to how strong it was back in Oresfall."

Adrian nodded.

"Yeah, I know. This is because the atmosphere here doesn’t have any natural mana floating around. Back in Oresfall, our spells were basically boosted by our own internal output completely mixing with the mana outside. The spell power was essentially doubled upon casting. But here, when you push a spell out of your body, there is nothing for it to mix with. It is a pretty bad place for mages."

Aria nodded. "Yeah, I know. That’s also why I tested the spells. I just wanted to see if there were other laws that didn’t make sense here."

Adrian chuckled.

"Well, you are going to train purely as a knight now anyway, so it is not that big of a deal for you. And I am also a pretty strong knight. The only issue is I need to somehow make sure that Serena is safe and she doesn’t get into too much danger."

"I am pretty sure you can do it," Aria smiled.

Adrian nodded and walked out of the hut. He headed straight toward the chief’s mud hut in the center of the camp.

Meanwhile, Aria walked over to one of the thick, cut-up tree trunks that was still rooted into the ground outside their hut. She just sat down there, took out a martial arts book from her spatial ring, and started to read.

She didn’t have to wait for long for Adrian to come back.

It just took him around two hours before he walked came out the chielf’s hut and walked over to Aria.

"I got all the information I need from him. And I don’t know if we might find even more information later, because that collected rainwater is literally a miraculous drink. We should not underestimate the value of that liquid."

He let out a soft sigh.

"Tell me when you are ready and I will send you into the dungeon. I will be leaving this camp today."

He looked out the door to see that most of the tribesmen had already left for their morning hunts. This included the women too, and usually they stayed back for a while before heading out.

He looked back down at Aria.

Aria’s expression instantly became serious. She closed her book and nodded.

"Yes, Papa. I am ready."

"Good."

Adrian crossed his arms.

"You are not allowed to suddenly change your mind, okay?"

Aria nodded firmly.

"Yeah. Only bring me out of the dungeon when you finally get back to Oresfall. Or right before getting back to Oresfall."

Adrian nodded.

"Or when we get back to this specific tribe, so that we don’t raise any suspicion about where you went."

He let out a soft, guilty sigh and rubbed his forehead.

"I really don’t want to lie to them."

Aria tilted her head.

"Then just tell them the truth. You should have already told Serena something about her magic, right? She should have asked questions already, considering the fact that you are going with the second summoning method I wrote down."

Adrian sighed heavily.

"Yeah. I fully expected her to ask me questions about how I own monsters. But she didn’t ask me anything. She literally just took everything that I said at face value. I was asked zero questions.... like, literally none."

He looked at the floor.

"I won’t lie, I am grateful that she didn’t ask me any hard questions. But I just feel guilty for keeping secrets from the people who trust me."

Aria shook her head.

"Papa, I know that you genuinely love both of them. Everything just needs time. Be it building trust, or just training to get strong."

"No, no, that is not the thing," Adrian interrupted softly. "I do trust them. Completely, in fact. I am just afraid of exactly how they will react to the truth. After all, you already know who I really am. You know I am not the real Adrian."

Aria looked up at him calmly.

"Well, that is an answer that even I do not have for you. But like I’ve told you before... you might not be the real Adrian, but you are my father no matter what."

Adrian shook his head and forced a small smile.

"Okay, let’s not talk about that stuff anymore. You are ready, right?"

Aria nodded.

Adrian gently put his hand on top of her head.

"Are you absolutely sure you are ready?"

Aria just reached up, grabbed his hand, and completely pulled it away from her head.

"You are going to miss me, aren’t you? Is that why you are trying to stall for time right now."

Adrian chuckled softly.

"Not really."

He slowly got down on his knees and pulled her into a tight, heavy hug.

He closed his eyes. "Maybe I will miss you. And maybe I won’t. But I do have to tell you one thing."

Aria hugged his neck tightly.

"I love you, Papa."

Adrian let out a wry, defeated smile as he chuckled against her shoulder.

"I love you too. And I am sorry."

[A/N: I Need to go somewhere tomorrow and I don’t know if I’ll have the time to write. So.... mweheheheh suffer while you wonder how she’s gonna dieeee!! Bahahahaha! (I’m Joking. Or am I?) ]