Chapter 107 - 106: First confrontation

Chapter 107: Chapter 106: First confrontation

"Did you dodge the attack?"

Gid had not, as Yuuji expected, stopped the attack by catching his hand. Instead, he had pushed Zastin slightly to the side with one hand while using the other to strike Yuuji’s wrist and divert the attack to the left by just a few centimeters, causing it to miss its target.

"My clothes aren’t as durable as I am, getting another one would have been annoying" Gid replied while dusting himself off with annoyance.

Yuuji held his gaze with one eyebrow raised, that sounded like a Lala-level excuse in terms of how bad it was.

"Don’t get too full of yourself. That power isn’t yours to begin with" Gid replied, irritated by Yuuji’s gaze.

Yuuji wasn’t intimidated either, smiling in response. "With the power I have right now from Zastin, if I stole half of yours as well, do you think I could beat you?"

"Oh?" Gid smiled with amusement and stretched his shoulders as if preparing to fight. Centuries had passed since someone had dared to provoke him. "Want to try?"

Feeling the pressure coming solely from his battle intent, without any kind of pressure or ability, Yuuji immediately backed down while forcing a smile. "...I was just joking."

"Good. You’re still far from being able to challenge me" Gid nodded.

"Putting that aside" Yuuji changed the subject. "With this, I passed all your tests, right?"

"...Tsk, fine" Gid nodded with a complaining tone whose origin Yuuji did not know. There was no way for him to know that he had passed the tests in ways Gid had never even imagined, ruining the purpose of every single one of them. "From now on, you are officially the fiancé of my daughter, Lala Satalin Deviluke, and heir to the throne of Deviluke. Therefore, you are the next emperor of the Galaxy.

I’ll make an official announcement to drive away all the other suitors and make it clear that you have my approval.

Zastin, schedule that."

"Understood, Your Majesty" Zastin, after recovering his lost power, recovered instantly. In any case, he had no injuries since Yuuji’s attack had not connected, so there was nothing to recover from. However, he was quite affected mentally. He had already categorized Yuuji in his mind as an extremely dangerous existence, second only to Gid.

Of course, Zastin was not the kind of person who worried about everything or was filled with paranoia, so since Yuuji was on his side, this level of threat did not become a reason for concern, but simply a profound acknowledgment.

With that, the whole matter finally came to an end.

Or at least, that was what Zastin and Gid thought as they prepared to leave Pluto.

But before they could leave, Yuuji stopped them, Gid specifically, with an unexpected question.

"Gid, one last question. Do you recognize me as someone worthy of Lala now?"

"What do you mean?" Gid raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Exactly what I said. I’m not talking about being your successor or about strength. I’m asking whether, as a person, I’m worthy of Lala"

Gid heard his question and laughed almost immediately.

"Ha, never" he said disdainfully. "I can accept you as her fiancé because the galaxy needs a successor and you managed to pass the tests I set. But as a person, I will never acknowledge that there is someone truly worthy of marrying my daughter"

"Even after proving that I can defeat your second-in-command?" Yuuji asked. "Even though while you completely ignored your daughter, I took care of her all this time and looked after her on Earth, where she arrived without even knowing its customs or social rules? Where she only fled to in the first place because you forced her to marry against her will?"

"Listen, Yuuji Rito" Gid said, becoming serious in response to all his questions filled with ulterior motives. "There are reasons why I act the way I do, and I don’t need to explain them to a child who wouldn’t understand even half of them. In the future, you will come to understand them on your own without me having to say anything, but until then... stay out of my affairs"

"Lala is my fiancée, so they’re my affairs too" Yuuji replied without backing down.

"You are because I accept it, and I can end your relationship with a single word if I don’t like it, so stop talking about it already"

"Even though Lala finally found someone she loves, you’ll end their relationship just because you don’t like him? Just because he doesn’t agree with everything you say?"

"Exactly" Gid replied.

Yuuji sighed with an expression full of feigned helplessness. "Fine, I won’t get married until I have your approval. If you don’t give it to me, I won’t get married"

Gid frowned, confused about what Yuuji was trying to do.

"What are you trying..."

Gid stopped halfway through his sentence, as he noticed Yuuji’s expression suddenly change into a smile that contrasted with how serious and sad he had seemed a second ago.

"Divide"

The next instant, he felt his strength being reduced by half as Yuuji moved from his position.

Zastin, sensing imminent danger, wanted to protect Gid, but Yuuji intercepted him, preventing him from reaching his destination.

Meanwhile, Gid crossed his arms in front of himself to shield himself from the sudden attack.

Boom!

Despite having covered himself, when a Pink Laser Ray several meters in diameter connected with him, Gid was violently sent flying several hundred meters backward.

"You...don’t get to decide who I’m with!"

"Lala, what are you..."

"Shut up!" Lala interrupted him with an angry shout while continuing to fire the cannon mounted over her right shoulder again and again. "Why do you always do this? Why do you always ruin my happiness? Why do you insist on deciding what I’m going to do with my life?

I’m going to marry Yuuji, I don’t care about your opinion or what you want!"

"Lala, stop for a moment and listen to me" Gid tried to calm her down after realizing that Lala had heard the entire conversation, having arrived there at who knows what point.

"No, you listen to me, Gid Lucione Deviluke! What do you mean you don’t accept Yuuji? I’m the one who has to accept Yuuji, not you! I don’t care about your opinion!

He already passed all your stupid tests and you still don’t accept him?!

And you can’t end my relationship whenever you feel like it, Yuuji is the person I’ll spend the rest of my life with.

The moment you try to end my relationship with him, I’ll end my relationship with you forever. And if you keep following me, I promise I’ll hide in another universe and create something strong enough to take your throne away from you before coming back here.

Understood?!"

"Lala, calm down for a moment and..."

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Gid didn’t even finish speaking before Lala fired again, although the attacks did not specifically hurt him. Lala had created that cannon specifically for her father, who had no special abilities and only possessed the strongest body and physical statistics in the galaxy.

It was an attack focused on range and power, more like a huge explosion than a penetrating weapon. It basically used the laws of physics to strike her father even if it could not hurt him.

Of course, that was in terms of her father. Against a normal person, it would cause incredible damage. After all, a beam that was basically thousands of continuous explosions concentrated together, capable of pushing someone whose body was more durable than entire planets, was dangerous in its own right.

This specific device, combined with the fact that Gid continued losing strength that Yuuji stole from him every ten seconds, made it impossible for Gid to approach Lala in any way. He could only continue dodging her attacks while being pushed back by the ones he could not evade.

"Understood?" Lala repeated coldly.

"...Understood. I won’t interfere in your love life" Gid finally agreed after no longer even being able to dodge her attacks after a minute.

The attack that had previously only pushed him back had already destroyed part of his clothes and left severe burns on his body every time it hit him.

"Good" Lala nodded before putting her cannon away. Afterward, she looked around and blushed intensely. "A-ah, what did I just do?"

As if she had just realized the extremity of her actions, Lala panicked. Looking for somewhere to hide, her gaze swept across the improvised battlefield until it settled on Yuuji.

"Y-yuuji?" Her expression turned to confusion when she saw Yuuji and Zastin standing together without any signs of having fought, especially Yuuji, who was smiling at her with amusement.

"Lala, very good, you finally stood up to your father" Yuuji congratulated her.

"Y-you...planned this?" Lala realized.

"I told you that if you kept going like that, I’d call your father directly so you could insult him, remember?" Yuuji replied.

"B-but I didn’t think you could actually call him."

"Don’t underestimate me, Lala. Zastin used to be my boss and I still have his phone number."

"What about Dad?" Lala asked, pointing at Gid.

"I had no idea. A few days ago, Yuuji Rito contacted Zastin saying that he wanted to complete the test to officially become your fiancé.

I thought he was suitable enough and I was looking for a way to bring the two of you together anyway, so I agreed," Gid explained. "The only thing he asked me was whether I could avoid saying that it was his idea and make it look like something I was forcing him to do. Although I didn’t understand why he wanted that, I agreed since it wasn’t much trouble anyway."

"I didn’t know anything either" Zastin explained, afraid that he would be accused of something. "I realized what was happening when the princess attacked Your Majesty, so I didn’t fight Yuuji Rito"

"I see" Lala sighed in understanding. "But isn’t it a little pointless if it was all an act?"

"Not really" Yuuji replied. "Because your emotions at that moment were genuine. Try saying something bad to your father to his face"

"E-eh? Well. Dad, your hairstyle is really ugly" Although nervous at first, Lala said what she genuinely thought even though her father might get angry about it, immediately reacting in surprise at herself. "Oh, Yuuji, did you see that? I’m amazing!"

Lala, excited by her own actions, ran toward Yuuji and jumped into his arms.

As for Gid, he simply watched her actions with a frown. "Zastin, what do you think of my hairstyle?"

"Eh? Ah, Lady Sephie likes it" Zastin replied nervously, quickly finding a way out.

"Tsk, that’s enough" Gid muttered disdainfully before drawing Lala’s attention. "Lala, to think they had to use such an indirect method to make you say what you really think. Is this how I raised my daughter?

We need to have an honest talk, you and I."

"Fine" Lala nodded, reluctantly leaving Yuuji’s side. "And just so you know, your parenting was terrible from the beginning"

’Why do I feel like this conversation is going to be very bad for me?’ Gid wondered suddenly upon seeing his daughter’s attitude.

In reality, it was not a new attitude. It was the honest and direct attitude Gid had seen from his daughter whenever she talked to anyone. However, it was extremely rare to see this attitude directed toward him, and for some reason he did not understand at the time, it made him feel a little nervous about what his daughter was going to tell him.

{Author’s Note: An explanation for what follows. Here, I had a small dilemma. As you can see, the protagonist’s journey is about to begin. If I actually wrote several Chapters about Yuuji and Lala’s journey, which has nothing to do with the main plot, right before what follows, it would feel like filler, way too much filler. But if I simply skipped over it and said in the next Chapter that the protagonist traveled a lot and has many tickets, it would feel like it came out of nowhere.

What I decided to do to keep it from feeling like too much was to write only a few stories that happened during his journey, just four Chapters. But at the same time, so it wouldn’t feel too short, I made the Chapters much longer than usual}

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+10 Chapters in advance on Patreon.

p-atreon.com/IAMME26

(just delete the hyphen)

80 power stones = 1 extra Chapter (cumulative)