41

Chapter 41: A Steadily Growing Kingdom

Epic of Caterpillar

After I finished giving passionate love to Mady, we both quickly dressed back.

I patted Mady head and said my good byes.

"I never expected you to be so energetic in this regard, you are an incredible woman, Mady. Very well, I shall get going"

Mady sat on her desk and drank some imitation of Star Fish dew, while resting.

"Phew… You are very good for a youngling, fufufu… I shall give you an update of everything going on everyday"

"I would appreciate that"

While walking away, Mady stopped me.

"K-Kireina, w-wait…"

"Huh?"

Mady looked at me with a blushed face.

"I-I know that this was all very sudden… But, could I become part of your Kingdom in the future? When my mission here is fulfilled. I have grown tired of this place, of this city. Of its people… Since I was child that I always wanted to explore the outside world"

I looked at Mady with a warm smile.

"Hahaha, that's a given, Mady! Even more, you will become my wife too, but for that, I need to see your results first"

After hearing this, Mady blushed even more, but I also noticed a hint of determination.

"V-Very well then! I will conquer the Aquaria Kingdom underworld!"

I already predicted that it would easy with my backing and her newfound power. I can't wait to get a hold of this Kingdom underworld, using these connections, I can even manipulate those royals into submission. When I reach this point, I could even use these royals to blackmail Caspian to handle the whole Kingdom! Absorbing it entirely into mine. This is a nice goal to look forward in the future.

***

When I left the slums, I quickly flew were my party was. It seems that they stopped on a big restaurant and were enjoying loads of delicious food.

When I finally reached the place, I joined them on their feast.

Zehe was drinking a small bowl of seafood soup, it also had noodles. She seemed to enjoy it. Her happy face warmed my heart.

"Ah! Honey! You took some time! The food here is very delicious!"

Rimuru was at Zehe side eating tons of fried food, from crab croquets to fried shrimp and fish. Getting all her face nasty, giving her an adorable look.

"Guuuuu! Munch, munch… Mastaaa finally here! Come with me! At my side!"

Nesiphae was eating a big red colored fish, it seemed to be an entire smoked Armored Fish.

"Master, you finally came! They even got big fish, fitting for my size!"

Wagyu and Kekensha were enjoying a big bowl full of different types of raw fish.

"Hmm! Master, how was your trip?"

"Master, you must try this! This raw fish is very fresh! It's still moving!"

Seeing all my servants, no, my family happily enjoying a meal made me extremely happy.

I sat at Rimuru side, at the other side was Zehe who give me a warm smile.

After some seconds, a cute Eelmaid attender came with the menu for me, it was all written inside a special kind of paper, that was infused with magic. To be able to see the whole menu I needed to infuse a small quantity of MP, which made the paper shine, changing its letters to the next "page".

It seems that the System itself is able to translate any letters to my original language, this also happens when talking to other people, some may have a different language but the System immediately translates it to the one hearing it. The System has pretty much made a universal language for everyone.

I ordered almost the entire menu, and ate t my hearts content, although I didn't get any new skills, the food was too delicious, making all the money spent worth it.

After finishing eating, I decided to pay with the Mermen Ancient Coin, the Eelmaid attender was surprised by this ancient coin, and said that the whole menu wouldn't cost as much as one coin, but I still give it to her and told her to kept the charge.

Due to this, she called the owner of the restaurant who give me his thanks over such a generous gift. The owner was a big and burly Scylla men, he seems to be a very talented cook, being able to use his countless tentacles to prepare the whole menu at the same time.

After giving me his thanks, he handled to me a small card made of coral, this card shined with various colors when exposed to the light.

He told me that it was a "VIP" card for this well-known restaurant, which would give us an easy access to the establishment without having to wait for a table. It would also grant discounts and even off-menu food.

After saying my good byes to the restaurant owner and the cute Eelmaid waitress, we kept exploring the city.

On the way, we came across loads of shops that sold beautiful clothes, and my wives forced me to get in, trying out clothes with them. Because I was once a man, I really feel uncomfortable trying all these clothes, but my cute wives forced me anyways.

There were beautiful rainbow dresses, gothic dresses and shirts, hats and even bras.

My wives used me as a dressing doll to their hearts content, putting me in every weird clothes they found. Some were quite decent but others were too much! Showing almost all my body.

Wagyu and Kekensha enjoyed looking at me trying out dresses, cheering me out.

"Impressive! Master is as beautiful as ever!"

"Hmm! I particularly love her looks on that gothic dress, it really fits Master style!"

I sighed.

"E-Even you guys… Geh…"

Because the merfolk doesn't possess a humanoid lower half, they don't have the necessity for pants or shoes of any type, even so, all my wives bought countless dresses and hats, and I also had to buy some, as they forced me to.

Having everything done, we quickly flew to the city gates and we were greeted by some guards, they already were awaiting us by Caspian orders, and opened the massive city gates, letting us out.

"Have nice travels, Lady Kireina"

When we finally got outside the city, the massive door closed with a big sound.

Boom!

The door slowly dissipated through the water, as if it was never there.

"An amazing spell, I wonder how powerful was this Old Ancestor of the Merfolk that Caspian talked so much"

According to Caspian, this Old Ancestor was a powerful Wizard, able to use its magic to create a space, putting the whole merfolk city inside. This space could be easily moved and manipulated, he used this ability to cross the ocean and settle down on this big Lake, in the middle of the Grand Forest.

He was also a talented Alchemist, being able to easily create countless magic infused accessories, these include the Appraisal bracelets that he specifically crafted for its descendants.

"I would had loved to meet such a person; I wonder if I would had been able to put a fight against him?"

Before completely leaving the Lake, we decided to do a quick hunt around, we decided to kill the biggest monsters around, leaving the big number of smalls ones alone.

We killed King class Golden Crowned Crabs, Armored Fishes, Flaming Eels, Rainbow Starfishes, Poison Spiky Sea Cucumber and Shadow Eyes Octopus. However, I will save these for my servants at home, so they can taste these delicious creatures.

| YOU GAINED 54870 EXP | | THE REST OF YOUR PARTY GAINED 27435 EXP |

| YOU GAINED ONE LEVEL! | | LEVEL 3/70 EXP 52000/54000 |

| YOU OBTAINED A NEW TITLE: MERCILESS AQUATIC LIFE KILLER |

When we reached the surface, I quickly went around setting Magic Shield Traps, using the skill | DEADLY TRAP | along side my Magic Blood Spiritual Shield. I was able to do this by firstly casting the skill | DEADLY TRAP |, when casted, a small lump of light would appear on my hand, and a command asking for "Trap Customization" would show up. From this Trap Customization, I can select various traits, mostly damaging and negative ones, but there was also the option to use my own skills, making the ability to create "good traps" possible.

These traps would activate whenever anyone step on them. It was also possible to set floating traps, covering the entire space.

Each trap would cost around 150 MP so I had to drink all my MP Potions for this. If I want to set more around my Kingdom, I will need to ask to do some | MP SHARE | ritual first.

After this quick hunt, we decided to go through the sky, over the forest, directly towards the East Rocky Mountains.

***

After an hour of flying, we finally reached the Rocky Mountains, and saw something incredible.

Surrounding our Castle/Mountain, there was a small town already settled around, this town included hundred of houses and walls around, with paved streets and lamps.

"Is this…"

Looking closer at the streets, I noticed countless monsters walking around, having their daily lives, some of the houses became small shops and restaurants, and there were three big facilities that seemed to be factories of some sort.

"It can't be… This was too fast!"

To the other side of the town, there were a big group of very strong looking Undead soldiers, working together, constructing houses and paving the floor.

"The Undead are working very hard too, and some even evolved! Can they get EXP when constructing things?"

I also noticed that the Undead were being commanded by a group of monkeys, being led by Meiji and some of his spirits.

I also noticed how every Meiji Spirit seemed way mature, they already evolved!

My party was also surprised by the incredibly fast development of the Kingdom, seeing the town with shiny eyes.

Wagyu and Rimuru, who had accompanied me since the beginning, started to cry big tears of joy, being moved by how much our people has accomplished.

"M-Master! T-This is our Kingdom! Right? Our people! Our family! I can't believe how far they have come"

"Guuuuuuu! Mastaaa! Its so beautiful! It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"

"Hahaha… Yes, it's very beautiful"

When we finally approached my Kingdom close enough, all of my servants inside the town noticed us and cheered, waving their hands or paws.

"Its Master! She is back!"

"Masteeer! We have missed you so much!"

"You are finally back, Lady Kireina!"

"Look Master! This is our Kingdom!"

"We have worked so hard to surprise you!"

"Lady Rimuru, Zehe and Nesiphae are back too!"

"Such beauty! They are the most beautiful ladies of our Kingdom!"

"Rimuuuruuu! We have missed you so much!"

"Ooooh! Senior Wagyu and Kekensha are back!"

"They look even more tougher than before!"

"Awwoooooo! Senior Wagyu! Senior Wagyu!"

After seeing all my beautiful family receiving us, I felt a soothing warm on my heart.

"I'm home"

When I reached the town, hundreds of monsters jumped over us, hugging us and licking us.

"Guaaahhh! G-Go away! You ruined the moment! Gueeh! Don't lick me there! Eh?! Which pervert touched my butt?! Hey!!!"

"Lady Kireina! We missed you so much!"

"Ukiiiiiiii!"

"Awoooooo!"

***

After everyone calmed down, I was finally able to greet all my servants properly.

Some of the servants that were in the castle quickly came flying, this included the rest of the monkeys, wolves, wyverns, spiders, squirrels and more.

Abellona and his brothers seemed way stronger than before, they seemed to have leveled quite a lot since then and their skills also seemed way more evolved.

A lot of the rookie monkeys evolved even more, and what surprised me the most were Kusuri and Kajiya, who managed to evolve! Something surprising coming from them, as they barely train.

Kusuri told me that they were able to gain EXP while crafting and synthetizing items and they were able to evolve just last night.

Both Kusuri and Kajiya evolved to a rare crafting-oriented monkey variant named "Mountain Crafter", they did not see a notable increase in stats but they obtained the skills | HIGH CRAFTING AND SYNTHESIS AFFINITY | alongside countless of crafting and alchemy related skills.

Their appearance remained mostly as monkeys, but they were more refined and less wild-looking.

Kusuri told me that he and Kajiya have been working very hard into making potions, armor and accessories for the entire Kingdom. Due to the increasing population, when the factory facilities were finally done, he had to move parts of his team into them, to efficiently keep the steady production of items. This also included the needed ones to keep expanding the towns.

"It has been a rough 3 days since you left, Master. We have worked very hard to keep everything going, we have expanded our Crafting Team three times already, we finally stabilized the production of items. Our growing population steadily needs these items to keep growing stronger while having their daily lives"

"Y-Yes, Master! W-We have worked very hard… I'm tired…"

I told Kusuri and Kajiya to take the rest of the day free and they happily accepted. They seem to have their own little house in this town too.

While talking with the rest of the Monkey Squad Leaders, they told me that in these three days, more than 15 baby Monkeys have already born, and that they needed naming services right away. Instead of going to the nursery, the whole nursery team was already here with the babies, so I quickly named them all, I couldn't inspect their stats carefully because they were way too many, but each one was a different rare variant, having different colors and powerful classes.

About the other babies I named, they were already walking and talking like normal monkeys!

"You guys grew way too fast!"

"We will work very hard to serve our Kingdom, Master!"

The baby monkeys growing in four days to almost adult phase surprised me a lot, but according to Kizuato and Yukan, the Rocky Mountains Monkeys grow extremely fast, taking just eight to ten days to grow to a fully functional adult.

Kizuato and Yukan told me that they aren't even more than one year old!

"W-What?!"

"Hahaha! That's right, Master! We aren't even that old"

But even Kizuato and Yukan were surprised, as these monkeys only took four days to fully mature, probably because of being born with stronger variants.

It seems that the phase of growing for most monsters in this world is incredibly fast, and this phase can be even faster if you put evolution on the formula. For example, me, I was barely born as a Caterpillar around a month ago, and now I look like a young adult woman, of at least 19 years old. But what frightens me is that this fast-growing phase may come with a short life spawn, however, seeing how the former Monkey Emperor seemed to have lived for hundred of years, this theory gets destroyed already.

So, I just wondered, why do monsters grow so fast? Is this a survival mechanism in this harsh world? Perhaps pure humans won't grow as fast. I also know that merfolk doesn't grow as fast, as I clearly saw kids and adolescents in Aquaria. Probably the higher your humanoid heritage is, the slower you grow?

"How can they have such a short age?! But they look like very maturated people already! This world is nuts!"

The only ones that make sense age wise are the Wyverns, being Abellona the oldest one at 280 years old, which is barely considered a young adult. But wait, this is also nuts! What do you mean just young adult at 280 years?! When will he become a full-grown adult?! At 500 years?! No way…

While ranting over the weird aging system in this world, the Rin sisters finally came to the town, they all seemed extremely exhausted, with their hair being a complete mess and big bags on their eyes.

Even Rin didn't have enough energy to insult me in any way!

"You are finally back… Hahaha"

"Master… I want to take a nap…"

"Welcome home, Master… How was your journey… Hmm… Zzzz"

Did they just fell asleep while standing?!

It seems that taking care of the whole Kingdom was too much, even for three of my split minds, some of the Spider Maids that serve them all the time told me that they had barely any sleep these last three days, working very hard to maintain the Kingdom on a steady increase in production and population. From summoning Demonic Beings for training, to taking care of the constructions, to inspecting the crafting and cooking, the expansion of the usable land, signing documents, etc.

"Wait, signing documents?"

It seems that on my absence, the Rin sisters used Earth documents system to create contracts for easy transactions and trading.

They also created a money system, this money is made of simple copper and it has a number in the middle of it, showing its value. Anyone can obtain these coins while working on their respective fields, feeling rewarded for what they do.

They also made restaurants and shops possible, and assigned a big group of Hairy Spiders to the production of clothes for any type of monster. Now even wolves can find a fitting sweeter!

And while all of this was being made, also big groups of monsters started to join our town, as they saw how every monster race worked together.

Kizuato and Yukan told me that these monsters were always around here, taking peeks at our growing Kingdom, there were even later war survivors who have been surviving in the Forest barely.

Around 20 surviving Trolls joined out of nowhere, they seemed to have survived the war and ran away towards the West River, they told me that they survived eating the fish there but they were running low in food nonetheless.

Also, around 25 Goblins joined too, these ones survived on the Dark Forest, but slowly became too hungry. These nasty humanoids had to ask for mercy and after taking countless tasks they were finally able to enter the town as population.

These goblins seemed completely different than the war ones, who were bloodthirsty bastards, as they were very polite and educated. It seems that hunger can change people too much, flipping their personalities by 180 grades. They easily found jobs and joined the different crafting and production teams, the strongest ones decided to join the soldier teams on the training grounds.

Around 40 other monsters joined the Kingdom too, they were of various intelligent races, including Gale Birds and Flaming Salamanders. All of these groups were led by their respective King Class leaders. I should name them afterwards.

However, what surprised me the most, were the Dryads! I saw countless of beautiful Dryads walking over my town! They told me that the Dryad Empress herself decided to let some of the more adventuring Dryads to come here and live for some weeks. Around 25 Dryads are living in this town. But because their true form is a tree, I wondered how did they even moved to this place?

It seems that the most mature Dryads have the power to change its true appearance (the tree) into a different living plant, the name of the skill is named | TRUE BODY RESTRUCTURATION |. Most of them changed their tree structure to big flowers and stuck them to their ethereal bodies, being able to move around freely.

Dryads are not very good at working in almost anything, as they barely have any crafting talent, but some are very good at creating concoctions and special plants, and others can help plants grow faster, helping the overall feeding issue of our Kingdom.

Ah yes, another thing that the Rin sisters worked very hard to make was an official "Soldier Team", which would use the strongest warriors as royal soldiers of the Kingdom. Anyone who thought that had a talent for war and fighting was more than welcomed, as Kizuato and Yukan would train them to the core.

Leaving the Rin sisters to their well-deserved rest, I took the lead of the Kingdom now, deciding to inspect the various facilities around the town first.

When I was in Aquaria, I always wondered if we could make something similar to such place, and the answer is already in front of me, a big yes.

Accompanied by my wives, I browsed through the countless shops and restaurants. It seems that a lot of the Cooking Team monkeys split and made their own establishments. However, the original two, Chokumotsu and Kaen are still serving on the Castle restaurant, which is now paid. They have become official "Royal Chefs".

There were so many restaurants that I almost lost count, but I counted at least 16! Each one served a different delicacy that the Chefs specialized in, even though there was competency, it was still too early and each Chef always got a good amount of money each day, being able to maintain their Restaurants very well.

I asked Meiji about what did they do over the big consumption of ingredients for all these restaurants, and he told me that the Rin sisters increased the number of members in the hunting team and split it on three, making three big Hunting Teams. Alongside this, the Farming Team was also granted extra members, which included mostly the new humanoids (Trolls and Goblins). And they have managed to steadily increase the breeding of cattle.

Meiji also told me that cattle wouldn't breed so fast if it wasn't because of two monkeys evolving and obtaining a "Farmer" class. These two monkeys were the very old grandpas which Kizuato and Yukan told me once, who were very good at raising animals. The Farmer class skills are all related to raising cattle animals and harvest.

Using their newly gained skills and incredible experience, which also included a revitalized and younger body due to evolution, these two old grandpas increased the breeding rate of the cattle animals over 200%! They had skills that made the animals enter in heat faster, making them breed at an increasing speed, there was also a skill that made the animals age faster, reaching adult stage in a single day. Ready to be consumed or reproduce even more.

These skills would be completely useless in battle, but for the Farming process, they were extremely convenient and amazing!

According to their most recent reports, we have around 80 Giant Ice Rabbits already, to think that we started with just two! The rest of the cattle monsters, if combined are around 120 more!

But a big question came to my mind.

"How do they feed so many?!"

This is were the Nature Element manipulators come into place. Eshne, Tsuchimizu and Odayakana, with the help of the Dryads, used big chunks of MP, manipulating the ground and the plants around, feeding them with rich Mana, which made them grow incredibly faster, being ready to be consumed by the cattle monsters.

After knowing everything about the food and its production process, I couldn't help but praise my servants, they were extremely talented and intelligent to be able to figure out all of this on their own!

I also inspected the clothes shops, there weren't as many as the restaurants, being around eight. Each clothing shop specialized in a different type of clothing, for every race in this Kingdom, and if there weren't clothes for you, you could pay an extra fee and these talented Hairy Spiders would craft a personalized set of clothes just for you! I was surprised because there were even a shop selling lingerie, for any race! What?! You perverted servants!

Even though there was a lot of shops, they did not look as refined as the Aquaria Kingdom ones, only being inside small houses. With tiny windows showing the clothes and menus.

Some monkeys and spiders used their saved money to expand on their shops, paying a fixed amount of money to Meiji, he would send some Undead to expand their shops, doubling their size each time, adding new floors.

However, because they have set their shops just three to four days ago, only two monkeys were able to expand their restaurant for now, but I expect even more people to do so.

As I passed through the shops, every owner offered me with free food and clothes. I tasted loads of delicious food in the way and also received lots of cute clothes, which I will probably never use. No offense, spiders! Keep making them!

When I finally reached one of the big factories, I noticed how all the workers inside used alchemy and synthesis arts to produce a steady number of items for every day life. However, they did not just make Potions and armor, but also used these skills to make elaborated spices, using other spices as materials. And some talented monkey alchemist was able to synthetize a Pie! A Pie! Just by throwing ingredients into a hot cauldron!

The monkey offered a slice of the Pie and it was obviously delicious, it had a nice strawberry filling, and the dough was nice and warm.

He told me that he had a special skill named "Food Synthetizing" and he was the most talented of all the Food Synthesizers, having completed most of his Recipe Book skill already. On my absence, it seems that this new kind of hybrid between Alchemist and Cook was born, and lots of Alchemist and Crafter monkeys got these new skills.

Of course, Synthetized food would never be as good as freshly cooked food made by a Chef, but it was convenient and needed few ingredients. Ideal for a growing Kingdom.

While on the way, I came across the entire Slime Family, however this time, they all were evolved into humanoids!

"Aaah! Master is here!"

"Mastaaa!"

"M-Master! Sister Rimuru!"

"Eeeh?!"