307: Kurai’s Journey to the West (1)

Master4thWall Note: Basically found writing the Kurai story fun, and also had to take a longer time planning the outline of the Volume-3. So extended this Omake Arc to six chapters. But since many of you didn't agree to the idea of the Kurai Chapters, I have decided to post all six in a single day. I am posting 3 chapters now, and 3 more will be out in six hours. Merry Christmas!

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Chapter 307: Kurai's Journey to the West (1)

Volume 2.5 — Omake 1

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[Two Months Ago]

In this world of Ninja and Samurai; Kurai woke up extremely confused.

Instinctively, from the Nature Energy present in the air, Kurai could tell that this was a world very different from where she was born; where her Papa found her cold in a street and gave her such power and intelligence that she was incapable of even imagining back then.

Immediately, she got worried—what happened? Wasn't she fighting while fused with her Papa? How did she end up in this place? Did that last breath of fire kill Papa…? Did her death powers somehow save her from dying and reincarnate her in this new world, while Papa perished alone?

At that moment, a system prompt popped up in front of her eyes.

[Ding! You have received a memory packet. Would you like to view them?]

[Y/N]

Kurai tilted her head to the side, frowning, before she decided to accept the offer. With a thought, a surge of new memories found their way into her brain as her eyes widened.

In this world, it appeared that she was a summonable creature, able to use 'Nature Chakra'—however, beyond that, she didn't have a real background in this world. Everything else was hollow as if it was a fake backstory made by someone.

Once the further confused Kurai began to inspect the memories more, she sighed in relief when she found out who her summoning partner was.

'Papa is alright; he is in this world too.'

Kurai didn't have any idea of what had happened, or how they ended up here, but she knew she didn't need to worry. Because her Papa was alive and well.

Soon, as Kurai began to relax—she felt a pull in her existence as she got excited, feeling Neji summoning her.

– Poof!

Dark smoke devoured her, and when it vanished, Kurai found herself in the air above Neji. She grinned wide and jumped on his face.

"Paapa!"

"Hey, cutie."

"You are not dead!" Kurai hugged him. "We are not dead!"

* * *

After their first meeting, Neji allowed Kurai a great load of freedom in this world. Mischievously, Kurai planned to accuse Neji of only calling her when he needed her; even though in truth, she was delighted at this much freedom.

As for the reason for such freedom, her Papa would be busy on his own in search of her Mommy and four aunties. Kurai decided that she wanted to help. However, she didn't want to tell him that, she feared that he would laugh and tease her. So Kurai planned to perform her own Search Mission in the animal kingdom side of the world, while Neji searched the human world.

It would surprise most humans if they realized how easy it was to find lost things if you could communicate with the animals. That was why, on the first night when Kurai and Neji appeared in this world, she spent the night in the forest nearby, interrogating (bullying) the native beasts in the forest to ask them about the five women.

Unfortunately, Kurai didn't have pictures of the lost women, so it was hard to accurately search for them via these foolish animals.

Kurai didn't give up though.

—-

The days became weeks, yet nothing that big had happened in this new world Kurai found herself in.

'Mhm, perhaps that one incident where I and Papa beat two magical foxes count as "something big"? Then again, it was too easy.'

In short, everything in this world was too easy and didn't pose danger to her and her Papa—which was more of a reason why she was so frustrated that she hadn't found the lost woman yet.

Even after weeks of searching, Kurai hadn't found anything worth it until now.

Though, frustrating that she hadn't found a result to her effort yet, it would be a lie to say that she wasn't enjoying the process of bully- interrogating and asserting dominance over the animals that filled this world.

'Oh, how relaxing it is to be so powerful!'

Kurai's days were short, a bit frustrating, but overall happy. She breezed through the forests of the planet, interrogated the beasts, and killed them to level up when they failed to answer her.

Such was one day when Kurai was happily running through a forest, looking for the strongest creature around to bully it, but she wasn't expecting what was to come up next.

The strongest creature in the forest was a large chimpanzee, a 20 feet tall baboon with an idiotic face, who lived and ruled from within a broken castle.

Kurai didn't like how he looked at all, and that alone made her want to beat him bad.

However, when she stood in front of it after defeating all its minions, the old baboon inside the ruined castle who sat on a broken throne didn't want to move its butt.

"You won't fight?" Kurai asked in a shock. "What a puthy!"

The chimpanzee scoffed and said, "I heard about you, I know I can't defeat you. What's the point behind fighting you, then?"

"Oh. You can speak properly? Good point, by the way."

"...Yeah, you're growing pretty famous." The chimpanzee said. "I heard you are simply looking for some people? But are unable to find them?"

"That's true." Kurai nodded. "They look like–"

"Oh no, I don't need the description, I already heard them from the rumors. Thing is, I don't know." The chimpanzee shrugged. "Now, before you kill me, you may want to rethink and hear me out."

"Mhm?" Kurai, who had concentrated death energy on the tips of her claws already, tilted her head as her ears twitched. "Okay. Speak."

"Sage Animals." The chimpanzee spoke. "Just like you, in this world, there exist intelligent creatures who can draw the ambient Nature Energy within them. I learned to do so myself, years ago, that's how I am much smarter, stronger, and better than other animals."

"Mhm…"

"My point is, I am but a newbie yet I can do all this, and you as a cat with much chakra within you are so smart and strong too. So imagine the other animals like you and me, who have lived for hundreds or thousands of years. Naturally, they know a lot more than you and me."

"Ohhh! I see what you mean!"

"Indeed, indeed." The chimpanzee nodded. "I suggest, rather than doing meaningless massacres, you should find the location of forests where such Sage Animals live and ask them what you want to ask."

"Okay, thanks!" Kurai smiled. "By the way, you said you know how to draw Nature Chakra inside you right? Then someone must have taught you, right? Tell me the location of that someone!"

"Ah…" The chimpanzee hesitated, but when Kurai glared threateningly, he sighed. "Alright, alright. Though, be careful to not attack them if they don't know what you want to know. They are strong, they'll turn the table on you and kill you instead."

"Heh, sure. Just spill the name!"

The chimpanzee chuckled, looking at Kurai as if looking at a younger self of his own, before it began to speak. "Mount Huaguo. I myself never went there, as I met my teacher–Monkey King, Enma–when he was wandering the mortal world. So you might want to ask other animals around."

"Huh?" Kurai scoffed. "Useless."

Ignoring the chimpanzee, Kurai leaped in the air—physically running on the sky—as she made her way to the nearby mountains, in search of the Monkey King.

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