The Fairy King Of France
A few more irritating encounters with sea monsters and land was in sight. We'd completed the 130 mile journey to Havre, and it was beautiful.
A massive, rocky coast stood before us, almost completely empty, containing only one, lone figure.
As we docked, a small, cute child greeted us, with an even smaller, even cuter supporter behind her. "Welcome travelers", she announced, as though reading from a script. "The fairy king would like to meet you."
"How does everyone know about us?", Ulric complained, frustrated, before remembering that, if people hadn't been able to find out about them, he would've never met Sarah and shut up. Sun Wukong, having experienced something similar in his journey to the west, simply nodded away.
As this happened, a portal opened beside the girl and she gestured for us to enter. As we did so, we were transferred far away.
We now stood in a beautiful French forest, miles inland, full of people. Looking around, they all seemed to have fairies as their supporters.
The girl, who'd followed us through the portal, overtook us and walked to the center of the forest.
In the center stood a massive sycamore tree, far larger and far greater than any other.
As we came closer, I could clearly read a sign, engraved with the words "fairy king's castle."
The fairy king. To my knowledge, there was only one character that fit that description. Oberon. While myths contained many fairy queens, I believe he was the only king.
The girl lead us into the tree.
The passages were grand, but clearly new. They'd been roughly carved out of the tree with some sort of magic.
At the end of the corridor, stood a vast door. As we reached it, the door opened on its own, revealing the man inside, sat on a wooden throne with a crown of living vines resting on his head. A large fairy stood behind him, his sponsor. Oberon.
We all recognized the man straight away. I was astounded. I didn't expect any politicians to survive, especially not a high profile one, and definitely not the prime minister. Algernon Ferdinand stood from his throne to greet us. "Welcome, I am honored to meet you."
Ulric bowed to Algernon, while Sun Wukong behind just laughed at them both.
"I would encourage you not to laugh at my vessel", Oberon warned Wukong, simply making him laugh more. Realizing he wouldn't stop, Oberon continued. "How about I explain why I called you here."
"I've heard you're going on a journey to the east."
"That is correct", Ulric responded, having seemingly nominated himself as the leader of our group.
"How about we make a deal. We will help you on your journey, if you promise to help protect this place in the future."
Ulric considered it. He didn't like making so many deals, but did need all the help he could get if he wanted to kill Buddha. "How can you help?"
"Well, you see", Oberon explained. "In our little nation of fairies here, we have plenty of skills for different things, and we just happen to have some for transport. You saw that portal earlier, we can provide you with one of them."
"So, you can send us straight to China?", Ulric was surprised. Of course, they probably couldn't, if they were that strong, then they wouldn't need any protection.
"No", at least Oberon was being honest. "I can take you as far as Russia. From there, you'd have to make your own way."
Ulric considered it, Russia was a slight detour, but would still be significant progress. Before agreeing, there was one question he needed to ask. "What sort of protection do you expect us to give you?"
Oberon replied, as though he'd expected the question, "We have people capable of catching glimpses of the future. From that, many of them have seen disasters on their way. If you agree to this, we will only call on you when it happens and we absolutely need you."
Ulric had little choice but to agree. He needed to get to China as quickly as possible if he had any hope of beat Sakyamuni.
Before going, I too had a question to ask, "Oberon, what is this place?"
His response was as expected, "My kingdom of fairies." Luckily, he continued to elaborate. "Thanks to an arrangement made with the other fairies, we managed to gather all our vessels and I was able to protect them all."
"What about the people who weren't chosen by fairies?"
"What do you expect of me? I am the fairy king. I cannot be expected to save absolutely everybody. I did what I needed to do, saved who I was meant to save. Besides, you must admit, most of them didn't deserve saving." What he said may have been true, but that didn't make it alright. He clearly had the power to save hundreds of people, so why didn't he at least try to save some more?
As a small silence ensued, Cain interrupted, "With all these people here, why did you send a child to get us?"
It was an obvious question with an obvious answer.
"I thought that a child would be much less threatening. Although, I don't suppose you have much to be threatened by." He was right. Behind us, followed a massive army of clones, more than enough to crush this entire nation if we wanted to.
With our short Q and A over, the king finished, "If those answers satisfy you, would you like to go through the portal?"
As the portal opened beside him, we began stepping through, one by one.
As he was going through, Cain belatedly asked a rather important question, "Just what disasters did you see?" only to be ignored, answered by a wave and a smile.
Next thing we knew, we were in south-west Russia.
As we got there, a message appeared in front of us.
[Next round of inheritance will take place in 0h, 0m, 56s]
It was close, very close. If the trend continued, and they kept becoming less and less frequent, then the skills we obtained each time would become far more important.
Fifty-six seconds later, a message arrived.
[You have inherited more of your supporter's powers]
Another screen then popped in front of me.
[Skills (4)]
[Judge of the dead Lv 3]
[Can select the fate of those you kill]
[Hellfire Lv 2]
[Can summon and control hellfire]
[Freeze Lv 1]
[Can stop time for 30 seconds, in 5 meters, 5 minute cooldown]
[Hell's subpoena Lv 1]
[Can see any information on those you judge]
It would've been nice if freeze had levelled up, but at least hellfire did. Meanwhile, hell's subpoena could be an interesting skill, even if not that useful.
After I asked, Cain and Ulric shared their skill screens with me.
[Ulric's skills (4)]
[Body out of body Lv 4]
[Can summon an attack clone using hair (40%)]
[Golden fiery eyes Lv 1]
[User's vision is enhanced, the effect of illusions is lessened]
[Summersault cloud Lv 1]
[The user can jump 5m in an instant]
[Emergency hair Lv 1]
[Can escape any situation. Max 3 uses (3 remaining)]
Seeing his skills, Ulric pulled out a clump of hair to summon more clones, while Cain made a comment, "can't you just spam summersault cloud all the way to China?"
Meanwhile, I looked at Cain's skills.
[Cain's skills (5)]
[Headless Lv 1]
[The user can survive without their head]
[Spirit physique Lv 3]
[Can become intangible for 90 seconds, 5 minute cooldown]
[Weapon proficiency Lv 2]
[User is better at using all weapons]
[Oxygen independence Lv 1]
[User can survive without oxygen for longer than normal]
[Undead sense Lv 1]
[User can detect undead creatures nearby]
Overall, the skills would be pretty useful.
Finally, a strange message appeared.
[Dependent inheritance will take place in 24h, 0m, 0s]