p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;" align="center"strongspan style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"-Chapter 9: Going Solo (or Duo?)-/span/strong/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"strongspan style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"AN: Let's just get this out of the way: I'm currently sick as I'm writing this chapter, so it may not be as high of quality as the other chapters. It shouldn't affect the quality too much but if there are more grammar and spelling errors than normal that'll be why. /span/strong/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"-Oldeus POV-/span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanI think my parents have good reason to be shocked now. If I'm sharing a body with the Demon God, the same one that gave them the curse of the spears so many years ago, then that's a reason. I would freak out if my son was the Demon God… But do they even know if he's the Demon God? I mean, maybe they can tell from Laplace's looks or something? Perugius mentioned once that if he saw Laplace, he would be able to tell it was Laplace, including after reincarnation. Maybe my parents can do the same? Superd live long enough that they could've seen Laplace themselves and remembered that face if I remember correctly. I wonder if Ruijerd is still kicking. I guess that means it's not safe here, is it? I should probably leave then./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /span…It seems I cannot walk… I should've known that. I'm a baby so it would be unusual to be able to walk already. Although, I am an unusual baby. Other ways to get out? Way One: Use earth magic to push self until out of vicinity of Superd senses. Way Two: Don't get out, remove everyone else from the equation. Way Three: Fly out with gravity magic. Way One is bad for several reasons. First, babies are fragile, and earth is tough. I could break my self! That'd be bad. Even without that, I must keep the earth connected to something as it cannot float by itself, so I can't get out of the way if spears come at me. I could potentially block those spears, but I don't know if I can block all their spears at once. It's also super uncomfortable to push myself with earth especially with a tail on my butt that I'm not used to! Obviously, a bad idea. On to Way Two, it could work, I can just murder everyone here easily enough but if it's a village of Superd, Ruijerd might be here, and I'd like to prevent that. I'm okay with murdering for no reason but I'll never hurt a friend unless they hurt me first. Not again. It would hurt too much to do something like that again and be reminded… Oh, the pain. Let's not go down these thoughts again. The important thing is that I can't go to extreme with Way Two, but that doesn't mean it's not viable. I could just force them out of the village... but then I'd be forcing Ruijerd out of the village if he's here. Even if he isn't here, he wouldn't like me being mean to Superd. Alright, that's Way Two out of the possibilities. Way Three is by far the most practical, I don't cause the Superd many problems other than maybe being shocked at a flying baby. It would be apparent I'm the Demon God, but it might already be too late to prevent that knowledge from getting to them. Then again, any of these ways make it apparent I'm not normal so that probably doesn't matter. With Way Three, they wouldn't be able to hit me with spears, unless they throw them, but the Superd care a lot about their spears, so I doubt they'd throw them. I guess gravity magic is the best option then. Time to fly!/span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanThe shock on their faces increased with my flee as well as their anger. I think I even see some skepticism of my flight. Maybe they're question if they're dreaming. Or they could be questioning if I'm the Demon God. Either way it doesn't matter now, I don't believe I'll ever see them again. If I do see them again, we may not be allies, maybe even enemies but they'll probably be more caring because of parental instincts and such. I don't wish to see them again, meeting will only complicate matters. I also don't see a reason to bother with them. I don't want to have connections with parents… It'll result in more sadness like last time./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanI try to shake my head to get rid of the thoughts but fail due to lack of strength. Now, what to do next? Well, I guess I should get the lay of the land. It should be fairly easy with gravity magic to pull me up high to look around. Hmm… Not the Millis continent. I doubt it's the central continent, but I could be in the strife zone. I never explored much around there. I haven't seen much of the heaven continent either, but I seriously doubt we're there. If we are on the Heaven continent, then I would question where the cliffs are. The Heaven continent is surrounded by cliffs, but I see the beach and it's on level with the ocean. It could be the Begaritt continent but most likely it's the demon continent. There seems to be some nearby mountains as well. I think I can see a town in the distance, I should avoid that place. I doubt they'd like a Superd wandering around. Especially if it's the town Dead End started in. I don't want to cause a ruckus there. What should I do now? First off, I suppose I should get food, water, and shelter. Water is covered with my magic, and I'll find it easy enough to kill monsters with my level of expertise in magic. The problem is shelter, for one this is a naked baby body. My body is nice and strong for a newborn because I'm a Superd, but I still need the right conditions for a baby. I can make a fire and build a hut with magic but I'm including clothes in the category of shelter. Getting clothes will be difficult because I've never been able to make clothes with magic other than the ones on figurines. Hmm… I can get fur from Pax Coyotes but then I have to figure out stitching the furs together into clothing. I've stitched before, my clothes ripped on several occasions while I was travelling alone which had to be fixed but those times, I had thread that I bought and needles which I also bought… I can make the needle with earth magic, but the string might be a bit more difficult. Theoretically I might be able to create string with earth magic, but I've never done it before. Although, the easy way to get clothes is to visit the Petrified Forest and kill an Executioner for its armor. If it can't fit me then I'll use whatever cloth they have. I do remember their armor having some cloth despite it being so long since I've seen one. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanThat'll be better than fur, I think? I mean fur is itchy and stuff, right? I don't want to feel itchy all over. Maybe it would be better for this baby body because I need heat or something? I don't know to much about this stuff. All I know is that I usually see babies in cloth not fur most of the time. It's probably healthier. I'll just go with cloth. /span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanThe first order of business was going to be getting clothes because it would be harder to find and kill an executioner after nightfall. It didn't matter too much because executioners lived in the forest, and it was always pretty dark there, but I did still need the heat of clothes before I freeze tonight. If I freeze, I very well may die which would defeat the point of everything else. Generally, I'd prioritize food first, but I was already fed once by my Mom, so that wasn't a big deal and if I felt like it, I could eat the executioner. Normally I would be liable to disease eating such indigestible garbage, but I have God-Tier detoxification to cure anything I get. I haven't needed to worry about illnesses in a long, long time as a result. The only problem with eating an executioner is that it tastes awful, and I have no spices to even help the taste! I may throw up the contents of my second meal in this life. /span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;"span style="mso-tab-count: 1;" /spanAs I have these thoughts, I notice the forest I was looking for, I don't see any executioners yet, but they're almost always covered in the darkness of the trees making them hard to see. This wasn't to much of a problem as I can just light the area up with fire. With the light emanating from my hand, I can see several different monster species crawling around ready to attack me. They probably expect me to be a nice little meal that has been handed to them. Unfortunately for them, I'm not gonna give them the chance to attack. They were all killed before they could react. None of them were executioners so my job isn't quite done yet. I will continue to wander deeper into the forest. An executioner will probably appear sooner or later, right? I don't actually know if this is the right forest, I'm pretty sure judging by the similarities to when I was here in my past life, but it has been a long time, so I could've just been off on my calculations. Is there anyway that I could increase the chances of finding an executioner specifically? I do remember executioners being another kind of zombie or something like that so could that be used? I guess it would mean that executioners appear where adventurers have died so that probably means I should go to the deadliest part of the woods. There'll be more corpses that could've turned into monster there. Bodies will be near monsters and monsters wherever mana congregates. Mana congregates inside forests because of the density of life, right? If that's the case, then the most mana will be in the thickest part of the woods and where there's a lot of mana there are a lot of monsters to come with it. So where is the densest part of the woods? I'll try heading to the center of the forest then. I'm pretty sure more trees are there. Annoyingly it appears that many more monsters than before block my path, so I slay them as well, just as swiftly. It went on for a while: kill some monsters, run towards the center of the forest, kill some monsters, etc., etc. About when I was to the center, I hear some childish screams coming from my right. /span/p