Chapter 2104

Chapter 2104

“How was he?” Demetrius asked. His voice was warm with hope for a positive answer.

Randidly straightened and scratched his cheek. The two of them were packing up crates of apples, carrots, and Ara Fruit and storing them in Randidly’s interspatial ring for transport. Apparently, a market gathered only a short distance away from Jotem’s farm during the mild season. To build their reputation, Jotem suggested they go and Randidly agreed. Plus, it was a good opportunity to gather information.

He coughed lightly. “Well, he certainly was dedicated to fighting. Didn’t complain at all during the sparing. I’ve got him doing some foundation-building exercises now. I’ll check in when we get back. It will all depend on how long he works.”

“He might be a little rough around the edges, but his youth was difficult,” Demetrius said lightly. Then he grinned over at Randidly. “My Liege, I think you will find that he is an excellent student. He has within him the potential to be truly great, someday. He just needs a few nudges... and maybe even some pushes, in the right direction.”

Randidly gave the cheerful Demetrius a long look. The Nether Herald was clearly proud of his grandson. Inwardly, Randidly shrugged. His own estimate of the tenacity of the devil-looking young man was much less rosy, but he supposed that in retrospect, he would have hardly bet on himself as someone who would make it very hard underneath the harsh thumb of the System.

Compared to a young Randidly Ghosthound, Bogart had all the potential in the world

Congratulations! Your Skill Tapestry of Ten Thousand Radiances (M) has grown to Level 579!

Jotem hurried out of the farmhouse in his fancy robe, a pearl of gleaming light in Randidly’s new Pantheon provided senses. The floating individual might only be only half Origin Beast, but he still released near-constant pulses of gleaming energy. What fascinated Randidly were that Jotem’s soft pink light waves were even stronger than his own, although they dissipated much more quickly. He supposed the genuine bloodline carried with it some advantages.

“Companions, shall we depart? With our latest haul, we shall incite a revolution in agriculture! In even the Nether lands, our produce shall be in high demand, sought out to provide the greatest sustenance for the regal and righteous...” His eyes grew unfocused and he began to giggle to himself, lost in the fantasy.

Randidly’s lips twitched. I almost feel like I’m enabling his worst sort of traits... tragically, this won’t end with you becoming some sort of merchant prince, Jotem.

The group set out from the farm, moving quickly through the renovated trench Randidly had improved. But that high quality of life only lasted so far; after about twenty minutes, they returned to the narrow, muddy trench of variable height that characterized most of the travel around Malloon. And the ‘calm period’ might have descended on the area to blunt the wind, but cold sleet gleefully splattered across all of them.

Randidly rolled his eyes at Jotem’s confusion and second-guessing, causing the group to wander around in a circle for about an hour. Pure rage percolated in his chest, but he did his best to remain patient and distract himself by studying the wider effect of the great array he and Demetrius had set up.

When that didn’t work, he squelched his bare toes into the cool mud and just enjoyed the sensation around his feet.

Eventually, they emerged on the right path and followed quite a few more well-trodden paths to sink down into a naturally formed canyon about ten miles away from the farm. Lucky for the miserable-looking Jotem, he had a very centrally located farm. The high stone walls of the canyon blocked the worst of the rain, although the constant winds echoed into an eerie and ever-present moaning. They began to see other travelers, trooping in the same direction and soaked to the skin.

From afar, Randidly noticed the mass of life energy with his new Skill. Its radiation burned out through the stone walls. As they walked closer, the interaction of so many people became a mesmerizing whirlpool of light and color that sprawled across the horizon, blanketing out everything else. He almost wasn’t even ready to head in through a tunnel and emerge in a massive cavern where the bazaar occurred.

Randidly winced at the sarcasm in her voice. He turned to the small Preying Mantis, which was about half his size. “Let’s not beat around the bush; our presence here scares away customers from the whole row. Since there are multiple of you, I was hoping I could hire one of you to man our stand and let us leave. We will give you a small percentage of anything you sell and you will no longer need to worry about customers noticing us and fleeing. It’s a win-win situation.”

“And if we refuse?” The old woman tilted her head to the side, a harsh edge to her question.

Randidly ignored it and shrugged. Disrespectful she might be, but for whatever reason, it didn’t trigger any anger. He wondered why that was, even while answering. “Then we will stay here and try to lure customers in, despite our presence.”

The old woman tsk’d and hopped up onto the wall between the two stands. “A peaceful response from the Nether King? Well, for that I will at least take a gander at your wares. You- wait, what is this? Why didn’t you water these more?!”

She skittered directly across and plucked up a carrot. Randidly blinked. “Water them more? They were growing fine, so-”

“Pah, feel the surface. The hardness, the wide-open pores, trying to devour any water that might drip-” She shook her head, almost sadly, as she cradled the carrot. “Well, your soil appears to be of extremely high quality; this is a fine carrot. Yet that makes the small imperfections all the more apparent- oh, and these, these fruits, these have been watered too much. These sorts of fruit have the same amount of sugar per fruit. When you water them this much, the size of the fruit swells but the flavors is diluted- is this juice from your fruit? Have your servant pour me a cup.”

Randidly blinked several times, surprised by the sudden eruption of criticisms from this random individual. It would have honestly been quite refreshing to have someone so unconcerned with his fake-status as a Nether King, had she not been walking across the surface of their stall and squeezing everything.

But he supposed the real reason he didn’t respond to these barbs either was an immediate intuition she was right about the produce.

“Grandma,” One of the other preying mantises pleaded. They offered Randidly a nervous bow. “Please, excuse her behavior-”

“Boy, if this Nether King was like the others, he would have set up an array around this place and slaughtered us all. The fact he is here proves he doesn’t mind minor quips like this old lady’s.” The old woman waved her hand. Then she gave Demetrius a pointed look. “Now step to it, bellhop. I’m thirsty.”

Demetrius looked at Randidly. Randidly shrugged; he needed to go back and test what the woman was saying, but if she was right about the watering, he could improve the quality of the produce by another tier. For that, he was willing to endure her rather cavalier attitude. Demetrius popped open the bottle of apple juice and poured out a cup while she continued her tour of the stand.

“Oh, these are quite good. These too.” The old woman nibbled on an Ara Fruit and then kicked one of the large lumber cucumbers. She hovered around the wood for a little while. “You know, bringing these here is foolish; better to take them directly to a major city. Wood of this size is in high demand everywhere, all of the time. Very few individuals can produce it reliably. And a government will give you a better price than a private buyer. And they won’t fucking dare to simply seize it. Not unless they plan on eliminating you. Are you easy to kill, Nether King?”

That’s why I didn’t even react to her attitude at first, Randidly felt a sympathetic pulse from one of his two remaining cores of negative emotion. She’s violently furious about something, something unrelated to me. The bitterness in her felt so genuine, I just let it pass.

Demetrius passed over the cup. “My liege is named Nether King Hungry Eye. Very few individuals in the area even have the qualifications to think about killing him.”

“What a fucking weird name,” The old preying mantis muttered. She brought the cup up to her mandibles and drank the liquid. After finishing the entire cup in a single gulp, she burped loudly. “Quite tasty. I’ll have another, thank you very much. Actually, we agree to your terms. We will run your stall for you... in exchange for ten bottles of the apple juice. And I will also allow you to try a few of our Zhixu plants. What do you say?”

Randidly smiled pleasantly. Time to barter her down a bit. He once more began setting up the grill. “I have a counter offer, but first a question. How do you feel about meat?”