Chapter 299 (Patreon)

Chapter 299

The group found an overgrown and weathered cobblestone path and decided to follow it through the dense forest of the inner layer of the monster country. The path eventually led them to the ruins of an ancient demonfolk city that Fen and Aura had mentioned before. Naturally, the girls were in awe by it because none of them had seen something like that before. Naturally, they decided to enter and explore it while also confronting the griffins they had detected.

“What are you doing?” As they were walking along the road in the forest, Fen looked at Sophia while tilting his head.

“Well, you said the griffins might be wary of my power level, right?” The blonde looked back at him. “That’s why I’m lowering it. Okay, not lowering it, but I’m pumping everything into my domain at a level where my regeneration can’t keep up. Once I’m on the same level as everyone else, I’ll try to stay on the same level. That way, it should seem like I’m a lot weaker.”

“Ohh!” Aura seemed to like that. “Baiting someone also is my favorite thing to do!”

“We know.” Everyone had the same reaction.

“Shush!”

“I guess you could also use that to hide your powers when traveling, huh?” Maya felt like this had even more applications.

“Oh, you’re right!” Sophia clapped her hands. “I hadn’t thought about that at all!”

“Yeah, of course you didn’t think about it because there’s no way you’d want to hide your power when meeting others.” Anna just stared at her.

“Shush!” Sophia had the same reaction as Aura before.

By the time they arrived at the weathered gates of the ruined city, Sophia's authority had been reduced to the level of everyone else, and for the first time since ever, she wasn't standing out. Just as they saw from the distance, everything was covered in vines and moss and looked like it would collapse any minute now if it hadn't already. It wasn’t any less impressive from up close, though, and the girls were eager to explore.

“I’m going to touch everything!” Steph was bubbling with excitement as her tail only consisted of afterimages from how fast it was wagging.

“Please be careful.” Ari had a bad feeling about that. “You touching stuff already broke two of those arches on the path in the forest and almost buried us under it.”

“They definitely broke right before I touched them! Both!” The dog-girl rapidly shook her head.

“Your tail wagging so hard it caused a whirlwind would still count as you destroying it, you know?” She lightly shook her head. “So even if you didn’t touch it, it doesn’t matter.”

“My tail and I won’t accept such slander!” She started pouting.

“I would like it if nothing got destroyed even more than it already is around here.” Sophia looked at her sister. “It would be too much of a waste!”

“What does that mean?” Steph looked confused.

“I’m going to borrow this place once I figure out how to make a decent sky in my domain!” She gave her a thumbs-up. “I’d love to portal it away immediately, but the griffins live here, so it would be bad if I couldn’t give them a good place to exist.”

“You’re going to borrow a whole city?!” Ari raised her voice.

"To be honest, I'm surprised it took so long." Anna just shrugged.

“Hey!” The blonde glared at her fellow tiger before facing Ari. “It’s an abandoned ruin of a city! It wouldn't look like this if someone was still using it, so finders’ keepers, and I call dibs!"

“You really are something else.” The jaguar had nothing else to say.

“Sounds good to me.”

“Definitely the cool option.” Fen and Aura were on Sophia’s side. “As expected!”

“More of the flattering, please!” The blonde liked Aura’s addition at the end.

“Let’s head further inside!” Anna also wanted to see more.

The group walked under the big arch at the entrance and turned to the first street on their right after entering to explore the first set of broken-down houses. Navigating the road was a little complicated because it was littered with rubble, roots, and outright trees growing in the middle of it, but they still managed to get a good look at everything. Unfortunately, everything had overgrown and weathered so much that no remains of the demons who had lived here long ago could still be found, let alone made out.

They eventually made it to the plateau with the castle ruins and tried to enter the keep's remains to see if any souvenirs were left, but quickly reconsidered when Steph touched the rotten door, which instantly turned to dust. This time, she actually was careful, too. She literally just poked it with her index finger. Because of this, they decided to only look at the exterior to preserve as much as possible.

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Most of the group continued to explore the plateau with the castle for a bit longer, but Steph and Sophia spotted something shiny in the middle of the city's central plaza, right in front of the plateau, and decided to take a closer look.

“I wonder what it is~.” Steph sounded quite excited as she pointed at the pile of rubble the two were walking towards in the middle of the plaza. It was mostly just weathered stone, but it seemed like there was something sparkling beneath it.

“Mhmm.” Sophia squinted her eyes to focus better. “It kind of reminds me of the magic ore batteries. The glow seems familiar."

“The one that sucked me dry?!” The dog-girl raised her voice.

“The one that sucked you dry, yes.” She only rolled her eyes.

“I better not jump headfirst into the pile then.” Her walk suddenly looked a lot less eager.

“Even without that, I don’t think jumping into a hill of stones is the best idea to have.”

“Stop being so boring!” Steph glared at her older sister.

“I just prefer to jump headfirst into soft hills, you know?” Sophia looked back at her. “You can keep the hard ones all to yourself.”

“…” She went silent for a second. “Okay, fair.”

"Hehe." The blonde let out a chuckle, and the sisters moved closer to the center of the plaza. However, once they almost got there, things became a little livelier.

Four griffins shot out of the outer towers and began circling in the air right above the sisters. It seemed like they had waited for the group to split up to single them out, as the two girls definitely were an easier target than all of them together. That’s what they probably thought, at least.

The griffins were roughly the same size as Fen and Aura in their regular big form and had a feline body, hind legs, and tails with brown fur similar to a lion. Their front legs, white-feathered neck, and head, on the other hand, mimicked those of an eagle. They had majestic wings spanning many times their bodies to keep them in the air. It was an odd combination that worked quite well together. They each let out a piercing scream as they focused on the sisters, who seemed like easy targets for the apex predators.

“Those poor things.” Fen, watching from the plateau, let out a small chuckle while he most definitely wasn’t talking about Sophia and Steph.

“It’s honestly quite unfair.” Aura nodded a few times as she sat down next to him to watch the show.

“I am so happy I didn’t get interested in the sparkling rubble!” Ari let out a small sigh. “I know I should be stronger than them now, but still!”

“Woah!” Steph’s eyes started sparkling. “They look so cool! The fantasy setting just turned to eleven!” She was behaving exactly like any good prey about to be eaten would in this situation. “I want to ride the one with the light brown fur and the extra fluffy looking feathery neck!”

“Good choice~.” Sophia gave her a thumbs-up before raising her arm and gestured with a come-at-me movement towards the griffins in the air.

It seemed like they sensed they were being mocked, because they let out another sharp cry before each of the griffins shot a massive fireball towards the sisters.

However, it was of little use. Sophia just deleted the flames by instantly removing all the oxygen around them. Steph went for an even more radical approach. She did nothing at all. It hit her with full force, and the dog-girl was briefly enveloped by fire, and once it dissipated again, it looked like nothing at all had happened to her. No scratch, no burn, no marks, nothing.

“Hold on a moment!” Ari, who was watching the exchange together with the others, raised her voice. “She’s actually fire-proof?!”

“You could’ve mentioned that they can use magic!” Steph glared at her sister.

“Why would they not be able to do so?” The blonde tilted her head.

“…” She paused for a second. “Okay, fair enough.”

Noticing how their combined attacks had no effect whatsoever, the griffins turned a little frantic in the air above the sisters. They quickly realized that Sophia was the bigger threat, too. Not being hurt by fire was one thing, but completely negating it was too suspicious for the monsters. The four decided that it was of utmost importance to take the tiger out first and that using magic wouldn’t help them. Instead, the griffins let out another cry and immediately dived down towards her for a more physical attack.

“And people say I have no situational awareness.” Sophia watched the four massive griffins swooping towards her with tremendous speed and just let out a sigh. Once they were relatively close to her, she lazily lifted her arm, and a massive portal opened in front of them and swallowed the griffins before they could react. Three of them, at least. The biggest amongst them, the one with light brown fur and white feathers that Steph wanted to ride, managed to dodge it at the last possible moment and crashed into the ground instead while letting out another angry shriek.

“Oh my, thank you so much~.” Steph smiled at her sister before looking at the griffin that crashed into the ground right in front of her with sparkling eyes. “That makes it a lot easier!” Giving it no chance to understand what was going on, the dog-girl quickly got closer to the monster and jumped on its back. “Let’s go!”

Naturally, the griffin didn't like that. It instantly started trashing around to throw her off while it turned its head around to snap at her with its massive beak and made some rather angry noises while doing so.

Steph, however, did not care about that in the slightest. She had tightly wrapped her legs around its body while her hands were buried in the fur. At the same time, she was moving her upper body around to effortlessly dodge the griffin’s beak attack. Compared to what Fey’s capable of, it was painfully slow after all.

Noticing that it wasn’t working, the griffin took some more drastic measures and flapped its massive wing to take off into the air once more, just with Steph on its back, who responded with a massive smile and a few joyous sounds. She clearly was having a great time. Up in the air, the griffin was doing multiple barrel rolls and sharp turns in the hope of shaking off the overly excited dog-girl, but nothing was working.

Watching the spectacle for a little while, Sophia then opened another portal to take a look at the other three griffins because she knew that it would take a little while before either of the two in the air would tire themselves out.

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“Hah.” Sophia went to her domain to pay the griffins a visit, but she was met with a bit of a surprise. “I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this.” She had transported them to the savanna biome so as not to startle them too much, since it was one of the most fully developed biomes and even came with an artificial sky. She had thought they would be flying around while trying to figure out what just happened, but that wasn’t the case.

Instead, the mythological pinnacle of birds were on the ground while kneeling on their front legs and their heads hanging almost all the way to the ground. They weren’t making any sound at all, either. In front of them were two tiny parakeets sitting on a small stone while staring them down.

“Pfft!” Noticing how the majestic-looking and legendary griffins were actually scared and shivering while bowing down to Blu and Lime, who had conveniently been there at the right time, Sophia couldn’t help it and let out a chuckle.

*Chirp~!*

*Chirrp~!* Noticing her arrival, the two birds happily greeted the tiger while lifting their wings.

“Hey~.” She waved back at them while sitting down on another stone right next to them before they relocated to her shoulders and rubbed their heads against her cheeks. At the same time, the blonde also let her authority recover to normal, which caused the griffins to shudder even more as they realized just how dire the situation was for them.

“Could you make them relax a bit?” Sophia glanced at the birds before gesturing towards the griffins. “I want to befriend them and not seem like an evil overlord that commands them.”

Hearing that, Lime flew over to them and landed on the ground right in front of the trio before wildly flapping her wings while chirping for a while. It seemed like she was communicating with them. A few moments later, the griffins eventually lifted their front legs and sat down on their hinds instead. Slowly raising their heads, the three seemed to glare at the blonde, but they knew they were at her mercy, as it was obvious to them that the monster parakeets, with magic power so high they couldn't even comprehend, belonged to the tiger.

“Can you translate for me?” The tiger looked at the green bird, who responded with even more chirps as she saluted with her wing.

Feeling like they obviously wouldn't understand most of it anyway, Sophia kept it simple and had Lime explain that this area was a special place only she could get to. She also made the parakeet explain that they could leave whenever they wanted and return home once the conversation was over.

Limes was frantically flapping her wings the entire time while giving a cheerful chirp concert to convey the message to the griffins. Sophia was starting to doubt whether her parakeet interpreter was working or not, but the trio eventually stared right at the blonde while slowly tilting their heads.

“I am not going to harm any of you.” The tiger responded with a gentle smile in their direction. “I am a friend. This is my playground. You can come and go whenever you want. I don’t want to keep you here if you don't want to. This place is special, and I want you to live here. You can rule this place. You don’t have to. It would be cool, though.” She tried to sound as warm and inviting as possible.

The green translator went into overdrive again afterward, and the griffins were starting to understand that there was no danger as they started to look less tense.

Sophia explained a little more about this biome and how they could do whatever they want when they’re visiting until she eventually felt bad for Lime. Then, she went ahead and created a massive portal with a diameter of roughly 200 meters high in the sky. It was completely see-through and showed the castle of the demon city on the other side.

“There.” She pointed at the portal. “If you fly through it, you’re back home. I will leave the thing open, and you can go here at any time if you want."

The griffins hesitated for a moment, but eventually took flight and headed right for the portal. Any sort of aggression or malice seemed to have disappeared from them, too.

Sophia also reunited with the others a few moments later, and the sight was about what she had expected when leaving earlier. The griffin Steph had mounted earlier laid sprawled on the ground, looking visibly exhausted, while Chloe happily petted it with a massive smile on her face. The dog-girl was still on its back while rubbing the soft feathers on its neck. Maya, Anna, and Ari had also gotten closer, and while the princess had at least touched it, the other two were quite hesitant in getting too close.