Kaiser of the New World

Kai cursed his shitty luck.

He thought that he had struck gold after finding out he could steal the stats of the Forgotten Husks he killed. The possibility of being able to absorb hundreds of stats was nearly enough to make his mouth water.

But when he eventually found another invisible corpse on the ground he was greeted by a new message, one that was much less pleasant.

User has already used Soul Memorial on this species. Cooldown of 1 hour.

An hour wasn't that bad, but it was still time that Kai didn't want to waste.

However, it wasn't that bad. They would be setting up in the tent soon anyway, so they would be staying here, meaning he could just come and use the skill whenever the cooldown ended.

Kai was fine with sacrificing a little sleep, considering that he had to repair his soul and choose his brand new skill in the mean time.

So, it wasn't all bad, just a little annoying.

Successfully managing to kick the invisible corpse of the beast he had to wait an hour to fight again, Kai made his way back out of the cave.

Being greeted by the cold embrace of the blizzard once more, Kai smiled grimly. This really was setting up to be a torturous few months, especially if he would have to blow himself up at every encounter.

Even though fighting like that did not seem sustainable, at all. Maybe if he only done small explosions as a way to disorient his enemies. A few cracks probably wouldn't make that big of a difference.

It was when he would charge his soul for longer that things would really begin to get dangerous.

If he were to build the flames up inside himself for a few hours and somehow managed to endure the excrutiating pain that accompanied it, who knew how big the explosion would be?

Glancing down the mountain to his left, Kai saw the tops of two heads peeking out over a small outcrop of rock.

Cecilia and Petunia were pretty bad at hiding. They must not have known what to expect, considering that the last things they must have heard was him roaring followed by an explosion.

Feeling a sly grin start crawling it's way onto his face, Kai began creeping to the rock they were hidden behind.

Better yet, he resummoned Esurient and used the Veiled of the Dark Side's stored soul to take himself invisible. He had to move pretty quickly though, otherwise the snow would start clinging to him and give him an outline.

Cecilia clung softly to Petunia, her delicate hand placed over the child's mouth. She had no idea what had happened, all that she hoped was that Kai was alright and-

Her blood suddenly turned cold when she felt a finger tap her shoulder.

"Aaaaaahhh!"

Not even wasting a second, Cecilia let go of Petunia, squeezed her eyes shut and began swinging her arms at whatever was behind her. If she was going to die today, she was at least going to put up a fight.

However, the next thing she knew, her hands had been pinned to her sides and the sound of soft laughter was flowing into her ears.

Slowly opening her eyes, she saw that Kai was softly holding onto her, his body pressed up against hers.

Even though Kai felt a little bitter about it and would much rather be a few inches taller than the ex-Queen, they were looking at each other eye to eye.

"Well, at least you tried to fight back."

Cecilia's jaw dropped as she tried, and failed, to pull herself away from Kai. Instead, she settled for hitting his chest over and over again while he continued to hold onto her wrists.

"Y-you're evil! Do you have any idea how much that scared me! I thought that we were about to be killed!"

Kai grinned teasingly.

"You think I would let you just be killed? I would have to die first for that to happen."

Cecilia blushed, her cheeks turning a rosy shade of red as she began to stutter.

"B-but that explosion! A- and the roar-"

"Yeah, all me, I blew myself up."

Cecilia blinked. Then, she sighed, as if giving up on everything.

"I... see."

The two fell silent. It was only then that Kai noticed how close they actually were, how her...

Uh...

Coughing suddenly and turning away so that Cecilia wouldn't notice his one blush, Kai said:

"Anyways, the front of the cave is clear so you can go in and set up the tent. Just mind your step and don't trip."

Kai then swiftly let go of Cecilia's wrists and began making his own way back to the cave.

If he had turned around, he would have been able to spot Petunia rolling her eyes at the spectacle she had just witnessed.

Making their way back into the cave, Kai watched silently as Cecilia summoned the tent from her spatial storage and placed it on the ground. Then, he watched as she opened its flap and crawled inside.

Kai sighed and let Petunia in first before following them inside.

Once back inside the tent, Kai made his way over to the corner he usually sat in and took his rightful place.

To be honest, he was a little worse for wear. His armour was broken, revealing bits of his bare skin, and other parts of it were dented and on the verge of breaking.

He knew that if he dismissed it and left it for a while that it would eventually heal, but the problem with that was that he would have nothing to wear in the meantime.

Unless...

"Cecilia, can I have my bodysuit back for the night, just so I can let my armour heal? I'll give it back to you when we go on the move again."

Kai turned to look at her, only to realise that Cecilia had been looking at him already.

Only it wasn't like she was looking at him, it was more so that she was looking at his broken armour.

Actually, more than that, it was like she was looking at the areas it was broken... mainly the areas around his stomach.

Cecilia, noticing his gaze, blushed and turned back to the wooden box that produced all of their food. After waiting for a second she turned back to him, smiled and crawled crawled towards him. Once she was in front of him, she outstretched her hand and said:

"Of course, Sir. Here, take it."

Kai stared at her blankly, wondering if she was being serious or had just forgotten one major detail.

"Do you... not want to put your dress on first?"

He then watch as the final remnants of blush on Cecilia's face disappeared. Now, she looked deathly pale and on the verge of passing out.

"I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, freedom of-"

Cecilia remained silent as she summoned her dress from her storage and quickly put it on. She then grabbed Kai's hand and quickly gave him back the item before he could say anything else.

She then scurried over to the opposite end of the tent and sat down, facing the wall.

Kai blinked, missing Petunia rolling her eyes once more.

Oh well, at least I got my bodysuit back.

Equipping the item a moment later, Kai felt as if a missing part of him had been returned. It was a nice feeling.

Once his bodysuit was back around his body, Kai finally felt comfortable enough to dismiss his armour. He wasn't sure how long it would actually take to repair itself, but he was... mostly sure that it would be repaired by the time they all set out after getting a good night sleep.

... Even though Kai wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight, considering that he had go use Soul Memorial every hour.

So in the mean time while he was waiting for the cooldown to run out, he would be repairing his soul, which wouldn't be a hard job considering that each crack now took less than a minute to repair and there was nowhere near as many cracks now than there was back when he first woke up after getting out of the city.

But before he could get to repairing his soul, there was another pressing matter to attend to, this matter probably being a much more enjoyable affair than repairing his soul.

It was time to choose a skill from his new skill selection.