Strawberry Devil in a Fantasy World

At first we were simply heading north because I felt like it. But, as those three ferretfolks had advised, northeast was our best bet to safety. Thus, we changed our course straight for the nearest city.

While travelling, I began spreading clones sporadically. One of my concerns with spreading clones was the possibility of being tracked by potential enemies. To combat that, I limited the size these clones could grow into. The smaller they were, the less likely they would be spotted. After all, these were considered my lifelines should the humans or some other being destroyed my clones in the south where I came from.

"Mother, let me help you spread those clones."

"It's fine. I'm concerned about you. If the humans decided to hunt down my clones, your plant body might get destroyed too. If you don't level up and evolve, you'll never be freed from your plant body. How about I go feed your plant body with plenty of nutrients. You should level up quickly, right?"

"That's cheating! You're a cheat, but I don't dislike it. Mm!"

You even asked for it before. Now it's cheating?

Recently, because I had used quite a bit of my resources for combat, I hadn't levelled up even once after my evolution. That might also have to do with my level already being fairly high. However, that wasn't the case for Smoothie. She was low levelled and only required nutrients added to her plant body to level up. I wasn't sure why I didn't think of this sooner.

"When you reach level 31, do you think you'll be obtain any abilities or traits to free yourself to some extent?"

"I'm not sure."

"Can you gain the |cloning| trait like me? I don't even know how I managed to gain it."

"That's hard to say. A lot of times it had to do with luck. Since you're a progenitor, some abilities and traits naturally gravitate to you. And that doesn't apply to me."

"Smoothie, your new task is to find a way to free yourself from your plant body by next evolution. Understood? If there's anything I can help, ask. In the meanwhile, I'll store up as much resources as I could to help you reach level 31 in one go."

A simple touch between the two of us would activate our bonding traits which would allow me divert my resources via [conglomerate] to her plant body. I was something like an intermediary link between her two bodies. One time, I tried to use the same principle to see if I could create a clone of her by combining my two abilities together. However, the result was that only my clones could be created. It was apparent that [conglomerate] was quite a special but sometimes finicky ability.

"Thank you, Mother. I'll look for ways with [soothsayer]. Try not to make me level up too fast."

"I know. I wouldn't want those elves to act pre-emptively. Maybe I should check on them later?"

"Let me go with you."

"No. I don't want that rabbit demon to see you and hold you hostage. I'll go alone. Don't worry, I have plenty of clones around! There's a city in front of us, let's check it out first and think about other stuff later."

Ahead of us was an enormous city built on top of a mountain encircled by a ring of white stone walls at least forty meters tall. Canons, crossbows, and various military equipment lined up on top of the walls.

Buildings constructed here were of pristine and artistic beauty, a complete contrast to what we had seen in that remote town. The position of each building on the mountainous slopes appeared as if following a grand design.

At the very top of the mountain stood a white palace enclosed by large white pillars, positioned in a way similar to stone circles. Golden statues of animal like figures lined up the front as if they were guardian deities. At the very top of the palace, on what appeared to be a platform, a monolith that stood at least fifty meters pointed at the heaven.

All of that were easily seen from thousands of meters away where Smoothie and I was, making our way to the city. If that much wasn't display of wealth and power to foreign visitors, I didn't know what was.

I mumbled to myself, "Whoever built this city must be a genius."

"The guards here look formidable too," she remarked.

"Indeed."

In terms of personnel, they were all in the level 40's and above, armed like proper military personnel. Shiny armor and weapons, there were no exceptions. I couldn't really make out their facial features but the species names of many were foreign to me.

We were currently walking on the road leading up to the entrance. Obviously, I wouldn't dare flying in. Just being here staring at those cannon holes was quite intimidating. I felt like if I made a bad move, I would get blown apart. Not to mention, there was magic in this world. Who knew what kind of magic traps and barriers were waiting to sprang onto unsuspecting invaders?

"Is this really a good idea?"

"Yes, we'll be safe inside. Don't worry, I don't think they're hostile to fey beings in this country. If they were, we would have been attacked already."

"Smoothie, you've already been attacked."

"Let's not bring that up again..." She pouted while hugging herself.

"Be careful not to wreck your new dress, okay?"

"Mm..."

Earlier I had gathered some colorful tropical flowers. They made the perfect materials for plant based dresses for the both of us. Constantly wearing green was kind of getting boring so I decided to change things up a bit. To match the style of the city we were entering, both of us had switched our green dresses into white gowns embellished with blue flowers. The fabric was very soothing and cool to the skins.

Smoothie, you look so adorable with that white gown, just like a little angel! Or Fairy? Or angelic fairy?

"Mother, stop staring at me like that. You're creeping me out!" She cried out.

Well, as long as she kept her mouth shut.

"Rude, I'm just admiring you. That's all," I grinned happily as I patted her head.

Having a kid around isn't so bad after all. I wonder what my kid would be like if I had one in my previous life. Did I have a kid? I don't think I ever married. If I remember correctly... Something... Something?

"Mother, we should enter the city before it gets dark."

"Oh, sorry, let's hurry up then."

We weren't the only ones lining up to get in. Those that looked like refugees and merchants were also trying to enter.

"Stop. Names?" One of the guards stopped us when it was our turn. It was basically a person who looked like a large humanoid hare. Those slender ears poking out of his head were just huge.

"I'm Berry, and this is my child, Smoothie."

"Where are you from?"

"We came from a town southwest of here."

"What business do you have coming here?"

I couldn't read this person's facial expression at all because I was only familiar with human expressions. I really wished they were like Haelley with humanlike faces. That didn't mean I was completely stumped when it came to understanding them. Their voices usually gave away quite a bit of information. In fact, I was confident that this was a male guard.

"We're travellers. Please let us in."

"Where do you plan to stay? You don't look like you have money on you."

I had been living in the wilderness for too long. I was worse than a country bumpkin, living in absolute poverty. Unfortunately, there was not a penny to my name and I completely forgot I needed money.

"Uhh... Money? I don't have money. Is there anywhere we can make money or stay for free? O handsome sir, please tell me!"

I tried to display the most charming smile I could pull off while looking up at him. Not including his huge ears, he was at least two heads taller than me.

I should have made myself taller.

I secretly prayed to myself that [charm] would work. To be honest, this was my first time trying smiling like this and I seriously doubted something like this could work across species. Moreover, my [charm] ability was quite limited in that I never bothered to learn much about it. It was kind of useless to have in the wilderness. Technically, it should work but luring men to their demise wasn't my modus operandi, not at all.  

He scanned my body from top to bottom.

"You're one of those?"

"Uhh... What do you mean?" I replied with another question.

"A fey, huh, not a pleasant one either. We don't see many of those around. Go report to the embassy hall. They'll make arrangements for you two."

I was kind of surprised he just noticed that I was a fey being.

"Thanks? Where's the embassy hall?"

"Follow the road signs," he pointed at one of the rectangular marked wooden plates. The sign was in two languages. One was the common language, and the other one was a gibberish, probably the local language. As it turned out, I could actually read the common language. That was quite neat.   

"Oh okay."

Just like that, we were able to enter the city without any trouble. To my disappointment, I couldn't get my [charm] to work on that harefolk. Well, that was what I decided to call them until someone corrected me. It seemed that there weren't any type of discriminations around here. No one seemed to really care about appearances or races around here. Nevertheless, if a human showed up, that would likely be a different matter.