Otherworld Adventure

A few minutes later, Celia and Serilla came up to the second floor and the talks about tomorrow's events unfolded once again. Cecil had to sit through the entire thing listening on to his wives and mothers rambling on and on about the wedding.

It was rather amusing for Cecil to see even Celia was engrossed in the topic. Nevertheless, it was quite boring for him. Even though he desperately wanted to just run away with Blink, he knew that it wouldn't end well for him if he did so.

So like a man, he powered through the boring talks. He sat there silently while circulating his mana and cultivating.

A few moments later, Celestina came into the room being led by a few maids after she had taken a bath. She wasn't familiar with everyone present but thanks to her, Cecil found the opportunity to slip away.

He wondered what his friends were doing at the moment so he immediately spread his sense out into the valley. He found Eli and Ainz still with his father and Matheus. He also finally found Velicia and Lucius.

It turns out that the two weren't even in the city. They were instead out exploring the valley with his little sister and Katya. He was just about to jump over to them but his mother immediately came out and stopped him.

"Cecil, you better not run! We're still talking!"

"...Dammit..."

******

Over at Angelia's side, she was currently guiding around Cecil's friends along with Katya. She had just finished showing Velicia, Lucius, and the others with them the walls around the valley. Since there was nothing else to show them besides the places that were off-limits to the general public, Angelia decided to show the people with her the monster ranch that she owned.

Ever since Angelia had asked to be transformed into a foxkin by Lucia, she hadn't once asked her to dispel it. So currently, she was still in her fox form. Velicia and Lucius had been feeling quite uncomfortable while traveling around with her.

This was because the resemblance Angelia had with her elder brother, Cecil, was quite uncanny when she was in her foxkin form. The two looked like they were staring back at a female version of their demonic captain.

Also, with the numerous presences of high-ranked monsters that were decorating her body, it caused the beastkins, who were rather sensitive to them, to be quite unsettled. Although Velicia and Lucius had grown used to it, it couldn't be said the same for the others in their group.

Katya was rather curious about the beastkins and since she didn't have anything better to do, she decided to tag along with Angelia as a chaperone as well as to better observe and hopefully interact with the foreign race.

She was quite amiable to the beastkins and due to her kind and warm attitude, she was able to become acquainted with quite a few people in their group.

Once they got into the vicinity of her ranch, Angelia immediately called out to Lucius.

"Hey, big fella, what was your name again? I'm pretty sure it was similar to big sis Lucia's name...uhm..."

"It's Lucius, little one," Lucius replied with a friendly smile.

The fat tigerkin had slimmed down a little, but that was only in ratio to his height. He was still as fat as before if Cecil was here to see him. Next to him was naturally the ever curious and playful Velicia.

She had grown up into a fine young woman and was now always by Lucius's side. Most of Cecil's friends were a year or two older than him so they were now young a.d.u.l.ts while he was still a teenager.

Once Angelia got his name, she immediately replied, "Okay, Lucius, I want you to make sure that everyone in your group stays together and you need to prevent anyone from wandering around. We're entering a restricted area of the valley, which is my monster ranch!"

"O-okay? With the way you say it, this doesn't sound like your typical ranch, now does it?"

"Hmhm~ that's because every monster in my ranch wasn't domesticated! They willingly signed a pact with me after they were defeated in battle! So they're all still primal and very territorial. Other than me, they don't like anyone else going into their small little spaces so make sure no one strays too far away! I can't guarantee you that they'll make it out alive if 5 or more S ranked monsters attack them~"

"What? S ranked?"

"Mhm~ all of my monsters are S ranked! Though most of them are still juveniles and haven't fully matured, but their potentials are all S ranked and above!" Angelia boasted.

While the beastkins were in awe of her boasting, Katya was taking notes since she still didn't quite understand the monster rankings of this world. She had been leading a rather sheltered life back in the Goldenia family's territory as well as her time spent in the Faustus Archduchy.

She only knew the concept of the monster rankings since she's heard about it but never really understood their power-scaling. This was her first time seeing what these high-ranked monsters were like, so she made sure to pay close attention.

Most of her journeys out of her family's territory were always accompanied by guards so despite having a pretty decent ability to use elemental spells, Katya's never really fought against a high-ranked monster. She's only ever picked on those low C-B ranked monsters that would show up now and then in her family's territory.

Unlike the Silvaria Kingdom, which was besieged by monsters periodically, the Goldenia's had it pretty easy since they didn't need to worry about any monster attacks.

Lately, the Silvaria Kingdom had become more protected due to Cecil's magi-tech contributions so the regular monster attacks would be staved off by only a company of soldiers that manned the Storm Howlers and Spell Cannons.

Once the group entered the ranch, the beastkin immediately felt the gazes of numerous high-ranked monsters lock onto them. They felt wary at first but noticed that the gazes didn't carry any ill or malicious intent.

The monsters in the ranch were only observing them and while this happened, Angelia took everyone on a tour around her monster ranch, introducing every one of her monsters to the group.

They couldn't wrap their head around how the little girl before them was able to form so many pacts with so many high-ranked monsters. Normally, a person could only form a pact with only one monster. If they wanted to form a new pact, then they would have to abolish the old one.

Lucius and Velicia only attributed this to the fact that the girl before them was Cecil's little sister. It was only natural that she possessed some abnormal ability just like her older brother.

They made it to the periphery of Angelia's ranch and they soon found a nice and cozy wooden cabin that had a fence built around it in the middle of a clearing just before the side of the valley. Angelia noticed that the chimney of the house was smoking so she skipped over to the house happily.

"Silvy~ you home?" Angelia called out.

The group naturally followed after her since they didn't want to be left behind. Once they crossed the fence that was separating the house and Angelia's ranch, the gazes that were honed on the group immediately disappeared.

During the entire time, only Lucius and Velicia appeared rather relaxed. Everyone else was on edge due to the uncomfortable feeling they were having. Katya was no exception. She found it pretty unbearable to walk through the entire ranch since she felt like a sword was looming over her head.

She understood now that every sibling in the Silvaria family, except for Luca, was all probably stronger than her. This was the same for the small girl that had been leading her around the place.

Katya felt a little unacceptable at the fact that a small girl like Angelia was stronger than her, but after remembering all of those menacing gazes she had felt from earlier, she couldn't refute the fact that if she was to fight against Angelia one-on-one, she would without a doubt lose.

Angelia's ability was monster taming so it was only natural she would use her monsters in a battle and with the sheer amount of monsters she had, Katya felt that she had a zero percent chance of winning.

"Ugh... all of the Silvarias are abnormal..." Katya silently mumbled.

After the group got closer to the house and after Angelia called out to whoever she was calling out to, the door of the cabin opened up and a small young boy came out of the house. He had long white hair that reached to his back and his eyes was a pure blue. The most shocking thing was that this little boy greatly resembled someone Velicia and Lucius were familiar with, their demonic leader, Cecil.

"Hey, Angie, what brings you here?"

"When did you get back, Silvy?"

"Just a few hours ago, what brings you here, Angie?"

Before Angelia could answer him, Velicia immediately exclaimed from behind in shock.

"C-Cecil?"

"Hm?

"Eh?"

"Who's thi—hey, isn't this Velicia?!" Silver exclaimed in pleasant surprise.

"Y-yeah?"

"Haha, I'm not Cecil, I'm Silver!"

"S-Silver? H-How?!"

"Hehe, magic~"

"..."

"Ah, I see you're as big as usual, Lucius!"

"Hohoho, you're able to turn human Silver? So I guess your Fenrir bloodline has strengthened over the past years," Lucius said with a laugh.

"After forming a pact with my boss, it certainly has~. I can't believe that you guys are here though, did you meet with the boss yet?"

"Are you talking about Cecil?" Velicia asked.

"Yup, he's my boss!"

"Well, we haven't yet. When we got here, people said that he went out to go look for his brother."

"Ah yeah, well we did just come back after all. He went back to the estate earlier and I felt him suddenly going into the city soon after. Right now he's—" Silver closed his eyes and after sensing where his master was, he continued, "—currently back at the family's estate. If you wanna see him then you should go now."

"Uhh, we'll do that later," Velicia said with a strained smile.

Lucius also agreed with her. It was nice to finally be able to see a friend after such a long time, but after remembering how Cecil was like, Velicia felt quite hesitant. What happens if the first thing he says to them was 'hahaha, it's been so long, let's fight?'

Just thinking about it sent a chill up Velicia's spine. Her abilities had indeed increased during the past years, but remembering how much of a training freak their former party leader was, she could only imagine how much stronger he had become.

"Well, if you're not going to him just yet, why not step inside and relax a little?"

"Sure, but can everyone fit inside?"

"Hehe, my boss made this house for us, so it's quite spacious."

"Us?"

"Me and Yuna!"

"O-oh yeah, I remember hearing that you two got together..."

"Mhmm~ well, come in, come in. You'll have to excuse Yuna though, she's currently in her hibernation phase so she's asleep right now."

"That's okay, well, pardon us for the intrusion."