Another World Trip: Journey with My Cat and an Otaku Loli Goddess Chapter 246 - Second Time In A Tunnel

It was only a whisper, but in a cave system like this, even whispers carried far.

“Who’s there!?”

****

Yaomu Shou emerged from the fog, looking around in wariness. I personally wished that Mina expressed this amount of interest in her surroundings, but now we lost her and we can’t even say we don’t know why.

“Yaomu Baiyin you’re too loud!” said Yaomu Shou, sticking a pinky in her ear to drive her point home.

“S-Sorry Lady Yaomu Shou!”

“But didn’t you hear that!?” Yaomu Baiyin asked, still wary of her surroundings. The mere fact that she had to ask this made me painfully aware that this girl was suffering from what was known as a skill issue.

“Yes,” Yaomu Shou answered coldly.

Yaomu Shou was still peeved with Yaomu Baiyin because of the whole racist thing. I didn’t care much about it and it seemed that she didn’t entirely hate her since she allowed her to tag along as our Mina replacement. I mean, she’s pretty mid, so about as Mina as anyone can get, so I’m not complaining.

It was obvious that she had some level of animosity towards me. You can see where the Mina resemblance really starts to shine through. I didn’t even know if this was because I was dubbed a criminal by the king of their race, or my closeness to Yaomu Shou.

“I already sensed the person you’re talking about for a while now. Long Di sensed it even earlier,” said Yaomu Shou, who was not suffering from skill issues.

“We wanted to surprise that person by making them think we were unaware to see what their intentions are, but that’s not gonna work now.”

Fwip.

Oh, I know I didn’t say this before, but I had my sabre out but I put it away because of reasons you will soon know.

“So it’s you… what was the name again? R-Right, Lu Pei is that you?” I asked, shocking both Yaomu Shou and Yaomu Baiyin.

I guess they didn’t think they would meet someone I knew. But even that’s a stretch, really. It’s not like I knew the guy, but more like I remembered the names of those who took the test of destiny with me back then. Apart from his face and name, I knew about as much Yaomu Shou and Yaomu Baiyin.

They landed their gaze where I did, and not long after, a figure stumbled through the fog towards them before collapsing with a hand to break his fall. Yep, this guy has seen better days. Didn’t he have a crappy destiny? What’s up with that?

“Long Di! Y-You’re alive!?” was Lu Pei’s first question to no one else but me.

“I see. So everyone thinks I’m dead. Understandable.”

“Of course, everyone thinks you’re dead! After your destiny appeared and the sky turned dark, you disappeared in that enormous explosion!”

“Dead? Destiny?? Dark skies??? Explosion!?”

Yaomu Shou and Yaomu Baiyin then looked at me with renewed curiosity. Curse you Lu Pei.

“When you put it like that, it does seem pretty out there,” I told him.

“Where have you been all this time?” he finally asked.

“I’ve been in the Demon Region. This is Yaomu Shou, a friend of mine, and this is Yaomu Baiyin…” I need to make sure I describe her well to lessen her animosity towards me. “She’s… a person.”

Nailed it.

“Screw you! I’m more than a person!” Yaomu Baiyin cursed before introducing herself to Lu Pei. Pfft, good luck beating what I said.

She then puffed her chest out before announcing. “I’m the 7th alchemist’s apprentice of the royal family!”

“R-Royal family!?” Lu Pei stuttered.

I guess he’s shocked that I’m affiliated with the royal family in some way. Can’t blame him, really. I’m still confused about half the things that happened to me that led me to this point.

Lu Pei then cupped his fist. “Hello, Yaomu Shou and Yaomu Baiyin. I’m Lu—”

“That’s Lady Yaomu Shou to you!” Yaomu Baiyin corrected.

“!”

Lu Pei looked at Yaomu Shou in shock. His expression tells me that he thought a junior alchemist would be the person with the most illustrious position here, but was now shocked to find this wasn’t the case.

He couldn’t think of a position more illustrious than that. I’ll help him out.

“Yeah, she’s the young miss of the royal family,” I told him.

“The young…” he looked at Yaomu Shou who stared back at him in indifference.

“You’re the princess to the demon—”

“There’s no princess in the royal family, nor is there a queen.” Yaomu Shou responded coldly.

“Oh… I had thought you were the successor to the throne?” Lu Pei scratched the back of his head in awkwardness.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m just paving the way for the real successor…” she said in a lowered ramble.

That sounds ominous. “Come again?”

“I-It’s fine. Forget it!” She tried to skip over what she just said like she didn’t just say it. Why do I think this will eventually come back to bite me in the ass somehow?

I stared her down because of this and she looked away clearly unnerved. So that’s going nowhere.

“You,” I turned my attention to Lu Pei. “Who did this to you?”

Lu Pei followed his gaze to his chest, which was still bleeding and the numerous other injuries that riddled his body.

“Weisheng Zu!” Lu Pei unintentionally spat his name venomously.

“I remember him. That’s the city lord’s son.”

“Catch.”

Caught off guard, Lu Pei hurriedly caught something Yaomu Baiyin threw towards him.

After inspecting what she gave him, he found it to be a medicinal pill. There was also a faint lustre to it and the medicinal scent it gave off was refreshing.

I could swear I saw a single teardrop fall down his cheek. Dear lord, what has this man gone through?

Lu Pei was about to reject it when my ‘couldn’t-deal-with-it’ ass held him down and forced it down his throat.

Now I’m sure that sounds questionable with and without context, but giving a damn is hard when I have none to give.

As soon as I was finished with him, I got up and inspected the cave.

‘My second time in a tunnel in a very brief span of time. I hope this doesn’t become a trend.’

“What’s your plan?” I asked Lu Pei who half glared at me for forcing the pill down his throat and half revelling in the efficacy of the pill.

The wound on his chest had already closed up and the wounds that garbed his body were all but gone.

“Oh, I was planning to cultivate here to raise my realm. Odds are I probably won’t get a chance like this again.”

“Well, we’re here because the spiritual energy in this region is unusually rich. So we’re trying to see if we can head to the source. You wanna come with?” I made what I thought was a decent-ish offer.

Oh yeah, this was why I was here. The Spiritual Bingqi realm was a realm of weapons, if nothing else. But since I already had a weapon and Yaomu Shou had a weapon and I didn’t care if Yaomu Baiyin had a weapon, our goals changed after a while.

I was down here because I sensed the spiritual energy here is a bit unusual. My spiritual force was far higher than anyone else’s, so it wasn’t unusual that I was able to sense what others couldn’t.

Regardless, this was why, Yaomu Shou, Mina…ish and I ended up in this place.

Lu Pei looked to be weighing the pros and cons of this.

It didn’t seem to take too long, to be honest. He probably just remembered that he, by his own consent, took a pill and didn’t die.

“Okay,” aaand he agreed.

…

“Are you sure you saw them head this way?” several figures collected around one location.

“Yes! Can you let us go now!?” Hui Haohan and the others cursed their bad luck.

Soon after detaching themselves from Long Di and Yaomu Shou, Yaomu Baiyin decided to leave and follow Yaomu Shou.

They didn’t even get far before they were cornered by a bunch of cultivators looking for Long Di!

“Not yet,” a particular figure walked out from the crowd that surrounded them, causing Hui Haohan and others to tense up in response.

When this figure saw Nao Shan, his expression changed slightly before it returned to normal.

“You can go. It would seem that even the Gu demons have declined if they produced someone like you,” he said with no small amount of disdain.

Curiously enough, Nao Shan didn’t argue against this. Instead, he shook himself free of the woman who supported him and turned from them.

“Nao Shan!” Hui Haohan called out before he was stopped by one of the many demons that surrounded them.

He then addressed the collective group, saying, “We’ll trouble you to show us exactly where you last saw them.”

A long time after they left, a quiet rumbling took place.