“Noisy frog.” The Salamander King yawned as he walked into the inner bailey and witnessed the destruction caused by the Gaeru and the Ninja Penguins. The Frog Swordsman had no hesitation in unleashing all of the stored energy within Masamune and focused them towards the Salamander King.
The King himself stood there, nonchalant about the incoming wave of bloody projectiles flying towards him but Gaeru did not take much heed to it as well. They both believed that each of them had underestimated one another.
However, Kido knew that something was amiss right away and told his fellow comrades to be on guard. The energy projectiles not only scored a direct hit against the Salamander King but its secondary impact destroyed the area surrounding the final ‘Boss’.
Suddenly, the System noted an intense spike of energy within the area, excluding the ones that came from Gaeru itself. Jin knew it was never this simple with all these ‘Boss’ monsters but continued to restrain himself from doing anything drastic until he saw what was happening.
“It’s a Fey…” Hamatarou said as he watched the smoke dissipate after the attack and the Salamander King was still standing as if nothing had happened. A small little white faerie was standing right at the side of the King himself, protecting him from the devastating strike from Gaeru.
“Not just any Fey. It’s…It’s the daughter of the Winter Court Queen, Maeve!” Hamatarou exclaimed when the pictures from the Dungeon Maker became clearer.
“What powers does she have?” Jin asked, and the Sage Hamster shook his head violently.
“It’s not the powers that matter – okay fine, she had loads of strength as well, but its her attitude…her behaviour! For the Queen who is to come, the druid gave her an uncanny nickname.” Hamatarou took a deep breath in before saying it out.
“The Evil Kinkstress.”
“Her love to pull strings from behind the scenes and her eccentric definition of fun. You will never understand how much of a hassle Queen Mab, the current Winter Court Queen had to deal with Maeve’s behaviour. Druids told me that there was even once that she was so bored that she pulled the wings off a fly just because it came into her sights.” Hamatarou explained.
“Right now, I can vaguely understand why the new Salamander King would behave in such a cannibalistic way when they were previously more upstanding in their ways despite them being arseholes for being the highest of all nobles. For them to suddenly slaughtering both Giants and Animal People alike just to have fun was not in their nature at all.” Hamatarou was finally able to link all the pieces together.
‘There is no way Gaeru can defeat the daughter of the Winter Court Queen, even with his unique sword. Please get him to withdraw, it would be even worse if the Salamander King ever gets hold of the sword itself.” Hamatarou pleaded with Jin, and it also seemed like the plan to make the Salamander King fall asleep would turn to moot.
“So, you have no way of defeating this Maeve as well?” Jin questioned the Sage with a tinge of anger dwelling within him.
“If Master asked me to distract Maeve, then yes. I can do that. But to defeat her? You need the powers equal or more powerful than the Evil Kinkstress to overwhelm her. Either her mother or the Faes from the Summer Court. And trust me, you would not want to go into a promise with either the Summer or Winter Courts. If you associate them like businessmen, they would be at least thousands times more corrupt and cunning than any business partners you have ever forge. The twist of words and promises are their forte.” Hamatarou emphasised how dangerous the fairies were.
“The System also acknowledge that it would be unwise to go against a known Fey without knowing the extent of her abilities. It would definitely be wise to retreat while we still can and attempt another approach.” The System stated which made Jin slammed his fist on the table.
“Damn it! Kido! Remove the spell of enlargement from Gaeru and pop a smokescreen to escape your way out of that situation. We do not want Maeve to suspect there is an external power helping them for now.” Jin ordered through the System channel which Kido acknowledged.
The other Penguin Ninjas forcefully removed the enlargement spell from Gaeru, and they took the necessary precautions by knocking him out cold so that he would not retaliate against the Salamander King despite his failed efforts. However their enlarged projectiles aura was still active, so Kido threw a kunai towards the Salamander King with a smoke bomb was attached to it as well.
Although Maeve blocked the kunai with relative ease, she did not expect a smokescreen to pop right in front of her.
Kido initially feared that it would not work and had already prepared an additional smoke bomb to cover their current location. Fortunately, the smoke bomb worked more effectively than he had imagined. Still, it did no harm to throw the one he was holding to provide everyone with more distraction to escape.
Maeve and the Salamander King did not move an inch away from where they were standing to portray their superiority against their pitiful enemies despite the smokescreen. However, they had least expect the smokescreen to be fused with another effect mixed along with the loss of visibility.
Indian Curry Powder.
The smoke bomb mixture thrown at them had a combination of Indian curry powder as well as some unique spices from Farming World mixed into it to increase the effect. It was a concoction made by Penguins and Lynn as part of their research to make their cooking even more delicious (and to some point, deadly.)
This mixture enabled the smoke bomb to another level of potency, and it was funny how they were created this concoction by accident. Seeing it in action, the System took note of the recipe and placed them for future production.
Subsequently, both the Fae and her pet salamander had to withdraw from the smoke. Even when they were out of range from the smoke bomb, they were still suffering from the unspeakable itchiness emanating from the insides of their throat and constant urge to rub their eyes.
Yet, the more they rub, the worse the effect was.
Kido smirked when he heard intense coughing from afar and still retreated further before asking the System for a teleport back to the dungeon maker room. While Jin’s minions managed to escape safely, the whole operation was considered as a failure since their objective to kill the Salamander King was met with unexpected developments.
Thankfully, there was a silver lining for the entire operation.
Even if they could not kill the Salamander King, Jin had managed to isolate the Salamander King by annihilating the entire family of Salamanders with the aid of Sandy.
The instant the King stepped out of his abode, Sandy sprung into action by activating all of her spells she had been preparing in the depths of the castle underground cellar. Initially, the Sand Witch was summoned to block all the exit routes found within the castle, but with the drastic change in the operation phases, her objective became something more of a search and destroy.
Sandy’s magic spells gave her the ability to connect herself with the ground, allowing her to know where each and every Salamander was within the castle. With the aid of the scan done by Peppers, it was even easier for Sandy to locate the non combatants and the rest of the Salamander Royal Family.
After which, she shot sand spikes through the castle simultaneously to kill all the living Salamanders within the castle without any prejudice. And as for the rest who were agile enough to evade the attack, the sand spikes immediately shapeshifted into a human sand clone and attacked them.
Most of them died by puncture wounds or through suffocation as the Sand Clones smashed into them, entering the enemies’ mouth and blocked their airway.
At the very least, Jin recognised that this would provide him with a bit of reprise knowing that the Salamander King would have trouble to find the animal tribes. Even now, there was no one to assist him with his terribly itchy throat. He had to find the kitchen room which the King barely had any recollection of its location.
Furthermore, Jin suspected that with the lack of support, he might go into a rampage or perhaps depression. Either way that would probably mean the rest of the animal tribes might possibly be safe for now unless Maeve decided to make the Salamander King do something out of the norm.
In the meantime, Jin would get Hamatarou to check on the new captured Salamander Tribe and perhaps they could finally get to the bottom of the truth to exactly know what happened between the King and Maeve.
“Since this is a no go, then I guessed I should concentrate on retrieving the brain of the Mechanical Titan without additional allies.”
