Epic of Caterpillar

"Ooh, food from another world! I want to try it out right away!" Frank was getting hyped about eating the food in this place. "One of the things I always explore when I travel to another world is their cuisine!"

"I can tell, you\'re overly excited about some food." I sighed.

"H-Hey! There\'s nothing wrong with liking to eat food, don\'t you know?" Sighed Frank. "More importantly, this is the marketplace, right?"

"Uooohh! I can smell a lot of tasty stuff here!" Ariant said.

"Yeah! Let\'s go pick up street food! Kireina-sama! There\'s tons of it everywhere!" Eriant said.

"Ooh, certainly!" I said while rubbing my chin.

Seeing all of this kind of reminded me of my own memories, of the times before going off against Hel. I remember we held a big festival inside my Divine Realm. It was a New Years Festival, we all ate a lot of tasty Japanese food I made, and then there were fireworks.

It was such a nice day… Those memories still linger within me. Man, I miss those times. I want to go back with everybody else and do just that again!

"Ugh, do you guys seriously have appetite right now? I cannot even eat well without Lady Elfina. Every day without her to serve is hell…" Sighed Fiere. "I am growing worried every single second that passes…"

"Certainly, it is pretty bad. But that doesn\'t meant we can\'t enjoy what\'s in front of us right now." Frank told Fiere.

"Yeah, he\'s right." Sol nodded. "Kireina, you said Elfina was getting closer?"

"Indeed. If what we speculated is right, Elfina must have been brainwashed and is being parasitized by some sort of Armor like the one you had, Sol. If that\'s the case, then she\'s probably rushing here to destroy this place or something." I sighed.

"Hmmm… This is bad, we should tell the authorities to get prepared for this." Frank said.

"Yeah, we\'re going to do that. The Royal Palace is right in front of us, we\'re going directly there. But there\'s nothing wrong with enjoying some window shopping while on the way, right Fiere?" I asked the gloomy elf maid.

"Right… I suppose it\'s fine. I apologize if I was ruining the mood for everyone here." Fiere apologized.

"Nah, it\'s fine Fiere. I can understand how you feel." Ariant said.

"Yeah, sorry about that." Eriant sighed.

"Remember that we are kind of undercover here guys… don\'t bring too much attention." Said Brunhild while sighing. Despite her charcoal skin which was a rare sight and mostly unique to Giants, she was blending in pretty fine at her current size.

Though the big white scaled Luminous was always bringing attention to himself… and me, even when wearing a hood, I was bringing lots of attention towards me! Maybe I should create an Ego that is some sort of clothing or something next.

Aquamarine can do Armor Embodiment, but that\'s clearly not the same, not at all.

"So your friend got captured and all… Can you guys go more into detail?" Frank wondered.

We kind of told him most of it but by skipping  a lot of details as well.

"Yeah, sure…"

Like that, as we made our way through the Market Place, we told Frank about how we got here after the Human Emperor\'s defeat and his army retreating.

"Wow, you\'ve really sent a lot of waves around this world Kireina…" Sighed Frank. "Meanwhile I always try to not mess with the worlds I go into unlike the first two I went to."

"Y-Yeah… The whole Human Empire thing might had been a bit provoked by me…" I said.

"A bit?" Sol wondered, while raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, only a bit!" I sighed. "The human empire wanted the elves territory for a while now anyways, and I also helped them survive so that\'s… I made up for it!"

"Right…" Sol sighed. "Anyways, that\'s about it."

"So you got lost after that giant monster attacked… Desert King, huh? It certainly sounds like a powerful monster. But that ability to control gravity and all… Don\'t you think it\'s weird coming from a bug inside a desert?" He wondered.

"Desert Kings always had these powers." Said Ariant.

"And they\'re far from bugs, they\'re enormous crustaceans!" Said Eriant.

"They\'re the top of the food chain in the Desert." Said Brunhild.

"Even stronger than that Evil Dragon Luminous and you defeated?" Frank asked.

"Yeah, certainly. His Gravity Manipulation powers make it a powerful and dangerous threat as well." I said. "And it seems that they develop an innate Supreme Divine Domain and Aura, that power was part of what weakened us once it confronted us… It is a real pain in the ass to deal with, but we\'re way stronger than before. My hopes are in that we can defeat it once I evolve another time."

"Hm, I\'ll be there to assist you. I wonder if one of them could hold a fragment of my soul." Sighed Frank. "We\'ll eventually find out."

"Yeah, though that could explain their Gravity Magic, but if they\'re talking about them general, I don\'t know. How many Desert Kings are out there?" I wondered.

"They\'re too strong and big, their territories are also enormous…" Said Ariant. "There might be less than five in the entire desert. But you can easily find their lesser and weaker variants, which are pre-evolutions. Desert Kings are said to be born every ten thousand years…"

I guess they take that long at leveling up with their sluggish hunting methods of sitting idle and waiting for prey to get closer…

At the end, we enjoyed a lot of food in here.

There was a lot of spicy sauces that the people of Goldsand prided themselves at having.

There was also skewers of meat from the desert monsters.

Desert Wolf Meat Skewer was rather popular and affordable, but we also found Antlion Soup with potatoes, which was very delicious and had a nice seafood fragrance.

We also found a shop selling Cactus Wine, and I bought almost the entire place, I\'ve grown addicted to Cactus Juice… And making it wine made it even deadlier for me!