Read Novel Full Chapter 491: Freedom Attained
Chapter 491: Freedom Attained
"Pandora... WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?" Violet screams at me after I’ve been running for over a month, putting as much distance as I can between myself and the spider girl and her colony. I’ve already deactivated the ability, so I’ve returned to my "Normal" state, but ever since that incident, Violet has been yelling at me, and I’ve been ignoring her.
"...Violet, stop yelling..." I say, wanting her to shut up. I know exactly what she’s going to say, and honestly, I don’t want to hear her words right now because her arrogance is going to frustrate me.
"Oh, of course! Stop yelling! But you won’t explain what the hell that was! You spent 400 years serving as a broodmare! Why didn’t you run away or fight or something! Just get yourself killed once and for all! The Pandora I know would never just accept that! Where’s that girl who said she’d rather blow herself up if she was ever caught by the enemy?" She speaks without understanding anything.
"Quiet, Violet. You don’t know me well enough to spout that kind of bullshit," I say, irritated. Does she think I enjoyed serving as an incubator for the damn spider girl’s eggs? Besides, I did say I’d blow myself up to take my enemy with me, but that was in a different situation.
"Don’t know you! I’ve been with you for years! I’ve seen everything about you with my own eyes! And first, you spent 10,000 years serving as a whore for Delphina! That one I can even understand because you’re depraved and you like Delphina, but some random monster girl? Seriously?!" she speaks with pure indignation.
"Violet, that’s none of your business."
"It is my business! How could it not be? My wielder is out there birthing eggs for some random abyssal aberration; it’s been 10,400 years since I was last drawn. I am a sword, you know?" She states the obvious.
"...Have patience... Besides, I have eternal life. 10,400 years is nothing compared to how long you’re going to go without being used by me." Her annoying voice is driving me crazy.
"No! Explain yourself! Why the hell did you let that happen for so long?! You’d normally never allow that." She continues with this frustrating insistence.
"Ugh, you’re so irritating." I hate this, all this talk about who I am or who I’m not.
"Violet, do you really think you understand me? You’re just a sword stuck to my hand. Don’t be so arrogant as if you actually knew me, because guess what!? You don’t know me." It’s a fact. There are only three unique beings who truly know me.
And those are Tiny Pandora, Yandere Pandora, and Monster Pandora, and all three are still me. And probably the being closest to truly understanding me is my mother.
"..."
"Yeah... I don’t know you... Sometimes I forget you’re a monster. I guess I hoped for too much when I just wanted to help." She sounds all hurt, but I’m not in the mood for drama right now.
"..." Violet has no idea how much pain I’m in. My head has been hurting terribly, in irregular intervals since about twenty years ago.
’What are Yandere Pandora and the others doing in there?’ They won’t let me in. I can’t appear inside the sea of consciousness to see what the hell they’re doing to my mind.
"H-hey, Pandora, are you okay?" Violet speaks again as I sit down on the abyss floor, leaning against a tree.
"...I-I’m fine... just a slight headache." My voice comes out more shaky than I’d like. I don’t like seeming so weak, but it was the only way for me to survive—to just cooperate with that spider bitch.
It’s not like I did it because I liked it or because I wanted to. I accepted it because rationally, it was the best choice for survival, something Violet wouldn’t understand because she’s never had to go through extreme situations like I have.
She isn’t wild and primitive like me and the monsters of this place. Here is where the law of the strongest reigns absolutely, and... I’m no longer the "strongest." Now I’m just someone at rock bottom.
’Fighting to survive, huh...’ I think of the past, when I was human. Wasn’t I just surviving then, too? How ironic. I thought I’d never hit rock bottom again, having to just accept everything in silence to survive.
’It seems even now, with so much power, fate still finds some way to humiliate me... But this time, I won’t accept it quietly... One day, I’ll be so strong that every being in the abyss will bow before me to avoid being killed...’ This isn’t a dream or an illusion. I have the power to grow that strong in the future.
"Violet, thanks for worrying... but it’s inevitable that I just have to accept what happens here in the abyss... I understand it seems strange for me to act like this... but it’s not because I’m giving up or anything like that."
"I’m just waiting."
"..."
"Waiting?" she asks, appearing again.
"Yes. I’m waiting. Calmly and patiently waiting. Because I am a Tenebris Abyssus. I will grow stronger over time, and that’s not something you can rush." I did, in fact, get stronger after what happened with the spider girl.
"Probably, I’ll be captured again by another powerful monster that wants to use me for something, and then I’ll have to wait or escape. In the end, the abyss doesn’t give me many choices... But when I’m strong enough, no one will be able to humiliate me like this again."
"Either I fight when the enemy is weaker, or I flee if they’re stronger but can’t catch me, or I just wait if I’m captured by a monster that doesn’t want to kill me."
"Regardless of my choice, the options are the most limited I’ve had in all these last years." And it’s precisely because I understand this that I resign myself to what’s happening.
Because the world belongs to the most adaptable. If I try to fight against this nature of the abyss, I’ll end up dead faster than I can truly grow in this place.
"...Hmmm... and what are you seeking when you’re captured?" She asks a question that’s a little too intrusive.
"When I’m captured... probably the most important thing is a [Skill] or a [Passive]. I can always awaken one after a while because of adaptation. There’s also level—I gain levels because my body is adapting to my enemy’s strength..." I say as I feel the headache subsiding.
"...Why haven’t you used magic in any of the fights so far?"
"I can’t. But I’m learning. It will take a while before I can use magic freely, though..." I form a magic circle in my hand. It generates a black and blue flame. It’s not strong, but I can do magic now without the abyss completely destroying it.
"Tsk, you are truly a wild beast! An animal! An irrational beast! You beast! Beast!" she says, all arrogant, and then falls silent.
"...Violet?..." She stops responding. Frustrated, I just dispel the magic and stand up, starting to walk again, now naked, because the black slime clothing can’t maintain its form without Yandere Pandora or Monster Pandora stabilizing it.
’Great. I’m completely naked, unarmed, without magic, and still without much progress... Practically back at square one...’ I need some way to level up faster. I don’t want to have to spend hundreds of millennia to get to levels in the billions.
"System, can you tell me the best place where I can increase my level quickly?" I ask the system, hoping maybe it will answer.
[The best locations are flying cities. They are zones of high magical density. They are usually giant monsters that fly slowly, so other monsters build cities on top of them.
They are areas full of powerful flying monsters you can fight and defeat to increase your level.]
"...Oh wow, how helpful..." I say sarcastically. In short, killing monsters is the fastest way, but it’s not like I can easily go around killing powerful monsters.
Besides, it was obvious that killing strong monsters would help, since I can steal characteristics from those monsters by devouring their bodies. Strangely, of all the monsters the spider girl gave me to eat, none gave me characteristics.
[As an extra, they are great for gathering information. Flying monsters that gather in these cities tend to have the highest level of intellect among the abyss monsters. Therefore, they can easily inform you about what you want to know about the abyss.
And some of these cities even have servants of the Abyss Goddess controlling them. One of these cities is also built on the body of one of the Abyss Goddess’s transformed servants.]
’Now that’s good information... Rational monsters mean more chances of me finding out what I want to know... That damn spider girl said a few things, but nothing that really helps...’ Although rational monsters are also the opposite—monsters that are even harder to defeat or trick, and worse, harder to escape from.
"High reward, but high risk... I guess that’s the standard for the abyss..." I think about whether it’s worth going. The first city I went to wasn’t really that good, since I got captured and all I found out that was useful is that my mother’s servants are crazy maniacs who love to go out and kill for sport.
’Well, I guess it’s worth it...’ I use the shadows to generate wings. Fortunately, using shadows isn’t that difficult. This is the first time I’ll try flying in the abyss above a certain level.
I don’t know how high the flying cities are, but honestly, flying seems kind of difficult. The flying creatures I saw were very high up and all seemed disturbingly strong.
But you can’t get stronger without taking risks. I’ll try to find a city, but this time I’ll be more careful. In the first city, I blatantly asked about my mother to test everyone’s reaction.
I’ve already seen that my mother is a "sensitive" topic, so going around asking anyone could lead to trouble for me. Plus, it’s also already clear that I shouldn’t follow anyone to their homes, so if I want information, it needs to be in a more neutral environment.
’I hope I find a city quickly...’ I stay alert as well. From up here, if I see any weak monster on the ground, I’ll kill it to eat before going up again. I also need to deal with the milk. Because of 400 years of stimulation, my breasts haven’t stopped producing milk, and I don’t want anyone else to notice that I produce milk.