He didn’t fall for my brilliant strategy! How did he know I was going to attack from the right when I swung from the left…? He was even enraged too! He must’ve cheated. Anyways…. “Fly faster, Softie!”

“This is the fastest this boat can go,” Softie said. She looked at me while pursing her lips. Then she pointed at Mrs. Feathers, who wasn’t looking at her, and raised an eyebrow. “Why aren’t we…?”

Why aren’t we riding Mrs. Feathers to escape? Um. I hadn’t thought about it. My first thought was to flee to the boat; at least, that’s what my tail told me to do. If I can’t trust my tail, then I can’t trust myself, and I’m the most trustworthy person in the world. “Because I said so.”

Ah? Why am I running in the first place? The man suddenly grew, and my tail had a really strong reaction, so I ran. There’s no shame in running. What good is shame anyway? Can you eat it? Can it save your life? Nope and nope! Nothing good comes from having a sense of shame. Anyway, that man can run really fast, huh? He could already fly pretty quickly, but now he’s running instead. It’s probably because he grew; he’s too fat to fly. Is that why my tail wanted me to get on the boat? That must be it.

“Boss,” Mrs. Feathers said. “It looks like he’s about to throw his—”

Kaboom!

What the heck was that!?

“—sword at us…. He threw it.” Mrs. Feathers stuck her neck over the edge of the boat, and I went to her side to check it out as well. “Boss? Who made this boat? It can withstand a quasi-immortal’s attack?”

The big sword was just hanging in the air. It seemed to be stuck in a barrier of sorts…. I’m going to take it! I took my spirit-restraining rope out of my interspacial ring and threw one end of it at the sword. The rope wrapped around the sword’s hilt, and with a tug, I brought the rope and sword back to me. Hmph. I got really good at using this rope to catch people. Catching an unmoving sword? Easy as eating an acorn!

“Sister Ilya, Sister Ilya,” Mrs. Feathers said. “I really have to meet this Sister Ilya.”

Mm? When did Ilya become the topic of conversation? There’s more important things to talk about! “Look at my new sword.” It’s a pretty fancy sword, nice and big. I think it’s alive. Is there a spirit in here? It’s trying to escape from my grasp, but I won’t let it! Into the interspacial ring it goes. Huh? That’s weird; it won’t go inside. If that’s the case…. “Durandal. Want to eat it?” I’ll use it as bait to lure Durandal out to Soul Scour him! Wait, now’s not the right time to Soul Scour someone since I’m still being chased!

“That’s odd,” Softie said. “Did Sister Ilya increase the speed of the boat too? We shouldn’t be flying this fast.”

“…This boat can fly faster than me, Boss.”

Really? “Since when did Ilya become this amazing?” She made a boat that can fly faster than Mrs. Feathers! And she left it behind with Softie. I know all about Ilya, and I know she keeps the best stuff for herself even if she pretends to give it to me! That means she has an even better boat than this one! How dare she make a boat that can fly faster than I can travel!? “She clearly designed this boat to escape from me!”

Softie scratched her head. “That makes sense given this boat’s name.” She touched the boat’s railing and frowned. “But there’s a problem.”

Of course there’s a problem. How am I going to catch Ilya in the future? …Wait, boat’s name? What’s the boat’s name?

“We’re burning through a thousand spirit stones a second.”

A thousand spirit stones!? That’s—! Err…. “How much is that in used panties?”

“About a hundred used panties a second.”

Every second, one hundred used panties are disappearing…. Then, in a minute…, uh…, mm…, ah? In a minute, a lot of used panties are disappearing! Well, Softie’s paying for it, so … not my problem! Anyways. “What’s the boat’s name?”

Softie raised her eyebrows. “The anti-Lucia boat.”

…

“It’s equipped with a defensive formation that can block one of your attacks.”

…

“I didn’t know it earlier, but it can fly faster than you too.”

…

“And there’s also an anti-Lucia cannon formation wrapped around the whole boat.”

…Does Ilya hate me that much? “Let me see how strong the cannon is.”

“You want me to fire it at the man?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright,” Softie said and swallowed. “I’m not sure how accurate this’ll be.” She slapped the boat’s railing. “Firing the anti-Lucia cannon!”

Mm? There’s a lot of qi gathering at the back of the boat. And … it fired at the man running after us! He teleported to the left, but the beam of qi chased after him and hit him! Is he … dead? The beam of qi is still going strong, and it’s hard to see what’s past it. It’s too bright. Ah! It stopped. “Wait, wait! Stop the boat!”

The boat stopped.

“Go back a bit. I can’t see him.”

Oh! There he is. He looks super burnt. I hit him so many times with my hammer, but he didn’t even look injured. He got hit with this anti-me cannon once, and he looks like this!? Was Ilya trying to kill me when she designed this thing!? “Hey! Are you alright!?”

The man coughed a few times, and he shrank. His muscles stopped bulging, and he returned to normal. Even his burnt skin flaked off and turned white again. “You! You’re very strong, but I expected that when I decided to go squirrel hunting!” The man raised his hand. “Behold! What’s in the box!?”

It’s that fucking box again! He threw it towards me, and I caught it. There really isn’t any danger coming off of this thing, and he’s not close enough to do his stupid Tiger Maul! It’s time to open the box! What’s inside? It’s definitely acorns mixed with…. “Um, Softie, Mrs. Feathers? What is this?” It’s a bunch of lines? Ooh! Underneath this silver thing with lines, there’s an acorn and … I knew it! It’s caramel.

“Err, that looks like a pocket-sized transportation gate,” Mrs. Feathers said. She squawked and flapped her wings twice. “Throw it away before it transports us into the void or something! Boss! Stop licking that acorn!”

Ah? Did Mrs. Feathers say something? That caramel was delicious. Mm? This silver thing’s lighting up! Is it going to explode?