Lucia’s been ignoring me recently. She actually used the cooking pot she stole from Kuang Feng to vote against me. Isn’t that outrageous? Like Roland, as she gets stronger, she’s gradually acquiring more companions, more people who take up space in her heart. Lucia isn’t very magnanimous; her heart isn’t that big. The more people she has that she cares about, the less she’ll care about me. Now, she cares more about getting home to Sophia than she does about fixing my sterility problem—which, for the record, I don’t think is a problem at all.

“Ah? Durandal? You came out? What are you doing?”

What am I doing? “I’m going to have a friendly spar with the law enforcement squirrels down there.” I’ve only just recently became an immortal. I haven’t tested out my newfound strength yet. By fighting the squirrels down there, I can achieve two things with one action: I’ll get a good assessment of my abilities, and I’ll potential stir up enough trouble to have Lucia exiled from this squirrels’ promised land.

“No!” Lucia grabbed my arm and stared me in the eyes. “You—”

“You’re not upset? You’re being falsely accused, and those law enforcement squirrels don’t have any proof. They’re abusing their authority to take advantage of you because you’re a newcomer. Don’t you want to do something about it?”

Lucia’s brow furrowed, and her grip on my arm loosened.

In the end, I’m still the one who understands Lucia the best. I’ll rub her ears and pat her head to coax her. “How about you go down with me to fight against them? If we work together, I don’t believe anyone can defeat us.”

“I’m already undefeatable by myself,” Lucia said, staring at me with a dubious expression on her face. “Since when have you ever helped me deal with people? You always stir things up and make them harder for me! Don’t think I forgot about that time you forced me to fight a sect with just my tail.”

How in the world does she still remember that? She has been saying her mind’s been getting clearer due to the crispness of the air—which I think is the spiritual energy floating around like how qi floated around in the Immortal Continent. Was there really something wrong with her mind that’s being fixed by exposure to spiritual energy? “When did that happen? I don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember when, but it definitely happened!”

“Does thinking about it make you mad enough to fight those squirrels with me?”

“Go fight them by yourself!” Lucia said and placed her hands on her hips. “It’s you who wants to attack them, not me. I have nothing to do with this.”

Alright, I’ve gotten her permission to fight those squirrels one way or another. Before Lucia could change her mind, I leapt over the side of the branch, pulling out my sword on the way down. I pointed it below me, aiming at the nearest squirrel. There were three of them along with a squirrelkin that looked similar to Lucia but furrier along its arms and legs. He was also male, and his fur was black, so I suppose the only similarity between him and Lucia were their ears and tails attached to a humanoid body. Either way, I braced myself for a follow-up attack once the squirrel I was targeting dodged. It looked up at me and froze, its eyes wide. Then, my sword sank into its body.

“Ack! Help! Chief! I’ve been murdered!” The squirrel jumped up and swatted at me with its paws. I simply planted my feet against its body and kicked off, pulling my sword out as I leapt away.

“Quit yapping!” the male squirrelkin said and smacked the injured squirrel’s thigh. The squirrelkin glared at me and punched his fists together in front of his chest. A layer of green light appeared over his arms, legs, and tail. “Who are you? Where’s your owner?”

Instead of answering the squirrelkin with words, I dashed forward, swinging my sword at him.

“Hmph!” The squirrelkin raised his forearm to block my slash. My sword made contact with the green light on his arm, and it felt like I had cut into a swamp rather than a person. Before I could pull my weapon back, the squirrelkin grabbed the blade with his bare hand and lunged forward, his jaw widening as his head curved down to bite my neck.

“Kick his butt, Durandal! Don’t you dare lose!”

Lucia might’ve thought she was helping by cheering me on, but she wasn’t. I released my sword and retreated backwards, avoiding the male squirrelkin’s bite. While he was still out of position, I swung my fist down, aiming at his jaw. A layer of green appeared over his face, and once again, it felt like I had punched a bog.

“Aren’t you an immortal?” the squirrelkin asked with my fist still attached to his face. No matter how hard I tugged, I couldn’t pull my arm back. The squirrelkin raised an eyebrow at me. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how to use spiritual energy.” A grin appeared on the squirrelkin’s face. “It looks like I’ll be the first amongst my colleagues to kill a human immortal.”

A blur appeared in my vision, and I raised my arm to block. A force akin to Lucia’s hammer struck my side, shattering the bones in my arm along with several of my ribs. Despite the strength behind the blow, I wasn’t sent flying. Instead, I remained stuck to the green-glowing tail that hit me. The squirrelkin lifted his tail up high, and the ground accelerated towards my face. Luckily, I’m not a regular human; I can simply retreat into my weapon body. I might’ve escaped, but it doesn’t feel good to have my ass kicked that easily.

“Ah? Durandal? What happened? How’d you lose so fast?”

…I’m not sure. The male squirrelkin’s technique caught me off guard, and I’m still a little surprised he was able to block my slash without any effort. Is the quality of my sword too low? I might be residing in an immortal-ranked weapon, but the sword I’m wielding isn’t that great. There’s also my inability to use spiritual energy. It’s a shame Lucia didn’t take any techniques from Ilya regarding how to use the energy in the immortal realm instead of qi.