I’m not sure how I feel about this bag of dag larvae. Creepy crawlies aren’t really my thing. I’m sure Ilya would love a present like this though. Mm, well, no matter how I feel about these little bugs, I definitely feel way better about them than Mrs. Mu’s lackey does. He’s frothing at the mouth, and I’m not sure if he’s even still alive. Do immortals need to breathe to survive? I hope not because Mrs. Mu’s lackey stopped doing that a long time ago. If he dies, I don’t think I’ll cry over him, but Mrs. Mu might get upset at me for breaking her toy, and she’s hecking scary to her enemies.

“Excuse me.”

Ah!? Speak of the devil, and the devil appears! “Oh, hey, Mrs. Mu. What’s up?”

Mrs. Mu must’ve stuck her head through the drawer because only her head was here. She cleared her throat—which wasn’t here—and said, “A large beam of light appeared in the distance. If I had to take a guess, a heaven-defying treasure appeared.”

Heaven-defying treasure? “What are we waiting for? Head there straight away!”

Mrs. Mu nodded. “The instant the light appeared, I had already changed our course. I was just informing you about it,” she said. “We’ll arrive in a few seconds, and I believe it’s going to get quite crowded very soon.” Her gaze landed on her lackey, who was still not breathing. I think I’ll gently kick him to wake him up.

Blop.

Okay. The kick didn’t wake him up, but it did make his torso land on his arm in an unnatural way. Hmm. “He’s just napping. The training session was a bit too intense for him.”

“I see that,” Mrs. Mu said. “You don’t have to worry about him dying. If he does, just compensate me with some spiritual energy stones.” Her eyes narrowed as her forehead scrunched up. “He should be worth about…, hmm, does twenty grand sound fair? That’s how much I’ll owe the sect if I fail my mission by failing to bring anyone back alive.”

Twenty grand!? That’s…! Uh…. “How much is that in used panties?”

“See why you need math lessons?” the ruler said. “Since you’ve learned how to dag, you’ve pretty much mastered my escape technique, and you know what we agreed upon.”

…Do I really have to learn math when there’s a heaven-defying treasure right outside my metal flying boat? Can’t we save learning for another time? Money is definitely, definitely, definitely more important than knowledge! With money, I can buy a knowledgeable person! Can I earn money with knowledge? Well…, even if I can, I certainly can’t earn a heaven-defying treasure with it! “Can we save learning math for after this heaven-defying treasure? Please?”

The ruler let out a sigh and shook her head. Then, she smiled at me. “Alright. Just this once, I’ll let you get off easy. You better obtain that treasure though; the competition’s going to be tough, and the disciple of the White-furred Tyrant isn’t allowed to lose.”

Not being allowed to lose is a lot of responsibility. I’m carrying the pride of all squirrels on my shoulders here! Well, with Mrs. Mu’s help, there’s no way I can lose. Other than the ruler, she’s the strongest person in Atlantis. I’ll grab Mrs. Mu’s lackey and hop on out of this place. Should I leave him here? Maybe I’ll put him in my life pouch with Mrs. Feather’s Future Husband. I’m sure the two of them will get along; after all, unconscious people don’t get into fights! Alright, now that that’s settled, I’ll take a peek out of the jet. Mm? Why aren’t I using my divine sense to check things out? What if I scan some dag larvae on accident? I don’t want what happened to Mrs. Mu’s lackey to happen to me!

“Dag larvae are really rare,” the ruler said. When she follows me around, I don’t even notice her footsteps or anything. I’m not sure if she even walks or if she teleports where she needs to go. “Don’t worry. If anything attacks your soul, I’ll defend you since I haven’t taught you how to do it yourself yet.”

That’s awfully kind of the ruler to do that for me. I’m not used to being protected. I’m always the one doing the protecting or doing the running because there’s no one around to save me. Alright, with my divine sense, I can see everything around. There’s a small building just below, and it seems to be resting on some sort of circular platform. My divine sense tells me there’s something underground, but for some reason, I can’t see that far. I thought divine senses were supposed to be difficult to block, but a layer of rocks is blocking mine really easily.

“It looks like there’s a group of demons already ahead of us,” Mrs. Mu said with a frown. “They must’ve been the ones who revealed the treasure’s location. Since Atlantis was originally the ancestral lands of a clan of demons, perhaps they know something we don’t.”

“What are we waiting for then?” If there’s a group ahead of us, obviously, we have to jump down and beat them! Ah? Not physically! We have to beat them to the treasure, and if they try to take it from us, then we resort to beating them physically. If they already got the treasure, then we’ll provoke them into attacking us, so we can snatch it from them while maintaining the moral high ground! “Let’s go!”

Mrs. Mu nodded and leapt out of the jet. Speaking of the jet, do I have to store it in my life pouch? Storing living things in interspatial rings isn’t possible, and there’s plenty of people still inside the drawer. Alright, into the life pouch it goes! Hmm. It’s a bit tricky to put inside, huh?

“There’s a shrinking option,” the ruler said and pointed at the display. “The jet can reduce its size for ease of transportation.”

Wow. Patriarch Atlantis thought of everything, huh? Too bad he couldn’t think of how to stop the ruler from destroying his place.