Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-126

[Champion of Psychic Eyes Perspective] [Nanako Maki Perspective]

Hundreds of years ago, my Dodomeki ancestors settled themselves on the Athetosea Kingdom. Being originally from the Azuma Empire, they traveled across several demi-human kingdoms and villages, but never found the economic stability that they desired to do their merchant business.

However, as the Athetosea Kingdom was originally made up of wise and veteran merchants, its economic stability was superb. Due to my ancestor riches and knowledge, even if they were demi-humans, my family was welcomed. After several generations of marrying nobles, we become a noble family too.

Hundreds of years since then, I was born. A Mixblood between Human and Dodomeki. The humans call me Half-Dodomeki for short.

Although I am not the first Mixblood on my family, we are certainly rare. Due to our genes and the humans being very similar, we can procreate. However, the Human gene or the Dodomeki gene will usually dominate each other, so a child will either be a Dodomeki or a Human.

A Mixblood is the combination of both genes, something that rarely happens. Such an event is so rare that a Mixblood has not been reported to have been born on my family for one hundred and fifty years.

And then, I was born as a Mixblood. Because such an event is so rare, they called me a "chosen children", and to feed my family beliefs, I was blessed by the Goddess of All-Seeing Vision and obtained a [Epic] skill.

To fulfill my family expectations, I trained and studied. Overall knowledge of the world, mathematics, science, language, etiquette, music knowledge, cooking knowledge, merchant arts, etc.

I've seen the dark side of humans. And that certainly changed me. I don't like it when things don't go my way, as it would be dangerous for my family and the situation of my Kingdom. Using my knowledge, I bribed and convinced people, and even, contracted shady people, to do the business that I cannot do myself.

After officially awakening as a Champion, I studied even more. I negotiated with the other noble families. I generated connections and also fame and wealth. I made my family raise over others, and after twenty years, we reached the top ten strongest and wealthiest noble families of the Athetosea Kingdom.

The only family with demi-human origins to reach such a feat, not even the elves have reached what I had.

However, things never went as I wanted. The nobles surrounding me looked at me with despise and hate. Some tried to sabotage my business, to ruin my connections, and even tried to take my life or that of my family.

Due to this constant threat, I created an organization, my organization. I recruited talented men and women, human and demi-human. Preferably young and orphan, so I can raise them to be loyal to me and no one else.

I took those children that were starving on the streets, those who stole for food and never saw a future.

I raised them and cultivated their talents. Mages, Diviners, Guards, Assassins. In twelve years, I managed to do what others would find impossible even in their lifetimes.

A full-on organization that can do almost anything. Information gathering and storing, divination and tracking, spies and assassins. Using this organization, I settled my family as someone who should not be messed with.

The hateful glares and jealously suddenly stopped, being replaced with desperate and false smiles and fear. With my organization, I was even able to take down competitors and even steal their assets. And due to my status as a Champion, the other nobles couldn't do anything about it.

However, there are still, very few houses that can oppose me, to those, I stay wary and make good friends. A gentle smile and a cheerful laugh.

As time passed, more champions awakened and the ten elemental knights were also born. In reality, half of these individuals, are my friends and subordinates.

As the one with the highest status, the threat me as the leader and call me for assistance. I consider them my family and help them, they also do favors for me, sometimes even assassinations and subjugations.

The constant disputes between nobles created what's called an "internal war" between two different sides. One wants to invest in war power, while others want to keep exploiting the commoners and use this money to fund the economy.

Because of my status and influence, I can easily make one of these sides the ultimate winner. However, I don't want any of them to win.

Certainly, I do agree that we need to invest into military power, however, I also agree that exploiting the commoners keep our economy as stable as it has been for hundreds of years.

What I want is a middle ground, but for that, lots of paperwork and negotiations must be done, I need to keep creating connections and convincing the nobles, while also gathering information and getting rid of those on my way.

And then, a disturbance on my plans happened. The youngest daughter of the Lomanie Family came back to her family. And after a series of strange events, her brother killed the head of the Lomanie family and she inherited this position.

My spies saw the whole thing, it was flawless, the brother killed his father, there wasn't any manipulation or anything. He just did it, Alice was there, and cried for his father.

If this was just another poor noble family, I wouldn't mind anything that is going on inside, but it's the Lomanie family, one of the wealthiest and most influential families. The death of the head of this family alongside the quick replacement put in awe a lot of nobles.

My [Legendary Relic] gave me a signal. Something is very odd about all of this situation. Due to this, I made several of my diviners alongside spies to secretly watch over the Lomanie family.

Alice Lomanie, she is certainly a very well-hidden woman. Whenever I talk to her, there is something odd about her aura that I cannot understand. I cannot use my abilities with her, as it would be an extreme offense.

I've found those who have been lurking. Disguised as adventurers, however, they were demi-humans, Dhampirs, to be exact.

Dhampirs are not true-blooded vampires, but humans converted thanks to a true vampire drinking their blood while leaving them alive. Of course, a Dhampir can evolve into a True Blood Vampire with enough time and effort.

Their hypnotizing and illusion abilities are incredible, this means that they weren't converted by a low Vampire, but a very strong one, probably as strong as a Champion.

They had strange illusion rings that made them resemble their original appearances as humans. These rings are of extreme value to my investigation, however, they come covered on a Status Blocking Skill, that cannot let me read their statistics alongside the creator's name.

It will take some time, but I will manage to unseal this, for now, I tried to interrogate the captured Dhampirs. But I was welcomed by an explosion.

It seems that they had some kind of device on their heads, which made their entire brains blow up the moment they were made to talk against their wills. Due to this, I wasn't able to obtain any information whatsoever.

This is frustrating… Nonetheless, their bodies, even if dead, are valuable enough. There are several trackers on my organization that can tell me where they came from with some time.

I thanked the Elemental Knights for their assistance, especially the Elemental Knight of Gemstones, Saeko Hoseki. Without her luring these Dhampirs, I wouldn't have been able to catch them

These formidable knights help is certainly appreciated and I always make sure to remain in good terms with them. Saeko will probably rise into a Hero in the future, she has talent and intent but needs time to grow.

After an intense investigation that my subordinates did alongside myself, we managed to track some of the essence of the beings these Dhampirs have been in contact with. Aside from normal humans on the streets alongside the Elemental Knights, there were two extremely dense, scarlet-colored auras.

One led towards the Lomanie Family territory… And the other, far way, outside of the Kingdom.

Just as I thought, these suspicions I have for Alice Lomanie aren't baseless anymore. She is directly related to these Dhampirs, and what I fear the most may be true. She has been manipulated by this outside force.

I prepared a squadron of my strongest assassins to track the outside force. As long as one keeps alive and bring back information, everything will be worth it. These people are ready to die for me, as I have trained them this way. If the enemy catches them alive, they will take their lives with a special poison bomb on their hearts.

The only way to know about Alice's true identity is by confronting her. If I can manage to meet her in person, I can activate my skill [Six All-Seer Eyes of Perception] and immediately reveal her true identity. Now that I'm sure that she is hiding something, I don't have to fear to commit an offense against her, as she is most likely a monster in disguise, or perhaps another Dhampir.

Sigh… Things didn't go as I expected them to go.

Once again, I let my emotions take the best of me and lost my cool. The Lomanie house has a higher status than the Maki house, and I went over my own status and forced her to get outside.

The guards reported this to the King himself, and I am lucky that I got outside of this only being reprimanded, perhaps only because of my wealth, organization and connections. However, I cannot let myself commit such a mistake anymore.

For now, I will spy on Alice and gather any type of information regarding her weird behaviors, if I'm able to have enough proof, I can use this to lure her out and even convince the King or the Princess about this.

But for now, I shall remain cautious and lay low. I will begin gathering strong soldiers and mercenaries on my side and create a battalion, I have already detected this monster hideout, it's on the Grand Forest. Whatever it is, I will exterminate it before things become worse.

The assassins and spies I sent have not come back, and their status appears to be "deceased" on the party menu. They have been completely annihilated.

For this monster to be able to accomplish this, not even a skilled group of veteran adventurers would be able to completely defeat this group of highly trained assassins. At the very least if the difference in strength was too big, they would have been able to easily run away with their stealth skills and high speed.

However, not a single one was able to escape, all of them were annihilated on the spot…

This monster power may be equal to mine or even close to the Hero of Raging Winds… My options are too few, this monster's power and influence could completely shatter what I've been working for so long.

I cannot let myself be defeated. I need to destroy this menace before it takes control of this Kingdom.

Even though I still cannot inspect the rings yet, I will send my troops to the Grand Forest. In these come included the Elemental Knight of Thunder, Wind, and Nature. Although I would have liked to include a Champion, their status is equal to me, and I cannot force them to do as I say, even when they consider me the leader of the five.

The Champion of Black Flames is my closest friend in the group, but even she cannot go, as her status ask her to remain in the Kingdom and take care of its security. Well, she is also obsessed with men and cannot stop looking for new "prey"… Sigh.

Even if they are completely annihilated, the Elemental Knights are sure to come back alive, as their strength combined is the same as a Champion.

However, even when everything is sure to go as I planned; I cannot stop having a weird feeling.

Perhaps, working so intensively is making me paranoid, I will spend the rest of the weekend with my family and sisters. And see how things go from there.

While I was having a buffet with my family, a spy reported me with news about the investigation of the rings.

The one who created these rings calls itself Kireina… And its Title is the "Realm Menace of Lust"…

I would have never thought that the Grand Forest would ever give birth to a Realm Menace.

Realm Menace are Titles given to monsters or sometimes humans that have attained an overwhelming amount of power and an incredibly big number of subordinates.

These beings have been part of this Realm since its creation, when the original world, Genesis was split into countless Realms.

Some people call them the embodiment of sins, and in a way, it's true. Each Realm Menace is called by a respective Sin. There cannot be two representing the same Sin.

These beings can manipulate the sin of others and gain power incredibly fast by consuming them. Aside from this, they are tyrannical beings that seek destruction and domination.

Some call them Demon Kings or Overlords…

Such an entity, if it's really true… I have sent my troops and those Elemental Knights towards their doom…

I need to tell this to the Nobles and the King, and quickly make preparations. And possibly, even alert neighbor Kingdoms and Nations…

If we are too slow, destruction is the only destiny that awaits us…

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