Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-541

[Day 252]

[Kireina] gained +400 Skill Points and Subclass Skill Points due to the prayers of your believers!] (Added!)

[Kireina] gained 9.129.975.775.655 EXP due to the prayers of your believers!]

[Kireina] leveled up!]

[LEVEL 099/250] [EXP 5.735.975.050.777/36.500.000.000.000] (Added!)

I started the day with a level up as I stretched and then took a hot water bath with my family in the large portable manor that I had in my Item Box. I would usually bring houses, but now that the family was so big, I ended up constructing (with the help of various others) a large manor with one of my Slime Clones some weeks ago.

How did I exactly put it inside my Item Box? The Item Box can save 'anything', which also includes sizes, you could theoretically save a giant mountain inside, or even a small cell taken from a fragment of skin tissue in a separate slot.

Of course, proper ways of carrying the item and then moving it inside the semi-transparent space rift that appears when the Item Box 'opens' is needed.

Not many can grab a whole building and put it inside, but I can do it by extending my limbs into giant tentacles, or more easily, by using Telekinesis and Wind Attribute Magic.

The manor had three floors and seventeen large rooms, I made sure to make everything big sized for those of a giant height to get in with ease.

The bathroom and the kitchen were the biggest rooms, almost as big as the ones in my castle.

"Mommy, can you scratch my back?" asked Valentia as we were bathing in the bathroom.

"Of course my dear," I said, as I grabbed a sponge and began to carefully scratch Valentia's back, which was covered in many dark-colored scales, some began to fall very easy, which meant that she was changing them.

"Ahh, that's better… I am currently changing my scales, but they itch so much…" she muttered as she revealed to me her large dragon shark tail, which was also slowly losing its old scales and revealing new, slim, and glossy ones down below.

"I see… let mommy help you with this," I said, as Gaby saw what I was doing and came to help.

"Oh? So Valentia can change scales periodically? Well, I am a shark, so I never had scales… I couldn't really tell" said Gaby.

"It is fine mom, but help me out, will you?" asked Valentia.

"Alright, alright~," said Gaby as she joined me in slowly peeling the scales and dead skin over Valentia.

Much like with Lamia such as Nesiphae and Amiphossia, Valentia changed her scales every few weeks, so she needed some assistance.

Usually peeling her scales would come with a lot of irritation, which I treated with a specially made slime that numbed irritation and calmed it down through special chemicals produced inside of me, which were similar to those of some slime monsters that had healing powers in their slime.

"Ahhh! It really is relaxing… The irritation is gone!" said Valentia as she glanced back at her scales with her scarlet eyes, a new set of glossy and slim dark-colored scales had appeared below the decaying ones.

"Phew… Now time for some snack, I am starving! Mommy! Prepare me something!" said Valentia while dangling her large dragon shark tail around.

"Of course, my dear, anything you want," I said.

"Wait, Valentia, we just had breakfast," said Gaby.

"But I am already hungry again! Can you blame me? I am giant, we eat a lot, right?" asked Valentia with a grin showing her sharp teeth.

"Yeah, Gaby, haven't you seen Truhan or Celica, they eat like ten times a day to keep all the calories their giant bodies need," I said.

"I… well yeah, but it would be better to advance through the dungeon, and you can eat whatever monster we kill, so we don't make everyone else wait for you, Valentia," said Gaby.

"Ah… well, okay! I am going to just eat any monster with these two hands!" said Valentia as she shaped her dark-scaled clawed hands into large dragon heads with sharp fangs, blazing red eyes, and long and slimy tongues.

"I swear, this girl eats too much, even for giant standards…" muttered Gaby.

"Well, she kind of inherited my appetite…" I added.

"I guess so…" said Gaby.

Having ended our bathroom, we quickly set off into the dungeon. There were approximately one hundred floors in this dungeon, according to Wagyu and well… Nyzzet, and we had already gone through thirty yesterday, defeating three bosses in the way.

They descended through the staircase that went down as we entered the next couple of floors. Because it would be too much to explore a floor and then go back to the stairs, I just used Labyrinth Sovereign Magic to open up the floors one by one, creating slides that went down.

Unlike the previous two floors that combined both icy zones and damp, saltwater pond biomes, the next ten floors were of pure and perpetual winter.

Large amounts of snow-filled entire floors, alongside frozen walls and ceilings everywhere, ice would naturally accumulate due to the dampness and water from the floors above, and the coldness would then convert it all into a sea of snow, where many monsters lurked around.

These floors reminded me of the ones we explored on our first visit, I suspected that these might lead to the Ice Fairy Empress boss that we once fought, I think it dropped some nice weapons for Amiphossia at that time, which had since then been upgraded a couple of times by me, while also being merged with many other weapons, it still a Mythical+++ weapon, but it is very strong.

As we walked through the snow-covered floors, we encountered many new monsters that we didn't see on our first visits, such as large ice-adapted snakes covered in ice crystal scales who had two heads and only one eye in each head, Two-Headed Cyclops Winter Snakes, who had the power to manipulate the snow and create hardened ice weapons with them, they were rather evasive, but Valentia devoured them in one munch.

As we went down, the floors began to get infested by Snow Golems and Ice Golems, but my children, especially Marduk, took care of them quite fast.

I had the urge of just dropping a few fireballs with 'Helios' and just melt everything, but that would probably kill the fun that my children were having.

Marduk in specific did just what I was thinking, but his flames were weaker than my 'Helios', of course.

Marduk's fire came primarily from the dragon heads he had at the point of his tentacles, which would throw fireballs or fire breath, melting the ice and snow golems instantly, converting them all into the water and even evaporating the water. However, the range was not big, so he needed to develop that more.

As he leveled up and developed his skills, he and his two sisters began to master the use of their heads, as each head in their tentacles had eyes on their own, which meant that their vision was inherently very wide. By going through this logic, they needed to learn how to use their abilities and aim at each angle they were watching… of course, this was very taxing for young children, so I let them figure it out slowly on their own.

Afterward, we came across large groups of what seemed to be Giant Winter Foxes, large foxes of over three meters of height that were covered in white fur.

Amiphossia who came with her party noticed the cute wolves and wanted to adopt one, just like it happened with Sesshomaru and Seishin.

"Ah~ Aren't they super cute?" asked Amiphossia as she glanced at the scared group of foxes being slowly slaughtered by the harpy siblings.

"If you want one pick it quickly or your siblings will kill them all, my dear," I said.

"Wait, Amiphossia-sama! Am I not enough?! Why must you seek more Foxes?! I-I am a fox!" said Sesshomaru, who, after going through forced evolution induction, became a three-meter tall werefox beauty with very feminine features across her body such as immensely large breasts and wide hips, she moved her fluffy tails around while worriedly trying to convince Amiphossia that she was enough of a fox for her.

"Eh? Yeah! But still! I want a cute Ice Fox! You are all big now, do not get so jealous! Maybe it might end up as your boyfriend or girlfriend, who knows?" said Amiphossia as she quickly chose a medium-sized Ice Fox before it was killed for Experience Points.

"B-Boyfriend?! I am a man! I do not want that! And nor a girlfriend, I have you, Amiphossia-sama!" said Sesshomaru, desperately trying to convince Amiphossia…

But Amiphossia was incredibly clueless about Sesshomaru's feelings, and only thought of its feelings as 'the natural love that a pet has for its master'… the only one that she truly, romantically loved was Evan, who was helping her catch the fox.

"Ah, silly you~ One day you'll have to get your partner and have a big family, right?" asked Amiphossia as she grabbed the fox, who had been entangled by Evan's slime.

Evan was not as clueless as Amiphossia and understood the feelings of his 'pets', but there was nothing he could do about it… in fact, he didn't want Amiphossia to find out.

Although he seemed gentle and a good boy, he was overprotective of Amiphossia and did not like the idea of sharing his girlfriend. Even if he never said it openly, he showed it in his actions of never trying to help Amiphossia's 'pets' get through her.

And I also doubt that even if she understands what is going on, she will most likely reject their feelings, as Amiphossia is not attracted to them, she sees them as her pets or at most as her adoptive siblings/children.

And I do not want to interfere because, honestly, these interactions are rather fun.

"P-Partner…? A-Amiphossia-sama… Sigh… This is hopeless, just how stubborn is she?" wondered Sesshomaru.

"Give it up, nya…" muttered Geraldine, who had given up on getting Amiphossia to understand her romantic feelings towards her.

"Just be happy that our party will get bigger," said Shirohibe, in a similar mood as Geraldine.

"I don't really understand all of you, what's wrong with having a new member? At least it will be something to distract ourselves from the suffering of our daily lives" said Athos.

"Why are you so upset, Sesshomaru-chan? We will get a new friend! Aren't you excited?!" asked Seishin while waving her tails and hugging Sesshomaru with her six arms, it seems that Seishin had long given up on the idea of conquering Amiphossia's feelings and was just giving in to her dog-like friendly behavior.

Seishin's six arms squeezed Sesshomaru's large breasts as she became annoyed by Seishin's overly friendliness.

"Ah, g-go away! Stop snuggling my breasts, Seishin, I am not your toy! Ah~! S-Stop!" said Sesshomaru as she quickly lost her cool and began to bark at Seishin, but Seishin was the 'dumb' type of dog, so he kept playing with her even after receiving a few bites.

Amiphossia and Evan then came back to their group and showed the medium-sized Giant Winter Fox, who had pure white fur to camouflage in the snow and aquamarine eyes.

It was a medium-sized one, so it only reached a bit over two meters, it had passed out of fear when he was captured by Evan's arm, which extended itself like a yellow-colored slime-whip.

I glanced at the young Giant Winter Fox and imagined it evolving into a cute werefox woman similarly to Sesshomaru… and even, for a second, considered capturing one and raising it into a wife… probably that would have happened with me half a year ago, but I don't really need to do this.

If I ever feel like craving a werefox, there are many in my Empire already as citizens… or even Marnet's children who are all Living Deities, there were many outstanding beauties between them all.

But for now, I will just brush Zehe's fluffy goat tail.

"H-Honey do you have to brush my tail in the middle of the dungeon?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Me next, Master, brush my tails, they're big and fluffy!" said Kaguya.

"Alright"

"A-And what about me…?" asked Nefertiti, waving her fluffy dark-colored tail.

"Sure thing"

I was already quite busy, so those thoughts would remain as only that, thoughts.

By the way, the Giant Winter Fox resulted in being a young female, and I named her Fuyu, which means Winter in Japanese, after Amiphossia's request on giving it an interesting name.

The moment Fuyu was named by me, it gained my blessing and underwent an evolution right away, remaining on its medium-sized size, but gaining a new tail and also a blue tattoo depicting an iceberg on its forehead, becoming a Mythical Winter Fox.

It was a very weak monster, so it evolved just by getting named and blessed by me. Perhaps I could evolve it a couple more times so it can catch up (a bit) with the rest of Amiphossia's party.

Fuyu woke up and it was already tamed by Amiphossia, receiving something similar to a blessing from her when Amiphossia shared a bit of her soul with it.

She waved her tails to Amiphossia and licked her face like a dog, it was rather cute.

Sesshomaru saw this and shapeshifted into a fox as well, trying to steal Fuyu's attention from Amiphossia, but Fuyu did not give in either… although Amiphossia and the rest only saw two cute foxes licking their master.

As we reached floor 40, the Ice Fairy Empress was awaiting my children, ready to be slaughtered a few times.

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