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After 6 months of traveling, Ervas and Veronica alongside their entire Kingdom had finally reached the coastal regions of the continent of Anir's Hands.
?
Over half a year has been spent through this long travel, and although there was a long-time window where they could have grown stronger, it was particularly harder.
Especially because Ervas and Veronica, and most of their strongest allies had hit large progression walls.
This was bound to happen after all, as they had been growing incredibly strong for very little time.
When Ervas and Veronica hit Rank 10 and 11 respectively, they began to level up very slowly, sometimes even a week was not enough to get a level, and although their Jobs leveled up a bit faster, it was not near as enough to get any substantial powerup.
Although it could not be said that they were weak, as their strength was already at the level of beings that could bring disasters to entire countries.
Now that their progression had become slower, the only way to break through this was waiting while passively grinding monsters, although the monsters that emerged around here were often Rank 7 and 8 Wind and Thunder Dragons, with some occasional Giant Thunder Birds or Storm Eagle Kings of Rank 7.
And because Veronica was constantly moving with everyone inside of her soul, people have not been hunting monsters that much these last six months aside from their closest allies and friends, who they invited to help them out in the extermination of these flying monsters that would sometimes get in the way of Veronica.
Ervas and Veronica couldn't create Dungeons inside of Veronica's Soul yet, so grinding in dungeons wasn't possible, and even when they encountered them, they were often of low level.
Although they left clones constantly defeating monsters in the Labyrinths of the Mountains, the EXP earned was not near enough, even by hunting these strong creatures constantly.
And something that they had discovered as well is that the farther away from their clones, the less shared EXP would be received.
However, they had not been slacking in the practice of Skills and had leveled up several Skills at least a few times, some very low-level Skills increased in level quite faster than others, however, many of their Skills were also awakened ones and were just as hard to level up as their current Ranks and Jobs…
However, aside from simply waiting to break through the progression wall, there was another option to grow stronger.
Simply put, just fighting very strong beings, hopefully above Rank 11, although even in the Labyrinths within the Mountains it was impossible to find a Rank 10 monster, as they had been grinding so much that monsters Ranks began to appear lower and lower.
And well, there was another option, just as they had been doing to break through their limits and progression walls, Ervas and Veronica, alongside their friends and allies, could defeat entities of Divine nature, such as sealed Demon Gods or Familiar Spirits.
Such entities gave ridiculous amounts of Experience, and fighting against one always gave a great challenge.
However, finding them was incredibly unlikely, and it was not as if they intended to risk their lives to fight against something so strong just to level up a bit, as they had many people to protect, they wanted to secure their lives first before getting into Demon God extermination campaigns.
Although they did had the intentions of capturing Demon Gods that had been doing evil things around, now it was not the time.
And unluckily for them and luckily for those Demon Gods, they had not come across any of them… yet.
However, although they were not able to progress their levels of Ranks and Jobs, they did acquire a nice amount of Skill Points through this whole journey.
Skill Points could be acquired through leveling or… through worship and faith.
And the hundreds of citizens that they possessed, which kept increasing to almost a thousand through Undead and monster citizens had been giving them a passive amount of Skill Points every day.
Although Ervas and Veronica had contained themselves, for now, they had been gathering these Skill Points for the day they could finally have a nice amount.
Currently, both Ervas and Veronica were being worshiped almost equally, and both had already passed through the 100.000 Skill Points breach, already getting into 110.000+ and the amount they earned per day just kept increasing.
Now both Ervas and Veronica were curious about what to use them for.
Buy strong Skills in the Skill Shop or… spend them in Skill Trees?
Ervas had a large number of Skill Trees from each bloodline he possessed, although he had left them mostly alone for now, they were packed with powerful Skills and bonus stats.
Meanwhile, Veronica also had Skill Trees that were about her 'Divine Soul Fragments' she had gathered through her evolutions, such as Legion, Hades, Nyx, and more, each one giving her powerful Skills and stat bonuses related to these Gods.
Although they planned to spend these Skill Points, both of them had not decided on what yet, as the options were way too many.
They preferred to wait for certain circumstances to happen that could increase the necessity to pick certain types of Skills, so up until then, they stockpiled these points like a greedy dragon protecting its precious treasure.
"Now that we are done having lunch, should we go take a peek outside? Only Kireina and a few others had gone outside, after all, I kind of want to explore the coastal town there…" said Ismene.
"It should be fine even if we go as we are, humans and several demi-humans are living together in harmony in that town. This is a pretty unique town through the entire continent, and such a thing actually happens because of the nature of the town, as it is the coast that connects to many regions and isles around, and whose governor prioritizes business, it makes it so there is no particular discrimination against demi-humans because humans, elves, and dwarves are used to them coming to this town to sell their goods, which they also buy and find valuable," said Kireina.
"The town is named Seashore town, and it is as big as a small city… It is uniquely beautiful as well, we should all just go explore it. There is a church of the Bright Gods, but I do not remember seeing any Extremist… And even if there was some, there are so many Beast-kin and Demons there that they would end up as the weird ones trying to discriminate them," said Ditoyle.
"Amazing… So there are such places where all races still live in harmony… To think that it is all because of money…" sighed Jason.
"Well money changes people, and if there is money involved, even discrimination can be ignored if those merchants can earn some more resources and money," laughed Veronica.
"The town's governor seems to call itself a Duke, although it only has very loosened bloodline ties with a faraway Nation. He is a rich merchant and holds a strong monopoly in the whole town, it could be said that indeed, money moves Seashore Town," said Ervas.
"Still, it feels refreshing to be able to enter a town without having to cover ourselves in robes to hide our beast features as we did in other towns from the mainland," said Ismene.
"Hm, it is indeed quite an oddity…" said Ervas.
"But… Nothing can be as good as it seems, right?" asked Veronica with a bitter smile.
"…No. Aside from exploring this town, we have also spied around the aristocratic families and the merchant families living here, and indeed, there are over five hundred slaves owned by these families… Alongside a very active slave-trading market… It is quite bizarre, as even when enslaving there is no discrimination, as aside from Beast-kin and Demons, you can also easily find humans, elven, and dwarven slaves," said Kireina.
"I see where this is going…" sighed Ismene.
"I get that it is such a tragedy, but we are in quite a hurry, shouldn't we simply hurry to the Demon Continent and then worry about other people? Sorry if I sound rather rude, but I am simply being a bit realistic…" said Azra, the young brother of Gaius that often joins these meetings due to his cunning, scheming, and realistic perception of reality.
"I… I hate to agree with Azra. But it is true. Although we were also rescued by Ervas and Veronica and I believe that I should not even say anything regarding their decisions, I simply cannot stay silent… There are over one thousand people in here… If we get into too many problems in here, we might even provoke some kind of retaliation from the church… Instead of going through all of this, I believe it would be better to go to the Demon Continent as fast as possible," said Desephise.
"I… Do not know what to think. I am against slavery but… Our goal is different, and we cannot simply delay getting to the Demon Continent anymore, especially because we had already taken over six months. Although everyone seems happy, living inside Veronica's soul for over six months had made some people exhausted, and many had wanted to see the real sky and sun for a while… And seeing how it will probably take over a year to cross the entire ocean even by flight… Wouldn't it be better for us to hurry as much as we can? For the benefit of the people that we are already protecting?" asked Jason.
Everyone fell silent due to the comments of these three people and glanced at Ervas and Veronica.
"I… I appreciate your concern, but… We simply cannot let these things slide," sighed Ervas.
"We have become so strong yet… we are still being suppressed by such circumstances, it really frustrates me… However, even against all of your valid points… I am… sorry, I simply can't ignore this injustice," said Veronica.
Azra, Desephise, and Jason smiled warmly.
"We already guessed so much… At the very least, let's do this swiftly, and let's put on using your abilities," said Azra rather cunningly.
"Sigh… You two never change, don't you? Well, that gentle and caritative personality of you two is what ended saving our lives… And this is why we all love you two. So we will always be at your side, let me help you as much as I can with this, I have not been training these six months for nothing, you know?" said Desephise.
"I was just stating my opinion and thoughts. I have to admit that I am really concerned about our people… But… I am also very concerned about so many slaves in here. We already save many from Duke Frank… And they were wonderful people that have finally known what's happiness… I also want to help the people here… So let's do it. I will always stay at the side of my son and Veronica," said Jason.
"Thanks… everyone…" said Ervas.
"We'll make sure to not take too long with this!" said Veronica.
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