Chapter 49: Goodbye
Luckily, no more mishaps happened after that.
The other female ate enough for the enhanced muscle mutation before she broke through, splitting the pain into two instances.
Meanwhile, the males only got the germline mutation, making the breakthrough the only painful experience.
Madeline was a little harder to convince as she had already felt the immense amount of pain one of the rats went through. But with the promise of future treats, Mitch managed to persuade her into entering the Infused stage.
She fed the other rats some food, connecting to them too. Hailey was too old to connect to, but assuming she would have children with one of the connected rats, her children would be under Madeline’s influence.
After being told what it meant, instead of being angry, Hailey was delighted. To her, all it meant was that her master would constantly keep a lookout for her children.
At last, all the food was consumed. Every participant had become magnitudes stronger than they already were, yet they were nowhere near the next bottleneck.
This was precisely why Mitch wanted to create an ant farm for the rats. He explained his plan and showed where the last queen was to Hailey, making sure she understood when to kill the worker ants.
He made it absolutely clear that the only situation in which the queen was to be killed would be if it had somehow grown too strong and become rebellious.
With Madeline acting as a translator, Hailey reenacted Mitch’s plan back to him perfectly.
That was the last thing Mitch needed to take care of before leaving the rats. He had achieved his goals, and any more delay to his plans would result in negative long-term consequences.
He decided that, come morning, he would leave with Madeline.
The evening passed peacefully with Mitch telling his company stories from back on Tellus, playing it off as "another one of Lord Mitch’s worlds."
In that manner, the crew slowly fell asleep one after another, eventually leaving only Mitch awake.
"What are you thinking about?" Obviously, Katherine was also awake.
’My resolve. I know it has only been one month, but I’m tired, Katherine. All I want is to see my father again. Is that too much to ask?’ He might have sworn to crush anything standing in his way, but he was still stuck in his human mindset.
’I don’t even know what I’m preparing for. In under ten years, I will have to go through something unknown. What purpose does that serve? Do I become stronger from that? Does it bring me closer to my goals?’
His deeply suppressed frustration escaped on nights like these. Even if just a little, he felt happy having Madeline and Hailey by his side. But tomorrow he needed to abandon one of them.
In the future he would have to abandon the other one, too.
’It’s all just so exhausting.’
"Don’t think like that. You can always return to visit them. Besides, you have someone that will not leave your side even if you begged them to." Katherine lightly snickered at the last remark.
She meant it. Even when she misunderstood Mitch’s intentions a month back, it was nowhere near enough for her to stop supporting him.
She might have said it as a joke at the time, but she truly planned to stay with him "until death do them part."
’... Thanks, Katherine. You’re always there, cheering me up. I just wish there was something I could do for you. If there is ever anything on your mind, don’t be afraid to talk with me about it.’ He had some plans about what to do for her, but those were too far away to realize.
"I’m sure something will pop up for you to help me with. Just focus on yourself for now."
With a warm feeling spreading in his heart, Mitch slowly fell asleep, forgetting about the inevitable breakups he would experience in the future.
—
What Mitch had dreaded came and went without any problems. The talk he had last night really worked wonders in putting his mind to rest.
Furthermore, as it was the first proper night’s sleep in a while, Mitch felt like he had blessed himself when he woke up.
Hailey led the younglings back into the nest after saying her goodbyes, and Mitch simply went the other way.
"They were fun. Will we see them again?" Her connection made her extra friendly with the rats.
"In due time, child. We have other things we need to take care of. Especially since the Lord has changed the plans he had for you."
Mitch revised his plans together with Katherine last night.
For their original plan to work, they needed Madeline to be the birth mother of numerous legios. They would then use various mutations and blessings to turn her into an omnipresent being in this world.
But Madeline’s mutation-cum-passive made their plans millions of times easier to implement. The best part: Madeline would not have to birth any children.
She would instead become a daycare worker for other legios’ children.
The switch-around confused Madeline, but the joy of having absolute freedom after caring for a few children for half an hour far outweighed any need she felt for questioning why she would need to do that.
Mitch had even explained how her passive trait worked, so what more was there to ask about?
Her childlike mind could not fathom the concept of planning ahead. She thought that taking care of the kids would be enough.
Mitch and Katherine both felt bad about purposefully leaving the most important parts out, but they did it for her sake. As they say, ignorance is bliss.
And bliss was exactly what she expressed during their several-day-long expedition.
Mitch had truly gotten lucky in finding both ants and rats so close to where he incarnated.
Some exploration combined with the weather told Mitch they were in a tropical climate zone.
Once more, a lucky break—doubtfully.
The will that helped create this world really had it all planned out, as if it could predict the future and manipulate time.
Considering cultivation—one among many power systems that allowed divination and time manipulation—was real, he didn’t discard the possibility that this illusory being had the power to do so.
In any case, all they could do was explore for now.
They kept getting ambushed by free dinner, yet there were no signs of the animals Mitch was targeting.
Finally, after five days of exploring, they found something of interest.
They had found a village.
