Kaiser of the New World

A minute later, the entire team was awake.

Well, sort of awake, all the travelling must have taken a toll on Petunia as the young girl was barely functioning.

Kai felt sorry for her, considering they had another five months to go before she could finally relax.

"Alright." Kai said as he looked at the group, all five of them sat in front of him in a line, he had taken Esurient out of his soul, the Ruby blade was floating in line with the rest of them.

Never in his life did he think he would be the leader of a group, much less one this mismatched. He had technically created the A-Team back in The Dome with Noelle, Sofia and John, but that hadn't exactly gone well as he had his falling out with Noelle soon after that.

And after that... Kai had mainly worked with Wa'rak.

Now his team consisted of a stealthy rat, a blonde child that was apparently talented, his trusty wolf sidekick, a floating sword and an ex-Queen.

If he were to be asked which team he preferred...

"Let's get down to business."

Kai turned his head to look at Cecilia, who was going to be acting like his second in command for this whole operation.

"Cecilia, you will be my assistant, so I need to know all the details."

Kai sighed softly, dreading the answer to the question he was about to ask.

"...What's our food situation like?"

This was the topic Kai was hesitant to approach, as he was still much too weak to go out and hunt any rhino bear beasts right now, so he would have to rely on Umbra and Esurient to do that, but he was also hesitant to do that just in case they got injured.

But that also meant that if they couldn't hunt, they would starve.

But to Kai's surprise, Cecilia's eyes lit up at the question.

Actually, now that Kai thought about it, it had been five days since he passed out, so what had they been eating?

"We do not have to worry about our food situation, its all solved with the help of this item."

The next moment, a wooden box appeared on the ground in between Kai and the rest of the group.

Curiously, Kai tilted his head and analysed the box.

... It literally just looked like a wooden box.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to say something, Cecilia opened her mouth again.

"Poached eggs."

Now Kai was really confused.

Only that confusion turned into amazement as Cecilia reached into the wooden box and pulled out a plate with three poached eggs on it and a knife and fork to go along with it.

She then handed the plate to the awestruck Kai, a small smile on her face.

"Here, eat up, I'm sure that you're hungry."

In all honesty, Kai surprisingly wasn't that hungry, but the sight of the eggs in front of him completetly changed his mind.

Taking the plate, Kai took a soft bite of an egg, the yolk dripping onto the plate as he cut it open.

The taste was heavenly.

After swallowing, Kai stared blankly at Cecilia and said:

"That box..."

Cecilia smiled once more.

"It's a Legendary item that was in the treasury. The best thing about it is that the only requirement is that it cannot create food that costs over ten thousand Units."

Kai blinked, unsure of what that amount of money would equate to in euros, but it seemed to be enough that they wouldn't have to struggle for food.

Waiting to continue until everyone had some sort of food in front of them, Kai watched as Petunia got handed a plate of pancakes, Umbra got a plate of raw meat, Remy got a plate with a mixture of seeds and small fruits, and Cecilia herself was holding a plate with an omelette on it. She also handed Kai another plate, this one having some meat like sausages and bacon, she then handed him a glass of what he assumed to be orange juice.

Kai couldn't have been happier.

Sadly, Esurient was the only one that wasn't able to eat anything, considering that they were a sword and all, but Kai decided to give the blade a thorough clean at some point in the future, they hadn't done that in months after all.

After eating a little more, Kai got back to asking some of the important questions he needed answers to.

"So, what's the weather like outside the tent?"

Cecilia answered without needing to think too much.

"It is quite calm right now, but I'm not sure how long that will last. You can still make out the city behind us, and you can also make out the Royal Peak."

Kai had only been outside the city in the light blizzard once, and it was actually quite calming not being subjected to the overbearing weight of constant snow.

It also meant that nothing would be able to sneak up on them unless they came from underground.

... It also meant that they wouldn't be able to hide if some incredibly overpowered beast attacked them, but Kai was sure that wouldn't happen.

"Alright, that will make this a little easier."

Kai softly stroked his chin, trying to think. There would be a lot of variables that could screw up this whole operation, like a horrifying beast showing up or the whole mountain teleporting or something.

"And roughly how long will it take to actually make it to the mountain?"

Cecilia shifted slightly before answering.

"A month? Maybe a little more?"

Kai blinked.

"It takes four months to climb the Royal Peak?

Cecilia sighed softly.

"I'm not sure, it's been billions of years since someone attempted this pilgramige, and the last recorded attempt took five months.

It could take a little more, it could take a little less. I would assume less, but I can't be certain."

Kai nodded. It didn't really matter if she wasn't certain as long as they reached the peak within the time limit.

"Alright then." Kai sighed as he gestured Esurient over to him.

"We will set out in ten minutes, I just want to clean Esurient first."

Even though the blade was able to clean itself when it was inside Kai's soul, he still felt a sense of calm when cleaning the blade. It was a sort of meditation to him, even if it sounded kind of dumb.

And Kai still had not forgotten his distate for meditation. Even though Statshifting could technically get called it, he still hated it and believed it was worthless.

Cecilia handed Kai a cloth from her spatial storage that could apparently keep weapons cleaner for longer, even though it was meant for mundane weapons as they could only be stored in spatial storages rather than their wielder's soul, but Kai accepted the cloth gratefully.

He then dutifully cleaned the Ruby blade with the cloth, making sure that he could see his reflection in its body.

It was only after Esurient was spotless did Kai deem the team ready to depart from the tent.

Kai attempted to stand up, but his body was still wrecked so he ended up collapsing back down. Feeling a little embarrassed, he sighed as Umbra got up and walked over to him. She then leaned down and allowed Kai to climb onto her back.

"This was how we were moving you the last few days, in case you were wondering."

Kai turned to look at Petunia, the person who spoke. He then chuckled softly and said:

"Really? I thought you would have been carrying me on your back."

Petunia stared at Kai blankly.

"You're too heavy for that."

Kai sighed and gave up. He was mentally preparing himself to speak to John to try and get Petunia to go to a stand up comedy show or something when they got out of here, otherwise he was half certain that no one would ever be able to make her laugh.

Unless they were talking about her father, of course, Kai still rendered her smile when they were talking about him all those months ago.

Emerging from the tent, Kai looked around him and sighed softly.

Snow as far as the eye could see, the only exception being the gargantuan mountain in front of them.

The blizzard swirled around its body, like it was trying to protect the entire mountain from something unknown.

Glancing behind him, Kai spotted the walls of the city in the distance.

And he laughed softly.

The body of the walls were broken, revealing a ruined city inside. He couldn't spot any gargantuan corpses from where he was, meaning either the Plague Harbinger and Anastasia were both alive somewhere, or they both died and shrunk down.

He would prefer if it was the second option.

However, as he looked around, Kai couldn't help but notice that Cecilia was shifting nervously, like she was worried about something.

"You good?"

Cecilia turned her head towards Kai before answering.

"I would like to reach the base of the mountain as soon as possible."

Kai frowned slightly. He was in a rush as well, but what was so important about reaching the base?

"Why?"

Cecilia sighed.

"Because there is one feature of the Royal Peak I forgot to mention.

... It never stays in the same place for too long."

Kai mentally cursed.

*Author Note*

I can't lie, the ultimate goal of this story is to reach top 5 in the 'emotionally weak protagonist' category. I just feel like it's too good of a category to ignore. Right now, its ranker 19th, and I still remember it was like 55th when I started this goal.

And it's all thanks to you beautiful readers that we've broken the top twenty.

So here's to getting into the top 15, which will take a while.