Kaiser of the New World

Cecilia's face was bright red as she continued to stare at Kai, who was rolling on the floor laughing. She wished that she could just disappear from where she was sitting.

Kai clutched his stomach, tears welling up in his eyes.

In the last month, this was the first time Cecilia had spoken to him like that. It was... entertaining.

Petunia, Umbra, Esurient and Remy paid no attention to them, all of them sat in a corner of the tent messing with Umbra's fur.

Slowly, Kai began to calm himself, wiping the tears from his eyes as he done so.

"Ah... Cecilia... There's no need to be so worried, it's fine, I mean, I get it. I wouldn't even know where to begin styling myself, so I would just leave it in bodysuit form. Plus, it's comfy like that under my armour."

Cecilia sighed softly.

"Okay... It's still kind of a waste though..."

Kai chuckled.

"It probably is."

For the next while, Kai spent his time doing a mixture of repairing his soul and watching Cecilia play around with the bodysuit.

She had a much bigger imagination than him when it came to clothing options. She spent around an hour testing its capabilities.

From elegant ball gowns that looked like they should have costed more than 500000 Units, to a set of purple pyjamas, to an outfit that looked like something a spy would wear, to an outfit completetly made out of animal fur, to even a bikini.

Although she changed from that final one rather quickly, much to Kai's disappointment.

Kai blinked.

What disappointment? Why would he be disappointed? He wasn't a pervert after all.

Still...

Shaking his head vigorously, Kai let that train of thought derail and kept fixing his soul.

Actually, now that he thought about it, the blizzard here had never stopped, so did they even have summer here? Probably not.

So where did Cecilia get the idea of a bikini?

Kai sighed.

He wasn't going to ask, he would just let the ex-Queen enjoy herself.

Cecilia experimented with the bodysuit a little more before giving everyone a meal from the Legendary box that generated food. Kai had some Lasagne, while everyone else enjoyed their respective meals.

After they had eaten, Umbra, Remy and Petunia all fell asleep, cuddling up to one another. Esurient was the new addition to the group, lying on the floor beside the large wolf. Cecilia had placed a rather large blanket over the lot of them to keep them warm.

Kai had already been lying down when Cecilia approached him. At first, he thought she was about to use his arm as a pillow again, but he was a little disappoin-

Surprised when two pillows came out of her spatial storage.

"...I fell asleep before I summoned these last night."

Kai gratefully took one of the pillows from her, placing it under his head and sighing contently as he placed his head on it.

"Thanks."

The next moment, he was surprised Cecilia placed hers beside his and laid down beside him.

The next moment, a blanket appeared over the both of them.

Kai could almost feel the blush emanating from Cecilia's body.

"... There's only two blankets, and I gave one to them, so..."

"Don't worry about it." Kai yawned. "Times are hard and all that, just get some rest for tomorrow."

Cecilia did not respond as she had already fallen asleep.

And soon after, Kai had joined her in the soft embrace of sleep.

*****

Kai woke up to the smell of bacon.

Lifting his head groggily, he had to clear the hair from his eyes just to see.

He badly needed a haircut, considering that the last time he had gotten one was over a year ago. By now, his hair had grown into a shaggy red mess, like a lion's mane, only nowhere near as cool looking.

The space beside him under the blanket was empty, Cecilia already being beside the rest of the group.

All of them were sharing a massive plate of bacon, there were dozens of strips of it on the plate.

Kai yawned, placing a hand on the ground, only to feel something greasy under it.

Glancing down, he saw another plate of bacon beside him, this one having a dozen strips.

Kai picked up one of them and began nibbling on it.

"Oh, Sir, you are awake."

Cecilia had switched her pyjamas to a light pink nightgown. Kai wasn't sure why she had done so, but she had.

"Yeah..." Another yawn escaped from his mouth. "How did you sleep."

Cecilia nodded, taking another bite of the strip of bacon in her hand as she held one out for Umbra in her other.

"I slept comfortably, its much nicer having an actual pillow to sleep on."

She froze, blushed, then added quietly:

"... Not that your arm does not make for a good pillow... of course."

Petunia rolled her eyes, while Kai laughed softly.

His body was still in pain, but it had lessened ever so slightly. Still, he dismissed the top half of his armour to apply some more of those gel pads to his bruises. His skin had turned a little less purple, which was a nice thing to see.

He also drank four HP potions, but saved the last one just in case anything happened.

One thing that Kai noticed was since his Constitution and Mana  stats were halved, his HP and Mana could not regenerate any further than half of what they normally could, which made sense.

Sighing, he continued to nibble at his bacon as he rested his head on his pillow. A few minutes later, Cecilia gave him a glass of water, which he drank rather quickly.

Once Kai was finished his bacon, he was just about to get up when...

The ground trembled.

Panicking, Kai scrambled towards the door of the tent, ignoring the pain permeating through his entire being in favour of opening the door and looking outside.

Luckily, there was nothing in close proximity to them that could have caused that trembling, but when he cast a glance back to the ruined city, he froze.

Were those gargantuan legs... getting closer?

Squinting to get a better view, Kai instantly realised he was correct as he saw only one leg remained in proximity of the city.

The gargantuan horror was heading towards them.

"We have to move."

Kai quickly resummoned the rest of his armour, the steel body covering his chest, along with the gel pads.

Cecilia stored everything in her spatial storage while Kai climbed on top of Umbra, getting ready to leave as quickly as possible.

The nightgown that was wrapped around Cecilia's body transformed into a completetly different outfit, this one consisting of a heavy winter coat, a thick furry pair of pants, a large scarf and a fuzzy winter hat. A pair of gloves also manifested around her hands, along with a pair of boots.

Kai blinked.

He really had been underestimating the abilities of his bodysuit. Even though having it create multiple layers of clothing did not give him any extra stats, he did not realise it could also create hats, gloves and boots.

That would save him a lot of money in the future, who needed a bunch of lavish outfits when you could have them all in one?

The group of six quickly scurried out of the tent as the ground trembled once more, courtesy of the gargantuan beast's leg hitting the ground.

It was slowly walking towards them.

Cecilia stored the tent in her spatial storage ring before beginning to quickly walk towards the Royal Peak.

There was absolutely no way in hell that they would be able to reach the base of the mountain before the gargantuan horror caught up with them, it would take at least another three weeks after all, so all they could do was hope the monster would turn around or something.

The group sped off, trying to get as much distance between them and the beast as possible, only every few minutes the ground would tremble as the horror took a step. Every step it took would nullify the distance gained, in fact, it was gaining distance.

Hours passed in which the gargantuan horror was quickly catching up to them. Every step it took had to have covered kilometers, and with each step it took towards them the vibrations in the ground would get stronger and stronger.

Kai racked his brain for anything they could do to escape it, but all he could draw was blanks.

He was weakened, couldn't make use of majority of his skills, he had to make sure Petunia and Cecilia remained safe.

It wasn't looking good.

Kai did not look backwards, focused on the mountain far in the distance. He knew that they wouldn't be making it there today, but he still hoped that something incredible would happen. Who knows, if the mountain can get teleported, why couldn't they?

After a few hours of trying to escape, Kai finally built up the courage to look behind him.

He didn't like what he saw.

All of the gargantuan beast's legs had practically caught up to them, one more step and it would be on top of them.

However, Kai caught sight of something that made his blood run cold.

Seven... there's only seven legs.

That was the last thought he had before the eight gargantuan leg of the beast descended on them.