The ‘fire bath’, as I called it, was something I did at the slightest occasion, and was part of a daily ritual that I had gotten into following my arrival in Louwoods.

  Its name said it all, I simply dug a spacious pit in the ground for myself, which I filled with wood, branches and leaves, most of which were delivered to me by dear accomplices as tribute, and I would spew my flammable fuel on top of it all before igniting it.

  Lowering myself into the smouldering hole, I didn’t even bother taking off my stylish attire as it had already been ruined anyway, letting it serve as further fuel as I didn’t just sit down in the inferno. That would be too basic. I covered myself with more fuel and moved some of the flaming combustibles on top of me, truly letting the flames try to consume me.

  Although very pleasant, it wasn’t a matter of enjoyment… The fact that I loved it was already making Nara concerned that I had grown to appreciate pain a little too much, but no, it was because I had figured something out.

  I still remember when Nara had told me that upgrades could be obtained in other ways besides choosing one when a certain threshold was reached. Naturally, since she had not elaborated, it meant that it was something she wasn’t allowed to tell me, but my absolute genius didn’t need to be spoonfed the answers.

  My connection to my upgrades was rather strong. For example, I ripped out my music box hundreds of times by now, and it always regrew, but I still retain a perfect connection to the other music boxes. This was how I blasted my sweet melody throughout the whole area.

  All trees had been equipped with this little piece of me, effectively allowing me to play music whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted to mess with people, especially since I had made sure to hide them in places that were hard or annoying to reach.

  But that wasn’t all, I could also monitor their state, such as if, for example, a damned squirrel was gnawing on one of them again!

  I swear, I’ll find you and your entire family, and I’ll torture you by playing my melody at full volume directly into your ears! I don’t care how cute baby squirrels are, I’ll squash them too!

  …All that to say, when something changes about one of my upgrades, I sense it. Now, there is a difference between upgrades like ‘Music Box’ and upgrades that don’t add or change anything about my body, per se, but the idea is the same.

  If something changes, stimulates or otherwise affects it, I will know.

  So, when a certain bitchy dragon bitch decided to try and scorch me out of existence, I noticed that ‘Flame Resistance’ was reacting to it positively, and to me, it implied that actually doing its job was agitating it in some way, leading me to start fires in pits.

  I brought up the system interface.

  Flame Resistance(General VI) - Your body becomes more resistant to burning, heat, and melting, et cetera… Overall, all types of damage that fire can inflict will be reduced

  My intellect truly knows no limits. There is no point in taking a resistance upgrade more than once! It is incredibly easy to enhance them for free!

  It was no wonder the bonuses it seems to grant aren’t all that alluring at first. Unlike other upgrades, they can actively and easily be further augmented, and as was demonstrated just now by that mage girl, at the sixth level, the fire spells of junior mages were basically nothing more than tickling…

  Though I hadn’t let her throw everything she had at me just for the sake of it… Although admittedly, it was pretty amusing seeing her face morph into pure horror as she realised that it was useless.

  It was about collecting negative emotion, and enhancing another upgrade I had decided to pick up with the sole choice I had made since settling in this forest.

  Energy Resistance (General II) - Your body becomes more resistant to energy-based damage overall

  The other upgrades hadn’t been that interesting, and with my new discovery, I now held the resistance upgrades in a much higher esteem. Though it was proving rather complicated to enhance my resistance to energy, I couldn’t really use much energy myself apart from negative energy to weave some curses.

  But I was already immune to curses anyway, so it was useless, and it wasn’t like ambient energy had beef with me, so I could only rely on novice mages to throw spells at me, and even then, with something as wide and varied as ‘energy’, it would need a high level to be of any use.

  Still, I believed it was a good investment for the future. After all, dragon fire was considered its own type of energy… And since it was also fire… Heheheh.

  I swear I’ll be eating lizard sooner than later!

  Anyway, the best part about settling down in Louwoods was definitely the peace and quiet. I could spend entire days just enjoying a nice, burning bath without having anything to do. Thanks to my sweet and adorable spirits, they scoured the forest in my stead and would alert me to anything.

  In that department, Annie was definitely the quickest by a long shot. She had always been a good runner, and it seemed that it was further accentuated in spirit form. She couldn’t grow tired or become out of breath, so she could sprint at full speed constantly.

  Which she loved to do, even when I gave her some free time to roam around, she would just start running or looking for good spots to run laps. She was also a bit cheeky toward the victims, though, as demonstrated when she decided to dare the mage to hit her with a spell.

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  In short, Annie was athletic and competitive.

  These few months allowed me to know more about the respective areas of expertise of my subordinates.

  Poppy was clearly ‘stronger’ than the others in the sense that her supernatural abilities were the most developed, unlike the others, who struggled to float and would significantly slow down when phasing through solid objects. The blonde could hover in the air without much problem, about two meters above whatever solid object was beneath, and could easily pop out of things like trees to frighten prey.

  Gigi was the cutest by a long shot. Nara might say that the demon girl’s damaged face was fuel for bad dreams, and I saw the point, but I personally couldn’t see it that way.

  In any case, Gigi was smaller than the other and thus had an easier time hiding without having to use her supernatural powers. For some reason, her stare seemed especially effective at making people freeze up.

  Nessa was timid and did not like being seen, so she instead made her presence known and instilled fear via sound, namely, the sound of someone being strangled. It was rather humorous just how good she was at staying out of someone’s sight while basically hugging their back.

  Lastly, Elowen had a style that didn’t quite mesh with her current abilities. My phantoms couldn’t directly interact with the physical world. They couldn't just slug someone across the face, and yet, that was something the redhead seemed particularly fond of, often getting quite aggressive in her approach to herding prey.

  If she could touch them, then it was dubious if I would even be able to see them alive before they ended up getting beaten to death. I could already imagine Elowen figuring out how to pick up a weapon…

  Although they all had their quirks, the current strategy I had ordered them to follow mostly involved them serving the same roles. They were to merely pop in and out of sight to subtly lead my food toward my location.

  But being a good spirit-keeper, I let them just do whatever they want from time to time. I am sure it is conducive to them developing into more useful minions.

  Mmh… Life is good.

  “Miss…Nebulo…”

  “What’s up–p–up, Annie?”

  “I…Was…Running…Through…The…Forest…Around…The…Big…Pit”

  The soul began explaining.

  The ‘big pit’ was how she referred to a large cave opening in the eastern portion of the forest. I had checked that place out a number of times as it was a common gathering ground for the local species of goblins… Which was quite pathetic as their heads reached my knees.

  They were probably the least threatening species of goblins in existence. If a rabbit looked at them a bit intensely, the whole tribe would take off running in pure terror… Also, they were incredibly dull-minded.

  But there were many of them, and it was easy to harvest negative emotion from them. Emotions from intellectually lesser species like them weren’t the same as those from animalistic beings and true sapients, falling somewhere in between…

  So my first assumption was that Annie had just noticed a large group of them and had come to tell me about it, since I also used them as my primary source of food…

  “There…Is…A…Big…! Creature…Down…Here…! It…Looks…Quite…Scary…”

  “Ah? What do–does it look like?”

  “Big…Horns…Dangerous…Claws…Four…Arms…Nasty…And…Ugly…!”

  Annie attempted to mimic the creature as well, which was certainly entertaining, but her career as a mime was clearly over before it even began.

  “Also…It…Wears…Clothes…”

  Now that was suspicious.

  “What do yo–u think, Annie, does it–t seem like something I could defeat?”

  “Sorry…I…Don’t…Know…”

  Well, she isn’t familiar with many monsters yet to be able to gauge anything. What I understand, though, is that I have a potential rival over the ownership of Louwoods. There is no chance in hell that I am going to share anything with anyone. I don’t care if it was actually here before me.

  Oh, that makes me think…

  “Annie, an–any idea where it ca–came from?”

  “It…Was…Hard…To…Tell…For…Sure…”

  “But…There…Seemed…To…Be…A…Hole…That…Wasn’t…Here…Before…”

  “In the cave?”

  “Yes…”

  I see, so something from deeper underground?

  “Ta–Take me there”

  I emerged from my fire bath, and after letting my steel cool down a bit, I garbed myself in some spare clothing that I kept inside the cabin. It was basically the same attire as before, but instead of moose antlers, I put on some deer antlers.

  I don’t know why, but antlers and horns make for some exceptional headwear on my steel body. Also, wearing ample clothes like this makes me look bigger than I already am, which greatly enhances my scare factor as not only do I seem more imposing, but anything looking at me has a much harder time even guessing what the hell I’m supposed to be.

  The trip through the forest was tranquil as usual. It was a bit of a shame that wildlife was so scared of me at all times, but the silence was quite relaxing nonetheless. I took the time to test the concentration of negative energy in the air whilst I was at it.

  Although it was somewhat mild for now, at least to my standards. The oppression I was putting the villages under by having my little spirits appear to them from time to time, and the brutal manner in which I ended my victims, was allowing for a good amount of it to permeate the area.

  The scene probably looked simultaneously off-putting and humorous from a distance as I walked while holding hands with Annie, or rather, I walked with Annie holding onto two of my fingers.

  I had been nice to them for a little while, and these girls had started wanting to hold my hands all the time now. Not that I minded, they were doing a good job and were obedient, so I could indulge them a little bit.

  When they arrived at the cave opening, Annie pointed to the foul intruder, and indeed, it was quite the ugly thing.

  It was as she had described, though it wasn’t as big as I had imagined.

  It had a large chest and back, but in terms of height, it was clearly shorter than me by a head or two, and its four arms, whilst equipped with some pretty sharp-looking claws, were rather short as well.

  The thing also had four eyes, a reptilian head shape, and was wearing robes, not quite the mage kind, more like the cleric kind… And even then, they qualified more as a cultist, considering the heretical-looking symbols upon it.

  That thing was definitely going to be casting magic. One hundred per cent.

  I hate mages, but-

  That’s a good occasion to further elevate my energy resistance upgrade.