Chapter 34: The Murderer Is... On the Skin

When Cat was puzzled, Pikachu finally also let out a sigh of relief.

Finally no longer having to tilt his head and glance sideways at the bookshelf.

But this bookshelf truly lives up to being furniture in Lord Demon King's residence.

It is heavy, elegant, well‑cut, retaining the marks of age while being kept properly clean.

Except… looking at it too long makes Pikachu's neck vertebrae ache.

"Huh."

He sighed again, Pikachu lifted his head and wiped the imagined sweat from his forehead with his little paw.

That just now was truly fortunate.

He was a hair's breadth from seeing something he shouldn't have.

If he hadn't reacted quickly, he would probably have been sentenced to the severe crime of "offending the Demon King's beloved concubine" and beheaded by now.

Oh, no.

If it were "offending the Demon King's beloved consort"… even being torn apart would count as a lenient punishment.

Indeed, the book contains a golden house; had it not been for the more than two hours of knowledge intake just now, his reaction would surely have greatly disappointed Lord Demon King.

After reading the autobiography of Dimiu Gous in full, he then, per the book's recommendation, consulted works on etiquette and imperial history, and the knowledge he gained could be applied immediately—truly lucky.

Recalling that thrilling scene just now, Pikachu still felt a lingering fright.

No, no, that's not right, Pikachu!

Now is not the time for you to feel scared!

I, Chu Haoji Pikachu, am the first being personally granted life by Lord Demon King!

I am the king of the monster "Pikachu" clan!

And also the foremost confidant assisting Lord Demon King!

I should constantly be thinking about how to ease the Lord's burdens and fulfill his lofty ideals.

Even if the King orders me to die, I must unhesitatingly accept this noble and great command; how could I be troubled by such petty fear?

As the book says— to follow the great Sovereign, we must exhaust ourselves training our will, studying our records, and offer our insignificant lives and lifelong effort to his grand blueprint.

Pikachu, you lack far too much.

But Chu Haoji's inner self‑talk does not get conveyed to Cat, and between them there is no keen perception like a Symbiotic Contract.

After all, after the revamp, Cat has already made Chu Haoji into an independent individual.

Cat stepped forward, flicked his tail at the still‑staring‑at‑the‑bookshelf Chu Haoji, and asked with a worried face,

"Pikachu? Hey~ Pikachu, what are you doing?"

"……"

Damn, this Pikachu can't be mentally sluggish, right?

The soul he was infused with must not be that of a Dull Beast!

Give me back 800 HP!!

Just as Cat's mind screamed wildly, Pikachu snapped to attention, stared at the black cat before him, widened his eyes, then hurriedly turned, and with a bang the whole mass collapsed to the ground,

"Salutations, Lord! I, Chu Haoji Pikachu, have erred."

(. _°)……?

"Your Majesty, I was just reminiscing about what I read earlier, lamenting my weakness, ignorance, and lack of ability.

Please forgive me, my lord; I was too engrossed and didn't notice you had returned."

＿○／|＿

If the circumstances were right, Cat would now want to give the straight‑faced, unblinking Pikachu who just said such forced words a smack.

He just went out to have a meal with Witch Miss!

What a sin!

What happened!

How can we make this Pikachu a bit normal!

Suppressing the urge to flip the table, Cat, with a black‑line face, said to the Pikachu before him,

"Change that address, just call me Cat or Xiaohei, both are fine."

"Never, my lord!

How could I commit such a treasonous act! Lord, please reconsider!!!"

"……"

I think this already is quite treasonous.

His magic must have failed, right? An error occurred, right?

This Chu Haoji is broken, right? Should be sent back to the furnace for reconstruction!

Fine, the name is indeed unlucky! What do you call yourself, Chu Haoji? Who named themselves Chu Haoji without much thought?

One misstep, all missteps!

May I ask, if he can figure out and trigger the grand time‑reversal spell after ninety days, can he live to change this reality?

"Lord!"

"You shut up!"

Cat grew urgent,

"Stop talking, listen to me."

"Yes, my lord!"

"……"

The murderer is... Pi Shang... ╰(: з╰∠)_

After forcefully head‑butting the ground three times in a row, Cat finally calmed down.

In his whole life, aside from once going into the wrong restroom and being caught by the homeroom teacher, he has never broken down like this before.

He lifted his tail to his forehead, and with a gloomy, exhausted expression said to Pikachu,

"You can definitely understand what I'm saying, right?"

"Yes…"

"Shut up!!"

In extreme distress, Cat chose the most practical physical silencing method, directly sealing Pikachu's mouth with solid ice.

"In three days, Witch Miss... um, the beautiful girl who was just in the room, will take part in the school‑organized dungeon assessment, which lasts three days.

After that, there seems to be something involving a familiar... in short, a test bound to me; I'll be very busy during that period, with only fragmented time available.

Even if I settle you and your tribe in the dungeon, I can't stay with you forever, so you must become self‑sufficient; you need to lead your people to survive and take root in the dungeon.

Do you understand what I mean?"

"Baby, baby!"

"..."

I don't know why, even with Pikachu's mouth sealed, Cat feels he can still understand what this brat is saying.

"So... tomorrow during the day we set out, aiming to capture a floor in one go and occupy it, at least to provide you a place to develop and live.

Tonight I expect you to be ready, to bond with your tribe—or whatever—so you become familiar with your abilities."

"Wuwu, wuwu!"

"..."

To get this Pikachu out of his sight as quickly as possible, Cat decided to start raising the dead now.

He dragged the crystals from the warehouse by tail, stuffing them one by one into the mass‑produced Pikachu bodies; as the black Magic Circle spread across the ground, Cat's exclusive revival ceremony began.

Cat only endowed this batch of Pikachu with their preset abilities, basic artificial intelligence, and the upgraded minor spells.

Soul stuff can be handled later.

He attached to these Pikachu a Creation‑type 'Soul' Magic—derived from humanity's earliest, most basic version, reduced countless times, stripped to its core, similar to a modified Fireball Technique, costing only about 1w MP.

Based on a proportional comparison with the magic power and effect used by Unit 0, Cat estimates that, in a metaphysical sense, this magic will give these Pikachu a more cunning instinct.

It's not his fault for being stingy; a single Pikachu nearly killed him physically and mentally, let alone this whole bunch...

The modification methods and subsequent applications for this group of Pikachu—let's see their performance feedback after they're deployed in the dungeon.

Just as Cat was sliding them out the window, one by one, into the garden, a knock sounded at the door.

Meow! The dungeon intel he's been yearning for!

Excited, the documents wrapped by the old man passed through the door, and Cat eagerly tore open the file bag.

The old man recommended three dungeons in total.

All are in remote locations; one is by the sea, the other two lie along the East‑West Alliance border.

Regarding these locations, Cat can only say the old butler has some ink in his belly.

I don't know how the old man imagined his needs, but the locations are already very appealing.

The fringe coastline has always been a lawless land.

Only the deep‑sea General Ke and the seafood army, plus the still‑unexplored mysteries beyond the sea, make Cat deeply worry about this dungeon marked as 'Not Fully Conquered'.

Although the various ores and seafood specialties from the sea excite Cat,...

Who wants to gamble on the depths of the mutated Earth Online's deep sea?

The deep sea before the Magic Power Revival was never fully understood, let alone after the revival.

Cat considered his own chicken‑level rank and stamina, as well as his original motive for seizing a dungeon, silently shook his head, and turned his gaze to the remaining two dungeons.

A dungeon near the border can also be called a lawless land.

Although the East‑West Alliance belongs to the human faction, they have never been completely united.

For example, their conflicts are like the Sweet‑Zong Party versus the Savory‑Zong Party squabbling—absurd, endless, and without any chance of reconciliation.

One side's actions toward the other are like eating dumplings with ketchup—provoking a buff while instantly making people feel bewildered.

Ah, chaotic humans, even in chaotic times they cannot change their combative nature.

From a cat's perspective, Cat speaks without feeling any pressure.

The ongoing conflicts are mainly due to terrain changes near the border caused by monster migrations and dungeon shifts, leaving the so‑called border marker's exact location—where it stands now, where it was before, where it should be, and where it actually is—without a logical, evidential, and persuasive explanation.

Moreover, near the border, besides the two major alliances, other races also dwell.

For instance, with the Magic Power Revival, forest elves that emerged from unknown dungeons and settled in primeval jungles, or undead that appear wherever death occurs.

The dungeon contains randomly spawning natives as well as self‑aware higher races, who occasionally decide to leave home and develop a second homeland on the surface.

In fact, Earth Online has received countless DLCs after the Magic Power Revival, and now no geographer or adventurer in the East‑West Alliance claims to possess a complete world map or a full bestiary with habitat distributions.

A chaotic border implies lax, drowsy governance; complex races mean difficult management and conflict resolution. In such a place that's hard to control, a monster‑occupied dungeon with subtle resources will surely make all factions cautious, so Cat won't be put in an awkward position.

After all, they couldn't possibly abandon their long‑held ambitions to collectively attack a cute Xiaohei cat over a tiny dungeon, could they?

Now that the locations are set, the next choices are mineral resources, geography, and the quality of black slaves… basically a comparison of monster quality.

Dungeon E272 has four main floors; aside from the first floor's standard tunnels, narrow passages, and bends, the second floor onward consists of open environments dominated by wastelands and grasslands.

The veins are abundant, but the ore types are limited; so far only three have been extracted.

The monsters inside are mostly social, with strong group‑combat awareness, including troublesome goblins and little goblins that are hard to deal with.

As a dungeon instance that emerged in the past three years, the East‑West Alliance has not yet dispatched teams for extermination due to ownership disputes.

Dungeon B56, an instance, currently has six discovered floors.

The environment from the first to the second floor resembles a mine shaft; no rare ores or veins have been found yet, though they are plentiful.

The third tier is the Plains Tier, its environment resembling a wasteland and prairie, and at the border with the fourth tier there is a gigantic waterfall that can be called a marvel.

The waterfall extends into the fourth and fifth tiers, both of which consist of forests and rivers.

The overall environment of the sixth tier is unknown, but scans at the entrance detected extreme heat, suggesting the presence of volcanoes and magma.

The monsters that appear in this underground city are: …

Overall, although the difficulty of the B56 copy is markedly higher, its varied forest terrains are the most suitable for Pikachu to inhabit.

And the diverse terrain also brings diverse resources.

Cat does not seek commercial trade; the mineral veins in E272 have limited appeal to them, after all few would conduct serious business with Cat, and a small‑but‑fine approach is a good choice.

Moreover, beside the B56 underground city, there are several small underground cities whose names begin with the C, E, and F sequences.

According to the internal information Cat spied online last time, Cat knows that five years ago the authorities officially confirmed the reality of "Double Underground City" and "Linked Underground City".

With such nearby underground cities, even if there is no secret passage between them, Cat thinks that carving one through and maintaining it himself would not be difficult.

In that case, once his private troops mature, the five underground cities scattered like stars beside B56—one, two, three, four, five—would all be within his grasp.

Then, even if his Demon King identity or Witch Miss identity were exposed, possessing five strongholds, he …

It seems there would still be nowhere to run!

Although it is valuable at the junction, it is tightly surrounded by all major forces!

Indeed, perhaps he should consider the seaside after all!

ttk, must ttk.

One must not put all eggs in one basket; this place works as a development site for now, but as a future‑risk haven it … is absolutely unsafe!

He needs to open more, must open more!

He has the Magic Path Ultimate Realm; there's no reason he can't layer an N‑fold underground city onto it.

If he truly prepared for the worst, and both he and Witch Miss were exposed and wanted, this preparation is still far insufficient!

Yo—!

Octopus of the seaside, wait another 90 days for Cat, and I'll definitely come to see you then!

He'll definitely grill fish fillets by day, steam crab legs at noon, and barbecue plus seafood noodles at night!

Only …

To fully dominate the B56 underground city, to spread his influence to the E272 wilderness and the seaside where large seafood may dwell, he still needs to forge something and recruit some capable lieutenants!

He originally created Pikachu to increase his own leisure time, but the result… why… why is the schedule so packed that he can't keep up at all!!

Cat, with a face full of grief and anger, rolled on the ground again.

Witch Miss!

It's all this woman's fault! It's her, and that's why I can't find peace!

Cursed hero, so hateful!

He will never let Witch Miss have a single comfortable day.

This summer, let her go to his underground city, become his black slave and work for free!

(〃>dish<)!

At this moment, the raging Cat did not notice that the stubborn Unit‑Zero Pikachu had already crawled back through the window.

While Cat was still pounding his chest on the ground, he was already looking at the three highlighted underground cities on the map and the scattered documents beside them, showing expressions like "I see" and "So that's how it is."