Chapter 157: City Tour

On arriving outside the manor, Kaelen realized it was situated in a vast estate, and the building was larger than he made it out to be from the inside, which could only mean there were more rooms and facilities than he knew of inside the building.

But what stole Kaelen’s attention was the royal convoy of tamed beasts and beast-drawn carriages waiting outside with an organized file of guards and servants who lowered their upper bodies in a ninety-degree bow as soon as they stepped out.

He was momentarily stunned before he pushed Emir’s wheelchair towards the most luxurious carriage in the middle that had a doorman on standby. The doorman didn’t hesitate before holding the door open for them just as they arrived, and Kaelen paused at the doorstep and scratched his chin. He looked from the wheelchair to the high stairs of the carriage, wondering how to make it happen.

An idea suddenly popped into his head, and without asking, he leaned forward to scoop Emir up from the wheelchair and place her inside the carriage, but before he could wrap his hand beneath her thighs, she shuddered and pushed his hand away.

’Huh?’

He was only trying to be a gentleman this time around because of what had happened upstairs, but now she was trying to make things difficult.

His lips had just parted to give her a piece of his mind when he noticed the bizarre reaction of the doorman, who failed to compose himself on catching Kaelen’s eyes. This made Kaelen confused, and he looked around at the servants and guards with more or less the same reaction, but they quickly looked away, pretending not to have seen anything.

It was almost like Kaelen had done the unthinkable in their eyes, which made him confused as his frown deepened.

"What the hell? What’s wrong with you and your people? I was only trying to be a gentleman because of what happened upstairs."

"We’re sorry for making you feel uncomfortable, sir... sir." The servants immediately threw their heads down in a deep bow and remained that way.

"What the hell... huh?" Before he could complete the sentence, Emir suddenly rose from her wheelchair, making his eyes widen in shock and disbelief.

She tilted her head to stare at him with a slightly flushed face. "I can get there on my own." She said to him.

Kaelen’s mouth hung open in disbelief. "W-What the... you can walk?!" He had just blurted, when he saw her take a light step forward.

Her leg shook like it wanted to give in under her weight, but she took another step, transferring the pressure to the other leg, and another to climb the carriage, before she dropped into the seat and dragged her legs before her.

Kaelen was silent for a moment before he turned to look at the servants and guards who still had their heads down, and back to Emir, now sitting inside the carriage.

"Aren’t you coming?" She asked calmly.

"What about your wheelchair?" He asked.

"We won’t be needing it because I won’t be stepping out." She replied.

He didn’t ask any more questions and climbed into the carriage after her, and the door closed. The inside was fancy with minimalist interior design, but Kaelen was more interested in the feat she had just pulled off.

"So you aren’t completely crippled, are you?" He asked as the carriage began moving.

"What do you think?"

"I think you aren’t crippled, which totally makes sense now because I’ve always wondered why an immortal such as yourself can’t heal failing legs. You just need physiotherapy to be back on your feet again." Kaelen said thoughtfully.

She didn’t reply immediately and simply stared at him for a moment before she smiled as usual.

"Is that so?" She asked and shifted her gaze to the window, but even though they were covered with a curtain, she simply stared like she could see through them and didn’t say another word.

This made Kaelen concerned; not for her well-being, but because she was acting strange and... mentally unstable.

"I haven’t seen Valerie in a while?" He asked sharply.

His question made her turn to look at him. "Why? Got a crush on her?" She asked teasingly.

Kaelen didn’t reply and simply stared at her blankly.

"I was just joking." She waved her hand dismissively. "I sent her on an errand. So you’ll have to be the one taking care of me till she’s back, got it?"

Again, Kaelen didn’t reply but didn’t keep staring at her. He shifted his attention to the window to peek through the soft curtains, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Oh, we’re here."

When Emir had told him she was Lord of the kingdom, and Valerie had explained how lordship works, Kaelen was expecting it to be a simple city with a powerful military, built from chopping down wood and picking stones and twigs for construction. He was expecting an above-average primitive-era infrastructure and lifestyle.

What he never expected... was an actual empire. The kind one might only read about in magical fantasy books.

For the next few hours, their convoy moved across the capital, which didn’t have electricity but replaced that with magic in their everyday life.

They made stops across different locations like Kaelen had requested, but instead of cultivating as planned, he simply picked out souvenirs on credit from stalls willing to offer everything they had. There was also a crowd following behind the royal convoy with offering baskets filled to the brim with all sorts of items Kaelen couldn’t even tell what some of them were.

Since Emir had promised to educate him on cultivation, Kaelen wanted to take her for her word as someone clearly more experienced than him, so he went all out slacking off at every stop they made instead of cultivating in the evolution density as planned.

By dawn, they had barely made it halfway through the capital and began returning to the estate.

"How big is your kingdom? We barely made it halfway."

Emir turned to look at him in amusement. "Halfway? That’s an outrageous statement."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"My kingdom is a territory made up of several large cities and thriving villages. The capital is but one of them, and we barely made it halfway through the capital." She replied coolly.

Kaelen would be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed. That was beyond the scale he initially imagined.

Being a Lord was certainly fun even with its own dangers. If he had been given the opportunity to become a Lord instead of a Slime, he could’ve created an empire safe enough to house his mother. Once that was taken care of, he’d cut off every tie he had with the outside world.

"You don’t look very impressed." Her words disrupted his train of thought.

"I can do better if you give me a domain now and ten millennia to make it the greatest empire in the world. If I had such an opportunity, I fear even the Creator wouldn’t be able to stop me. The best she’d do is take the lives of a few good men, but their sacrifices wouldn’t be in vain because, at the end, I’d win." He mumbled as his mind trailed off at the boundless possibility, but her next words made him stop dead in his tracks.

"What if they killed your mother first?"

"Huh?" He looked at her with a frown.

"What if you built the greatest empire, but at the edge of victory, an opponent you never expected, far greater than you imagined, rises and kills your mother and everyone you ever truly cared about?"

"I’ll kill them." Kaelen replied almost immediately, his tone cold. "Even if that’s the last thing I do, I’ll kill them all—"

"And what if they snap in two and had the opportunity to kill you right there and then, but then they decided you’d suffer alive rather than dead, so they let you live after stripping you of your strength to fight? What will you do?" She asked coldly.

Her question made Kaelen pause. He wanted to say something, but nothing really came to his mind, because at that point there was nothing he could do. He simply stared at her in silence as the carriage came to a stop outside the estate, and the door was held open into the night.

"I thought as much." She said to him and climbed down the carriage, when she suddenly tripped, but Kaelen reacted fast and wrapped his hand around her waist from behind, holding her up and steadying her.

"Let me help you—" He had barely said it when she shoved his hand away from and forced herself to the wheelchair already positioned before the carriage, before turning to leave without sparing him a glance.

"Wait, what about my cultivation?" He immediately called out behind her.

Her wheelchair paused for a moment before it continued ahead without the assistance of anyone until she disappeared inside the building.

"Seriously?" Kaelen mumbled to himself in disbelief.

Was she angry at him for saying he would’ve done better if he had been given the same opportunity?

He admitted touching a sensitive topic, but that wasn’t enough reason to deny his cultivation education rights after slacking off all day long in hopes that she’d teach him something useful.

He exhaled wearily. "I can’t even bring myself to be angry at her." He mumbled when a man in a butler suit walked up to him.

"Sir Kaelen, I’ve been instructed to teach you about Cultivation." He said with a curt bow.

"Oh, really? Let’s go then." Kaelen said in mild excitement.

"There’s no need for that, Sir Kaelen. If you already have a dedicated cultivation technique, then you already have everything you need. Evolution spores are usually most dense in areas where powerful lifeforms resides, because they radiate of it. In your case, with Lady Emir around, all you have to do is cultivate in your room. That is all."

"..."

Huh?