Chapter 329: Checking out the spot
"Wait for me, Kai." Barry got up from the hole in the ground and ran toward the group.
Kai held out his hand, grabbing Barry’s face, pushing him away. "Nope. Back away. Our time together is over. You can stop following me now."
"The same thing goes for you three as well, Iris, Patty, and Cornelia. Your situations are a bit different, though."
"Aw, I wanted to spend more time with you." Patty put on a sad face, and her ears drooped.
"Don’t worry, I’ll be visiting often. Kind of. But it’s fine. I have given you three keys to my pocket dimension, placing one in your room at the pirate base, Cornelia. You can visit the Sarkylla anytime you want."
"Really?" There was so much Cornelia wanted to see, expierence, and learn in Sarkylla. During the few times she had been there, she liked it more than Eridani. But she chalked it up to recency bias.
"Yup."
"I’m coming with you, though, right?" Karumi had no interest in being left behind. In fact, she turned into a fox and climbed around his neck to make sure he took her with him.
"Haha, don’t worry, you’re coming with me."
"Hey! That’s my spot!" Amaya started hissing at Karumi, and her tail poofed up.
"It’s my spot now!"
"Bitch!"
The two of them started chasing each other around Kai’s neck like cartoon characters.
"Barry, I’ll take you back to the church. Now that the demon king is dead, you have to find all of the demon pills as well as the people who sell and ingest them. The church is already looking into those things, so they should fill you in on the rest." Aquaphina put a hand on Barry’s shoulder, and they turned into water.
"See you guys later." He waved goodbye and splashed onto the ground, creating a large puddle before disappearing.
"I’ll also take you three back to the pirate base. And here’s a ship." Kai bought another ship for Cornelia to use. It had even more features than his primary ship, ensuring that she would be safe on the water.
The ship was in the form of a toy that turned into a tattoo on her hand when Cornelia grabbed it. Now, she could summon and unsommon the ship at will.
"This is amazing! Thanks!"
"No problem." The three of them said goodbye, then Kai teleported them to the pirate base.
"Now it’s just us eight. Alright, let’s go." Along the way to the shore, Kai made sure to restore the island back to its former glory and even made it a lot better. He also placed a barrier around it to make sure no one would come here and mess up his future sex island.
’If it wasn’t for the urgency, I would have stayed here for a month!’
---
The crew docked at Smoky Island. Kai thought the island was named that because all the women were hot. Turns out that it was called Smoky because of a volcano. It was very unfortunate when Kai learned the reasoning behind the name.
"I can’t believe the volcano is a tourist spot." Gwen was looking up at the large volcano, fascinated by the flowing lava.
"Yeah, so amazing. Oh no, that guy just fell into the lava. Wait, what the fuck? I was joking! He actually did fall into the lava! Hold on, his family is trying to pull him out! Oh, his dad just fell in as well. Hey! The sister is helping...and she fell in as well. Come on, mother, this is all on you...and she’s dead. Wow. An entire family generation just died because of a vacation." Kai understood why the sign said ’Climb at your own risk’
"So, this is the place where we will sail westward toward the...uhh...What was the other continent called?"
"Astalith." Kyana reminded him.
"Yes, Astalith, thank you very much. But first, let’s see where this disturbance is happening. A final quest before we leave this place."
"I’ll find it first!" Amaya stormed off.
"Okay, guess we’re splitting up. First one to find it gets a prize."
The other girls didn’t waste any time, flying away as fast as they could to find the disturbance.
"Damn. They don’t even know what the prize is."
Kai flew around the island, searching for places where the disturbance could be. He used his senses, but that wasn’t enough to help. If a goddess couldn’t pinpoint where the disturbance was, then he wouldn’t be able to as well.
Looking around, he saw his girls still searching, telling him that they didn’t find it either.
After 30 minutes of searching. Kai flew to the surface to get a snack.
"Try this flaming hot meat on a stick! I’m sure you’ll love it. It’s as hot as the volcano!"
Over at a food stall, a man was promoting his food, which had many people lined up to try it. Kai lined up as well, eager to see how hot it was.
"MY GOD! THIS IS HOT! TOO HOT! TOO HOT!" A customer ran over to the water and jumped into it to cool down.
"Wait! That’s not cold water, it’s a..."
"ARGHHHHH!!"
"Hot spring. Damn."
"Here you go, friend."
Kai took the meat, paid, and ate it. "Wow, this is amazing. I can feel a lot of flavors bursting in my mouth!"
"Right! I tried to mimic the volcano’s recent activity." The cook said.
"Hmm? It’s recent activity? What do you mean?"
"You see, this volcano used to be extinct, but then, about a week ago, it suddenly became active again. Destroyed a part of town, but it has made business BOOM ever since. Our island has never been wealthier in its history!"
’An extinct volcano suddenly becomes active again? That’s pretty sus.’ Kai thanked the man for the info, gave him five more gold coins, then flew over to the volcano.
"Is this the spot?" Gwen saw Kai and followed him.
"Yeah. It is. I can feel something ominous down there." Kai lowered his hand into the lava, but nothing happened. He felt a little tingle, but nothing happened to him.
’Nothing happened to my hand, so the lava isn’t..."
"ARGHHHH!!!"
Kai snapped back to reality, seeing Gwen’s arm in the lava. He knew that the lava wouldn’t be able to harm her, so that meant something else was in there that couldn’t affect him, but could affect her.
Quickly, he pulled her arm out and saw that it was being eaten by some kind of energy, and it was spreading up her body.
He cut off her arm from the shoulder, even though the infection was only at her elbow, and regrew it. Kai made sure none of that energy lingered in her before doing anything else.
"Gwen! Gwen! Are you okay? What happened?"
"Ngh! I-I don’t know. S-Something entered my arm, and all my energy was drained. MY ARM!"
"Shh, relax. Your arm is fine. I fixed it. You should be okay now. Go regroup with the others. I need to talk with my father."