TTIGRAAS: Predator

Chapter 37

I was so upset with the situation and mad at that dryad Treyni for following me that I found a lake and sank right to the bottom of it to escape. Hopefully it would stop my aura from going too wild too.

I stayed at the bottom of it for a week or so, not wanting to leave the pleasant coolness and pressure of the water around me.

Treyni had bothered me multiple times while I was down there, but never over anything important. It seemed like she was checking up on me or whatever, but I didn't care and just blocked out her mental messages.

Couldn't she just leave me be unless someone was trying to start another war, or destroy the forest, or something else actually consequential like that? I thought that was what we'd agreed on.

With no good reason to leave this spot, I wasn't going to leave. Plain and simple.

...Moping? I wasn't moping!!

I was trying to think up a strategy to get information on where my kids were taken. Although, I was struggling to come up with anything. Even Great Sage wasn't much help in this department, simply telling me not to try and confront Yuuki again.

I still didn't know how he countered me so easily back there, and without learning that very important fact, a fight with him might end with me dying. I couldn't risk that, I had an objective to focus on.

Yet, I had no leads...

Really, my thoughts had been going in circles, a mix of reflection on my mistakes and plans for the future, but I just couldn't move past it all. I had nothing to work with.

I sat there for a while longer, cocooned in the sensation of the lake pressing down on me and quickly falling into the same thought-loop I'd been caught in over and over.

At least Treyni seems to have given up... it's been a few days since she nagged me now, I think. I mused, appreciating the lack of interruption. With enough peace and quiet, I might just come up with a solution.

...!

An aura, a pressure hit me, even from down at the bottom of the lake. The strength of it was obviously larger than my own, and that was after the explosive growth of mine that followed consuming the Orc Disaster.

The worst part was that I could tell it was heading right for me!

Okay, just relax and it'll leave you alone... maybe it's just something that wants to go for a swim too? I hoped so, since there was no way I wanted to get into a fight with whatever that aura was coming from. Don't assume this is going to be another fight with the odds against you. It might not even be hostile...

I sat completely still, doing my very best to hide myself and hoping it would pass.

It didn't end up helping.

It stopped nearby for some time, and I tried even harder to conceal myself, but that did nothing. The presence knew I was there.

Eventually they lost their patience and barreled straight into the lake, sending the water flying into the air, nearly draining the thing from what I could tell. I was exposed to the air, and to the eyes of this person I could now see clearly.

[[Alert: subject's magicule count is estimated to be at a minimum 10 times the individual Rimuru Tempest's maximum capacity.]]

Oh boy... yeah, nope. I don't stand a chance. I can't let this turn into a fight no matter what.

Standing in the middle of this nightmare of an aura was a young girl, looking like she was in her early teens.

Her platinum pink hair was arranged into two long pigtails and she was wearing something that no child should ever wear, which made me think she was likely older than her appearance would make you believe.