Chapter 1175 – Good Start So Far…

“Do you think we’ll die if we mess up too badly?” Keerla asked in a casual tone, nearly making Solana drop the bowl she was in the midst of mixing.

“Don’t even joke about that!” the dryad said with a horrified look.

“I was just wondering out loud,” Keerla shrugged. “Considering that recent declaration of friendship thing, imagine if we host a dinner so horrible the Chosen of the Malefic Viper does out and denounces the entire Pantheon of Life afterward. If nothing else, we’d be famous. Probably dead, but definitely famous.”

Solana threw her partner a deadly gaze, making Keerla back off. “Easy! There’s no way they won’t enjoy your food, so relax! If I were actually worried, I wouldn’t dare to make jokes.”

“Yes, you would. You always joke about when you’re nervous, and right now, you’re extremely nervous,” Solana mercilessly cut through Keerla’s facade.

“… would it be best if I just shut up?” Keerla muttered.

“No… no, just try to be positive or talk about something else to take my mind off things. I would ask for your help with cooking, but I don’t want to accidentally serve food so horrible that this dinner turns into a declaration of war,” Solana said, making a joke of her own.

“You’re right,” Keerla sighed. “As long as we follow the advice of my Patron, surely things can’t go too wrong, right?”

“No, they shouldn’t,” Solana shook her head.

They had both been pleasantly surprised when Artemis had answered Keerla’s prayer, seeing as they both assumed they wouldn’t get a response. In Solana’s case, Yggdrasil had expectedly remained quiet.

Still, just that little bit of divine guidance had given them a lot of confidence that they could get through this trial in one piece, and perhaps even get out on the other side better than before.

Neither was under any illusion that this wasn’t an absolutely massive opportunity they couldn’t squander. Even if neither had Paths centered around politics, they knew the importance of a seemingly simple dinner like this and what it could mean for their futures.

If nothing else, the sheer Records they would gain from having a personal relationship with the Chosen of the Malefic Viper would be insane. Of course, massive opportunities could also turn into the worst of disasters, which was why both of them were bundles of anxiety ahead of the dinner.

There was especially one part that had them nervous.

“Could you remind me why you offered a plus one?” Solana asked after she’d been cooking for a while, preparing way more dishes than they would possibly need.

“In my defense, I had no idea who he was, and it seemed a little rude to invite a single guy to our house just so he could feel like a third wheel,” Keerla answered, also working on her own to make sure the utensils were absolutely perfectly placed in the table with identical spacing. She’d even gone as far as to read a book about how to set a table properly, learned nothing she didn’t already know, but just having her existing knowledge confirmed had helped her calm down.

“I wonder who it could be,” Solana muttered. “Did you get any clue when you spoke to him?”

“And that it’s a woman of some kind,” Keerla sighed, unable to hold herself back from joking. “Guess the Malefic One got lucky with his Chosen there. Imagine if someone with a Bloodline like that turned out not to like women.”

“Wouldn’t mean he wasn’t going to have any,” Solana shrugged. “I doubt we can even begin to imagine the kind of expectations someone like that will be under. It wouldn’t be surprising if to him, the topic of children was one entirely divorced from emotions and was instead purely practical.”

“And now you’re making me depressed,” Keerla sighed, her joke falling flat when confronted with the cruel downsides those with his status often found themselves subjected to. “Anyway, who do you think he’s bringing? Someone we’ve heard of? Wait, maybe it’s Dinaldria!? Those two did spend a few decades together in Nevermore.”

“If anything was going on between those two, we would surely have heard about it through the grapevine,” Solana shook her head. “I think it’s more likely that someone from the diplomatic entourage will come along. That, or someone he’s met while here.”

“So you expect it to be some casual acquaintance he’s just bringing along to avoid coming alone?” Keerla asked. “That would make sense, I guess. Unless it’s someone like Dinaldria, there’s no way the Malefic One would permit a serious relationship.”

“Exactly,” Solana nodded, pretty confident in her assessment.

“We should still treat her nicely, though. No matter who she is, just the fact that he’s bringing her along means she must have some kind of status,” Keerla said. Even if her only achievement was to casually be dragged along to a dinner with the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, that would still make her a figure Solana and Keerla had to be careful around.

“I would hope we treat all guests nicely, even if they didn’t have any status of note,” Solana said in a semi-scolding tone, making Keerla a bit embarrassed.

“You know what I mean…”

“I do, but words are important,” Solana said in her usual stern tone. “Especially today, of all days.”

To that, Keerla could only nod in agreement as the couple continued preparing for when their visitors would arrive. They’d discussed so many things regarding this day and even considered whether they should borrow a mansion or something instead of hosting the Chosen of the Malefic Viper in their relatively small home, but ultimately, they decided not to go overboard but stay honest.

Their house had never been cleaner, though, and they had gone out and bought a lot of items to ensure everything looked as presentable as possible. From the tablecloth and tableware to the ingredients in the meals provided, they’d gone all-out, hoping that their efforts would be enough to please the Chosen of the Malefic One. If he ended up unhappy with what they provided and let his disapproval show… yeah, the two had a silent agreement that talking about it when his arrival was this close should be avoided.

Of course, what they didn’t know was that the Chosen they were so worried about would be too socially awkward to complain or point out if anything did actually displease him.

Something Jake definitely hadn’t appreciated enough was visiting the more mundane areas of the new places he visited. He’d seen many of the grand sights on the Great Planet that Yggdrasil had taken root and explored a couple of Hunting Grounds now. Even all the places they stopped while traveling to the Great Planet had been major hubs and important locations within the domain of the Pantheon of Life.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

However, where he was going now was far from grand, at least not in the grand scheme of the multiverse. To Jake, it was still an impressive place, but compared to what else he’d seen, it was indeed mundane.

Not in a bad way, mind you.

“I love the design choices here,” Jake commented as he walked through the narrow and barely defined street. The building he was looking at was one carved from over a dozen trees that had fused together and were clearly still alive despite people living in them.

On both sides of the tree were smaller wooden buildings, clearly not grown out of the ground or anything, but merely constructed using timber in a far more regular fashion. A few more houses down, a tree with a house built on top of it stood, and right on the other side of the street was a large hollowed-out boulder with windows and beautiful carvings and art covering it.

“It’s certainly natural,” Artemis, who walked beside him, commented. “This is the kind of small town that appears when the rules are lax. We enlightened still prefer to live close to one another, so it’s only natural that we’ll build close to others, yet our personal styles and preferences vary widely.”