I was undecided on what to do. The smarter thing would be to stay safe until my timed out skills recovered. But, waiting for [166] hours was far too unreasonable.

Aside from Typhon, the other captains were almost demanding in their stares. To refuse them from hunting because of my own circumstance seemed unfair to them.

Ophelia had even begun pacing around me with impatience. She then approached the sleeping fae, and pushed her aside before settling down to take her spot.

The tiny fae was not too pleased to be rudely awoken and began to buzz around Ophelia to seemingly scolding her for her actions.

[Bad! They are so bad!] The dark fae cried. [Why don't you scold them?]

[You were in her place.] I retorted coldly with a smirk and ignored her whining as I looked at Ophelia, who had settled down beside me.

I could understand why she was impatient to get to LV12. I was also keen to reach my next evolution, even though I had no idea when it would be. The last time I appraised her stats, Ophelia had been LV10, but after the hunt I doubted she was still the same.

After seeing Typhon's evolution, I could imagine she was eager to evolve too and I was also curious to see what skills her first evolution would reveal.

The captains around me all waited with anticipation while I pondered my decision. And when I finally agreed, Galahad started to wiggle in delight.

After seeing Typhon and how much he had changed, it seemed only right to give the others a chance too.

However, that was not the end of the decision at all.

Soon after, Typhon and Ophelia began to report several other issues, while the rest of the captains waited quietly for a response.

Since I had no urgent business to get to, I decided to learn the snake tongue by carefully listening in on their hisses and try to decipher them without the use of [Commander].

At first, Typhon's words made no sense. It sounded no different from a normal snake's hiss, aside from being perhaps a little deeper than Ophelia's, but I started to pick up breaks in his speech that could be counted for words.

However, after listening for a while, no understanding of the word hisses came to me.

So, instead of listening to him alone, I instructed the other captains to speak as well, thinking some variety would make the sounds easier to understand.

Typhon relayed my instructions, and I was immediately slammed with hisses of many tenors from my captains, both low and high, fast and slow, all merged together in some strange harmony.

There were some repeated sounds, but none really stood out with a specific meaning, which made me almost want to give up.

"How am I supposed to understand anything they say?"

I was worried I would always have to depend on some skill or another to communicate with my own species and that just left a sour taste in my mouth.

«You're not a genius.» Sensei cruelly added. «You won't understand something after trying it once.»

"Clearly, I'm not a genius, because I don't see how a ban on my skills could make my situation any better."

Ophelia quickly understood my situation, and instructed the captains to stop, before looking at me with concern.

In the background I noticed the dark fae buzzing around her, clearly in a bad mood and an idea started to form in my head.

What if I could get her to act as a relay between myself and the captains. Maybe I would be able to spot the similarities between her words and the hisses this way!

Since our telepathic link was still open, I called out to her.

[Bubbles! Come here and leave Ophelia alone.]

The dark fae gave me a confused look. [What's a bubbles?]

I signed in disappointment. [Doesn't matter. Just come.]

The dark fae quickly left Ophelia, throwing her a smug look before sitting comfortably on my head. After explaining to her what she needed to do, she grasped it fairly quickly and flew over to Typhon's to establish a telepathic link.

I saw him hiss at her in anger, reflexively fighting off the sensation as he glared at the fae's tiny figure, but I instructed him to calm down and let it happen. The first time was always painful.

«I don't think its such a good idea?» Sensei muttered.

"Why not? I want to hear what they say, word for word."

«She could misinterpret his words. And I can easily translate for you too.»

"I don't need it." I snapped.

«How long will you sulk?»

"Until my skills come back."

Sensei sighed and I ignored him, watching the tiny fae nodding along to Typhon's words.

What a loophole I had discovered!

I was worried she wouldn't understand him...she did behave like a dumb child.

But when she returned to me, she was able to get the point across.

[He asks if they can have more eggs. Oh, and he says hello.]

Eggs?

Ah! Of course, the eggs Morgana had brought. Perhaps, they wanted to eat them?

Personally, I wasn't a fan, so I immediately agreed.

However, when I saw Typhon's eyes go wide, I began to suspect I was missing some information.

[What else did he say about the eggs?] I probed the fae again.

[The dotted one wants some, but since the wavy one found them, she wants to keep them all to herself. What should I say to them?] The dark fae asked, and I saw both Artemis and Morgana staring intently at me.

What sort of questions were these brats asking?

First they wanted to hunt and possibly surpass me, and now they wanted permission for their own food share? Why did they want to eat eggs all of a sudden?

I hadn't tried them yet, so were they that good?

Still, it had nothing to do with me and this just seemed like a case of the nestlings being greedy. So I awarded the majority of the eggs to Morgana since she found them first, and for Artemis, I granted him a few eggs and split the rest evenly among the other captains.

However, Typhon refused them and so did Cygnus and Ophelia, transferring all their shares back to Morgana who was extremely pleased.

Maybe, they weren't that good after all?

Encouraged by my approval of the eggs, my captains soon started to request a lot of things.

According to the dark fae Artemis wanted a garden of plants and since it was harmless I agreed, though I did have some concerns.

Cygnus wanted to scout more with his team members, which was fine since I needed more information about the creatures in the area.

Galahad wanted to keep the silly bird he had brought. I had no objections after hearing it had been abandoned by its parents, since it wouldn't attract any trouble.

The other requests though, were a little trickier.

Typhon wanted to spar with me, Ophelia wanted to hunt again, and Morgana wanted to use the prison cells I created for whatever reason. I was most confused about her request, but since the dark fae told me it was to store the eggs, I let it go.

Ophelia's request could be solved easily, but for Typhon, I wasn't at all that keen to spar with him, primarily because it could sow dissent.

And he didn't seem like the type to challenge me so I wondered why he would request such a thing. Had he gained some confidence because he had evolved?

It was one more reason I couldn't afford to stay idle.

«You're giving in too easily. You shouldn't spoil them.» Sensei said.

Spoil them? I was happy to see they had their own interests, instead of being primarily focused on hunting.

I thought back to the two leadership examples from the creatures I had met - the Hesperia queens.

One was kind and gave her hatchlings everything, which inspired the fierce loyalty of someone like the scary wasp, who remained with her even after her downfall. Whereas the other controlled every hatchling strictly, not giving them any a chance to rebel.

It wasn't much to predict which one Sensei wanted me to be.

Instead of listening to him, I was more than happy to see them all evolve and grow powerful, but it had to be at their own pace.

I wanted loyal subordinates like the scary wasp, and controlling their every move was not the way. I want to give them the freedom to develop and the choice to follow me.

But at the same time, I had to maintain a balance by keeping things fair to not be biased with one over the other.

Personally, the evolution I wanted to see more was that of Sylrin who I hadn't seen in a while. The last time I checked his position, he was around his cave, hunting as usual.

Perhaps it was worth paying him a visit to bring him back now that the cave was finally large enough.