Chapter 1073: Learning to Walk

Even after being compressed from over 100 meters to roughly 10 meters in size, the Hydra was still an enormous pale Dragonoid, its thick pale hide and nine heads making it impossible to mistake for anything remotely humanoid.

"This is good, but most definitely not what I was expecting," Arthur said, shaking his head lightly. "Can’t you make yourself humanoid?"

The Hydra’s nine heads all turned toward him, and the middle one lowered slightly as its eyes narrowed.

"Humanoid? Why should I limit myself to the inferior form of humanoids?"

The pride within its voice was unmistakable, as if the mere suggestion that it should make itself humanoid was beneath consideration.

Arthur exhaled softly as he noticed this, along with the understanding that the Hydra had absolutely no intention of voluntarily changing its appearance merely for convenience.

"You’re going to be moving around in places where there are a lot of humanoids, so unless it’s absolutely necessary for battle, or we’re somewhere where it doesn’t really matter, I’d rather nobody knew you were lugging around nine heads, okay?"

As Arthur finished speaking, cosmic energy began wrapping around his fingers, illuminating them with a faint radiance as he raised his hand toward the Hydra.

"So, do you know how to make yourself humanoid, or should I exercise my rights as your master and force a change?"

A reluctant look appeared in the Hydra’s eyes at Arthur’s words, but it still stood its ground.

"That’s not enough reason for me to abandon my natural appearance and take on such an in—"

"Yeah, no," Arthur said, cutting the Hydra off with a flat expression on his face.

The cosmic energy gathered around his fingers immediately increased in intensity as Arthur exercised his rights as the Hydra’s master, enveloping its enormous body in a torrent of cosmic energy.

Its nine heads were pulled inward as its enormous body began undergoing a forced transformation, the sounds of bones crunching and restructuring echoing loudly as its limbs contracted, its torso compressed, and its heads fused into one.

When the cosmic energy finally dissipated, a humanoid figure was left kneeling in the centre of the swamp, both hands pressed against the ground, while their entire body trembled lightly.

Extremely long green hair flowed down their back, almost reaching their knees, with the hair divided into eight long braids. Their skin retained the same almost unnaturally pale colouration as the Hydra’s original hide, while a pair of glowing green eyes stared forward from an androgynous face.

Since they were completely naked, Arthur and Alexia could see that they had neither masculine nor feminine characteristics, their body lacking any reproductive organs.

"Right, it probably didn’t really matter for you in your original form, but you see, we humanoids have to wear these things called clothes."

As Arthur said that, he casually stuffed his hand into his subspace, pulled out a random pair of trousers, a shirt, and some shoes, and tossed them toward the Hydra.

Of course, he didn’t let them fall into the poisonous swamp and melt. Instead, he kept them floating in the air with a little gravity manipulation.

"Put them on and follow us once you’re ready."

Arthur was about to turn around when Alexia looked toward him and spoke.

"Arthur, that thing hasn’t had a humanoid form before in its life. Do you really think it’s going to know how to walk?"

Hearing that, Arthur blinked a few times before turning back toward the Hydra, which was still down on its knees on the ground.

"Oh...that’s why you’re still on the ground. You don’t know how to walk."

The realisation had completely slipped Arthur’s mind until Alexia pointed it out, and at his words, the Hydra glared at him with a mortified expression.

Exhaling softly, Arthur scratched his head and then said, "Well, for starters, I guess you’re going to have to learn how to walk."

◇　◇　◇

Several minutes later, after eventually getting the Hydra into the clothes he had provided and teleporting it into Alexia’s ship, the Hydra was now undergoing walking lessons with several of Alexia’s subordinates inside a time-accelerated chamber.

Of course, it was failing miserably.

A quadruped suddenly having to adjust to walking on only two legs was already difficult enough, but in the Hydra’s case, there was the added downgrade from its incredibly wide field of vision provided by its eighteen eyes, which had now been reduced to only two eyes.

The adjustment was hell for the creature, as it repeatedly lost its balance, fell over, struggled to coordinate its limbs, and repeatedly cursed and complained throughout the entire process.

Arthur came over to see how things were going, and after witnessing the disastrous scene unfolding before him, he sighed softly and facepalmed.

"Is it possible for me to somehow help the Hydra regain some of the physical characteristics of its true form while remaining humanoid?"

[That’s incredibly wishful of you, Master,] Celestia quipped.

Arthur stared at the Hydra, and just as he saw it slam into a wall beside it, a pensive look appeared on his face.

"I may have an idea."

With those words, Arthur teleported into the chamber, his sudden appearance causing Alexia’s subordinates to stop their walking lessons and bow lightly toward him.

Arthur simply acknowledged them by raising one hand with a thumbs-up, then walked toward the Hydra, which was still barely managing to get back onto its feet, before grabbing its face and staring directly into its eyes.

"Hmm, if I use the energy of the Law of Life and mix it with some cosmic energy while exercising my rights as the master..."

Cosmic energy began swirling around his hands as he muttered those words, mixing with the energy of the law of life and gathering around the Hydra’s face.

The Hydra looked around warily as it noticed the energies surrounding its body.

"Whoa, what exactly are you doing?"

Arthur didn’t bother answering the Hydra, instead infusing the gathered energies directly into its eyes.

What followed was a painful groan from the Hydra as it moved both hands toward Arthur’s arms, desperately trying to pull his hands away from its face.

However, for a creature that could barely control its humanoid body properly, there was no way the Hydra could force Arthur’s grip away.

The end result was that Arthur was completely free to do as he willed with the Hydra, and when he was finally finished, he slowly removed his hands from its face.

The Hydra’s eyes were glowing with a strange cosmic light, and then a wet squishing sound echoed through the chamber, causing several of Alexia’s subordinates to visibly scrunch their expressions at the uncomfortable noise.

The Hydra immediately clutched its face and dropped back onto its knees, groaning softly for several seconds as the strange light continued glowing within its eyes.

Eventually, the cosmic life energy faded from its eyes, and when the Hydra finally opened them again, Arthur suddenly shivered before taking a step backwards.

"Yeesh!" he exclaimed. "Okay, this seemed like a good idea in my mind, but I didn’t know it was going to look this creepy."

[Master, what the hell have you done?]

Celestia’s exhausted voice echoed inside Arthur’s mind as he stared at the Hydra, which looked like a perfectly normal humanoid.

Except for its eyes.

Surrounding each of its green irises were eight additional pupils, each one moving independently within the same eye, the result of Arthur’s attempt to recreate the visual prowess the Hydra possessed in its true form.

"Nah, this isn’t going to work, I’m just going to—"

"Wait!"

The Hydra reached out and grabbed Arthur’s hand, stopping him from grabbing its head again.

Its numerous pupils darted around rapidly, each moving in different directions as it examined the chamber from several different angles simultaneously.

"This is better," the Hydra muttered.

Arthur raised an eyebrow upon hearing those words, and the Hydra blinked repeatedly before looking around the room with an expression of genuine disbelief.

"This is so much better! My vision isn’t nearly as narrowed anymore! How the hell do humanoids walk around with such narrow fields of vision??"

Arthur silently stared at the Hydra, whose expression showed genuine incredulity toward the limitations of humanoid vision.

"That’s actually better for you?" he asked, still slightly skeptical.

"Obviously, it’s still limited compared to my actual form, but yes, this is much better than before," The Hydra replied immediately. "What did you do?"

To this question, Arthur silently summoned a mirror from his subspace, then inclined it towards the Hydra’s face.

The moment the Hydra saw its reflection, its jaw slowly dropped as it finally understood exactly why Arthur had instinctively recoiled when he first saw its eyes.

"Oh... Ooohhh..."

Seeing that the Hydra had finally realised the reason behind his reaction, Arthur swapped the mirror out for a small case from his subspace.

"Yeah, um, so these are a pair of contact lenses," he said, opening the case.

Arthur had hundreds of contact lenses in his subspace, from the days when he’d been unable to control law energy infusion into his eyes.

"You’re going to have to put these on, and they’ll make your eyes look normal while you still keep all those extra eyes behind them."

The Hydra blinked several times while looking down at the contact lenses, examining the strange objects in Arthur’s hand.

"But first, you’re going to have to learn how to walk properly and use your hands properly before I can give you something this fragile.

You’ll probably accidentally blind yourself otherwise."

With those words, Arthur tossed the contact lenses back into his subspace before turning toward Alexia’s subordinates.

"Sorry for the interruption. Please continue your lesson."

With that, Arthur teleported out of the room, leaving the Hydra behind to continue learning humanoid motor functions.