章 9: Companion (Ch. 24-26)
Seconds turn into minutes as the little girl and I wordlessly maintain eye contact.
"Who are you… no, WHAT are you?" I say after a while.
I was curious about her identity, but then I recall what she did, making me more curious about what sort of existence she is instead.
"I have told you already. I am the soul of the System," she responds.
Those words sound a little familiar; I recall hearing them shortly after Juno went AWOL.
"I'm Irene. The soul of your System. A creation of Father's," the girl continues to clarify.
Irene, huh? The only Irene that I know of is the one that also claimed that she was the soul of my System. But, that one spoke in a very inhuman way, unlike this girl in front of me. Also, their voices are… dissimilar. Aside from that, the other one called me "The Creator" instead of "Father" – the former a much preferable.
"So, why are you here?"
"I've determined that I will be of more use to Father if I had a physical body, and so, I created one."
"Don't you need the data of the Platform to be able to do that?"
Juno apparently does, so why wouldn't she?
"Negative. I am a part of Father, so I can take on my physical form wherever within a fifty-meter radius of Father. This way, I will be able to assist Father. However, as a major downside, upon the termination of this body, I will enter a three-day cessation period."
How convenient, yet troubling—for her. Though, what's this about her being able to assist me? Right now, I can only see her as an inconvenience. In fact, it would be a lie to say that I don't deem her suspicious.
"As the soul of Father's System, I wield various privileges. As I am right now, I can make use of three of them: Light Guidance, Barrier Creation, and Shutdown."
The first two sound rather support-like, but the third one is rather baleful.
"Of the three, Barrier Creation should be of most use to you right now. Using it, I can create a barrier that can withstand almost anything once a day that lasts for about six seconds.
"Then, there is Light Guidance, which is a weaker version of Father's Light Manipulation.
"Lastly, the most salient of the three: Shutdown. It grants me the ability to make Father lose his consciousness for three hours. The cooldown time for this privilege is the longest of the three, which is one usage every week."
Alright, this explains why I found the "Shutdown" ability ominous. I was thinking that it would be something like executing my foes or whatever, but nope, it's to render me defenseless. I'm beginning to wonder if there is a way to 'kill' her.
"I request Father to not misinterpret the purpose of such a privilege. Everything that I am to do, is for Father's sake. I was born for Father, live for Father, and will die for Father."
Seriously? Even if she says that, I can't just trust having someone who can render me unconscious at any time around. Well, whatever. For now, I can only act on the minimal information I've gotten from Juno and give this little girl the benefit of the doubt. Actually, is she even a child? Considering my age and whatnot, she should probably be way older than she looks.
"So, what am I to you?"
"My Father."
Yeah, right.
"Who is your mother?"
"Such a person doesn't exist," she responds; her response being well within my expectations.
"Then, how did I create you?"
"It is beyond my capacity to figure that out."
Hm… My expectations were already low, so I am unbothered by this. I can only guess that I conjured her from nothing, based on what I have been told about my past self. Anyway, I might as well ask her something that will be of use.
"How do I increase my parameters and the tiers listed in the System?"
She adopts a thoughtful look before responding, "The most efficient method of achieving that is to train consistently. To do so, Father may access the Tales and use them. Upon checking Father's memories, there appears to be a lot of gaps in Father's current knowledge. Thus, as per the RR Agreement, Father will be granted a calling by the System."
{Calling Received.}
I hear Irene's voice, even though she's standing right in front of me with her completely still. At the same time, a red "screen" pops out of nowhere in front of me.
{Gather Knowledge of the Tales.
Time-limit: 29d:23:h:59m:59s
Upon failure: Loss of Essence—Destruction
Platform bound: Negative.}
Is this some tasteless joke? I have yet to know what that Essence is capable of, yet there is now a chance that it will simply be taken away?
Well, whatever. Though, I can take away something from this: I was right to be on guard against her. That penalty doesn't really seem like something that will benefit me. Yes, that's the point of a penalty, but still, this System is supposed to help me grow. I know that a deadline with severe consequences is a good motivation, but not when it concerns the loss of powerful abilities, which might result in immediate danger to the host. Heck, it would've been much more acceptable if the penalty was something like someone around me dying…
With such thoughts in my mind, I realize that my distrust for Irene has grown. She's the one that instigated the calling, no? Setting aside the calling for a moment, there are some unfamiliar words in there.
"Irene," I say in a firm tone, "Give me an explanation that goes over any words I am unfamiliar with in your statements."
"Understood," she responds before smiling and beginning, "Father, The Platforms and Rift as a whole are referred to as the Playground by the principal quintessences. Some principal quintessences granted individual Platforms knowledge regarding other Platforms. The knowledge is a timeline or many of their choice. Someone with Knowledge of the Tales is a person who has read through the knowledge provided.
"For Father to become such a person, Father has to travel to a Platform containing the knowledge and integrate with it as soon as possible.
"The reason for all of this is that once the time comes, the Arena will be unbarred once again. This is as far as I can share when it comes to the Tales and the Arena.
"Another way for Father to get stronger is to use the power granted upon entering a Platform that has it. To do so, Father must incorporate said power. However, incorporating with powers has both its pros and cons.
"The pros are that it allows one use of the power outside the Platform it originated from, and it gets rid of almost all the side effects that come with it.
"One major con is that the power gets restricted and altered.
"Father currently wields a power. Would you like to incorporate it?"
My power… The five-second takeover? I have had suspicions that it might be something like stealing abilities, but I'm not certain of that yet. For now, it isn't an ability I'd like to keep. Even if it was, there would be no point in incorporating it right now. After all, Irene said something about limitations, so it's better to do it when I leave the Platform than right now.
"No."
"Understood," she responds before bowing slightly.
At this moment, I sense some movements in the distance. I focus my eyes, resulting in my vision seemingly "zooming" in, but whatever it was, it's behind the trees and bushes, so I can't see it.
"Father isn't making proper use of the Effect," Irene suddenly says as she turns to face the direction I am looking at.
"Your eyes are under the influence of a passive Effect called Clairvoyance. As it is a passive Effect, the amount of energy required is negligible, unless Father makes use of its more complicated properties. The passive Effect of Clairvoyance allows the user to shift the angle and position of their vision at will."
Hm? So I can essentially move my vision around like a ghost camera? I try to influence the way I'm looking at the location. It moves. This… It exactly feels like the time when I "saw" the vision of the dragon-rider fighting the winged ones.
Setting aside that thought, I make proper use of Clairvoyance to find the source of the movements. A teen. He's dressed a little oddly… Wearing a blue bandana on his head, he has a casual white t-shirt and gray cargo-pants on.
At this moment, he's hastily running away. Judging by the look on his face, there is only a bit of fear and confusion. The next moment, he suddenly crouches before abruptly shooting into the air.
The ability user, huh? There is no point in me catching him right now.
Still, Flight, huh? Bet it must feel nice to take off into the skies like that. It's like escaping from the world… Speaking of worlds, "Irene, am I able to leave a Platform whenever I wish to?"
"That is not the case, Father. You can leave a Platform only after three weeks since arriving in it."
Great. Here I was thinking of using it as a trump card of sorts to use when a situation takes a turn for the worst…
"Am I able to take inhabitants of a Platform to another Platform or the Rift with me?"
Irene takes a moment before she responds, "Yes and no. For a person to leave the Platform, they must be an Anomaly or be influenced by one. Father is an Anomaly capable of making inhabitants leave the Platform by keeping their souls. However, to do that, their physical body in the Platform they originate from must be completely destroyed. There is also a limit to the number of souls that can be kept; As of right now, Father can only keep a maximum of three souls."
"The souls that are kept will then have to be let out in the Mete. For a soul to enter other Platforms, a body must be constructed for them by an individual capable of doing so or a System."
Hm… I wonder if anyone will accept my proposal to leave the Platform with me.
"Father, I would like to suggest against staying in a Platform for a long period of time. The longer Father stays, the more time and space are disturbed, allowing for Unknowns to appear."
This talk about Unknowns again… what are they exactly? Juno only said that they were beings or things that shouldn't exist. What's that supposed to mean, anyway? What determines if someone or something should exist or not? Fate? Destiny? Some… god?
"Irene, tell me about the Unknowns."
"Understood. Different Unknowns have separate levels of threat toward Father and the Platform. To ease comprehension of their existence, I will break them into different classes based on their Tier."
She came up with the following:
1st Tier:- Disturbances. They ruin the flow of events formerly determined by "Fate". They're often formed as a result of a highly anomalous existence over-welcoming their stay in a Platform.
2nd Tier:- Headhunter. They will hunt down anomalous existences at the cost of anything. These are usually the incarnations of extremely powerful entities' grudges.
3rd Tier:- Ambitious beings. They'll attempt to gain control over a Platform.
4th Tier:- Chaos seekers. They will stop at nothing to bring down the Platform.
5th Tier:- Influencers. Extremely conniving beings that will guide existences to do their bidding. Their goals are irregular.
The cause of birth for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Tier is undetermined.
Well isn't this great? I will have to face these things. And, Juno said that there is one already in this Platform… I better hope it's a 1st Tier Unknown, since they seem the easiest to deal with.
Suddenly, my thoughts are interrupted by the sight of a glowing Irene. Then, her body visibly shrinks until it's the size of a doll that can probably fit in my pocket. She floats in the air for a few seconds before hovering over to me.
"Father should head back now," she utters in a somewhat squeaky voice.
"Right…" I respond as she sits on my shoulder.
------
It's morning. After taking several minutes to prepare themselves, the girls finally come out of their tent, excluding Ayumi. She should sleep more since her age requires her to do so.
"Let's go fish our breakfast!" Nao immediately exclaims as she drags the fishing equipment we brought along with herself in the direction of a nearby stream.
Along the way, Irene sits on my right shoulder motionlessly. It seems like the others can't see her.
Upon reaching the stream, I focus my vision and observe numerous trouts swimming peacefully in the stream.
Once we've all readied our fishing equipment, we begin fishing. For this occasion, Misa takes control of Yusa's body once again.
Some minutes later, Nao is the first one to catch something, and the moment she does so, she proudly shouts, "Ooooh, it's a rainbow trout! Misa is vexed by this for some reason, as she scowls and says, "Just wait, I will fish a bigger one!"
Joijiro seems to enjoy the competition, as he fixes his glasses with the tip of his middle finger and states, "I won't lose either."
Oh, this is a competition now? In that case, let's have some fun.
I place my fishing rod to the side, attracting Joijiro's attention as he mocks, "Giving up?"
I snicker at his comment and reply, "Watch."
As soon as I say so, I grab a stick nearby, and take on a throwing posture, while focusing my sight on the trouts in the stream.
They all react differently to my actions. Misa stares at me, apparently amused. Nao furrows her brows, while Joijiro straight up begins laughing.
Recalling the rainbow trout Nao fished earlier, I locate several of them.
After waiting for the right moment, I throw the stick with a marvelous amount of force. Everyone is visibly stunned by the speed of the stick.
Laughing boisterously, I roll up my uniform and sleeves, then jump into the stream. I then grab the stick and slowly raise it for everyone to see.
At the end of the stick are two rainbow trouts. Man, these enhanced senses sure are handy.
"No way," Joijiro mutters in a deflated tone.
"Two means either no luck or half-luck," Misa says with a grin.
Nao does not remark, but only smiles. Impressed? Of course, you would be.
Victoriously getting out of the stream, I proceed to place the two trouts in a bucket before looking for more sticks.
"Oi, you…" Joijiro says with a doubtful look.
"You guessed it," I respond smugly as I grab two sticks.
"Now this is just unfair," he remarks.
"You can't blame me for your own weakness," I say with a shrug.
—------
After catching more trouts, we then proceed back to the camp and sit around the campfire, which we brought more wood along the way.
Ayumi has already woken up and is now gleefully examining the trouts as they're being cooked by the flames.
Shortly, we begin eating.
"Rainbow trouts are tasty. Here, Yusarin, have some," offers Joijiro.
"I'm not Yusarin!" came a sharp retort, "Though, I'll let her have this one," she goes on to mumble before relinquishing control of the body back to Yusa.
As soon as she is back "awake", Yusa looks around like a curious chick, while Joijiro extends his arm offering the trout to her.
"Can I eat this?" she asks when she catches sight of the trout.
"Of course," replies Joijiro.
After a while, Yusa asks, "Umm. Are we going to be staying here again, tonight?"
"Yes, do you have a problem with that?" inquires Nao.
"I was thinking that it would be nice to take a bath…" says Yusa with a hesitant look on her face.
"No worries. I have one prepared. Follow me," Nao states before dragging her and a confused Ayumi away.
I look in their direction once before I look at Joijiro. He just shrugs and says, "Don't ask me. I have no idea what she's talking about, either."
After a while, Nao returns.
"You were saying something about a bath?" I ask her.
"Girls only. You guys can take one in the stream."
"..."
"Discrimination," I comment, which falls on deaf ears.
------
It's gotten dark. Joijiro and I are currently cleaning our bodies with the cold stream water. Under the dark, I gaze at Joijiro's body. One word: Ripped. Why does this weirdo have such a body? I curiously ask him, to which he responds, "I had to train my body in order to use my ability properly."
Aha. Makes sense. Increases his chances of survival. Though, no amount of training will save your sorry ass from a concussion or internal injuries.
Joijiro then looks my way for a few seconds and says, "You could be the same, you know? In the future, you might have to go through something that is completely out of your expectations."
Hm?
"What do you mean?"
"You just look like you'll have a lot of troubles in the future."
Look at this smart-ass.
A few minutes later, we are done and head back to the camp.
"I'm sure everything will be over by tomorrow," Nao says as she goes into the girls' tent with a slight grin.
------
"Corn again…" I murmur as I look at the corn being roasted on the barbecue grill.
Nao seems to be proud of it, as she is just standing there with her hands on her waist, and a satisfied look on her face.
It's the next morning, and according to Nao's assumption from last night, we will have a little guest today. It seems like she was correct. Fortunately, Ayumi is still asleep, so we can deal with this without any extra trouble.
"Um…" a voice resounds behind us from the direction of the forest. Of course, I had sensed him earlier already, but decided to wait and see what he intends to do.
We all look in the direction of the voice and see the same guy I saw yesterday standing on a ground at a higher elevation relative to us. He's wearing different clothes but still has a blue bandana on his head. Must really like it.
"What are you all doing out here?" the guy asks.
Nao gets up and says, "We all ran away from home and ran into each other on the way. We hit it off, and so we decided to group together."
Seriously? No way he is going to believe this soap opera-like plot.
"You mean that you're going to keep on staying here?" he continues to ask.
Wow, this guy is a bona fide idiot.
Also, Joijiro and Misa seem to be planning on not taking part in this exchange for whatever reason.
"Yes. We're planning to stay here forever, as people won't find us so far out."
"I found you. I'm sure your parents are worried about you as well," he says as he pulls his phone out from his pocket and begins to fiddle around with it.
"You'll be detained as well if you do that," Nao says with a grin.
"Why?" he asks as he fixes his gaze on her.
"This is private property," she replies.
"Also, this too!" she remarks as she raises the news article about the "UFO" showing the human figure in the sky.
"This is a scoop article of you practicing flight."
The guy's brows slightly furrow, but he tries to keep his composure as he asks in a mocking tone, "Flight?"
"Right. This is a great place to practice such an ability. But, you were hindered by us coming out here to camp. Once you saw that we showed no signs of leaving, you grew restless and exposed yourself to shoo us away," declared Nao confidently, sounding like a villain laying out their plot.
"You must be insane to think that I can fly. I will call the cops on you," he says before turning and walking.
"Oh yeah, then why have you come out here all alone?" Nao taunts him.
"I am here to pick chestnuts," the guy says as he stops in his track.
"In a private property?" Nao mocks, "It's too late for you now, anyway, as I have recorded you being here," she continues before pulling her camera out from seemingly nowhere.
When did she even…?
"You're so annoying," he mutters before exclaiming, "Give me that!"
Following this, he jumps down from where he is toward us.
As soon as his feet touch the "ground", he falls. Through my senses, I see him have a look of panic on his face as he breaks his fall using his flight and then directly flies out of the pit-the well that Nao covered up the other day.
"Of course, you would use your flight ability to get out of a hole that you don't know the bottom of," Nao says, smiling while pointing her camera at him.
He lands on the ground and looks her way, an expression of pure anger plastered to his face. The guy then runs in Nao's direction and attempts to grab the camera from her hands.
As if I'd let that happen.
I dash and appear right in front of him before giving him a "light" push on his chest. The difference in our physiques is immediately displayed as he launches backward and rolls on the ground a few times, before ultimately hitting a tree.
It takes him a moment, but he slowly gets up from the ground with fear visible in his eyes. As it seems, he has now made running away his top priority, since the next moment, he launches into the air at a great speed, leaving a trail of dust behind him.
What a cute attempt to escape. Now then… it's time to try this one theory I've had in my mind for a while now: Does my possession of someone lead to their ability being stolen?
Upon focusing my sight on the guy in the sky, I suddenly find myself in the air. Damn, this is high. Having taken over his body, my momentum shifts as I fall, since I have no idea how to fly. Anyway, I wasn't planning to break the fall with flight in the first place. The fall is obviously going to last much longer than five seconds based on the height, which I plan to take advantage of.
Seconds pass, and I find myself back in my body on the ground. Then, I immediately use the ability I discovered recently to stop his body from
The hopefully-former ability user is now lying on the ground, a look of utter confusion on his face as he mutters, "Wh-What happened?"
Nao, who has a wide grin on her face, approaches him and says with crossed arms, "You got caught."
"You… Who are you guys?"
Nao begins to explain to him who we are and the thing about the abilities we have being diseases. She tells him about future scenarios of him falling to his death if his ability disappears midair or something along those lines.
This goes on for a while. Nao also asks Misa to come over and use her ability, making the stuff she had told him sound more plausible.
To all this, the guy says, "Wow… I thought I was the only one that was granted an ability. But, there were others. I desired to fly high in the sky one day and had even dreamed of becoming 'Skyhigh Saito the Hollywood Star'."
Talk about cringe.
"I understand how you feel, but try to not use your ability henceforth," Nao remarks.
The guy looks down at the ground, and then replies in a dismal tone, "Got it."
"That ended more peacefully than I was expecting," Joijiro finally speaks.
Peaceful, indeed. Now, all that's left for me today is to try out and see if I really have acquired that fellow's ability.
------
With the camping trip over, I find myself at home in the kitchen, examining the food on the table. It's not red, thankfully.
"Ja~an! Chanpon noodles with lots of vegetables!" Ayumi's sweet voice reaches my ears as she presents a bowl of the food she mentioned to me.
I immediately dig in, only to be delighted by how delicious it tastes.
"Actually, I wanted to use the pizza sauce as a secret ingredient, but there wasn't much of it left…" Ayumi mutters in a sad tone.
"It doesn't matter. You don't need a secret ingredient for anything. As long as it's your cooking, it is the most delicious food ever," I say with a smile.
As we eat, I notice that she is coughing a little too much. I ask her about it, but she says that she's fine.
"Oh yeah, Brother Yu, I forgot to mention something," Ayumi suddenly says.
Hm?
"Ayu was suddenly asked out by a classmate the other day!" she says as she holds her cheek.
Ah. I accidentally broke my chopsticks.
"And what did you do?" I question with a neutral expression.
"Let's see…"
"Don't put on airs."
"I politely declined the offer," she says with a slight smile.
Oh, crap. Why is my hand glowing in red?
It went away… phew.
"Brother Yu, what do you think of Ayu having a boyfriend?"
Over my dead body.
"I don't believe there is anyone worthy of my precious Ayumi," I say while beaming a smile.
"They have to be better than Brother Yu, after all…" she mutters.
Hah, good luck with that.
Suddenly, Ayumi coughs several times once again, but this time it's way worse than earlier. Worried, I move closer to her and check her body heat. Hot. Possibly a fever.
Once she's done eating, I use a thermometer to take her heat. After a while, I grab it and take a look at what's displayed: 38.1 C.
"Go take a bath. After you get out, dry yourself and crawl into the futon immediately, understood?" I instruct her.
"Okay. If Brother Yu says so…"
As she heads into the bath, I take a glance at Irene, who hasn't uttered a single word since our meeting in the forest.
Well, whatever. For now, I can just treat her like a potential spy and threat, as well as a bank of information that's limited at the moment.
Now then, let's see if I can fly...
クリエイターの想い 
Exalted_Felix
Exalted_Felix Remember, the MC's alignment will be neutral evil. This will become more apparent in the upcoming chapters.
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