Tale of Discovery

Chapter 302: Suspicion ; Check

"Hello Kotori," I casually say as I walk toward her along with Origami and Jeanne.

"Shido! How are you here?" comes her response in the form of a snarky question.

"What do you mean by that?" I reply while maintaining an undisturbed expression, "You should be aware of my ability to fly."

Hearing this, Kotori lets out a sigh of abject annoyance before shaking her head and saying, "Let's discuss this later. Right now..."

Hm? Her voice trailing off in such a manner is an indication of something problematic. What could be troubling her?

"Is something wrong?" I utter, deciding the best way would be to ask her directly.

"Yes," she responds in a tone much more solemn than before, "Since you were outside, you must've seen it, didn't you?"

"Seen what?"

"The Fraxinus' light refractory functions were rendered unusable."

"But wasn't that the case for the enemy ship as well?" I question.

Earlier, I had thought that the reason they had both become visible was due to the damage dealt in battle, but from the way Kotori is acting, there is more to it than just that.

"Yes, that's right," Kotori responds with a deliberative expression on her face, "It was the case for the enemy ship as well..."

Seeing her repeat the words to herself, I realize that she might have taken note of something unusual.

Speaking of unusual, "Hey, Kotori. Do you know where Reine is?"

My query attracts her attention as she turns her head to face me with an odd look on her face.

"Well," I say, "Not much long ago, Reine and I were communicating through the intercom. Once we were done, she had me head over to the room she was in, only for her to not be there."

Hearing my words, Kotori furrows her brows as she says, "She disappeared?"

"That sounds about right," I respond coolly, curious about her reaction.

"Even so, she just wasn't in her room. That's not something worth making a big deal out of."

"I suppose you're right," I say, "Or, you would've been if not for the fact that after her disappearance, I was unable to contact her as well."

Kotori's forehead seems to darken as she turns her head to face the huge monitor and instructs in a loud voice, "Track down the intercom belonging to the head analyzer."

"Yes!" comes a collective response from a few members of the crew as they begin typing furiously.

Minutes later, the image displayed on the giant screen changes from the debris outside to that of a blue globe that's quite plainly Earth.

Not much later, a red dot appears on the globe, immediately after which Kotori instructs, "Zoom in on the location."

Following her words, the globe rolls a little before the display zooms in on it until there is a flat map of the city covering the whole screen.

"This" Kotori mutters in a dubious tone, only for the blond-haired man who has been quietly standing beside her to interject by saying, "The main building of DEM industries."

DEM? Hold on Don't tell me that Reine has defected over to their side. No Actually, it's more likely that she is there for an objective. Whatever it may be, she seems to be making use of unconventional means to achieve it.

"How about you try contacting her?" I suggest.

"We already did," a brown-haired woman responds instead of Kotori, "There was no response."

That settles it. Reine's objective requires her utmost focus, so she cut contact with the crew here in order to fulfill it. That's what I would rather be the case than her simply having defected.

"Well then," I say, "I have nothing to do here anymore, so I better get going."

With that said, I turn around and cast a glance at the two expressionless girls before shaking my head and saying, "Jeanne, remain here for a little longer, just in case. Origami, we're heading back to the island."

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"Yes, my lo-" Jeanne replies only for her voice to cut off at the expense of her 'mistake'.

As for Origami She simply nods her head as a confirmation gesture.

---

"It's crazy, look!" a male classmate exclaims as he shoves his phone's screen into his friend's face.

"Okay, okay, I will watch it," responds the friend, clearly not very excited to check it out.

Shortly, his eyes widen as he continues to watch the screen with keen interest before he suddenly exclaims, "Wow! What is this?"

"This is real!" responds the first one, "This happened near the city half an hour ago!"

And thus goes on another of one of the conversations between students regarding the sighting of two aerial ships having a battle in the skies.

According to what I know, a blurry and shaky video of the battle was released on the internet and went viral shortly after.

Currently, the matter has become the most heated topic of the day as everyone's mind seems to be preoccupied with it.

The students, who are clustered together, awaiting the teacher to instruct them while conversing among themselves.

Our group is a short distance away from them and consists of Origami, AI, the twin sisters, Tohka, and myself.

Natsuki and Miina are not with us, but a bunch of girls in the distance, discussing the same topic as everyone else.

"Is everyone here?" Tamae's voice suddenly reaches my ears as the young-looking teacher hastily walks about while checking on everyone, only to come to a halt once she spots me and saying, "Ah, here you are!"

"Thank goodness," she continues as she heaves a sigh of relief, "They said everything was fine, but I couldn't help but worry."

"We troubled you," I state with a wry smile, to which Tamae responds by quickly shaking her arms in front of her and saying, "No, no, it's fine! You didn't have a choice."

Ah, whatever reason it was that was given for our disappearance, it's a good thing that we were reported as not having a choice in the matter.

---

The flight trip back was one that felt relatively quick. During the whole flight, AI was seated on my lap, not uttering a single word as she simply laid her back against me.

Tohka was seated next to the window to my left, excitedly looking outside, while Origami sat to my right, her hand interlocked with mine.

And like so, with everyone focused on different things, I take this chance to inspect my current parameters and whatnot.

"Codification," I intone.

----------------

Name: Shido Itsuka (Victor Origo)

True Name: ????

Title: -SEALED-

Age: 8,953(?) Years

Code: Exousia (2%) {Berserk | Mahesvara | Holy | ????}

Race: Human - 26%

Energy Left: 78%

------

Str: 86>>88[44] (12) | Agi: 79>>80[40] (12) | Dex: 71[36] (12)

Int: 74[38] (12) | Def: 72[36] (12) | Vit: 70>>72[36] (12)

------

Essence:-

Berserk: Hunter (1/3) | Tormentor (1/2) | God's Wrath (2/5)

Mahesvara: Creation (5%) | Destruction (3%) | Angelification (??)

C: ???? -|- ???? -|- ????

D: Flames of Devastation I [III] -|- Withering Aura -|- Paralyze I [III] -|- Cancellation -|- Termination I [V] -|- Malevolence (Passive) I [III]

A: Telepathy -|- Mirroring -|- Blessing I [X]

Holy:

Holy Slash II [V] -|- Paladin's Aura II [V] -|- Paragon's Eyes I [III] -|- Godspeed III [V] -|- Blink II [III] -|- Light Manipulation IV [VI] -|- Healing Factor II [III] -|- Transmutation -|- Divine Retribution I [V] -|- Clairvoyance (Passive) II [III] -|- Illusion II [III] -|- Rework I [III] -|- Eye of Judgment I [IV] -|- Analyze I [III] -|- ???? -|- ???? -|- ???? -|- ???? -|- ????

????:

Time-Stop I [XX] -|- ???? -|- ???? -|- ????

----------------

Plunder III [V]:-

--- Primary Ability (1/1) ----

- Telekinesis III>>IV [V]

--- Secondary Abilities (5/5) ---

Permeation I [III] -|- Location I [III] -|- Hypnotism I [V] -|- Indoctrination I [III] -|- Pyrokinesis

--- Tertiary Abilities () ---

Spiritualism I [IV] -|- Insight I [VI] -|- Collapse (0%) -|- Thoughtography (1%)

--- Irregular (6/?) ---

Flight II [III] -|- Memory Erasure I [IV] -|- Imperfect Invisibility I [X] -|- Time-Leap (?) {R: 8>>28%} -|- Ability Erasure (2%) -|- Gift III [V] -|- Organic Constructs (3>>5%) -|- Regeneration I [V] -|- Absolute Evasion (1>>2%) -|- Vector Manipulation (10>>16%)

--- Unassigned ---

--

Power of Destruction (Lesser - 0%)

Immortality

Boosted Gear:- (N/A)

Dragon Roar (0%) -|- Scale Mail (0%) -|- Draconic Form (0%)

---------------

Norse Magic I [X]:-

Teleportation II [V] -|- Curse of Regret I [III] -|- Curse of Memories I [V] -|- Curse of Solitary I [III] -|- Curse of Damnation I [IV] -|- Summoning I [VII]

----------------

Gandalfr:-

Mastery (5>>6%) -|- Last Stand (0%) -|- Enhancement (0%)

----------------

Current Platform: Agnetem

----------------

Taking a look at my current status, I suck in a deep breath, a little surprised by the changes.

The first and possibly most important thing I notice is that there is a question mark next to my age now.

Like, are you fucking kidding me? What, I am not supposed to even know my own age now?

Irene, why has this appeared now?

{Unable to answer Father due to lack of data required for analysis.}

Hah~ I expected as much. Well, whatever. It's not like knowing how old I am or not will have much of an impact on me and my actions.

Leaving that aside, a few parameters have increased. Strength, agility, and vitality. This is obviously because of the recent battles I have taken part in.

Moving on, I see the new Effect I unlocked Malevolence. And from the looks of it, it's my second passive Effect, with my first being Clairvoyance.

Looks like this is even more interesting than I thought. Taking the meaning of the word into mind, I can only assume that the Effect makes it so that my abilities are affected by my intentions during a battle. This could come in handy, so I better make use of it as soon as I can and as much as possible.

Anyway, moving on to the next change, which is the recently tiered-up Telekinesis.

Focusing on the words displayed, a small screen pops up and displays the modified properties:

{Unlimited usage. | One disruption per five minutes. | The user can only lift objects that have twice>>thrice or less mass compared to themselves. | Maximum velocity: 200>>400 m/s. | Maximum range: 8>>14m.}

Huh? Leaving aside the increase in range and capability, I wonder what this new line means. Disruption Mental or physical? Telekinesis is operated mentally but affects objects physically. Nevertheless, this 'disruption' is an odd one.

It seems like I am in need of some test subjects Luckily, one just so happens to be tied up in this plane's cargo section. Earlier, I had placed her in there, tied her up, and sealed her mouth with some tape before making use of Rework to change her appearance to that of luggage.

She will probably have some trouble breathing in there, but that simply doesn't matter to me as long as she remains alive.

Anyway, getting back to the changes, there are a few ones in the Irregular section of Plunder. A few percentages have increased, of which two did by quite the margin, which are Time-Leap and Vector Manipulation.

Compared to these two, the increase in the other ones is laughable. But then again, it's understandable why this would be the case.

After all, I use Vector Manipulation quite a bit. Possibly, it's my most favored and versatile ability. Seeing how it is right now makes me all the more excited at the prospect of getting its percentage to a hundred.

Then, there is the Time-Leap ability. That guy, Shunsuke, spoke of it. The ability to jump back in time. A rather absurd ability, to say the least.

I wonder how it will function, with my existence being unstable and all. That message from Janus and the words that Infi has spoken continue to swirl my mind to this day. They're buried deep within a corner of my mind and sometimes just pass through as a random thought.

Shaking my head in mild exasperation, I focus back on reality, only to find Origami's face a few centimeters away from mine.

"What are you doing?" I ask in a wry tone.

"Looking," she responds.

"At what?"

"You."

"Yes, but why?"

"I just wanted to do it."

As this conversation goes on, I sense numerous gazes setting on me from all directions, of which, Tohka's is the most intense one.

Letting out a sigh, I raise my right arm and place my palm against Origami's cheek before saying, "Just sit back, alright?"

"Understood, Darling," she replies before doing as I instructed her to.

"Wait, what?" Tohka's voice immediately reaches my ears, "Shido, why is she calling you 'darling'?!"

Damn it, Origami. This was definitely on purpose.

Hah~ Well, I suppose I will just face all the 'troubles' head-on. That would be preferable to just avoiding them.

"Shido is going to marry me, so it's only natural that I call him this way," Origami casually drops a bomb in her usual monotonous tone before I can say anything.

"Marry?!" Tohka exclaims in a slightly high-pitched voice, attracting the attention of all those who could hear her.

Shit. I better deal with this soon before it gets out of hand.

"Calm down, Tohka," I say as I turn my head to face the flushed girl, "Let's talk this out peacefully, alright?"

Hearing my words, Tohka seems to realize something as she looks around for a few seconds before the blush on her face brightens.