Tale of Discovery

Chapter 115: Friendly Unknowns

As I walk over to where Gula is, I sense several presences from quite a distance away.

Checking the location out, I find an uninjured Diodora, as well as females which I assume, are his peerage members.

"Raynare," I mutter.

[Yes, Father?]

"How are things on your side?" I inquire.

[Everything is normal.]

"Good. Be cautious," I order her before looking in the direction Diodora is at.

They're far away from me right now, so I better make contact with Gula.

Fortunately, Gula continues to show no hostility even after I am less than a meter away from her.

"Gula," I voice.

She responds by raising her head and looking into my eyes without uttering a word.

Not knowing what to say, I remain motionless while staring back at her golden-colored eyes.

Shortly, Diodora and his peerage arrive at where we are.

"This didn't go according to plan," Diodora mutters while looking around the place.

He suddenly sets his sight on Gula and me before saying,

"Those two should be the only ones that have any energy left. Be careful, as they should be strong to remain standing after all of what just happened."

Damn it. I have no choice other than to fight.

Ignoring the strain on my muscles and the buzzing in my brain, I pull out Excalibur from my ring.

"Is that... a Holy Sword?" Diodora mutters while staring at the sword in my hand.

Suddenly, he begins to release an aura much stronger than the one he was releasing before.

"This power is amazing!" He exclaims while clenching his fists.

"Go!"

Upon hearing his order, his peerage members all begin rushing at me in groups of three.

Once they're close enough, I immediately pull the three needles in my ring out and use telekinesis to pierce their heads.

The other girls are unfazed by this as they continue to run toward me while covering their bodies with demonic energy as one of them even begins to form a strange flame on her hand.

I should end this quickly.

Lifting Excalibur with one arm, I make use of what's left of my energy to dash over and slash at them.

Despite being in a weakened state, this slash manages to behead one of the girls and split another one into two pieces diagonally.

The rest all make their way over and begin to throw me attacks made of demonic magic.

I create a reflective barrier using Vector Manipulation before changing the form of Excalibur into a scythe and slashing two of the girls apart.

Once again, the girls seem to be unfazed even after they were showered by the blood of their comrades.

Something is wrong.

I distance myself from them and observe their complexion closely.

Immediately after I do so, I find an abnormality.

Their eyes They're unfocused.

There is one possible reason for that. Brainwashing.

Having done it myself, I am extremely familiar with that look in their eyes.

As I am deliberating on what to do, a gust of wind goes past me before all the girls fall to the ground with blood spilling from their throats.

Looking at the cause of this, I see Gula floating in front of Diodora who has stunned in place.

"Goodbye," Gula says before puncturing his chest using her small arm.

The next moment, Diodora releases a scream that sounds like the shrieking of a mouse.

Soon, Gula pulls her arm out before nonchalantly watching as Diodora falls to the ground and breaks down into particles.

Once it's over Gula turns her head to look at me again before disappearing from she is and reappearing right in front of me.

Naturally, my body attempts to instinctively kill her due to the threat she poses for me.

However, I know the futility of such actions, so I do my best to hold back my arm which is holding Excalibur.

I let go of Excalibur and slowly move my hand toward Gula's head.

This time, she doesn't go away immediately after my hand makes contact with her head.

Instead, she mutters,

"Good."

All of a sudden, I sense a queer energy invade my body against my will. My body begins to fight against the energy for a few seconds before abruptly stopping.

Soon, I feel a connection similar to the Network with Yuno form. However, unlike the Network, I am unable to make use of it.

What's strange is that the connection isn't with one individual, but two of them.

Gula and Ophis.

My brain suddenly hurts as an image appears in my mind - Infi.

Shaking my head to get my senses back, I check on everyone and see that nothing has changed apart from Michael and Azazel who both seem to be back to normal.

I better make contact with them, however, I need to settle this issue before that.

"Gula," I say expressionlessly.

She doesn't react to me and continues to look at me despite my hand still being on top of her head.

Shifting it, I press my palm against her cheeks before saying,

"You're not my enemy, right?"

Once again, she doesn't react all and just wordlessly stares at me.

It's rather difficult to properly communicate with her.

I'm too exhausted right now, to the point that I feel like I'll fall unconscious at any given moment.

"Get away from it!" someone suddenly yells behind me.

Turning around, I see Odin who has a grim look on his face glaring at Gula.

"That thing is chaotic," he continues, "get away from it, immediately!"

Using my senses, I can tell that Gula is frowning slightly.

I immediately trust my intuition and move my body swiftly to lift her from the ground.

Fortunately, not only does she not kill me, the slight frown goes away.

"Odin, fuck off," I say before lifting Ophis using telekinesis and teleporting all three of us to the shrine-house.

I move over to the double-bed here and set Ophis down on it before lying down beside her with Gula still within my arms.

For the past few minutes, I feel like something has been eating away at my consciousness and rationality, so I better rest as soon as possible before things worsen even further.

---

Foreign energy spreads through my body that's extremely comforting for some reason.

Where am I? Oh, right. The Rating Game

Huh? Shit!

Opening my eyes, I lift my body from the bed and look around me.

What meets my eyes is the sight of two girls that are contrasting each other in appearance gawking at me.

Both Ophis and Gula seem to be bearing no hostility, at all.

Aren't all the Unknowns my enemies? What's going on, Irene?

{I don't have enough data regarding Unknowns apart from what was described to Father to answer this question.}

I guess as much. Knowing Irene, she would've provided me such information a long time ago, if she had it, that is.

"Gula, what am I?" I ask the doll-like girl.

"Victor," she immediately replies in a soft voice.

Great, she knows my name. Hopefully, she just overheard from someone close to me.

Even so, that's frightening in and of itself as she would have to be close enough to hear it

As I'm about to ask them more, I sense a presence in the shrine-house.

Why would someone come here?

Checking it out, I find Kunou who's making her way to the room we're in right now with a small smile on her face.

Before I can decide what to do, Kunou slides the door open and sees us.

The smile on her face immediately stiffens as she looks at Gula and Ophis with shock apparent on her face.

Not giving me the chance to say anything, she directly closes the door and dashes out of the building.

Well, shit happens.

Turning my attention back to the two little girls who're still gawking at me, I suggest with a friendly smile on my face,

"Would you like to come to the house I live in?"

What I'm doing is extremely risky, but no one can gain something without taking a risk or two. Simply put, I will have them get used to living in the mansion while getting them familiar with us.

This, of course, has several potential gains. One of them being that I can get more information regarding Unknowns and their powers from them.

Another reason would be them growing fond of the girls living in the mansion or something in it. As I am right now, I can't finish any of these two off without dealing catastrophic damage to my surroundings.

So, if they do turn friendly, I will not only be able to rest easy with two enemies gone, but may even get two ridiculously powerful girls to protect everyone else.

Most importantly, two more adorable girls will be living in the mansion with me.

Fortunately, upon focusing back on Ophis and Gula, I see that they're both nodding their heads as confirmation to my proposal.

Their actions are so in-sync that I would've believed they were twins if Gula looked as old as Ophis...