"What kind of gun is this? It's sothing I haven't seen in the database."
I asked the Hermit as I was inspecting the gun that she used.
"Don't touch that! That's the only thing my father left …"
After taking her down, though our roles from earlier were reversed, I only restrained her arms. I don't know what's her ability so I used the restraining cuffs that were also used to the triplets and Delares to prevent her from activating any abilities. I'd rather interrogate her than have her demonstrate it to .
Despite her shouts, I acted calmly as I continued to inspect the gun. My Adaptability only told the function of it that instead of bullets, it's using ta Energy to shoot a destructive energy-based attack. However, it wasn't supposed to be that strong. In fact, it's force should be only a little higher than my Air Bullet.
Looking at the damage it caused earlier that was still visible, the trees where it passed through all turned to ashes and it reached at least 100 ters from the location where she shot it.
"Your father? Does he have the sa skin as you?"
"Why will I answer you?!"
My questions were only t with another question from her that she even shouted it.
Is it hopeless talking to this girl? But her origin was really sothing I was curious about. The Order might've been working with the Anzeans but there's no ntion about a hybrid like her. Also, I don't know what's their real purpose in this world. Colonization or Migration? Then why aren't they building bases or settlent on the places not occupied by the three factions? There's a huge empty land.
Do they also coveted the Regenium? Haa... I don't know. Maybe that Emperor know their purpose given how he could even had them work with the Order.
If I have to guess, this was brought by her parents to hide her from the eyes of common people. Are her parents really dead or not?
"Because I don't have any desire to hurt you. Despite you trying to kill just now, I still don't."
"You're lying."
The girl tried to sit up from her current position, aside from putting that restraint on her, I didn't do anything that would hurt her.
Well. I could hurt her if I want to but if she's really keeping those ethnic tribes safe sowhere, it would look bad on . I only thought of becoming a Transcendent in this place, encountering this girl was sothing unexpected.
"Ever since our eting earlier I never once uttered a lie. It's you who kept on lying. If you keep this up, even my patience will run out."
Changing the tone of my last sentence, the girl finally showed a bit of a reaction. She looked fearless alright but she's still a bit naive. Is she still young? It's hard to gauge if I consider the biology of a half Anzean.
"… Please give that back first. That's really important to ."
"No. I saw how you used it and almost died from it. I will be an idiot to give this back to you. I'll hold onto this until I leave this place. If you don't want to answer then don't. I'll continue my search for the ethnic tribes and leave you here."
After saying that, I put her gun inside the Necklace and stood up. When she saw turning around, she also tried standing up from where she was.
"Wait! Don't leave here, I'll answer you, I'll stop lying and tell you the truth."
"How will I know you're not lying again?"
"The tribes, I know where they are. I will show you."
"Alright. Show . Only by seeing them will I believe you."
"How can I show you? I wouldn't be able to move fast with this."
She raised her restrained arms hoping I would remove it from her.
"You don't need to move. I have this"
Taking the Purple Haze, the girl watched as it expanded from a single small sphere to a towering giant of a robot. Unexpectedly, her eyes shined as if it's the first ti she was seeing a tagen.
If she already encountered other people why didn't they use their tagen? And what's their goal here? Is there so secret in this forest?
Haa… only this girl could probably answer that.
I picked her up despite her resistance and jumped inside the Purple Haze's cockpit.
Upon seeing the interior of the cockpit, her struggle stopped as she started checking out everything that could be seen inside.
"W-what is this thing?"
"A tagen."
After activating it, the screen and interface appeared and the surrounding beca visible from the screen.
The girl's eyes were shining brightly as she watched everything in interest. The previous wariness she had was gone.
"I heard sothing like this from my father. But he said they needed five to activate it. How can you make this work with only one of you?'"
From her words, her father was now confird as an Anzean. He's probably a Pentacom pilot or maybe just a normal Anzean ground soldier. The ones who were responsible for fighting those in Powergens and taking out the Operators.
In a standard battle where nurous tagens were deployed. Specialized and Standard tagens will only be few in numbers while those mass-produced tagens that will be remotely controlled by Operators will be nurous and sotis they're the key to winning a battle.
Being surrounded by those, even a Specialized tagen can be destroyed.
During the Virtual Simulation, I once thrust into that kind of scenario.
With Pentacoms fighting off the tagens, though they're inherently stronger due to having 5 pilots, a standard tagen and a group of remotely-operated tagen could block it and destroy it.
That's why they're also dropping normal Anzean Soldiers to kill civilians and find the lair where the Operators were located.
However, the last ti that kind of battle happened was at least 5 years ago. From her external appearance, she couldn't be soone as young as that. She's probably already here when Nysia beca a Transcendent here.
"Your father was probably an Anzean. What they have isn't like this. They're called Pentacoms. Anyway. What's your na? And were your parents really dead or was that also a lie?"
Sohow, after entering the Purple Haze, I beca the one targeted by her questions… Am I being too lenient on her?
"… Dannae. Father left years ago, I couldn't rember when exactly, I'm still young at that ti, Mother is in the tribe."
"Dannae. Great, you're really good at lying earlier. So they're both still alive. Show where the tribe is, I already lost a lot of ti."
Ah. Of course, I didn't really lose a lot of ti. In fact, I still have plenty of it. If I didn't get curious of her origin I would've just killed her when she pulled that trigger but my guess from earlier was true. She really knew where they were and most of what she answered earlier were lies. I might be right about the gun but the strengthened Mutant Beasts were probably a natural occurrence.
By using the Purple Haze, we arrived at the location where she appeared earlier in less than 20 minutes.
During it, she kept on asking about Anzeans, Pentacoms and tagens. The appearance of the Purple Haze and experiencing what's happening inside it really sparked her interest that she didn't even bring up about being restrained again. Even her wariness lessened.
Though I never answered any of her following questions, she didn't stop at her questions. She's reminding of that curious girl in the World of Spirits that upon seeing sothing that sparks her curiosity, she'll be instantly lost in it.
That's why I took advantage of it. Instead of answering her, I questioned her which she had no choice but to answer. I learned about why she was out there and the history of this Scorched Forest.
Nysia only stayed here for a week so even she failed to understand what was really happening here.
According to her answers which I didn't really take in face value, the ethnic tribes moved out of their previous settlent because of the increasing Mutant Beasts. It's not really about them being strengthened to that degree, the people of the tribes also grew in strength and she's the living example of it. A Rank 4 Mortal in strength but her ta Pathway was probably only Silver or Gold-rank. Sothing really strengthened them. Was it the environnt of this Scorched Forest?
Through my questions, I finally learned about the gun and the unusual destructive force it could exert.
Her awakened ability is called Amplification however it was painfully limited. That gun was first charged by ta Energy just like how it was supposed to be and after that, her abilities continuously Amplified the loaded ta Energy in it.
She could stack the use of her ability in objects but the Amplification only added 1-2% each ti she used it.
And that's when I caught on to another one of her lies. The gun was being Amplified by her ability every day and it hasn't been used for years until today. Even she was shocked by the destruction it caused but because of my swift actions, she failed to express that shock.
The people she ntioned that attacked her because of her dark green skin were tribe mbers who were discriminating against her because of how different she was.
This was her first ti leaving the tribe and the first ti encountering another person outside the tribe. Wasn't that too much of a coincidence?
"Why did you pull the trigger?"
"I only thought of scaring you like how I scared them years ago, I never thought it would already be that strong."
This ti, she looked apologetic enough but yeah, it's just her words. Without really seeing the tribe she ntioned or her mother, it's hard to believe her.
"But your words when I asked you the sa question earlier were different. Are you lying to again? That one sounded real."
"That's not a lie... I'm talking about the tribe mbers at the sa age as and this ti I went out of the tribe because of them and you're the first person I saw. The tribe. There's a passage below that will lead us to it."
Dannae confessed and pointed sowhere at the screen.
That's where I was standing when she suddenly appeared. Was it that simple? I was careless that I didn't expect her to appear from underneath the ground?
A few seconds later, from where she was pointing at, three figures holding spear-like weapons erged from it and judging from their outfit, they matched Nysia's description of them…
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