"Damnit, how the hell could I be the one who passed out first…" Rio mumbled while examining her body in the mirror. Almost all of her milky white skin was covered in reddened marks, especially her chest and ass, which still had the imprints of Orion's hands. "Was he hiding his level? What a waste of my efforts. Still, it's not like anything bad happened. Hell, I kinda want to do it with him again…" She licked her lips with an amorous look in her eyes. "I'll try again tonight."
What she didn't know was that she, along with her schemes, was under absolute surveillance. Even though Orion had already left, he had a full mental image of what Rio was doing, what she was saying, and more. It was like having a permanent third-person view over the target.
As for her privacy, that became an entirely moot point the moment she tried to control his mind. That's what she was regretful about. Her technique required him to be unconscious and defenseless, allowing her to infiltrate his mind. And the source of all this information?
Name: Rio Futaba [Possession: Claire Garcia]
Age: 134
Race: Human [Outsider]
World Assignment: Slice of Life Anime — Zombie Apocalypse Setting
World Grade: D-
Currency: 23563 Credits | 532 Chaos Tokens | 2 Purple Crowns
Level: 98 (64%) [Stat Points: 0 | Skill Points: 0/19] {Origin Energy: 4,426}
HP: 1,600 / 1,600
SP: 1,910 / 1,910
MP: 2,430 / 2,430
Str: 30
End: 32
Dex: 41
Agi: 52
Int: 68
Wis: 77
Skills:
Rapier Mastery
Advanced Sword Mastery
Advanced Dagger Mastery
Advanced Barrier
Advanced Mind Control
(Locked Skills)
Quests:
Destroy Civilization (World Quest):
Total Task Completion: 79% [Subtask 1: Destroy the budding Shichirigahama settlement.][Subtask 2: Maintain the integrity of the assigned origin harvestor until main quest completion.]
Investigate Anomaly (Side Quest):
Orion Vaelor hides a deep secret. Investigate him and develop a relationship of trust.
Divert the Favored (Primary Quest):
Mai Sakurajima has a special identity. Prevent her from getting into the public eye and joining any settlement.
The crazy dump of information that he received from the inspection rune made him bolt the moment he woke up beside Rio. Right now, he was on his way to Mai's place, hoping to both regroup and think of his following plan to deal with her.
Not only had this woman possessed someone in this world, but she was also over a century old. Just that fact clarified Orion's questions about the woman's behavior while also raising a lot more questions. The next information was pretty standard. He even recalled that before Great Red and Ophis kidnapped him, his system showed his world assignment as High School DxD. He wasn't sure what exactly the world grade meant, but assumed it had to do with the upper limit of a world. The three different currencies were also perplexing, but didn't really matter to him right now.
Finally came to her level, and that gave him some very important information. At level ninety-eight, sixty-four percent, her system should have had four thousand and nine hundred and thirty-two units of Origin Energy stored, but the number was lower. That was because of a special use that he had identified related to his gear.
Origin Energy: 1872.53 Units -> 2,378.53 Units
His gear had essentially extracted over five hundred units of Origin Energy from her system after spending a night with her. He didn't know how efficient that absorption was, considering his focus was definitely on more pressing matters at that time. But the interesting thing to him was that his extraction hadn't weakened her in the slightest.
With that thought, he worked the numbers and concluded that every single unit of Origin Energy that was absorbed to level up was stored in the system itself, while the benefits were provided in a completely different way without consuming any of the Origin Energy. That was also why, for almost five thousand units of Origin Energy collected, her physical stats were so abysmal. Running the numbers, these stats meant that every level only gave three stat points to be allocated among six separate stats, considering one started with a single point in all six stats at level zero. Essentially, what one unit of origin energy could do for Orion's physique, these system holders needed a hundred units to achieve a similar effect, but weaker, since Orion's improvements seemed to go significantly beyond those six stats. Of course, that was without considering skill points, which seemed to work on a ratio of one per five levels. He couldn't be sure of the value of each, but logic told him that they weren't as good as his dreams.
These systems are like harvesters of Origin Energy.
Never before had he had so much appreciation for his Gear as after he concluded these things.
Then came the skills, with not a single one being below advanced. He couldn't be sure of the actual costs of those skills, but looking at the Locked skills section, he had a feeling that the cost for existing skills might have been subsidized. That skill panel was also what made him extremely wary of Rio. The Advanced Mind Control skill was probably what was affecting Yuuma, turning him into essentially an uncaring puppet that only followed her orders.
And finally, the chilling elephant in the room that made him understand the true reason behind Rio's actions. The Quests.
The first one, he could understand. That was likely the standard quest of someone who descended to such a world from the Tower of Chaos, while the subtasks were ways to improve the mission completion. The second subtask interested him, especially the part about the origin harvestor, but it was the second mission that stole all his attention and made him feel a sense of actual crisis. He couldn't be sure if there was some conscious entity behind that mission, or if those missions were based on the will of the system holder, or a third thing that he wasn't sure of. Ultimately, he started working under the worst-case assumption and assumed that the Tower of Chaos was already onto him.
With the guillotine of the Tower of Chaos hanging over his head, he knew he had to speed things up and get stronger as quickly as possible.
Beyond that, the third quest was even more surprising to him. Focusing specifically on Mai, he couldn't help but read through it multiple times. He hadn't completely understood why Rio was keeping things to herself out here when she could join the settlement and easily complete her subtask with her mind control abilities. But now, he understood her reasons. Her primary quest was to keep Mai occupied and away from civilization. That quest was the entire reason this whole three-person situation was even a thing, with only the three of them living in the middle of endless zombies without any hint of survivors around them. Thinking of Rio keeping Mai on the hook about Nodoka, telling her that she might survive, and all that, Orion once again solidified the belief that she wasn't a cute twenty-year-old and instead a century and a half old monster.
Could it be a lie… Maybe. That means she's going to do all she can to prevent me from taking Mai and Nodoka away from here. I'll have to see how to deal with her further.
As soon as he reached Mai's apartment, he called her out.
When she opened the door, he noticed a hint of surprise in her eyes that quickly disappeared behind her usual cold expression.
"What is it?"
"I was planning on going out to kill some zombies by myself before we leave for Rio's place," he said. "Wanna join me?"
"All right," she nodded and was about to turn around, but paused. "Did something happen?"
"Oh, a whole lot happened," he said seriously. "For one, I can't trust your friends. And neither can you."
She frowned. "Come in?" She offered questioningly, stepping to the side.
Orion nodded before entering her house, keeping in mind to take off his shoes at the entrance.
"Now explain," she said.
"I need you to accept something from me," he said. "A rune. One that will allow me to inspect your stats and soul to verify if you are one of them or not."
"What?"
"Will you accept it?"
"Of course not," she crossed her arms, looking at him confrontationally.
"Fine," he said with a nod. "Rio Futaba is possessed by an outsider called Claire Garcia."
"Hmm?" She frowned. "Why are you telling me this?"
"I believe that your reactions are genuine enough for me to confide the truth in you. If even you are someone who has been planted to act against me, then I'm truly in a hopeless situation and might as well give up."
"…" Mai didn't say anything but seemed to believe him while maintaining a hint of skepticism.
"This has to do with the origin of this whole apocalypse in the first place. I'm not sure if it's safe for me to tell you everything, so for now, I can only tell you some partial details."
As she nodded, Orion shared some of the concrete information he had about this Outsider from the Tower of Chaos. He kept it limited to her skills and her first two missions, which involved investigating and befriending him and destroying the settlement. He didn't mention the third quest. That one would needlessly cause Mai to feel conflicted and betrayed. There was no point in telling her about it. She didn't seem to care that much about those two, so it would be easy for them to just ditch them here. Whether Ms. Claire Garcia would allow that, however, was another thing to think about.
On a final note, he told her about the fact that Yuuma was, in fact, under mind control.
"That's a lot to take in. So what do you plan?" She asked, not expressing her stance. He wasn't even sure if she believed him.
"I'm not entirely sure. I don't plan to trust her, that I'm sure about. But, somehow, she is aware of the areas that have the greatest density of zombies. Almost as if she has some method to keep track of them. Or…Maybe she knows where these endless zombies actually come from."
"You want to bait her to lead you there."
"Something like that," he said. "My inspection method can't read her thoughts; otherwise, it would have been much easier…"
"You want to apply something like that on me?" Mai's deathly look made Orion gulp.
"I said it would be temporary, plus it was just something I asked you on a whim. I knew you wouldn't agree to it in the first place."
She didn't say anything, but the intensity of her glare reduced.
"Get ready, we'll leave in half an hour or so," he said. "I want to freshen up. We'll keep going with the same plan for now and spend the next few days clearing zombies with Rio and Yuuma, and I will see if I can get the location of the source of these endless zombies from Rio in this time."
"I won't act solely based on your words," she said. "I trust that you don't have any reason to lie, but you can't expect me to immediately believe whatever you say."
"I know, don't worry. You'll see it when the time comes."
With that, Orion left Mai's apartment and went across into the place he'd claimed. In his startled state, he hadn't even had a chance to wash up in the morning before running away, so he spent the hour cleaning up.
As he was showering, his thoughts couldn't help but drift in another direction.
Damnit, every time I think of that hot body, an old lady's face appears in front of me. Latina or not, this Claire Garcia is about to turn a hundred and fifty…This has to be some kind of coercion. To possess a young woman with a hot body to kill for to trick me… It's like her actual goal of coming here was to fuck attractive guys.
The more he thought about it, the worse his mood became.
What bullshit…I need to see if there is a mind control defense rune or something along those lines…
He immediately communicated that thought with his gear and got an answer.
Knowledge: Rune of Mental Defense
Origin Energy Cost: 10,000 Units
Tsk, I can't afford it right now…
***
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