"Takatsuki, Takatsuki, what kind of move was that! Teach me, teach me!"
Outside the Tokyo area, beyond the Monolith, a city rose from the ground, appearing overnight, and it was not the shoddy cities of Japanese history, but a steel fortress covering thousands of square meters.
And the creator of this city was being annoyed by the Herrscher of Sentience constantly shaking his body beside him.
"I already told you, Senti, this is one of my abilities."
Not to mention the physical toll of turning a city's painting into reality, just drawing such a large painting is enough to drive countless artists in this world to their deaths.
It was only because Gastrea ran rampant in this world, leaving the land outside ownerless, that Takatsuki was able to do such a thing.
However, in order to build a city on this territory, the first thing Takatsuki did was to transform into flames and clear the area.
"This place is only about four or five thousand square meters, but we don't have many people right now, so it's completely sufficient for the time being. Let's develop slowly from this base point."
Even Takatsuki was nearly drained by creating something so massive at once. Thankfully, he didn't try to create a mobile city capable of housing millions of people.
Takatsuki's greatest strength was his recovery ability, not his energy Upper limit. If he were to fight, he could achieve a balance of expenditure and income when going all out, but this kind of one-time expenditure was truly terrifying.
"Alright, alright, Senti, next time there's something for you to use, I'll definitely let you use it. Okay?"
"That's more like it. You brought me to this world and made me work for you. If you don't give me some compensation, I'll cause you a lot of trouble."
Takatsuki didn't say anything about the Herrscher of Sentience's capriciousness, only asking, "How was the afternoon's mission?"
In the afternoon, to build this temporary base, Takatsuki entrusted the task of finding other Cursed Children to Senti and the first batch of children he brought back.
"How could there be any problem with a mission given to Miss Senti? We brought back... uh, Misha, how many children did we bring back?"
Misha, who had been listening silently on the side, let out an imperceptible sigh: "Miss Senti, we brought back a total of 391 children. Including us, there are now 407 people."
"Right, right, right. How about it, Takatsuki, didn't I do well?"
"Mm, it's alright."
"What do you mean 'it's alright'? Can't you just praise me honestly?"
Takatsuki looked at Senti, who had previously refused to admit she was a Herrscher but now didn't care at all, with a speechless expression.
As expected of the Herrscher of Sentience, she was completely at the opposite extreme from Fu Hua.
"Mhm, mhm, Senti is the best. If it weren't for Senti, I would really be at a loss."
"Are you trying to humor a child?!"
Takatsuki was a bit speechless looking at Miss Senti, who wanted praise but didn't want to be humored.
Misha seemed to sense Takatsuki's dilemma and spoke up: "Thanks to Miss Senti, we avoided a lot of trouble. Sister, you worked hard today."
"Hmph, hmph, it wasn't hard, and by acting with you all, my strength recovers faster."
Another gain from gathering Cursed Children today was that the Herrscher of Sentience discovered her strength seemed to be recovering as she met more people.
It made her wish she could immediately livestream to recover her strength.
But Takatsuki found after trying it for her that this wasn't the case, because the Herrscher of Sentience's strength recovery seemed to be generated by other people's perception of her.
Or rather... Fame.
Just knowing you as a passerby doesn't count as legend points.
"By the way, Takatsuki, in the afternoon, almost all the children we found joined us, but we encountered a strange child. She seemed to be injured and escaped into the forest."
"Injured?"
It was normal for Cursed Children to be injured, but also strange.
Cursed Children struggled to survive everywhere, so it wasn't surprising how they got injured, but because they had the Gastrea virus in their bodies, they possessed super regenerative abilities. As long as their hearts and brains weren't injured, they basically wouldn't die, so they rarely remained in an injured state while moving.
There was only one possibility: she was injured by a Promoter-made weapon.
In this world, Gastrea's regeneration would be affected by the magnetic field on Promoters, and people in this world even used vacuum to create a synthetic metal called Super-Promoters, which was stronger than ordinary Promoters.
It could even kill a Cursed Child with one shot.
And an injured Cursed Child meant...
She might have been hurt by a Promoter-made weapon.
"I'll go find her."
Thinking of this, Takatsuki ignored Senti and Misha's attempts to stop him and set off directly.
"Senti, you and Misha can assign the rooms to the children. I've already prepared the ingredients, but I don't have time to cook, so you'll have to work hard yourselves."
Leaving a sentence, Takatsuki disappeared before the two of them.
The Herrscher of Sentience was fine, but Misha was once again deeply shocked.
It was also fortunate that she hadn't seen Takatsuki's city-building process, otherwise she would probably be questioning life itself.
The forest around the Tokyo Area...
Takatsuki had explored that direction after his arrival, so he naturally knew where it was.
And he also understood why that child would flee.
Ordinary police officers didn't have Promoters-made weapons. Only Promoters, Initiators, and IISO staff could possess Promoters-made weapons.
So, it was clear that the other party had been injured by humans, and perhaps even by her own kind...
Because of this, she would be so distrustful of others, even other Cursed Children.
The forest was dangerous. Many wild animals in this world had already become Gastrea, and they were hidden in the forest.
Because of the protection of the Monolith, they wouldn't enter the Tokyo Area, so they gathered here.
That child probably fled here in a panic, and it was a desperate move.
However, he also estimated that the child would flee upon seeing him, so he directly activated time stop and began searching for her in the forest.
"This child actually has a strong anti-reconnaissance awareness."
Takatsuki saw traces of her escaping into the forest at the forest entrance. After only entering a few meters, the traces disappeared.
Clearly, it didn't disappear out of thin air.
However, this kind of anti-reconnaissance was not very useful in Takatsuki's eyes.
The skill he had kept hidden was once again put to use at this moment.
Eagle Eye Vision.
Although it was called vision, it was actually more of an intuition, which immediately revealed the traces left by the child.
With a step, Takatsuki followed the traces and found the child who had fled into the forest. At this moment, she, paused in time, was hiding in a tree hollow, wrapping the wound on her arm with a torn piece of clothing.
And at her feet, there was a black bullet with bloodstains on the ground.
It was a bullet made by the Promoters.
"Poor child."
Without lifting the time stop, Takatsuki directly picked up the child and returned to the base.