Chapter 38

A Hunt for life

Location: Celine’s cabin

Day: 12th of June 5027

Gentle strands of sunlight descend on the cabin and the dark forest surrounding it, signaling a new dawn's arrival.

The lights in the cabin are all turned off except for one, as most of its inhabitants needed a long rest after the events of the previous day.

In one of the pitch black rooms of the cabin, a small blue holographic window appears.

The blue window casts a subtle radiance that delicately illuminates a small portion of the room revealing the sleeping figure of Daxia below it.

The tender blue glow of the screen illuminates the outline of her soft features as she sleeps peacefully.

None would be able to believe she is the same merciless bounty hunter, who always hides behind a monstrous mask that covers all of her features except for her dread inducing yellow eyes.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

SWISH

The blue window starts to ring causing Daxia to smash it with a pillow.

The blue window disintegrates as the pillow passes through it only to reform again.

RIIIIIIIIIING!

Daxia sluggishly moves her arm in an arc.

The moment her arm pointed at the blue window, a thin metal needle flew out of her hand and pierced the blue window before getting stuck in the ceiling above it.

Only God knows where she had that needle hidden and when she pulled it out.

The blue window disintegrates once again but it soon reforms again, as though it was as stubborn as the one who sent it.

RIIIIING!

Daxia sluggishly sits up feeling groggy and extends her arm toward the blue window then accepts the call.

-what do you want? –

The blue window morphs to display a tired looking Ken with eyebags under his eyebags.

-did you not sleep? –

Ken ignores her second question.

~I need your help with something, come to my room ~

-dude, it’s seven am and we went to sleep at four-

~you only need two and a half hours of sleep to be able to function so long as you make up for the lost sleep later, and you can sleep in the car later ~

Daxia scowls in annoyance.

Ken was never the understanding type, so she is not surprised he woke her up, but just because is not surprised by it, doesn’t mean she is okay with it.

Daxia is about to open her mouth to protest, but Ken cuts her off before she can.

~if you help me, I will tell you how your mask works~

Ken was able to read Daxia’s intentions from her facial expression, so he decided to give her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

~and I will tell you about a different way you can use the mask~

Daxia was still mad at Ken but she couldn’t hide the fact that her interest was piqued; a fact that Ken did not miss.

His lips curl up into a proud smile, while she scowls more, as they both inwardly acknowledge that he won again.

-fine, I am coming –

Unlike the animals they are named after, Therians from the cat tribe are not fully nocturnal, however, they are still very alert at night.

From the moment the blue window had appeared, Saiko had woken up and was able to listen to the conversation between the two bounty hunters, despite being in a different room, thanks to her heightened hearing.

_haaaa _

She lets out a short sigh.

Her mind was drifting between torrents caused by battling emotions.

She doesn’t regret sacrificing her life to save the soldiers, in fact, her heart is full of pride that she managed to do so.

But she feels sorry for the pain she caused friends, especially Ken, who seems to be much more upset over it than Rin and Daxia.

But even still she would never miss an opportunity to the right thing, and there is no doubt in her mind that this was the right thing to do.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Memories of her days with the old man play in her mind like a beautiful vivid dream.

The old man used to bring food to many of the animals of the forest and in a way manage the ecosystem of the forest and which of the animals ate what.

Saiko didn’t really understand why the old man did that but she didn’t question it.

To her, it was just another thing the old man did out of kindness, but she really hated it when he brought food for the black bear family.

The day when the mother bear had attacked them and the old priest was injured was still vivid in her memory and she hadn’t made peace with it.

‘do you have to feed that one too?’

Little Saiko asked the priest one day.

‘hm?’

The old priest turned toward Saiko and noticed how upset she was.

He smiled gently and then patted the little cat’s head.

‘well, I don’t have to but I want to’

Saiko looks at the old priest looking dumbfounded.

‘huh? I understand if you don’t want to hurt it, but why would you want to help it? Can we not at least leave it alone?’

The old priest chuckles quietly.

‘Well, again we can, there is nothing forcing me to do so, but I want to’

The old priest sat on the floor of the cave of the black bear family and faced little Saiko with a smile as the three bears ate their food behind him.

‘Do you know little Saiko, God doesn’t need us to do, well anything really, if I didn’t feed them and they were fated to eat then the food would have reached them one way or another, be it by them hunting, or by someone else bringing them food, or even by an animal simply dying in front of their cave’

One of the bear cups who had finished eating, came and brushed against the old priest interrupting him.

The old priest smiled then picked the bear cup up and placed it on his lap.

‘Oh boy, you are one heavy puppy’

The old man pets the bear cup then looks at Saiko and continues.

‘When we do good deeds, it’s a blessing and an honor for us my child, after all, those good deeds if they are fated to happen, could’ve been done by someone else or by no one at all, the fact that we have enough food to feed ourselves and others is a great blessing and opportunity, it means God gave us an opportunity to do something good and we must never miss that opportunity, after all, we might not get another opportunity to do something good again’

It was then the mother bear's turn to interrupt the conversation.

It came and started nuzzling the priest’s face after it had finished eating as well.

The force of the large bear almost made the priest fall but he quickly supported his body with one arm while using his other arm to stroke the mother bear’s neck.

‘God, I am too old to be playing with bears’

He laughed then turned back to Saiko.

‘Also, little Saiko by doing this, I am teaching the animals that we are not food but food sources, which would prevent them from attacking you or your siblings when you play in the forest’

The second bear cup finished eating and went to Saiko then placed Its paw on her foot.

Little Saiko looked down at it, then looked at the old man who was looking at her while smiling and playing with the mother bear and the other cup, then she hesitantly bent down and started petting the second cup.

The bear cup brushed his head against her hand making her hand land on its neck, as though to ask her to stroke its neck like the old priest is doing its mother.

Little Saiko smiled slightly and stroked the little cup’s neck.

****

Daxia walks into Ken’s room and sees him sitting in a cross legged position on his bed surrounded by multiple holographic screens and one of the screens shows Rin on it.

‘Looks like he dragged Rin into this too’

She observes the other screens one by one.

Some seem to have different vital readings on Saiko’s health likely provided by Argus.

Others seem to have different research papers displayed on them, while the last few seem to display ancient historical texts.

One screen in particular grabbed Daxia’s attention.

It had a picture of a statue of a young boy in his teens wearing a large crown that was at least a third of the boy’s size.

The title of the page was “ the god of life Amon”

-I thought you didn’t believe in gods and things like that? –

~I don’t, but according to Naoi, the gods were Sapiens who excelled in their field, and I wouldn’t ignore the research of very knowledgeable researchers just because they were a little crazy and claimed to be gods ~

Ken answers without shifting his eyes fully focused on his research.

-well, I am here now, what do you want? –

Ken swipes his hand through the air and three holographic screens fly toward Daxia.

One seems to be displaying a video of Saiko from when she was in Rin’s shop, one is displaying a video taken from one of the cameras of the aether port of Egit when they were in it, and one showing a video of Saiko that Ken took last night after his conversation with Naoi.

~I want you to look at these three videos and tell me what changes ~

Daxia nods and then looks at the three videos.

It’s hard to see anything besides the golden light from how intense it is.

-the golden light in the second is larger than the first, and in the third video, the golden light is much smaller than the other two but it’s…denser like a laser, as if it had been compressed-

Ken shakes his head.

~the golden light seems to be related to the Living Weapon program in some way, so it’s not what are looking for, try to tune it out and look again ~

-that’s still important information though, we might need it later, I don’t know why none of my cameras can see that golden light-

Rin adds.

~the golden light seems to be a unique case since it can become visible to the naked eye if it’s strong enough, it means it’s not a case of just being on a different wavelength outside of the human field of vision, but we can study that later~

Daxia nods and tunes out the golden light and looks through the wavelengths of light but is unable to find anything.

- it doesn’t seem like anything else changed-

- told you so –

Rin adds after Daxia’s comment.

~ are you sure? Tell me any changes no matter how small they are~

Daxia shrugs her shoulders.

- as I said nothing changes at all, well except for the damage caused by the lightning strikes between the second and third video and the lights of her thoughts but those always change –

Ken pauses to think for a moment and places one hand under his chin.

~ are you sure all these lights are about thoughts? ~

Daxia looks at him with a confused look.

-I guess? Why do you ask? –

~well, it has to do with why you can see thoughts in the first place, our brains use neurotransmitters to send messages between nerve cells, and neurotransmitters are charged molecules which means they are accompanied by electromagnetic waves-

Ken notices Daxia looking at him while crossing her arms and looking unamused.

~what? ~

-nothing, I am just waiting for the English translation-

She retorts while shrugging her shoulders.

~ haaa~

Ken lets out a short sigh and then rephrases what he said.

~our brains use electricity; electricity is always accompanied by light which is what you see ~

Daxia nods her head.

-okay but how does that change anything -

~well, the body uses electricity for many things not just thinking, observe my arm really carefully~

Daxia watches as a flashing light comes off of Ken’s head then his neck then his shoulder then down his arm then Ken delivers a punch to the air.

Daxia’s eyes grow wide as she realizes what happened.

-was that?-

~you are correct you witnessed a nerve impulse aka an order traveling from my brain to my arm to throw a punch~

Ken says while nodding his head then continues.

~ but again, those lights could be corresponding to many other things not just thoughts or movement orders, so let’s work on them one by one ~

Daxia nods her head.

-okay, got it -

For the next few hours Ken, Rin, and Daxia worked on isolating all the lights Daxia is able to see and what they correspond to, to find out which of them if any at all corresponds to life.