Determined to continue my revealing quest, I left the Lost Idyll in order to sink deeper into the worlds. As expected, I encountered various other cults about me. A man of wrath with 6 arms, a humanoid elephant, a bearded Apollo, even a scarab. Even if the cults in themselves did not really surprise me any more than what I had seen until then, I was nevertheless surprised as and when I noticed that I was indeed almost omnipresent through countless numbers of dimensions. I who have always lived only in a dark and ungodly lair, almost acted as the ultimate God throughout all of existence, albeit through different myths and legends and sometimes all preposterous. This only aroused my curiosity as to my origins.
I met many people and entities during my interdimensional epic, but things escaped me. Things that seemingly are innate in everyone. The feelings. These concepts were foreign to me. I knew what fear was, but in no way did I understand feelings like love or anger. So seeing people get angry to the point of until fighting, it certainly didn't dismay me, but I didn't know why it was so. Yet I had received all the knowledge in the world, but despite that, I could not put words to these feelings that I lacked. My curiosity being one of my ugliest flaws, I wanted to know more in order to perfect my thirst for knowledge. But nothing helped, I still did not understand the meaning of it all. No matter how much I potentially felt these things, I didn't. Despite this, I persisted in my side quest, in search of my buried feelings.
It was then that when I arrived in yet another world similar to so many others, I came face to face with a landscape impoverished and in the grip of chaos and sadness. A world ruled by machines, which had enslaved human-like beings. The previously existing society had been replaced by an evil robotic dictatorship comparable to explicit concentration camps: There was only room for hard work, otherwise death awaited those useless. All or nothing, I saw the violence of this world directly. I saw a lot of sentries posted here and there in this bruised landscape, so I slipped discreetly behind the obstacles so as not to be spotted. However, one of the guards unconsciously came to me. Instinctively, I made myself invisible. In the hope that he doesn't see me, he came to my side, a huge rusty blaster in his hand. However, not everything went as planned.
He stayed beside me for a surprisingly long time. It was then that my instincts warned me. Turning his scrap metal head, his red optical lens eyes zoomed in my direction and I felt my presence had been spotted. I would even say more, he saw me perfectly. Directly, he opened his metal jaw and tried to sound the alarm. I paralyzed him with a look and pulled him narrowly into the corner behind which I had unnecessarily camouflaged myself. Removing all life from this complex robot, I analyzed him and discovered his peculiarities.
-----
[ C-800 ]
Classification : Cloturator
- Skills -
• Suppression Program
• Copper Bond
• Harmony Sample
• Terminal Extinction
• Back to Time
- Natural Talents -
• Schwarz'Acuity Guerilla
• Robotic Demon
• Chiral Decision
-----
Unlike the Rathagross and Yung Lung, I took the time to look in detail at the effects of these abilities.
-----
[ Skills ]
• Suppression Program •
- Details : Removes opponent's data that goes against the user's will if other skills haven't worked.
• Copper Bond •
- Details : When activated, this skill intoxicates all within range with unabsorbable alien metal. Enslaves victims after one hour of contamination.
• Harmony Sample •
- Details : Analyze the structure of the opponent and reproduce it. Allows you to manipulate the latter from its genes and defeat the clones.
• Terminal Extinction •
- Details : The user utters a frightful cry of alarm while fixing the opponent, instilling in him a colossal fear lasting until death.
• Back to Time •
- Details : Using his assigned blaster, the user projects a beam who back the time and the actions of the target. The temporal setback has no time limit.
[ Natural Talents ]
• Schwarz'Acuity Guerrilla •
- Details : Nothing escapes the infallible system of the user. It can easily spot invisible and undetectable things and instantly gives a detailed list of all the surrounding components.
• Robotic Demon •
- Details : Thanks to its connected system, the user receives in real time the vision of everything that his doubles are experiencing. Unaffected by any interference or distortion technique.
• Chiral Decision •
- Details : Once the user targets an enemy, they only take ⅒ damage outside the target and double what he inflicts to the latter. The target can no longer hide from the user.
-----
As with the Rathagross and Yung Lung, Natural Talents were given to me automatically. I now had a lot more coordination with my clones and my killing techniques had become much more sophisticated. But now I had a concrete idea of what these futuristic robots were. Exterminators, dangers for all forms of life. Terminators so to speak. Thanks to this C-800, I had new skills in order to pass more unnoticed than I would have hoped. I was even able to hack into the system of a few sentries to make them believe I was like them, causing them to communicate to other sentries around that there was no danger. I had great confidence in my current plan. Initially out among metal debris and watchful sentries, I was able to infiltrate into large hangars surrounded by more sentries than I had seen before. I told myself at the moment that it must have been large warehouses, holding resources, but I was wrong. It was a possibility I had envisioned, but seeing so many humans gathered in one place like boxed pigs ready to be slaughtered was a relatively surprising scene.
Looking for a place to continue my road, I saw a conduit to the right where a single Cloturator was. Manipulating his system from a distance, I made sure to move him to his right in order to quickly slip into said duct. My instinct had warned me that the outdoor Cloturators were not on the same network as the indoor ones. Admittedly, it was one and the same global system, but it was divided into two parts, respectively concerning the inside of the infrastructures and outside them. The reason I didn't deactivate this insulated Cloturator like the one outside was simple: The indoor network was much stronger and more secure than the outdoor one, all Cloturators occupying the indoor spaces were like chips on a large array and united as a single entity, deactivating one would be tantamount to warning all the others. I did not want to create a general riot towards my location, my expedition was decidedly much more complex than expected.
So taking the duct, I continued to see what it led to. The floor of this duct had grids here and there, allowing a brief glimpse of what was below. I live by this means many ignominy and other infamies perpetrated by these mechanical monsters. Real calumnies. After a while, I came to the end of the duct, which led to a last mesh hatch. Looking furtively, I saw no one, flesh or metal. I then broke the gate and landed in this empty room. At least I thought so. From the duct, there was indeed nothing in sight, but once inside the room, you could see a corner of shadow, dulling the faint and only light that illuminated this confined environment. I approached nonchalantly until I heard a moan that sounded like a muffled cry of fear. I took my guard by activating Robotic Demon in order to control this potential enemy just in case. But my aptitude did not respond. After all, I could only control robots or other mechanical entities similar to Cloturators with it. Since the only things a bit conscious and not having a metallic appearance were enslaved and abused humans, I deduce that it was not a Cloturator.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Lowering my guard but still being suspicious, I slowly approached this entity visibly petrified by fear. I was aware as I said before of what fear is, but feeling it was more complicated than knowing what it was for me. I had felt it in front of this dear Yung Lung, but it was only brief. Once within a meter of this frightened thing, I saw it more easily. It was indeed a human, dressed in a simple dirty sheet and torn in places. This human had long filthy hair, probably due to the lack of maintenance in this place, and was curled up on himself for fear of me. It was my first time taking on the role, albeit unwittingly and unconsciously, of antagonist in someone's eyes. Using my friendship power in order to lower his fear towards me, I saw his tremors and his tensions subside. As his guard slowly lowered, I saw one of his eyes open with his hands. A beautiful blue eye, a surprisingly clear and pure blue. The contours themselves like the eyelashes and eyebrows were as unkempt as the rest of the body, a dirty eye but perfectly transcribing the sadness of this person. It was the first time that I had so much empathy for something I had just come across for the first time.
However, something happened inside me like a hurricane like not other. By meeting the tired gaze of this victim, my instinct panicked. I was overcome with a strange torrent of emotions that I did not understand, a flow of information that I could not translate despite my great knowledge. That eye, partially hidden between strands of hair and as tired and sad as it was, had struck me in an abstract way. After the individual had more confidence in me, I saw his body more easily. I saw more fully what this poor thing was dressed in, I also saw his multiple lacerations here and there of heis limbs, but I saw things that I had not seen. What I had been watching for several minutes now was not a man, but an woman. I should have seen it among other things by the delicacy of the arms and legs, but I has put this down to a stinging lack of nutrition. There was also that anyway. It was true that these machines made no distinction between men and women. Any human was only good for only working or dying in their cold and hard eyes.
I contemplated with a strange feeling this human being there, in front of me, destitute and weakened by the misery of this fallen world. Coming to my senses, I summoned a bowl of Thai curry sauce noodles and presented to her noting her hunger and her injuries. Although more relaxed, she was nonetheless suspicious. I then made her understand that I did not want her pain in any way and, dubiously, took the spicy bowl anyway. I had turned the heat down to make it more suitable for her, she who surely wasn't used to something like that, but that didn't affect her healing gifts. Astonished at first, she too quickly came to be overwhelmed by a feeling that had been unknown to her until then, a feeling of joy. She had obviously never eaten something so good and quite different from the shapeless and indigestible porridge they must surely be used to in these dark places. Although she was totally groomed from the first bowl, I read her like in an open book that she wanted to enjoy it again. Without waiting, I gave her another bowl, then another, and another.
After 5 bowls, I saw her happiness. I saw my reflection in those pure eyes. She saw me as a savior, a messi, the one who had temporarily brought her out of his torpor. But I didn't want it to last for a moment, I wished with a really strange fervor her happiness over time. I had of course not forgotten my initial goals about my origins and my feelings, but one of the two had possibly been accomplished. Or at least it was on its way to being fulfilled. Looking at the one I had saved, I noticed that she was much more resplendent. Although she was still dressed in a deplorable manner, her skin, her hair, her body in general and especially her eyes. The whole of his being had just been washed and dusted. Her hair was no longer greasy and grimy like it used to be, her skin was much cleaner and her body seemed to have gained some weight. I noticed it in particular by its slightly generous chest, and in a bizarre way, I could not help but blush and subtly look away. My Happy Noodle Year bowls seemed to have had an effect, she was now in good health.
Not really liking to see this beauty dressed like this, I snapped my fingers and dressed her in simple clothes that I had seen as correct in the most normal and civilized worlds I had visited. She seemed happy and wanted to thank me, but no voice came out of her mouth. Perhaps since the workers of this world had no need to speak, they had developed general aphasia. Slowly, I put my hand on her head, as if to caress her, and used my power to remove this handicap of speech while giving her some of my knowledge. I had the certainty that in addition to not being able to speak, she had not learned to speak either. Instantly she noticed that she could now generate sounds and could even construct sentences, which confused her but made her even happier. To my amazement, she threw herself into my arms, hugging me tightly while crying and saying messy sentences to thank me. I felt the same feeling even more that I had been for a while now, the one that was also gripping my empty heart. Then taking her by the arms, I asked her name.
<< A name ? I do not have any. >>
Predictable, but I still wanted to know. I wanted to know everything about her, about this fragile little thing that had so tickled my interest.
<< I have always been called by numbers and letters. My code is CP-80980-132-D. >>
I then visualized her data. She was around twenty terrestrial years old. Her code was made up of very specific parameters. "CP" was the initials for "Cloturator's Prey". The humans of this wasteland were prey to the Cloturators. 82980 was the assigned number for this girl. She was the 82.980th human to be integrated into this place. The 132 was the location of this place, it was in fact the 132nd operating sector. These machines had undoubtedly enslaved the entirety of this world, a true pandemic plague. In the end, and this confirmed what I thought, the letter D at the end of her appointment was the initial of "Dead". As I envisioned, the one I had saved was destined to die in that dark black hole. In a way, that shocked me. I was expressing in my heart and for the first time what could be compared to a slight anger. But I wasn't sure, it was surely a backlash from the feeling that had previously come over me. Not surprisingly, she also didn't have any special skills or Natural Talents.
<< And who are you ? >>
His sudden question caught me off guard, but I revealed my identity to her easily. It wasn't a very hard task after all. I did not tell her in detail my travel or what I was, I did not know myself anyway, but the mere mention of my name is enough for her. As for her, I could not properly leave her that horrible name. I then looked for a name that would suit her better. She looked at me silently, all smiles, with that look that had capsized me. I then offered her a name she could cling to now.
<< Inomite ? It's pretty. >>
I offered her a name that defined her innocent gaze, and she nodded happily. I myself was happy to see that previously sad and defiled face now joyful and resplendent. I had a strong attachment to her, and I was ready to go far with her. This feeling, it was new to me, I didn't really know how to deal with it, however my instinct didn't seem to tell me that it was a threat. But I had one thing in mind that I totally agreed with. I had to protect her. I wished it intensely. In the end, that's surely what all the inhabitants of the worlds I visited called "love". This feeling was not unpleasant, but somewhere I knew there were dark moments in store for me, darker than the place where the one that had made me succumb was destined to perish.