Chapter 476: Web of Curiosity and Future Ties
’What?’
Evan barely held himself back from voicing that reaction out loud, but Beatrix could see the confusion in his eyes.
"You can’t tell?"
She glanced at Arthur who was silently sipping his juice and asked.
"Can you see it, Arthur? There’s a Layer of Arty’s divinity surrounding him."
Evan also looked towards Arthur, a part of his mind hoping that Beatrix was just seeing things but Arthur’s reply dashed those hopes.
"Are you just noticing it?"
Arthur’s words insinuated that he had noticed Artemisia’s divinity on Evan long ago.
"It’s been on him since the moment he got here."
"Since he got here? Oh, you mean when Arty scanned him when he was unconscious."
Beatrix raised a brow in confusion for a moment. She figured that the ’here’ Arthur spoke about wasn’t the Hotel they were in, but the Planet they were on.
She then remembered when Artemisia had scanned the unconscious Evan a few days ago and cited that, but Arthur shook his head.
"No. It was there before that."
The moment Arthur said that, Evan and Beatrix froze. His words meant that Artemisia’s divinity was on Evan before he came to Aramis.
Beatrix turned her gaze towards Evan and asked.
"Why’s Arty’s divinity on you?"
There was a problem with her inquiry. It was more of a problem for Evan, as the boy could not sense the Divinity they had been talking about until Beatrix had mentioned it, even though he was the one who it was on.
’Can I hide this thing? Maybe the System can do—No, it’d be suspicious if I were to hide it now.
How didn’t I notice this since?’
Just as Evan was thinking of how he was going to deal with the situation, the one person he did NOT want to see, walked into the room.
"What’s up, guys? I heard my name."
Artemisia walked into the room, her black hair tied up in a ponytail and she had a simple two-piece gym wear on, with a towel hanging from her neck.
With the beads of sweat dripping down her brow, it was obvious she had just finished a workout and was returning to the room because she sensed Arthur and Evan.
Faster than Evan could even say a word, Beatrix spoke up.
"Evan’s got your divinity on him, so I was asking why."
Naturally, Artemisia’s expression was one of pure confusion. Imaginary question marks floated above her head as she turned towards Evan.
"I haven’t seen Evan in the past 3 days, why would my divinity be o...n h..i...m..."
With the way her statement trailed off towards the end, it was clear that she had also noticed the same thing Beatrix had noticed.
Seeing this reaction, Evan frowned.
’This thing has been on me for years now. Even as I got here, Arthur was the only one who could notice it. That, I can attribute it to him being the Progenitor godslayer.
But Artemisia and Beatrix didn’t notice it earlier, so why are they suddenly noticing it now?’
His Time Difference skill accelerated his thoughts as he ran through everything he had done so far, trying to figure out why they had suddenly noticed it.
It was then he remembered Beatrix’s earlier question.
"Isn’t that Arty’s divinity on you? Her Evolution powers."
’Evolution!!’
His gaze quickly went to the Unique Skill Tab on his status board; at the second item listed there.
’Adaptive Evolution’
The same skill which had just been triggered not too long ago against the charm of the dryads.
His mind went further back and he recalled that his ’Survival Enhancement Mode’ had activated twice due to the instinctive threat he felt from Arthur’s Sword, Lostvayne, and his power of Null respectively.
’Perhaps, the double activations of SEM, plus Adaptive Evolution as well. The previously hidden divinity has now come up to the surface, where they can now sense it!’
As he concluded this, Artemisia drew closer to him, her eyes glowing as she spoke.
"Not only is this my divinity, but it’s also far higher quality than anything I can produce right now."
There was no way she could miss the high potency level of the Divinity she could sense. She couldn’t trust herself to create something like this even if she burned her entire life force.
Arthur heard her words and alternated his gaze between the two black-haired teens, nodding in affirmation as he spoke.
"Yeah, you sure can’t create something like this...yet."
Yet.
That one word sent the cogs in both goddesses’ brains rolling and they quickly understood what he was insinuating.
Turning her focus back to Evan, Artemisia’s eyes held a strange gleam as she posed a question he sure as hell didn’t want to answer.
"Evan...you know me in the future, don’t you?"
’Yeah...I’m beginning to see why she told me I shouldn’t meet the past her.’
Evan thought this as he held back the sigh of exasperation that threatened to escape his lips. At this point, there was nothing Evan could do.
Unless he turned back time to before Beatrix had noticed the divinity, there was nothing that could be done.
Arthur who may be able to help, was just watching the scene with an amused gaze.
Evan let out the sigh he had been holding before looking at Artemisia and responding.
"I believe you were part of those who were of the idea that I was hiding my name and face for a reason."
His words reminded her of what happened on the day he came here when Arthur and Beatrix had revealed his real name, and hearing this, Artemisia remembered her own words afterwards.
"For all we know, he may be from the future or something and there may be complications that’d arise if we from his ’past’ get to know certain things about him."
The goddess nodded in affirmation as she wiped her remaining sweat with her towel, while Beatrix began hounding Evan with questions.
"Do you know me in the future?! Where did you see me?! Did I end up with Alvey?!"
Evan wanted to retort and ask her how he was supposed to know the end result of her goal to enter a relationship with Alvey, but he calmed himself and replied.
"The first time in my life I saw you was 7 days ago."
"...a simple No, would have sufficed."
"I’d like to be more elaborate with my answers."
Just as Evan said that, he flinched instinctively and turned to Artemisia who was gazing at him strangely.
The goddess had silently moved beside him and was poking his arm with a divinity-coated finger.
"...what are you doing?"
She ignored his question and continued poking his right arm with her divinity, triggering reactions from her future self’s power as she nodded to herself.
"I see...it reacts to phenomena and uses the law of Evolution’s powers to build your own body’s resistance to those phenomena."
In that short moment, the goddess decoded the Working process behind the Unique skill and Evan couldn’t even be surprised at this.
’She was the one who gave it to me, after all.’
Artemisia raised her head and met Evan’s gaze, before asking.
"I can only do this temporarily, but this thing is permanently active on you. It replenishes my divinity by absorbing ambient energy."
The goddess moved to his other side and she held up his arm, studying it with her eyes as she casually uttered a dangerous line.
"Maybe if I cut you open a bit, I’d be able to find out how it really works."
Evan shivered instinctively and he wrestled his arm from her grip and jumped over to the other end of the room, raising his hand to summon his eight-sided shield as he spoke.
"Stay away from me, mad scientist!"
"But...I’m not a mad scientist?"
"Girl, you just casually spoke about dissecting me!"
The Rogue Hero clearly wasn’t taking his chances, infusing his shield with magic power and increasing the level with each step Artemisia took towards him.
"Pfft! Don’t dissect him, Artemisia. His girlfriend would be sad if you did."
Arthur intervened and stopped Artemisia from scaring him, with Beatrix’s eyes shining when she heard his words.
"Girlfriend?! You have a girlfriend, Evan?!"
Beatrix leapt off the bed and reached Evan in the corner of the room, pushing away his shield as she grabbed his shoulders and spoke with shining eyes.
"Evan, I need advice.
Mind telling me about your relationship? I need some tips to use with Alvey."
The intensity in her gaze unnerved him and Evan shook his head in reply.
"I don’t think you can reference my situation to help yours."
"Don’t worry, anything would help at this point. I’ve reached an impasse with Alvey right now and I need an outside perspective on this."
The sight of this had Artemisia shaking her head a muttering a silent prayer for Evan, knowing fully well that no matter what he did, he was not going to escape being hounded for relationship advice by Beatrix.
Arthur and Artemisia silently slipped out of the room, leaving Evan to his fate as they headed towards the hotel gym.
"Did you really want to dissect him just then?"
"I can’t deny that the thought did cross my mind."
Artemisia’s reply wasn’t one Arthur was expecting as he had assumed her earlier words were a joke, hence, he was a tad bit surprised.
"Have you ever dissected a live human before?"
When he posed this question, Artemisia shook her head and replied pretty specifically.
"I have not dissected a live human before."
"A dead one?"
"I have not dissected any humans."
Arthur nodded in affirmation and was about to change the topic when her answer replayed itself in his head.
Stopping in his tracks, he looked up to Artemisia who was questioning his sudden stop with her gaze and asked.
"You said you’ve not dissected any ’Humans’?"
He spoke with narrowed eyes and Artemisia met his gaze for a few seconds, before silently averting hers.
"What did you dissect, Artemisia?"
"Nothing much, just a servant who tried poisoning me when I was younger. My dad did tell me not to bring a scalpel near a living being after that though."
Hearing about her father’s reaction, Arthur was now genuinely curious just what Artemisia had done and the goddess took the liberty to explain.
"Let’s just say I practised my Evolution powers on her. Made her evolve in different directions that gods certainly weren’t supposed to evolve in.
I started with trying to see if goddesses could evolve to gain tentacle arms...wanna hear the rest?"
"I’d refrain from that."
If that was what she ’started with’, Arthur dreaded to know what she ’ended with’.
