Chapter 750: Interlude 8 – 2: Perception Shift
"Every bit of joy I felt just evaporated with that sentence."
"Pfft!!"
Arthur laughed, then shifted Nicole onto the bench beside him before standing up and pulling Layla into a hug.
"Don’t worry, I missed you too."
"Get o—wait, why are you saying ’too’? Who said I missed you in the first place?!" Layla protested, squirming in his arms but not really trying to get away.
"Don’t worry, I understand without you having to say it. You missed me that much, huh?"
"Again, why are you making that assumption?!"
Of course, contrary to her words, her arms were already wrapped around his back.
"It’s certainly nice to see the real Layla," Arthur murmured.
When Layla heard that line, she immediately shoved him back, her expression suspicious.
"The heck do you mean ’real Layla’? Someone out there making fake versions of me or what?"
Even Nicole, still seated, and Edward and Esna, who had just walked in, looked like they wanted to know the answer to that.
"Oh, yeah... I kinda got pulled into a singularity and tossed into another dimension. In that dimension, there was this evil forest crawling with monsters that tried to trick me into letting my guard down by showing me a fake version of you.
But I knew you were in Hell and not Valmone, so I killed the fake without even blinking."
"...that sounds rough..." Layla muttered, clearly unsure how to process all that.
"It was. The singularity part, anyway. Everything else was pretty chill."
After that, Arthur turned and greeted Edward with a grin.
"Sup, bro."
"All’s good," Edward replied as they dapped up. Then Arthur turned to Esna.
"Hey, Esna."
He gave her a quick hug before continuing.
"I found more friends for us in Valmone."
"Friends?"
Esna echoed the word, her expression practically sprouting visible question marks. But her confusion faded the moment Arthur went on.
"Other godslayers. There were thousands of them."
"Thousands?!"
"Yeah. The time difference meant it’s been forty years since I was born over there. More than enough time for thousands of godslayers to appear.
A lot of them were older than me, so it was hilarious watching them try to figure out why their ’Progenitor’ was younger than they were."
"...that must’ve been a little jarring."
Arthur nodded in affirmation, then dropped back onto the bench, sliding sideways until his head came to rest on Nicole’s shoulder.
"I never thought I’d get homesick enough to rush back. If it weren’t for a few extra plans, I would’ve come back like three months ago."
Then he remembered something and added,
"Ah, right. For you guys, that’d be ’weeks ago,’ not months."
At that, Layla sat down beside him, curiosity flashing in her eyes.
"The time difference was really that bad?"
Arthur turned, meeting her gaze as he replied.
"It’s been a year and two months since I last saw you, Layla. The fake doesn’t count."
"Wait, what?"
Layla wasn’t the only one left stunned by this. Edward and Esna were no less surprised, and the sight of their reactions made Arthur chuckle.
"Speaking of which!"
Arthur suddenly raised his voice, turning toward Layla with a smug grin spreading across his face.
"Guess whose age is higher than yours now?"
"Geh!"
Layla’s expression immediately turned dark.
"That doesn’t count, Arthur."
"Yes, it does! I had two birthdays over there! I was sixteen when I left, so that makes me 18 now. And if I’m not mistaken... a certain someone is stilllll 17..."
His grin only widened as Layla clicked her tongue in frustration and stubbornly insisted it didn’t count.
Watching Arthur try to forcibly install Layla as his younger sister, Esna, Edward, and Nicole simply exchanged glances and nodded.
’They’re back to the usual.’
Glancing around, Esna met the eyes of more than a dozen students gathered nearby and muttered,
"We’ve attracted quite the crowd."
At that, Arthur raised an eyebrow and turned to see the dozens of students watching them from a distance. Lifting a hand in a casual wave, he called out,
"Hey guys! Long time no see."
Many of them waved back, and a few girls blushed, quickly averting their eyes at the sight of his bright smile.
It was worth remembering—Arthur had always been popular at the Royal Academy. Not just because he was a Prince, but because he was naturally outgoing and social.
Still, while his expression was all smiles, internally...
’Why do I feel exhausted already? I handled the attention of literal billions in Valmone. So why does waving at a few students wear me out?’
[Accumulated fatigue, Master.]
Lostvayne’s voice responded to the stray thought, and Arthur had to admit, it made sense.
’Maybe. But still... why have you been so quiet, Celestia?’
He directed the thought to his other Ego weapon, but received no reply.
’Celestia?’
[Lady Celestia?]
[Huh? Ah! What’s happening?]
She finally answered, though her voice sounded slightly disoriented.
’Something wrong?’
[Um... well... I’m getting this strange feeling I can’t quite make sense of. It’s like... I was sure something was NOT somewhere, but I looked away for a bit, and when I looked back, it suddenly felt like it was, but I can’t properly tell since something is obstructing my perception.
Something like...a mass of cosmic energy?]
’...’ [...]
Arthur and Lostvayne were both at a loss, completely unsure of what she meant, and sensing their confusion, Celestia sighed.
[Don’t worry. I’ll explain once I figure out what’s going on.]
With that, she went quiet again, and no matter how much they called out, she didn’t respond.
Arthur was starting to feel a bit worried, but since he had gone quiet during his telepathic exchange with Celestia, his abrupt silence made the others around him start to worry as well.
"Arthur? Is something wrong?"
"...no. Let’s just go somewhere else already. You’re all staying on this planet, right? This continent?"
Layla gave a silent nod in response to his question, and the moment she did, Arthur released a small amount of magic power, spreading his spatial perception across the entire continent. He lifted his palm and conjured a 3D holographic projection of the landmass, then turned to them.
"Where exactly are you staying?"
"Whoa, how did you do that? An artifact? Or some new ability?" Edward asked, having sensed the pulse of magic Arthur emitted before the projection appeared.
"I’ll tell you all about it. Just show me where your place is first."
Arthur’s grin as he answered made Layla uneasy. She could tell he was scheming something mischievous, and the fact that he wasn’t even trying to hide it meant it likely wasn’t something she could easily avoid.
While she silently resigned herself to her fate, Nicole pointed out the exact building where they were staying. Arthur locked onto the spatial coordinates, then casually waved his hand and opened a gate.
It was only after doing so that he remembered—no one here knew he was a Half-Deity yet.
In fact, that was the little surprise he had in store for Layla and the rest. He fully intended to brag about his new realm, and had even deactivated his Concealment Ring just for this.
Naturally, Arthur’s casual gesture of waving his hand and opening a gate drew the attention of more than a few students nearby. Feeling the wave of surprised gazes settle on him, he raised his voice slightly and called out,
"Hurry up, guys. My ARTIFACT has limited energy for gate creation."
The emphasis on that one word snapped his friends out of their daze, with Layla and Nicole immediately understanding one crucial fact.
’He didn’t make that gate with an artifact.’
Esna and Edward came to the same realisation a second later. Choosing not to ruin Arthur’s little act, they quickly stepped through the gate with him.
Their arrival point was a large but modestly furnished living room.
However, the moment Arthur’s feet touched the floor, Lostvayne’s voice echoed in his mind.
[Get ready, Master. You’ve got incoming.]
"Huh? Incoming wha—oh..."
Startled by the sudden warning, Arthur replied out loud. But he didn’t even finish his sentence before he felt the incoming.
More accurately, he sensed the ’incoming mass of destruction energy’.
A moment later, the space in the middle of the living room shattered like glass, and the familiar figure of the tall, dull-silver-haired, beautiful woman he called his mother quite literally jumped out of the crack.
One second.
In the single second it took for Cattleya’s head to turn toward him, Arthur’s perception of time stretched into eternity.
In that single second, Arthur’s right eye malfunctioned, and for the briefest moment, all he could see was a humanoid-shaped mass of destruction energy standing in front of him.
And at the sight, only one thought crossed his mind.
’Damn... Mum is STRONG.’
It wasn’t like he didn’t already know that. But no matter how skilled Arthur was at detecting the power of Deities due to his ability to comprehend laws prior to Transcendence, it was simply impossible for him to understand their full power.
But now, as a Deity himself, Arthur could perceive far more of his mother’s power than ever before.
The realisation made him wonder how his father or grandfather would look in his eyes now.
Two seconds.
Arthur’s perception of time returned to normal, and he tilted his head with a small smile.
"Ah, a wild mother appeared."
Layla, Edward, and Esna all facepalmed in sync at the line, but their exasperation quickly gave way to confusion when they noticed Cattleya wasn’t reacting as they’d expected.
She simply stood there, staring at Arthur with wide, unblinking eyes.
Finally, her expression changed, turning darker as she asked slowly.
"...what...the hell happened?"
