章 6: Contact (1)
Outside the quarantine room, a woman was seated in a wheelchair with a sphere hovering beside her.
A giant screen was showing everything that happened in the room. The woman could see a black-eyed, black-haired boy looking towards a floating sphere warily.
The sphere, a terminal of Tito, suddenly spoke.
[Hello, my name is Tito. What is your name?]
But as expected, the boy put on an expression of confusion. After a few seconds, the boy answered in a strange language.
[&%$%x*/¡?]
The woman frowned instantly. "Tito, can you recognize this language?"
[I'm sorry, master. That language is not in my database.]
"As I thought... So we are truly in a new and undiscovered planet. Tito, can you decipher the language?"
[Of course.] Tito replied instantly. [But I'll need to scan the surroundings to find a large enough population and collect data.]
"How much energy?" The woman asked.
[It depends on how far is the nearest human town, master.] Tito's eye flashed with countless data. [However, we made contact with a human already, so I think we will find some kind of gathering place nearby.]
The woman nodded. "I understand, proceed then."
[Understood. Beginning scan.]
When Tito's mechanic voice sounded, a bright blue light filled the spaceship. Quickly, the light spread outside the spaceship and extended outwards.
But contrary to Tito's expectative, it failed to find a sign of human life even after searching in a radius of 300 kilometers.
The blue light continued advancing. In less than five seconds, it extended five hundred meters in each direction.
Finally, Tito found a town.
The town was not very large, with only ten thousand inhabitants, maybe a little more. It was a very small considering the Human Confederation's cities with millions of inhabitants.
However, Tito could not afford to waste more energy searching for another town and decided to use this one.
In less than one minute, Tito recollected a great amount of information. Its incredibly advanced CPU processed all the information in an instant, from the language and customs to the average level of education and the average level of civilization.
For one minute, the entire town was frightened by the sudden blue light. However, Tito did not care about it. It only cared about completing its mission.
Finally, when it got a rudimentary understanding of the language, it stopped.
[Language deciphered. 12.65% of the energy reserves were used.]
"Why so much!?" The woman was startled before shaking her head. "Forget it, send the information about the language to my brain and resume the communication with the boy."
[Yes, master.] Tito then connected its CPU with the woman's head and sent the information. A normal human would have fried his brain trying to receive so much information, but the woman was a powerful ESPer and she could cope with it.
Once more, Tito attempted to communicate with the boy. [Hello, my name is Tito. What is your name.]
The boy's face changed. A look of surprise appeared on his eyes, but in the next second, his expression turned aghast.
'Demigod!' Bloed screamed inwardly. He had read that only demigod monsters or monsters with a very powerful lineage could speak human language.
And neither of the two possibilities was good news for him.
"Yoo can spak!" He said.
Tito's lone eye narrowed. It realized that it could barely understand the boy's words. However, it was sure that its current mastery of the boy's language was enough to keep a normal conversation.
In other words, the problem was with the boy.
The boy also seemed to realize this. He frowned for a brief moment before barely forming some words. "S-Sorry. I didn't spoken in a long time."
[Don't worry.] Tito's eye focused its gaze on the boy's face. [What is your name?]
"… Bloed." The boy replied after thinking for a moment.
[Nice to meet you, Bloed. Do you mind answering some questions?]
Bloed furrowed his brows and looked at the strange metallic creature with wariness. "What kind of monster… are you? Where's… it? I am here… Why?" He asked without caring for Tito's words.
Tito, however, remained unaffected. Attempts to communicate with a native were normally very difficult. Bloed was already being very cooperative in comparison.
[Mmm. Let's make a deal then. I'll answer your question and you will answer mine. What do you think?]
Bloed looked at the floating sphere before nodding. He realized that the monster did not seem hostile.
[I'll start then. My name is Tito. I am a combat AI belonging to the spaceship [Autumn Vanguard]. My codename is T-2548963254, and my place of production was the third automaton factory located on the planet Alges.]
Bloed was completely confused. Despite hearing the floating thing clearly, he understood less than a third of the things it said.
However, he held back his desire to ask. He had the feeling that asking more about it was going to confuse him more.
[It's my turn now, what is your age?] Tito asked.
"Age… 12… I guess… Why I here?"
[I found you outside the spaceship unconscious, so I decided to bring you inside and treat your injuries. Don't worry, we don't have bad intentions.]
Bloed nodded. He had already noticed that his injuries had been healed. Not only his recent injuries had healed, but even the scars he had received long ago were gone. Bloed felt as though his body had been reborn.
According to his knowledge, only the highest-level healing magic could achieve this effect. This floating monster had to be very powerful to use magic like that.
Like that, Tito and Bloed continued exchanging questions. Tito asked about very basic things, such as his family, where he was from, what he was doing here. Even when Bloed refused to answer a question, Tito did not insist.
Bloed, on the other hand, asked about his weapons. He had to suppress his desire to pounce and destroy the floating thing when he learned that it had disposed of that 'trash'.
Fortunately, Tito quickly promised him a better weapon, effectively calming the boy.
Besides it, he made questions about this place and Tito.
In fact, Bloed was a very curious child. It's just that the Exiled Lands had turned him into an uneducated savage. When he was still a prince, Bloed's favorite hobby was to read about the world.
After exchanging questions for half an hour, Tito received some information. It read the information and looked at its master. When the woman nodded, the terminal beside the boy spoke.
[Bloed, come with me, master wants to meet you.]
Bloed furrowed his brows. He was instinctively wary about this 'master'. Unfortunately, without weapons and in front of a monster that could speak, Bloed knew that he did not have more options but to obey.
He just prayed that this 'master' was not interested in human meat.
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