"Are you just noticing it?"
Arthur's words revealed the fact that he had noticed Artemisia's divinity on Evan long ago.
"It's been on him since the mont he got here."
"Since he got here? Oh, you an when Arty scanned him when he was unconscious."
Beatrix was montarily confused, she recalled that Artemisia had scanned Evan's body with her powers when Arthur had knocked him out on the 31st.
However, Arthur shook his head, correcting her.
"No. It was there before that."
The mont Arthur said that, Evan and Beatrix froze. His words ant that Artemisia's divinity was on Evan before he ca to Aramis.
Beatrix's head slowly turned towards Evan, her gaze changing as she asked.
"Why's Arty's divinity on you?"
There was a problem with her inquiry.
For one, Evan couldn't sense the divinity she spoke of until Beatrix brought it up, despite being the one 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?'
To prevent Evan's senses from being burdened with constantly sensing her divinity on him, Artemisia had tweaked it so he couldn't detect it.
This was why Evan never knew Artemisia's divinity was on him until he t Alie in Year 1052.
But after that, the matter of her divinity hadn't co up again and with how hectic things had been in the past few days, Evan didn't rember this at all.
Now, he had a situation to deal with, but he hadn't even cooked up a solution when the one person he least wanted to see at that mont walked into the room.
"What's up, guys? I heard my na."
'Fuck.'
Artemisia stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. Her black hair was tied back into a ponytail that bounced with each step, and she was dressed in simple gym wear, with a towel draped around her neck.
Sweat glistened on her brow, revealing that she had just finished a workout and had co to the room after sensing Arthur and Evan's presence.
To her question, Beatrix replied faster than Evan could even get a word out.
"Evan's got your divinity on him, so I was asking why."
Naturally, Artemisa was completely confused. 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…"
Her sentence trailed off at the end, and it was pretty clear that she had now noticed the sa thing Beatrix had noticed.
Seeing this reaction, Evan frowned.
'This thing has been on 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 Evan didn't notice it earlier, so why are they suddenly noticing it now?'
Ti Difference sped up his thoughts as he reviewed his actions. The answer surfaced when he recalled Beatrix's question about Artemisia's divinity and her ntion of Evolution powers.
'Evolution!!'
His eyes darted to his Unique Skill Tab where the second item listed was 'Adaptive Evolution'—the skill that had just activated in response to the dryads' charm.
Going further back, he recalled that SEM had also triggered twice: once due to the threat 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 co up to the surface, where they can now sense it!'
As this realization dawned on him, Artemisia stepped closer, her golden eyes shimring with intensity.
"Not only is this my divinity, but it's also far higher quality than anything I can produce right now."
Artemisia naturally didn't fail to notice the divinity's potency. Even if she expended all her life force, she doubted she could match a fraction of this potency.
Arthur, casually pouring himself another glass of juice, glanced between the two black-haired individuals and spoke.
"Yeah, you sure can't create sothing 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 glead and she asked the question Evan sure as hell definitely didn't want to answer.
"Evan…you know in the future, don't you?"
'Yeah…I'm beginning to see why she told I shouldn't et the past her.'
Evan's instincts scread that the current Artemisia was "dangerous," though he couldn't quite pinpoint why.
He suppressed a sigh of exasperation, knowing there was little he could do now. Unless he could rewind ti to before Beatrix had noticed the divinity, the situation was set.
Arthur who may be able to help, was just watching the scene with an amused gaze.
Finally, Evan let out the sigh he had been holding and responded to Artemisia.
"I believe you were part of those who were of the idea that I was hiding my na and face for a reason."
Evan referred to when Arthur and Beatrix had revealed his real na. He reminded Artemisia of her own words at the ti.
[For all we know, he may be from the future or sothing and there may be complications that'd arise if we from his 'past' get to know certain things about him.]
Artemisia nodded in acknowledgent, wiping the sweat from her brow with a towel. Beatrix, anwhile, bombarded Evan with questions.
"Do you know in the future?! Where did you see ?! Did I end up with Alvey?!"
Evan considered snapping back about how he couldn't possibly know the outco of her quest to be with Alvey but managed to stay calm.
"The first ti 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 responded, he flinched instinctively and turned to the side, eting eyes with Artemisia who was gazing at him strangely.
She turned her attention to his arm, poking it gently with her divinity-coated finger.
"…what are you doing?"
Ignoring his question, Artemisia continued poking his right arm with her divinity, triggering reactions from her future self's power.
"I see…it reacts to phenona and uses the law of Evolution's powers to build your own body's resistance to those phenona."
It only took her a few seconds to deduce the working process behind Adaptive Evolution and Evan wasn't even surprised.
'She was the one who gave it to , after all.'
Artemisia lifted her gaze to et Evan's eyes and spoke.
"I can only do this temporarily, but this thing is permanently active on you. It replenishes my divinity by absorbing ambient energy."
She shifted to his other side, examining his arm with her glowing eyes before casually adding a dangerous line.
"Maybe if I cut you open a bit, I'd be able to find out how it really works."
'?!'
Evan's instincts scread at him, and he instinctively pulled his arm away, leaping across the room. He raised his hand to summon his eight-sided shield, his voice trembling slightly.
"Stay away from , mad scientist!"
"But…I'm not a mad scientist?"
"Girl, you just casually spoke about dissecting !"
Now, he knew exactly why his instincts told him that she was 'dangerous'. Perhaps, this might even be the real reason why future Artemisia didn't want him to et her past self.
The teenage Artemisia was a lot less inhibited in more ways than one, and if it ca down to it, she wouldn't waste a second to actually dissect Evan.
Evan wasn't taking any chances. He summoned the Gazebind Aegis, increasing the magic power infusion with each step Artemisia took.
He had completely forgotten that he was stronger than the current Artemisia and could easily evade her if necessary.
"Pfft! Don't dissect him, Artemisia. His girlfriend would be sad if you did."
Arthur intervened and stopped Artemisia from scaring him, and Beatrix, who had resud reading her magazine, looked up with wide eyes at the ntion of a girlfriend.
"Girlfriend?! You have a girlfriend, Evan?!"
Beatrix jumped off the bed and darted toward Evan, pushing aside his shield as she grabbed his shoulders, her eyes gleaming with excitent
"Evan, I need advice.
Mind telling about your relationship? I need so tips to use with Alvey."
'Fuck…'
Staring into Beatrix's eager eyes, Evan inadvertently confird that what he'd witnessed on the 2nd was no illusion.
'Fuuuuuuck…'
He cursed once more, genuinely wishing he was ignorant about certain things. But alas, reality was different.
Forcing himself to focus on the present, he acted like he was unnerved by her gaze and shook his head.
"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."
Seeing this scene, Artemisia silently shook her head, offering a prayer for Evan. She knew that no matter what he said, he wouldn't escape Beatrix's relentless quest for relationship advice.
Silently, she grabbed Arthur's arm and pulled him out of the room, leaving Evan to his fate.
"Did you really want to dissect him just then?"
"I can't deny that the thought did cross my mind."
Artemisia replied, her tone casual, but her words startled Arthur. He had assud she was joking earlier.
"Have you ever dissected a live human before?"
He asked, half-curious, half-wary and Artemisia shook her head, replying with very specific words.
"I have not dissected a live human before."
"A dead one?"
"I have not dissected any humans."
Arthur nodded, satisfied for a mont until her phrasing replayed in his mind.
He stopped in his tracks, causing Artemisia to pause and give him a questioning look.
"You said you've not dissected any 'Humans'?"
"…"
Arthur spoke with narrowed eyes and Artemisia t his gaze for a few seconds, before silently averting hers.
"What did you dissect, Artemisia?"
"Nothing much, just a servant who tried poisoning when I was younger. My dad did tell not to bring a scalpel near a living being after that though."
Her father's reaction to this made Arthur genuinely curious about 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 how she started, he dreaded to know how she ended. How had she even gotten the idea to give a goddess tentacle arms?
Just what was going through her head when she did this? Arthur sure as hell didn't wanna know.
'No wonder her father had told her to never bring a scalpel near a living being ever again.'
Artemisia seed unfazed by his reaction, shrugging nonchalantly as she continued walking.
"Anyway, where did you and Evan go? There's this irritating scent of perfu on you two."
"Huh? Really?"
"Huh? Really?"
Arthur sniffed his clothes, barely catching the faint scent she ntioned. He muttered sothing about having to take a shower and redirected their route to his suite as he replied to her question.
"We encountered so plant succubi."
"? Oh, that subspecies of dryad.
…
Did you…?"
"No."
The silver-haired teen replied to her unspoken question as he took off his jacket, considering if he should just straight up burn the clothes when she asked another.
"Have you done it before?"
"It's scary how this conversation keeps changing tangent, but no. I have not."
"Really?"
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