Chapter 153: Pets Are Cute

After Miko woke up, she was embarrassed for sleeping like a kitten to which I replied that she's cute so it's fine, then offered to take her home.

As we walked to her house we started talking to get to know each other and every time a ghost approached I pretended to be a little scared and then I exorcised them with kicks

Miko's feelings of gratitude and admiration for me developed at great speed. It's still not enough to turn into love, but it will be enough for her to think of me as her greatest pillar of emotional stability.

She told me about her best friend Hana Yurikawa who has served as her biggest emotional pillar, but Miko is worried that Hana seems like a ghost magnet which may be due to her innate potential as a spiritualist.

Since I can't take care of Miko all the time and the fox spirits that 'take care of her' are actually a trap, I gave her one of the artifacts Mr. Ichijo gave me.

It is a silver pendant suitable for women which has defensive properties against spirits and evil supernatural entities, plus the necklace will not attract the attention of other supernatural entities so she will not be affected by the 'Attraction Phenomenon'.

The reason Mr. Ichijo gave me several tens of this artifact was because, according to his words. – "Boy, if you are going to have a harem you must take care of your women so have this and try not to cause too many problems"

The fact that Mr. Ichijo seems too happy on the subject of my harem makes me think that he is projecting his frustrated youthful dream onto me.

Miko almost cried with happiness when I gave her the necklace as I showed her how it works by making any evil spirit trying to touch her get purified immediately, then she asked me to meet her friend later to help her which I agreed since Miko showed me a picture of her friend, and well, she has pretty eyes...

Ahem, as I was saying, now that I brought Miko to her house she said goodbye to me with a hug.

"A question" – Miko looked calmer and even the small dark circles under her eyes seemed to diminish. – "Will this necklace react with good spirits?"

"It won't, it only damages the negative energy that makes up the evil spirits so the kind spirits won't be purified" - I smiled.

Is there a guardian spirit in her house?

Perhaps a dead family member.

Miko smiled and held the necklace with a smile. – "Luckily, my father will be fine…"

I see, her mother is single...

Shit, Navi is infecting me his stupidity.

"Hey Listen! I can guess what you're thinking and it's not my fault! You made me like this!"

I'm not going to respond to that pointless accusation.

Miko walked into her house as she waved goodbye to me with a big smile.

Although this might be a good opportunity to meet her family, there is something I need to resolve so after she entered her house, I started walking to my next goal.

Miko mentioned that she went to a temple with her best friend in search of help from some deity and managed to contact something similar to a fox spirit that gave her three chances to protect her.

Miko didn't think too much about it and thinks the deity took pity on her, but the truth is that shitty deity prepared a contract to take Miko's life force...

Great, she's not part of my harem yet and yet I'm already pissed that some fucking god wants to devour my future wife. My possessive side is getting out of control...

I stopped thinking about stupid things and talked to System Goddess. – "Will my Authority work with an earthly deity that has been corrupted?"

"I don't know, but according to the description of the authority, as long as the earthly deity doesn't have human roots then you can destroy it as if you killed dogs and chickens" - System Goddess answered without much interest. – "Now that I think about it, I had not realized that the Will of the World of this world had such a strong discrimination towards non-human races, maybe I could enter this world with ease since my origins are human"

"Before coming to this world did you spend a lot of time alone?" – I asked ironically.

"Why you ask?" – System Goddess answered with confusion.

"You like to talk too much" - I mentally shrugged. – "It is as if you had no friends and now that you have a group to talk to, you just want to talk all the time"

"…" – I think System Goddess just pouted… - "For your information, I don't have any friends…"

I already expected it so I didn't give it any importance and kept walking.

"This is where you must comfort me and make me happy!" – System Goddess yelled furiously.

"I'm not your friend" - I rolled my eyes. - "I am your husband"

"…" – System Goddess was silent for a moment. – "W-Well… W-When you put it like that I really don't think I need friends…"

"We are not friends?" – Tsubaki asked with false sadness.

"We are friends! Of course we are friends!" – System Goddess panicked.

She's such an easy target to tease that even Tsubaki joined the 'Let's Tease the Goddess' club, nice.

I kept joking around with the women who live in my head until I came to a Shinto shrine.

The number of temples per city always seemed like an exaggeration to me, but now I know that each temple is home to at least one low-level earthly deity, so the more temples Japan has, the greater the supernatural power.

Just getting closer to the temple I could feel a presence similar to that of Senko, but contrary to the warm homey feeling that a divine messenger fox conveys, what is in this temple is something that has been corrupted by an unpleasant energy that is not actually evil, 'Madness'…

Now I understand why even though the 'Madness' energy is not well known by other entities, it is one of the most common energies in the multiverse.

In the same way that where there is goodness there will be evil, where there are intelligent entities there will be Madness.

I began to climb the stairs of the temple while keeping an eye out for any danger. I changed to my Seiji identity so I can use spiritual abilities to defend myself in case a problem arises.

Just in case, in my left hand I have the bell Senko gave me so I'm going to deal with this shit before it becomes a bigger problem.

Using my senses I realized that there weren't any normal humans around so even if I have a fight, I won't break the agreement with Gaia to hide everything supernatural.

When I arrived in front of the offering box in front of the temple, I took out a coin from my pocket and prepared to throw the coin, but before that I sent a message to System Goddess. – "Did you manage to analyze the barrier covering this place?"

"Yeah, it looks like a barrier made to evade a bit of the World's Will perception" – System Goddess specializes in mystical formations so she's a barrier scanner. – "Although the barrier is only to hide so, if you start a fight, it is possible that other supernatural entities will come to investigate"

Excellent, I can work with that.

I protected my soul with all the tricks I prepared in case of fighting with an entity that can damage souls, and then I threw a coin into the offering box.

"Your actions are a clear breach of the contract that declares not to harm humanity, if you don't give me an explanation I will have to make a report with the Guardians" - Now I am in the role of a diplomat so I must be civilized.

There was no direct answer, but through my link with Tsubaki I could feel an intense corrupt spiritual energy beginning to surround the temple to improve the isolation of the barrier, but it's still easy to break through this barrier if I use some amulets given to me by the Mr. Ichijo.

That's a good idea not to let the prey escape, but planning to kill the detective only gives evidence to prove the culprit so this is good for me.

"Is this how things will be?" – I sighed when ten fox-faced girls began to surround me. – "Can we not speak as civilized entities?"

The girls extended their hands indicating that they were about to attack me.

Before the girls attacked me, I took out a gold foil talisman from my space ring.

This is one of the strongest defensive items Mr. Ichijo gave me and it could even block a real deity's attacks so using it here would be a complete waste, but I'm just thinking of giving a simple message, it's a bad idea to attack me.

I smiled when the girls lowered their hands as if they had been ordered not to attack, having a millionaire sponsor is nice.

As thanks to Mr. Ichijo, I will find him a woman of no importance to Raku after I stay with the women of the Onodera family.

Is it already a fact that I will do it?

The question is stupid when the answer is obvious.

The main entrance of the temple opened letting out a deep 'smell' of putrefaction, blood and dirt.

The 'smell' should normally seem grotesque to me since my nose is more sensitive than a dog's, but this 'smell' was not from dead bodies, it was the 'smell' of 'madness' and 'despair', something what I'm used to.

A long humanoid hand reached out from the temple entrance as if some oversized creature was crawling out of a basement abandoned by mankind.

Strange murmurs came from inside the temple, it was as if thousands of children were trying to speak at the same time, but their voices were being drowned out by something that was holding them by the neck.

The creature began to crawl, the sound of nails scratching wood drowning out the children's voices...

"Hey Listen! I want popcorn for this stupid horror movie! And let it be butter popcorn, caramel popcorn is for suckers!"

You just ruined the mood… Whatever.

I sighed. – "Are you going to continue doing a show or are you going to go out?"

The creature paused for a moment as if it hadn't expected my lack of interest in its generic horror-movie performance.

"Look, I have a busy schedule so if you don't want to get into a problem let's talk" - I looked at my watch and frowned, I still have a lot of damn work...

The creature stopped making a stupid horror scene and finally came out of hiding.

"Hey Listen! This shit is so fucking ugly that if you're willing to kiss it I'm going to make you an altar!" – Navi shouted with joy.

"I can be a womanizer, but I have standards" - I responded with apathy

The creature had large eyes that looked like rusty rattles. Its mouth showed a huge smile that could only be described as the definition of madness and desperation. Its head seemed to have two fox ears, but the long black hair on it head kept those ears from being cute and instead they were more like a bull's horns.

As if its face wasn't disgusting enough, its body resembled the split torso of an animal and in terms of internal organs, the creature had dozens of broken and rusty rattles while, instead of ribs, the creature had slender human arms similar to children's arms which held the bells inside the creature's body.

Maybe if I show a picture of this thing to my sister, she'll learn to clean her room on command...

"Luis, you can't adopt that thing as a pet…" – Tsubaki interrupted my happy thoughts.

I sighed and looked at the creature. – "So, do you have a name?"

"▂▂▃▃▅▅ (Name… No…)" – The creature spoke with difficulty.

This is a problem, if this thing doesn't have a name then I can't use [Contract], that's the biggest weakness of this skill.

"Well, that doesn't matter for now" - I shrugged and pointed to the bells. – "Where did you get them from?"

Even though those bells are rusty and broken, they give me the same feeling as the bell Senko gave me which makes me quite curious as to whether this thing is a divine messenger fox that was corrupted, or if the creature has been devouring to Senko's race.

"▂▂▃▃▅▅ (Treasure… I must take care… I must…)" – The creature seemed to be about to lose what little rationality it had left so I sighed and went over to put my hand on one of its 'ribs' .

Strangely, the creature didn't seem to harbor any hostility towards me, but that may be due to [King of Monsters] and the fact that I have a strong affinity for anything derived from 'Madness'.

When I touched the arm that functioned as the creature's rib, I sent a message to Tsubaki. – "Use 'Resonance' to connect my 'Insanity' with this creature"

"Wait, Luis, do you understand what that thing says?" – Tsubaki asked me with surprise.

…I thought she could hear the creature.

"I can't understand what that thing says either" – System Goddess was also surprised.

"Hey Listen! I only know that you are a dog that can talk to horrible animals hahahaha!" – I ignored Navi.

"I can understand" – Only Ortro could understand the creature.

Is this an effect of 'Madness'?

It seems that there are things I still need to investigate about this energy.

Despite her doubts, Tubaki used her skill and through [Reader's Madness] I was able to stop the creature's mental deterioration at least enough so that it wouldn't turn into a violent animal.

The creature looked at me with its strange rattle eyes and it seemed that its smile had grown. – "▂▂▃▃▅▅ (Thank you...)"

I nodded and processed the information I just discovered.

When I used [Reader's Madness] to restore this creature's sanity, I also analyzed its body and was able to understand what the creature has been doing.

The creature makes contracts with humans to protect them from evil spirits. After protecting the human 3 times, the creature will absorb the human's vitality.

This will not immediately kill the human, but it will cause an accumulation of diseases that start with Alzheimer's at an early age, loss of one of the five senses, deterioration of the immune system, and finally the person will die after two years of pain.

Although this creature is doing something worthy of a devil, there is something very strange and that is that this thing cannot be defined as 'evil' and is actually related to the concept 'Life' in addition to possessing positive Karma.

In short, it's a monster that kills humans, but somehow falls into the category of 'benevolent spirit'.

Since the creature could now speak rationally I went straight to the point. – "Why are you extracting the vitality of humans?"

The creature lifted one of the bells on its body and handed it to me. – "▂▂▃▃▅▅ (Protect… Daughters… World… Enemy…)"

I held the bell and then showed the bell that Senko gave me.

When the creature saw Senko's bell, I could feel its emotions turning into chaos as happiness, longing, sadness, and resentment scrambled to create a nameless emotion.

The most striking thing was that all the creature's hatred was not directed at the bell, but at something else, it was as if the creature hated the world.

The rusty rattle seemed to be corrupted by a derivative of 'Madness' energy so I took advantage of the fact that this temple is hidden from the eyes of the Will of the World to use my [Reader's Madness] energy without fear of being discovered as a Chaotic Beast.

When the black blood covered the rattle I could see something, it was as if this rattle stored the memories of an entity.

Memories were fuzzy and most of the information was fragmented so I couldn't find anything good and can only make a few theories.

The black blood returned to my body and I returned the rusty rattle to the creature who had only been silently watching me.

This creature was initially obedient out of fear that I would draw the attention of the Will of the World, but then the creature became friendly due to [King of Monsters] and [King of Lunatics].

Now that I've shown [Reader's Madness] I think this creature has started to see me as something of a friend so I looked at the arms on its torso. – "Give me a piece of your body, so I will know what you need"

The creature did not question my absurd request and tore one of the arms from its abdomen to give it to me.

It's worrying how easily I can communicate with lunatics...

The arm looked like the limb of an elementary school child, but it was actually part of a spirit body so it didn't really have any texture or taste so I opened my mouth to eat it.

[System Notification: The title 'Super Predator' has analyzed the secrets of the nameless entity]

A lot of information came to my mind and I sighed, this will be troublesome...

"I understand" - I sighed and then smiled. - "Let's make a Deal…"

[Mid-tier Contract: 'The King's Dog'

The user will help the nameless entity to resurrect the daughters of the entity whose souls were fragmented preventing reincarnation. In exchange, the nameless entity will be the property of the user and with it, all the belongings of the nameless entity will be the property of the user]

"I will help you restore the souls of your daughters" - I extended my hand. – "In exchange, you will be my property"

Although the contract sounds simple, it is full of clauses and hidden traps that will assure me of the eternal obedience of this creature.

The creature stared at my hand.

Even though 80% of the creature's mind is destroyed like a porcelain cup that was hit by a hammer, the creature still knows how dangerous it is to make a deal in the supernatural world, however, the creature cannot refusing, when I showed my black blood I allowed the creature to see a fraction of the Destiny Energy in my body.

The creature has been stealing vitality to nourish the broken souls of its daughters, so if I use my large pool of energy to help the creature, it will be easier to resurrect its daughters.

Will I really go to all that trouble just to get a pet?

It's not just a horror movie looking pet, this creature has a great deal of knowledge and with [Reader's Madness] I can reconstruct its mind which will give me access to that information.

Also, I love pets. When I was a child I had a cat, sadly that animal followed its own desire for freedom and ended up being killed by a group of idiotic children, that's why I prefer to lock my pets away from the world.

The creature seemed to hesitate for a couple of minutes, but finally it held out its hand. – "▂▂▃▃▅▅ (Name… Give me one…)"

I couldn't speak as Ortro started making noise.

"I want to give it a name" – Ortro seemed to want to help the creature, but the truth is that Ortro is jealous.

For her it was very important when I gave her her name so she doesn't want me to give names to other entities...

I sighed. - "Fine"

I'm not creative with names so this doesn't matter.

Black blood came out of my arm to form a dog's head. – "Kon, you will be Kon"

Kon?

Isn't that the sound used in Japan to represent foxes?

Our lack of creativity is surprising.

[System Notification: The entity 'Kon' has been registered as a subordinate deity of the entity 'Ortro'.

The entity 'Ortro' has fulfilled the necessary conditions to earn the title 'Outer God'. The entity 'Ortro' is linked to the user so the user will get the title 'Outer God (10%)']

[Outer God (Title can be activated):

Despite the name 'God', the Outer Gods pretend to be Deities while feeding on the followers of the True Gods.

The user can now devour 'Minds' to strengthen the 'Reader's Madness' energy. Memories and knowledge can be obtained by devouring a mind.

By activating this title the entities in the 'God' category will see the user as one of them. This effect is canceled if the user uses skills related to 'Reader's Madness'.

Other title effects are unknown.

Warning: If the user is identified as an Outer God, entities with the concept 'God' will be hostile towards the user]

"Luis, I beg you..." - System Goddess began to cry. – "Stop obtaining skills and titles that will make you the enemy of Gaia, I do not want to be persecuted by an army of deities, those guys are irrational idiots…"

It's ironic when a cultivator says that.

I couldn't reply as my system kept opening notifications.

[System Notification: A higher entity is still looking for the user. The higher entity has sent a message to the user]

… Is this entity still looking for me?

I sighed and looked at the message out of curiosity.

[A■a■■■■■: Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?...]

[Warning: If the user replies to the message, the entity 'A■a■■■■■' will find the user]

… I'm a magnet of stalkers…

I sighed. – "It is not my fault, it is the fault of the system"

"..." - System Goddess sighed with regret. – "Why can't you have a system that gives you simplistic abilities like breathing fire or controlling lightning? I can already see how we will be chased by an army of Guardians…"

I smiled wryly, I think the same as her, but complaining won't do any good.

I looked at the creature now called Kon as the black blood formed a large puddle on the ground. – "Come in here, we are leaving this place"

Kon nodded and crawled into the puddle making her body plunge into darkness.

The puddle is connected to my soul so my Core of Existence now has a new resident.

I'm turning into a hotel...

By the way, yes, Kon is a woman, stop bugging me.

I sent a message to Ortro. – "Leave the investigation of the holes in my memory as a secondary activity, now your priority will be to reconstruct Kon's mind"

Although Ortro normally only thinks with her stomach, she is very skilled in everything related to the 'Mind', she even she is more skilled than me in mental destruction and rebuilding.

Since Kon now belongs to me, her contracts were transferred to me so now there is no risk of Miko being eaten.

As for using this contract to make Miko my possession, that's stupid, that girl will be part of my harem with the usual means, blatant seduction and emotional manipulation.

"Luis" - Tsubaki spoke with irony and amusement. – "Your new pet is chewing on Navi"

"Hey Listen! You fucking asshole, stop monologuing and help me! This fucking piece of shit thinks I'm a chew toy!

"Kon…" - I smiled. - "Good girl"

I love pets.