Tale of Discovery

Chapter 190: Teasing ; Urgent

"Are you ready?" I question while adopting a serious expression.

"Yes," Tiamat responds while entering a defensive stance.

"Here goes nothing," I say before activating time-stop and moving behind her.

Deactivating the ability, I proceed to kiss Tiamat's nape. This earns me a swift punch being thrown at my face, which I easily dodge by shifting my head to the side.

Tiamat seems like she wants to continue the attack by throwing multiple jabs at me, so I immediately create a reflective barrier between us.

Due to the properties of Vector Manipulation, seeing or sensing the 'non-existent' barrier is impossible, so, Tiamat is unaware of the repercussions of throwing a punch containing all her strength.

As a result, I bear witness to the sight of Tiamat losing her footing from the recoil of her punch.

Taking advantage of this given opportunity, I step forward, intending to sweep her off her feet by kicking her left shin.

To my pleasant surprise, Tiamat efficiently blocks the attack, despite the difference in our parameters, as well as, my advantage.

"You could at least try to change your pattern," Tiamat grunts before slamming her foot into the ground with enough force to crack the ground and destabilize me.

This is bad. I need to retreat for now.

Thus, I proceed to form an Illusion of myself before stepping back a few times, just in time to avoid a lethal kick to my guts.

That attack just now had a high chance of succeeding. The reason for that is because a slight amount of surprise could dissipate my focus, which essential for my usage of Vector Manipulation.

Every time I am 'punishing' Tiamat by facing her off in a battle, one of my goals is to strengthen my mental fortitude to the point of no longer being surprised by anything.

Well, my main goal is to tease Tiamat in various ways, but, hey, even that works out in my favor, as Tiamat would always respond very swiftly to my teasing.

I'm aware that most of my power comes from my parameters and abilities instead of actual fighting experience. However, that doesn't matter in the least, as long as I'm able to achieve my goals.

"Ha!" Tiamat shouts as she appears in front of me, ready to punch my guts.

As a response to her attack, I slightly move to the side and use my left to redirect the punch to another direction while using my right hand to cop a feeling of Tiamat's wonderful breasts.

All of a sudden, I feel a twinge of sharp pain on my back as I take notice of a scaly blue tail protruding from Tiamat's back.

The next moment, I feel my intestines being churned as my body is lifted off the ground gets hurled at a building nearby.

My vision gets a little hazy as I practically crash through the building's wall before landing and causing no small amount of damage.

It takes a few moments for my Regeneration and Immortality to completely heal me before I jump up from the ground and look at Tiamat who has gotten inside the building.

Looking around, I realize that we're in the receipt of a sauna.

"Let's stop here today," I nonchalantly say to Tiamat who has been preparing to launch a barrage of attacks.

Stunned into silence, Tiamat doesn't say anything for a few dozen seconds before dubiously inquiring,

"How come you are ending it so soon this time?"

"What do you mean?" I say while smiling at the notion of going inside the sauna with her.

"You usually torture me for a few hours before showing any signs of stopping," Tiamat says with an odd look on her face.

The smile on my face freezes as I sense my brows twitching.

"Torture, you say? When did I ever do that?"

"Ever since we met?" She immediately responds without any hesitation, "You threatened me and pierced my back with that sword of yours, trampling my pride in the process."

"Uh" I try to muster up a response to her statement, but can't come up with any good 'excuse'.

"After that, you would always find a way to disregard my pride by doing whatever you wanted with me."

I feel my mind drown into a state of reluctance as I begin to think of what she just said.

The next thing I know, there is moderate pain in my shins as I find myself falling to the ground as a smirking Tiamat kicks my guts into the ground.

Coughing out no small amount of blood, I confusedly glare at Tiamat.

"What, you didn't see that coming? Seriously, try to keep your thoughts in check. From the way you had been looking at me earlier, I noticed that you were trying hard to not be caught off-guard."

A wry smile forms on my lips as realization dawns upon me once again - I'm fighting a dragon that's well-versed in battles, not some upstart noble.

I wait a few seconds for my injuries to heal before getting up from the broken floor and fixing my clothes.

"Thank you for the advice, Tia," I say while scratching the back of my head.

Hearing this, Tiamat lets out a small sigh and says,

"Sometimes, I have my doubts about whether you really are the same person as the one I've seen in your memories."

Right, she had seen that before. This makes me wonder if I'm actually that different from my past self.

So far, the only vision that came true was the one with 'me' riding a dragon and fighting against winged individuals.

Even that turned out different from the vision, which I take as me having made a decision that I wasn't 'supposed to' make.

"Forget that," I casually say, "Let's go in now."

"Where?"

"Into the sauna."

---

"Are you sure you want to keep on staying here?" I doubtfully ask the mother and daughter duo that are sitting on a sofa opposite mine.

"Yes," Catherine resolutely responds, while Isabella nods her head as confirmation.

I let out a deep sigh as I begin to think of how strange all this is.

Ever since they arrived in my castle, they've been living normally without showing me any expressions of grief or hate.

If that's not strange enough, then Isabella mistakenly referring to me as 'dad' on two separate occasions is.

In all honesty, I wouldn't mind taking care of the two for the time being, as I have nothing better to do anyway. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean I will overlook the strangeness of the situation.

The only thing that comes to mind when thinking of a reason for their behavior is Joseph being a failure as father and husband.

However, based on the worry and concern shown by Isabella when I was about to kill him disproves that.

Now that I think about it, this ordeal began right after Joseph said something to the two.

As much as I'd like to know, I have a strong guts feeling telling me that I will surely regret looking into it.

My thoughts are brought to a halt as the double door leading to this room opens.

Looking in the direction of the door, I find Saturnus calmly walking over to me before stopping once she's close enough and saying,

"Creator, the half-elf is seeking your presence, claiming that there is an urgent matter that needs to be addressed."

Oh? Is Tiffa done with her research? This is much sooner than I expected, after all, only two days have passed since I handed her the second Grimoire.

Even so, what's with this? Urgent? Did she notice something wrong?

With numerous scenarios playing in my head, I get up from the sofa and bid the mother and daughter farewell before instructing Saturnus to lead the way.