Chapter 34: Chapter 27: Perception Filter

I heard a loud crashing sound coming from the back of the train which made me turn around jumping from the scare the sound gave me. After a few seconds of nothing happening I decided to go check the back of the train, but before I jumped down from the chair Amity appeared and entered the cabin together with Zenshin.

"Great timing! I always believed a cutie like you would be able to steal a locomotive and come rescuing me like the princess in distress I am" Amity said with exaggerated expressions, gaining a dubious look from Zenshin.

I smiled a little embarrassed from the sudden compliment from her.

"Now, we must have around 5 hours of magicules stored on the crystal in the storage compartment. Less if I use it to recover my own reserves and that's what I'm about to do because I refuse to stay a single more minute powerless, nonono" Amity said as she walked towards the crystal and placed her hand on it before closing her eyes.

Small white lightning began to pour out of the crystal and hit Amity's arm, but she wasn't startled in the slightest. Eventually I noticed the train began to lose speed and even the crystal inside the metal disk lost some of its color. My guess is that whatever Amity is doing with that giant crystal is somehow transferring the energy to her, which isn't that weird to think about, I mean if a human of Earth would to start jumping fifteen meters into the air, fly with a broom and shoot bullets from their hands I think they would require way more energy than their bodies would be able to absorb from food… wait, so every single person on this planet is just an oversized battery?

While I was lost in thoughts Zenshin went next to a wall and laid there, almost as if he was sleeping, he's probably just resting? Anyway, I began to watch Amity doing what I assume is a recharge cycle closely, not thinking about anything in particular I was just curious. But I began to notice something odd, whenever I looked at her face and tried to see her facial features carefully I found myself looking away from her, and it's not just that time, I tried again and, sure enough, it happened again. I could look at Amity's face just fine, but every time I tried to see her facial features I would look away. Why does this feel familiar? I'm sure something like this has already happened, I just can't remember what… Oh, yeah, that church with… the… bod-... it's for the best if I don't remember this, yeah.

Eventually the crystal lost all of its light and the lightning stopped and Amity let out a heavy sigh before opening her eyes and beginning to speak.

"Ok, now for the worst part… Oh, hi little gecko, is there anything I can do for you?" Amity said changing the topic mid sentence and she seems happy to change the topic, or maybe she's just happy to talk to me?

She picked me up and put me right in front of her face, even this close the effect is the same, I can't focus on anything from her face. I'll just ask her what this is. Amity, I wanted to know, whenever I try to focus on your face, I suddenly move my eyes away from you. What and why is that?

She just stood there, looking at me, ignoring the question I just made. I repeated the question but nothing, it's really frustrating not being able to speak.

"Little ge-? Oh! You're trying to- I see, I see. Zenny isn't using his [Telepathy] right now, so I can't hear your thoughts. Can't you try to speak or just use gestures?" Amity said to me, understanding what I was trying to do. I guess it makes sense now why she wasn't answering me. But still, how will I ask her? I can give speaking a try, but it won't work.

"Mah… Rha… Gah…" I tried to speak, but only strange sounds were coming out of my mouth, and even if I tried hard I couldn't form a single word. Eventually I just gave up and growled in frustration, making Amity pet my head.

"You tried your best. Can't you try gestures?" She said.

Yeah, I guess I can? I try pointing to her face but every time I end up pointing to a random direction, even if I focused I would just point to another direction while looking away too.

Amity looked at me confused as trying to understand what I was doing for a few moments until suddenly it was like a lightbulb lit up on top of her head.

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"Oooohhhh, you noticed it, and by the looks of it it still has some effect, but is decaying. I see, I see, I see" Amity spoke while nodding her head simultaneously.

I must have looked like there was an interrogation mark on my face, as Amity began to explain herself.

"I have a skill called [Perception Filter] and it makes me look like a random person in the crowd. Actually, you already encountered one before, remember that church?" Amity asked.

Oh, please, don't remind me of that church. I slowly nodded.

"Nice, so I'm sure you remember the anti-monster field around it. This skill does exactly that, it distorts the perception of people and monsters from me to another place, making me basically the lowest interest point in your field of view. . . Actually, thinking about it, now it makes sense why that paladin tried to attack me and not called reinforcements. Well, let's just take off these little remnants of a skill" Amity said as she put me on the floor and passed her hand on her face.

Suddenly it was like Amity took off a mask over her face And I could see it all. Her face was young, maybe even younger than I assumed before, with a more pale skin than before. Her nose and chin were pointy and flat. Her eyes were a  deep shade of purple with tints of red mixed alongside cyan strings. Her hair was a nice and long brown color with a pair of something on top of her head underneath her hair. Her ears were the most strange, they were clearly mutilated and cut in a round shape and because of that they were smaller than normal.

"Now… just one more thing… oh I'll regret this" She said with a helpless look on her face.

Amity closed her eyes and suddenly her entire body was covered with chains made of light, it's so many I can't even see her hair. She moved her arm and grabbed a chain on her other arm and began to pull it. The chain began to distort and expand, like her arm was a balloon getting inflated, but all the other chains were unaffected, only that singular set of chains were acting that way.

Eventually the chain gave up and broke into countless light particles that spread throughout the room. At the same time Amity fell on all four on the floor and puked a mouthful of blood while heavily panting.

[Proficiency points have reached the threshold, normal skill [Abnormal Mental Condition Resistance] achieved Lv.5]

Suddenly I heard my skill leveling up after blacking out for a second. But what caught my attention is that I felt seeing Amity’s blood only pushed the skill past the threshold, and that it actually accumulated proficiency points with something else, reminding me of the dangers of [Instincts Overdrive] has on my mind.

Ignoring that for now, because I can't really do anything about it, I walk to Amity and put my front paw on her shoulders, trying to understand what just happened. Amity simply smiles at me while still panting and after a long breath she gets up on her feets.

“Zenny, we’re leaving in 15 minutes” Amity said as she walked to the chair in the control room and sat on it, looking through the window as the train loses speed and began to stop after 10 minutes.

I’m left there with a big question mark on my face trying to understand what the heck happened but failing miserably.