Chapter 36: Titanium Alloy Dog Eyes
[Summoning Beast: Insight Pup]
Rank: E+
Species: Canidae Mammal
Attribute: Light Affinity
Abilities:
Light Absorption (Passive): The Insight Pup's eyes have evolved to absorb and store light energy.
Inferiority Glare: When activated, anyone looked at by the Insight Pup will feel inexplicably inferior and be compelled to attack it furiously.
Disarming Cuteness: Reduces the target's rationality by 50%.
Solar Flare: The Insight Pup can release all the light energy stored in its eyes at once, blinding the enemy. (The Insight Pup is only one step away from evolving into a D-rank summon, at which point the power of this ability will undergo a qualitative change.)
System Evaluation: I may not be human, but damn, you're a real piece of work!
Kael: "..."
No! Where's my Big Yellow? What the hell is this "Insight Pup"? Kael's face scrunched up, his eyes wide with confusion.
Although Big Yellow was gone, Kael still nicknamed the new summon "Goldie." And Goldie's four skills were, without exception, incredibly practical. Some of them, like "Inferiority Glare" and "Disarming Cuteness," seemed almost like reality-warping ninjutsu. Used correctly, they could be game-changers. Plus, Goldie was on the verge of evolving to D-rank, which would make it even more helpful.
With this new addition, Kael felt even more motivated for the rest of his treasure hunt. He pocketed the old walkie-talkie he'd found earlier and continued his scavenging.
[Material: Broken Radio]
Quality: White
This one's broken and useless. Even if it worked, its function overlaps with the walkie-talkie... Kael shook his head.
[Material: Old Battery]
Quality: White
He looked down at a fist-sized black battery, pondering its potential uses. I wonder if I could make a Lightning-attribute summon with this? Better hold onto it.
After spending half the day rummaging through the dump, Kael couldn't stand the overwhelming stench any longer. He suspected that if he stayed any longer, the sour smell would permanently cling to him. He had originally planned to check the town's black market for chakra metal, but he'd already spent too much time here and couldn't keep Inoshita and the others waiting.
Outside Winterfall City.
"Kael, where have you been? Why do you smell so weird?"
"Yeah, Kael-nii-san, did you fall into a sewer or something?"
As soon as he reached the team's resting spot, Kael was met with disgusted looks from his teammates. Inoshita even pinched his nose, staring at him with an exaggerated expression.
"...Nothing I can do about it. Didn't exactly have time for a bath," Kael grumbled inwardly, feeling wronged.
"Aww, what a cute little puppy!!!" Rei suddenly squealed, her face lighting up as she looked down at Kael's feet.
A small, pale yellow puppy was lying obediently on his shoe. Its large, fluffy ears covered half its head, and its big, dark eyes blinked appealingly.
Kael's mouth twitched. He bent down, picked Goldie up by the scruff of his neck, and handed him to Rei, who accepted him with delight.
"Is this dog the reason you stink so much? He's cute, I guess, but doesn't look very useful..." Inoshita commented.
Goldie, nestled in Rei's arms, suddenly turned its head and looked at Inoshita. Before he could finish his sentence, a blinding flash of light erupted from the puppy's eyes. Inoshita yelped and immediately turned his head away.
"What the hell was that?! Hiss! My eyes!" he cried out, still reeling from the shock.
"That's what you get for running your mouth," Kael retorted. "This is my new summon, Goldie."
"I just said he looked like a decoration! What...? Hey? Hey, hey, hey??? Did it suddenly get dark? I don't remember it getting dark so fast! Kael! Izumi! Captain Watanabe! Where are you guys? Say something!" Inoshita frantically blinked his wide eyes and waved his hands around, his expression growing more panicked by the second.
"Pfft!" Rei couldn't help but stifle a giggle. Even Inoshita's old comrade, Izumi, burst into heartless laughter.
"Hahahahaha! Rino, I never thought I'd see the day you were so scared!"
Inoshita's outstretched hands froze in mid-air. The next moment, his vision returned. He blinked, squinting against the sudden brightness, then immediately glared at the innocent-looking puppy in Rei's arms.
He pointed at it, demanding of Kael, "This little thing... has such an incredible ability? Kael, where did you find him?" The surprise was evident on his face. The momentary blindness had completely unnerved him. He couldn't imagine what would happen if that occurred during a battle.
"I found him in the garbage dump. Looked pitiful, so I brought him back. Don't let his size fool you; his abilities are pretty impressive. You'll see," Kael said with a faint smile. He didn't feel the need to hide too much from these instructors who had become his comrades through life-and-death battles.
He turned to Goldie and smiled. "Goldie, say hello."
"Woof, woof, woof! —Open your dog eyes and look closely! I am Goldie, the terminator of worlds!"
SMACK!
Kael smacked the puppy lightly on the head. His expression darkened as an unpleasant memory surfaced. "Still acting up? A dog will always eat shit!" He would never forget the bewildered look on the original Big Yellow's face when it saw the Ironclad Hedgehog mimicking its peeing posture. It was as if the dog was thinking, Why is your hedgehog copying me?
"Whimper..." Goldie immediately started playing pitiful. Disarming Cuteness, activate!
"Kael-nii-san, Goldie is so cute! How could you hit him?" Rei looked up at him reproachfully.
"Alright, alright! Playing that card, are we?" Seeing the usually docile Rei actually scolding him, Kael gritted his teeth and glared daggers at the puppy in her arms.
WHOOSH!
A yellow blur leaped from Rei's arms into Kael's. Goldie immediately started licking his face with an eager, panting tongue. Seeing the very human-like attempt to curry favor in the puppy's eyes, Kael's anger quickly subsided.
"Sigh..." He let out a helpless sigh. He suddenly felt that having summons that were too intelligent and had overpowered skills wasn't necessarily a good thing. Even he couldn't resist an illogical skill like Disarming Cuteness... The dumb Earth Dragon was better; at least it didn't make him angry.
His expression froze. A thought struck him, and he quickly turned to the motionless Earth Dragon standing nearby.
"Little Dragon, where's your bag?"
Earth Dragon: "..." What bag? it thought.
After making the Earth Dragon burrow back into the ground to retrieve the sack containing the precious synthesis materials Kael had painstakingly collected, the group finally set off again towards the Jashinist stronghold.
The end of this journey was destined to be fraught with danger.