[Congratulations for killing an F-Ranked Beast, 5 System points rewarded]
[Congratulations for killing an E-Ranked Beast, 15 System point rewarded]
Two notifications were waiting for me the moment I opened my eyes. I didn't expect that all the traps would kill a beast, so this was a pleasant surprise. How much time did I sleep? Outside the sun was about to hide, probably Jamie's people have rested all day, so there goes my harassing plan.
I could feel a warm touch on my head and saw Rose next to me. I subconsciously smiled, but a second later it came to me… who is guarding?
"Rose?"
'You wake up!! How are you feeling?'
'I'm fine, my arm hurts a little, but I will be ok… did Lucy learn how to guard the house?'
'Lucy? No, she is here.' She turned around a little, and I saw the little rabbit on her shoulder.
I got up from the couch to watch the street and heard Rose giggling. She knew what I was thinking, and was so relaxed… Am I missing something?
It was when I noticed that there was a cute Siamese cat cuddled next to her.
"Dante?"
'Don't interrupt him, he is busy.' Rose said with a serious tone.
¿?¿?¿?
"What is he doing here?"
'He said that we needed help, so he came.'
With each answer more and more questions filled my head. I saw him peacefully napping next to her… he is busy?
"And what is he doing?"
'I'm not sure, he said that he was going to start with your plan. When I asked more, he said that he was meowing.'
Which plan? And what is Meowing?
'Can you stop talking and thinking so loud~? I'm busy here give me an hour and I'll explain~… go look for food, no one is going to come to this street~.'
At that moment my stomach growled, beside some candies I haven't eaten anything.
I decided to just wait for Dante's explanation and go look for food, I trusted Dante, so I just went around and started to look for food, Rose went with Lucy to hunt for food to other houses.
Rose was able to find a couple of things for me to eat and I brought them back to the house where Dante was.
He was still on the couch. Before I didn't notice, but there were dozens of threads coming out of him. They were thinner than before, so it was difficult to notice them, and now that I think about it most of the time I can't see the thread that kept him connected with me.
Is he connected with all Jamie's followers?
I was just going to wait for his explanation, and my stomach was growling again, so I just ate. I was about to open one of the cans when Dante interrupted me.
'Leave me the tuna~.'
I left the tuna can at the side, took a box with beans and ate them while looking with curiosity the movement of the threads, I didn't want to think about it, but now I get that he is going on with the plan of not letting them sleep.
If this is true he is probably just talking randomly in their heads, but how is that he was so sure that no one was going to come this way?
It was almost night and about half of the threads converged on the direction of the mansion, but about half of them were in small groups in random directions away from there.
Was this Dante's doing? And how? Wasn't he supposed to be able to just talk in our minds? I understand that hearing a voice would make it hard to sleep, but I wouldn't follow instructions from some random voice, right?
'I said that I'm explaining later! I'm doing your job here~ so stop thinking~ this is already difficult enough with Rose's hyperactive mind~.'
…
…
Do you know how hard it's to not think about anything? I wonder what Rose is thinking about…
…
I tried to focus on the food, and there was nothing unusual about it… that was good since I had no comments about the food. I avoided looking at Dante, so I focused on Lucy.
Besides being fluffy and cute, I wonder if she has another ability or is as useless as I think she is…
'You can think again~ I finished for now~. Where is my tuna~?'
I opened the can of tuna, gave it to him, and looked at him with expectation in my eyes. When Rose saw that Dante left the couch came to my side and looked at Dante too.
…
"And?"
'And what?'
"You said that you were going to explain what you have been doing all this time."
'Oh that, lot of stuff, mainly meowing on their minds.'
…
"Can you give more details?"
'mmmm, I have been saying meow~ each time someone tries to go sleep, right now the people in the mansion are freaking out trying to find a cat.
I also guided a sheep and the last remaining dog to the meat that you left in the street and backyard last night.
I made the patrols that went out to avoid this place and get lost without knowing how to go back.
… I think that covers all'.
I wasn't sure how to respond to all that, or what should I ask first… Rose was dumbfounded too. But unlike me, she asked right away.
'How did you manage to do that?'
'Well meowing on their minds is easy it's just like talking to you, but they were a lot, so I had to focus a little to do that. Guiding the sheep and the dog was simple, the dog was an idiot (what else could you expect from a dog?), so he went running to the meat. The sheep was tricky because she didn't eat meat, but you have to make her think it's lettuce or something like that.
Modifying the patrol routes had some difficulty because you have to go one by one, you have to alter simple memories, the 3rd street became the 5th, turning right in a particular road, becomes turning left, and stuff like that.
Getting them lost was the most challenging part, you had to influence their minds to be relaxed, so they don't notice that they are going too far, then you have to slowly erase and modify the memories of the area, then you create false memories so the correct routes are chaotic or inexistent. I couldn't do this with everyone on time so about half of them could go back to the mansion.'
…
Influence of mind, change memories since when is this cat so strong? I feel so lucky that he is on my side. Rose was looking at him with the same surprised face that probably I was.
"Dante… have you ever used one of those abilities on us?"
To be honest, I wasn't that worried about myself since cold mind should block it, but what about the rest?
'Of course, I talk with all of you all the time~.'
"I mean the other abilities, influence or changing memories."
'Yep… why is it bad?'
…How do you explain the right and wrong to a cat right after he has done is exactly what you wanted…
"It's not bad, but usually is not something that you should do without us knowing specially modifying memories is not something you should do ok?"
'I have to stop?'. I was curious about what he had been doing.
"Tell me what you have done in this time."
'Ok, the most common is that when someone is having a nightmare, I influence the mood for it to change into a normal dream, when someone is feeling down I also cheer him up. When someone is trying to remember something important I help those memories to come back. Sometimes I make people think and question themselves about something that is bugging them.'
Some of the things he said were too ambiguous to understand.
"For example?"
'Mmm your memories of Mr. Cuddles were buried too deep for you to remember, so I found the memory on your head and show it to you. You were avoiding the fact that you liked Rose because of Hayley and Gerhard, this morning, Hope was having a nightmare with a giant cow, I change her mood, and made her defeat the cow to invite us a barbecue, when you were about to be defeated and lost hope, I lifted your mood and made you use the system…'
This cat… how much has he done in all this time? And this is just the tip of the iceberg…
What surprised me the most was that he could bypass the system and influence in some of my decisions so easily.
I was trying to process all this, when something warm passed through me, I noticed that Rose tried to hit me.
'You forgot Mr. Cuddles!'
"I didn't it was just buried on my mind! It was more than ten years ago."
Crap I shouldn't have asked for details.
I could see that she was hurt because of something that Dantes said.
'Do you like me?' she was looking right at my eyes.
"Of course I like you… Dante, tell her that I like her"
'He likes you. I can't create feelings~.' I haven't thought about it but if Dante said that it meant that Rose thought that my feeling could have been something that he created too. Rose still had some doubts but didn't say anything more.
"Rose, I like you, this is not Dante's doing"… I didn't know what to tell her to convince her.
I'm not sure what happened, but Rose was looking at Dante, after a while she smiled, and nodded to him.
"What happened?"
'I showed her some of your memories.'
He can do that too? I decided to not overthink if Rose is happy I don't care what memories he showed to her.
"Dante, have you changed someone memories?"
'Just once~…'
I took Dante and tried to explain to him while petting him.
"Dante, you can't go around changing memories ok? At least not without us knowing about it."
'Should I change them back?'
"Yes…"
He closed his eyes for a while. And then said.
'I have to change Gerhard memory too, but that has to wait till we go back.'
'Ah!'… Rose gave a little shriek at my side.
"What did he change?"…
She was a little pale and looked back at me.
'Do you remember that I told my brother that I liked you about a year ago?'
I opened my eyes looking at Rose.
'That never happened…'
…
"Dante look, you shouldn't do this anymore, but changing the memory back can be a little confusing so you can leave that one as it is…"