I wasn't exactly the greatest at starting conversations seeing as I was an antisocial fuck, but I'd really managed to set a new record for that opener.
I mean, seriously. What the hell was I even thinking?
"Why did you lie to me, Antenora?"
What a classic icebreaker of a line.
Ultimately, whether or not my conversational skills were shit wouldn't matter though. In fact, it was probably better than trying to pose the question in a more diplomatic way.
Antenora responded without hesitation, much to my surprise.
"I had to know."
"Know what?"
"Whether or not I could trust you."
The way she said it and the way she stressed the "I" made it sound like it was a personal thing. It likely was. But honestly, that made no sense.
"The hell do you mean? What about the theatrics back when I 'reaffirmed my loyalties' or whatever?"
"I trusted you as a member of the Zaltstel clan then, but not as Antenora the former Hero. Not fully, at least. It was at that moment I decided I would begin to watch you closer and attempt to become more amicable. I must apologize for the failure of my recent attempts though, as I am not the most approachable individual."
Yeah, go figure. Turns out being a bitch for weeks on end doesn't really do you any wonders when you suddenly have a change of heart afterward. It just makes the change fuckin' suspicious.
"That's great and all, but it still doesn't explain shit."
"I have not finished explaining. If you had allowed me to continue, you would have the answer you seek."
"Thanks for being amicable."
Antenora raised an eyebrow instead of responding to my jibe.
"From the start, your unusual clothes and overly powerful abilities told me that you were not of this world. We have had similar instances of individuals like you coming to our world before.
"All of them were bringers of chaos. You seem to be no exception, seeing as the Black Constellation is no doubt reeling from the effects of your actions. However, all of this information was not something I could simply speak to you about.
"At least, not until now. I had no way of knowing whether you were an agent of 'God', especially due to your strength and your activities so far. In all honesty, I was quite suspicious when you arrived with Lucrezia. As she is the offering vessel, her location was kept quite secretive.
"Not even I could find her in the previous loops before whatever ritual the Black Constellation was attempting had already been done to her. Not only that, but your actions having disrupted the sequence of events in this loop down to the patrol routes of the guards who were transporting Aurelia was quite aggravating. It was hard to not suspect you as a meddler."
I waited for a few more seconds to make sure that Antenora had finished before I responded.
"What about your [Telepathy], huh? You could've just read my mind if you were that suspicious."
Antenora nodded. "That is what I did, yes. It was hard to focus myself after just being rescued from captivity, but I certainly did intrude afterward. I did not find anything malicious, but that simply made me more suspicious at the time. There are ways to hide one's true thoughts, just as you are doing now."
Well, she was right about that. At the moment, I was pretty much just focusing my mind on the mental image of a chicken while we conversed. Why? Because it was simple and I could do it for hours on end.
So long as it remained at the forefront of my mind, the only thing the [Telepathy] skill would be able to pick up was that chicken.
Of course, this defense was only reliable if you had a high wisdom stat to help increase your focus and reduce the amount of stray thoughts and if you knew that a [Telepathy] user was in your presence.
Unless Antenora's [Telepathy] skill was way higher than I thought it was, she wouldn't be able to filter the chicken out of my mind, and since I upgraded the [Psychic Citadel] ability, she couldn't induce any physical effects on me.
Either way, it didn't look like she minded the chicken because I saw a glint of amusement in her eyes when she made that remark.
"Yeah, guess so. If I was an agent of that bastard, I'd probably be pretty good at doing something like that, huh? What was my mind filled with when you first went snooping, then?"
"Lucrezia."
Yeah, that sounds about right. I'd just met her so I was pretty damn obsessed with her since that was my first positive interaction in forever.
"Figures. And you thought that was suspicious?"
"Quite. Perhaps you were thinking of her as a friend, or a potential lover. Or perhaps you were thinking of her as Lucrezia, the offering vessel. I had no way of knowing at the time. Were it the latter, it would have been an extremely dangerous situation for us."
"Yeah, that makes sense. Why didn't you and her ditch me, then?"
"...I attempted to suggest the idea to her, but she rejected it vehemently each time, even after your little spat. She felt quite indebted to you, despite her attitude then."
I looked at Antenora for a few more seconds, holding her gaze. I sighed.
"Fine. So to summarize, you were hostile to me because I fucked up the loop beyond recognition, could've been an agent sent by 'God', and might've been interested in Lucrezia as the 'offering vessel', whatever that means."
Antenora nodded. "In essence, yes."
"And then after I affirmed that I was no danger to Lucrezia, you lied because you wanted to test if I was trustworthy enough for you to divulge this sort of information to, yeah?"
This time, Antenora shook her head.
"No. More importantly than affirming that you were no danger to Lucrezia, you affirmed that you had no grand designs such as conquest or heroics. It was then that I began believing you could be an asset to our cause."
Well, that might put a damper in the unification plans.
"Conquest? Is that normal for 'people like me' as you put it?"
"The current ruler of Ardene is what we call a 'Transmigrator.' He usurped the throne through sheer might and then rapidly expanded the country to three times its former size. So, yes. I believe so."
Holy fuck. That sure as hell wasn't in the rulebook's brief primer on lore. Maybe if I read a good enough history book, it'd trigger an errata like the whole Corruption and Reputation thing.
But if that kind of story didn't give me an anti-hero main character vibe, I don't know what would. I made a mental note to not meet with the ruler of Ardene any time soon.
"Yeah, I'm not interested in politics. More importantly, how the hell did lying to me help at all, then?"
"It didn't, and it clearly was a mistake now that we are discussing the topic in this manner. I merely wished for you to believe that whatever mental protections you had acquired were sufficient to protect you so that I would be able to monitor your emotions more clearly."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
It was then that Antenora did something that completely caught me off guard.
She kneeled and then bowed, such that her forehead touched the ground before me. It was the spitting image of a perfect dogeza.
"I deeply apologize for my deception and hostility, Ryuuko. There are no more explanations that I can give for my behavior thus far."
My eyes widened in shock.
It wasn't because Antenora apologized to me. Rather, it was the way she apologized to me.
Lucrezia had been teaching me quite a bit about the culture of the eastern tribes as we journeyed, and I pretty much knew the traditional gesture of apology for the tribes by heart now.
So why was she apologizing like this, then? Was she really—
"Have I performed it incorrectly? I was sure this is how it was done."
It seemed that she had taken my extended silence as displeasure, but her latest words just made my already racing mind race even faster.
Then, it struck me.
I abruptly grabbed Antenora's hands in my own, causing her to yelp in surprise.
"Earlier, you said 'our cause.' Who're the others?"
"...Huh?"