Above Your Head

Chapter 56: Rescue Operation Part One (2)

"…You're strong huh."

"Did you just realize that now?" Celestia laughed and gave me a hand. In one way or another, I was fairly large in size for a man, but she lifted me up as if she was carrying a baby and dragged me out of the prison. Surprisingly, my body was getting better with every step she took.

Whooooosh—

"A golden... light?"

My eyes were closed as I was extremely exhausted, however, the light seemed to penetrate through my eyelids and I struggled with difficulty to open my eyes. I could feel the light healing and wrapping my body.

"It's the Golden Lion Aura. Only the imperial family of the Leonhardt Empire possess this power. It's usually used for attack and defense, but it's also possible to heal others."

Celestia rummaged through a nearby room, retrieved a bunch of prison uniforms from within and placed them nicely on the floor for me to lie down on. It was not exactly a very luxurious spot, but it was much better than the cold steel plate I was lying on previously. And most of all, I could feel that the state of my body was quickly improving from the golden light emitted by Celestia.

"Huff...huff... Ahh, I finally feel a little alive. The healing effects are faster than I've thought."

"I specialize in weapon techniques rather than the Golden Lion Aura, but… The royal bloodline flowing in me is needlessly thick, so the power that it can display is pretty good."

Then, Celestia took a few prison uniforms, tore them apart, and made them into bandages before proceeding to wrap them all over my body. I only knew that I was in pain and I wasn't sure of my current physical condition, so I had no choice but to leave my body in her hands. Anyway, as my body recovered to a certain extent, I began to wonder about the situation unfolding right now.

"By the way, what happened to you? Why were you thrown into a prison all of a sudden?"

"I wasn't thrown into prison, it's just that they didn't have a choice but to isolate me apart. Haha! Those retards thought I was helplessly kidnapped by Cheong Won, so they really thought I was powerless."

Then, Celestia clenched her fist and a golden Aura started to flow out from her whole body. Though I was ignorant about the superpowers around, even in my eyes, that didn't look like ordinary Aura.

"What are you doing? Don't tell me, you're going to?"

"That's right. I think I caught about thirty of them. Hmph, they couldn't attack me because they were afraid that they would hurt me, but to think that they thought they could catch me just by leaving 10 demi-humans or so behind? Morne that retard, always blabbering away that he's a Sage, but he's really stupid beyond redemption." Celestia was speaking in an extremely wild manner with such a pretty face.

In plain English, she slaughtered all the demi-humans who were trying to capture her. Of course, it would have been impossible for Celestia to single-handedly defeat the large number of demi-humans. But as expected, because the demi-humans couldn't kill her, no, even before that, they couldn't even touch a single hair on her body, so they all basically had an extremely disadvantageous handicap to start with.

"What about Morne?"

"Of course I did it when he wasn't around. He's probably very busy with the battle against Albatross. Well, I couldn't win against those numbers of demi-humans and got caught in the end."

But even that was something. The demi-humans couldn't withstand her continuous rebelling and ended up being dragged by her here. Judging from the atmosphere, they would've died one by one if they even dropped their guard a little.

'But then again, it's no ordinary task to subdue a superpower holder who was physically fine and unscathed.'

If it was an ordinary person, just handcuffing them would've been enough. Once their movements were restricted, the demi-humans would be able to prevent them from running around without causing harm.

But Celestia possessed superpowers. And it was also a pretty strong superpower at that. In order to completely subdue her, the demi-humans would need some sort of way to completely block the flow of her mana, just like the torture liquid that was in me right now. The problem, however, was that such means would inevitably cause one's body functions to go haywire.

Of course, if one really tried to find a way, there definitely existed a method to subdue these Ability holders without harming them. Restraining devices that hindered the use of Ability could be made, or some kind of anti-Ability zones could also be established. Other than that, perhaps some sort of wuxia-like method like sealing the blood vessels would also be possible.

However, the problem lied in the identity of the demi-humans. The demi-humans were beings who would kill and devour, not capture and hold their enemies captive. The demi-humans had a culture that extremely belittled life, so they did not develop such sophisticated methods of overpowering the enemy without harming them.

'But, well, it's too harsh to call them stupid because of something like this. No matter how I look at it, causing a ruckus like this is something that's beyond common sense.'

This place was Great Sky. It was an Exa-class Space Carrier of the Tekea Federation which boasted a size that was much larger than a decent city. Considering that Celestia was in the middle of the enemy's camp, it wouldn't be that easy to run amok inside here. Of course, the story would be different if that person in question was out of her mind.

To add to that, wasn't this place inescapable? And aren't the demi-humans, who surrounded us, monsters that enjoy cannibalism? Even if the demi-humans couldn't hurt her, it was normal for an ordinary person to be terrified and overwhelmed.

"But they really can't hurt you? Not even a little bit?"

"That's right. Cheong Won did say 'I will be notified from anywhere in the Universe if you harm her more than you have to, and I will come and find you immediately'... and he was definitely not kidding. On the contrary, it's more of an absolute rule that must be adhered to. Cheong Won had already seriously distorted his mission, so if they harm even a single hair on me right now, there'd be a great blow to Cheong Won's divinity. The demi-humans are also aware of that, so they can't even raise a fist against me."

"What about if you hurt yourself?"

"That's fine. If I could cause some form of damage to Cheong Won if I hurt myself, I honestly feel like I would kill myself this instant." Celestia said as she fumed in anger and continued explaining, "Ahh, of course, my body is important to me, so I won't actually do it."

I looked at Celestia with a blank look on my face as she spoke with such a bubbly voice, then I casually murmured, "…You're strong huh."

"Didn't you say that too just now?"

"No, that's not what I mean."

Rather than just saying she was strong... That's right, she was powerful. That was the only thing I could describe her. Even though I was also captured without warning and suffered severe hardships, she was also in an equally precarious situation.

In all seriousness, the situation she was in right now was practically the same as having marriage forced onto her and unconsentual sex was in the same deal. And her partner wasn't human but rather a demi-human, who was no different from a monster. Even if she struggled like this now and rushed at the demi-humans, the end result would still be the same. No matter how powerful she was, she couldn't fight against Morne, a transcendent in the same manner that she was fighting the demi-humans.

But even then, I couldn't find a slight hint of grimness in her. I had always thought she was a peculiar fellow when I found out she joined the army despite being an Imperial Princess, but she was definitely more than what she looked on the outside.

"Arghhh." I groaned slightly and got myself up. My body's condition had pretty much recovered to a good state, but I had only escaped from the worst situation and the torture substance was still within my body. I could feel constant pain and raggedness as if someone accidentally left a pair of scissors in my stomach during surgery.

'No, rather than a pair of scissors, it's more like a snake got put in my stomach. I feel like there's something moving inside me.'

However, it just felt dreadful and at the very least, there weren't any problems surfacing from the fact that it was moving. The Kaa or Kyahaha dude said I wouldn't be able to use my superpowers, but I wasn't using it and I was still alive and well anyways, so there was no need to be crestfallen. I felt like there wouldn't be a problem with my ability to see titles.

"Hmm?"

But when I thought about the title, something felt different. Something was supposed to pop out above the heads, but I couldn't see anything.

"What's wrong?"

"Ahh, it's nothing... Wait a minute."

Celestia suddenly widened her eyes and stared at me suspiciously, but I shook my head at her and sneakily looked around. I quickly came to a realization of what the sense of foreignity earlier was.

'What the hell. I can't see the title?'

Of course, I could clearly see the title of Celestia and the Legion girl in front of me, which was Space Idol and The Person who Lost Something (But the name of the Legion was displayed as ???. It probably was related to the fact that she lost her name). The problem was the titles other than those two. I couldn't see other titles. To be exact, I couldn't see any titles for the non-living things.

'What happened?'

Titles did not only exist for living beings. It also existed for objects. Wasn't that why I was able to identify the person who threw away garbage near my house? If I could not see everyone's title, I would've assumed that my ability was dysfunctional because of my body's current condition. However, the problem now was that I could see the titles of living beings, but not those of non-living things?

The Legion girl was quiet all these while, but while I was flustered, she said, "That guy is back again. Are you going to sync with him?"

She was most probably talking about Ares. I was lost in thought for a moment, and Celestia reacted before me, "Ah, come to think of it, there's one more person here."

Without giving me the chance to say anything, Celestia strode to the steel bars in front of the Legion girl. Just like how she got me out, she was trying to free the Legion girl from her restrictions as well. But just when Celestia was about to cut apart the steel bars, she paused when she saw the chains that was wrapped around the Legion girl.

And Celestia's eyes widened, "Ehh? Isn't she a Legion?"

"Ahh… yes, that's right."

I was amazed at the fact that she wasn't very vigilant of the Legion. That was because, looking at the atmosphere thus far, it wouldn't be strange even if she freaked out as if she was a witness to the Black Death pandemic. [1]

'Don't all Legions loathe humans?'

Come to think of it, the Legion girl I saw since I was taken here was constantly all smiles from start to end. She was strangely kind even though we only met for the first time. But the following words that Celestia said easily repudiated my thoughts, "Wahh, it's been a long time since I've seen people from the terrorist-like tribe."

"Terrorist?"

"That's right. They're a bunch of extremely dangerous beings. Words don't go through to them, and if their rules were breached by even a little bit, they'd be like 'Commence Attack!!!'."

"Then isn't it going to be bad for you to approach her like that? You're not being precautious at all."

Celestia laughed at my nonsensical remark.

"Precautions? What precautions? If it's 1 on 1, then a Legion isn't that scary of an opponent. They are rather weak. If I am using an electronic weapon or if she is wearing a combat-type Android, the situation would be different. But no matter how stupid the demi-humans are, they won't capture her and leave her here without any countermeasures… No, wait a minute." Celestia paused as her expression became strange; it felt like she realized something was out of place.

"What the hell? I know there's no machine nearby, but can you even call this defense? There's not even a single guard standing watch. And most importantly, they locked a Legion up with us? What are they going to do if I cut the steel bars and blast a hole in the wall and then let her out?"

The Legion had the ability to detect all the mechanical devices around and take control of their systems. No matter what outstanding and powerful magic or technical barriers were created, they would be useless in front of this intelligent life form capable of cracking. Once a machine was within the electromagnetic range of a Legion, it would definitely be deprived of control, so Legions were treated as fearsome existence in space warfare. At the very least, there wouldn't be anyone flying around with just their bare body in the universe, hence why Legion were deemed as fearsome.

What if someone were to travel around in space and the enemy took control of the ship or machine they were piloting? Unless they were a pretty strong being, It would be no exaggeration to say that their life would already be on the palms of the enemy.

"Wait a minute." Celestia immediately approached the wall on one side and released her golden Aura.

Thump!

A heavy sound resonated through, but besides that, there wasn't a single scratch on the wall. Celestia's expression fumed with embarrassment.

"What is this? What's going on?"

Thump! Thump!

The golden light flickered and striked the wall, but it was to no avail. Celestia's face stiffened up and she had a grave expression.

"What the hell? What kind of place did those bastards lock me in? What the hell is up with this place? It's not like the walls are sturdy or coated with Aura, and you're telling me I did not make a single scratch?"

Boom! Boom boom!

Unconvinced, I looked at the scene of Celestia hitting the wall again and lifted my head reflexively. Because something came to my mind in that instant.

'No way.'

So far, I had never seen anything or anyone without a title. But… There were times when I couldn't see a title for objects that were only a part of a non-living thing. To sum it all up, when I look at a person, their title would be above their head. I wouldn't be able to independently perceive them like 'someone's left hand, someone's right hand, or someone's head'. And if so…

"Holy… fuck." I groaned as I looked above my head. Up there, at the top of the prison, there was a title that I saw for the first time in my life.

Corps of Gluttony

First-Tier Demon Tribe, Hell's Hand

1. it's the Bubonic Plague.