《AI's Champion》Chapter 5: Ripping off the Bandage
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Although I knew I wanted the strength to protect those I love I know it won’t happen any time soon, that and at the moment I am a newborn. Newborns aren’t known for being strong enough to really do anything. That however is not enough to stop me from learning about my situation. I already know that my body is significantly more developed than a regular newborn’s based off of my harrowing experience with birth, so I wasn’t as surprised when I was able to get into a sitting position within my crib. I was going to try climbing out until I really started to look at my crib.
The crib seems to be fairly durable; solid foundation, good metallic luster, and yeah I’m surrounded by metal bars, metal lid included, it really makes me curious about what my parents are like to put me in essentially baby jail. I’m really tempted to start singing the blues, unfortunately I don’t have a harmonica and I don’t know the blues which ends that plan before it can even really form.
Pulling my thoughts back, I continue to look around and see that I am in a large room, relative to my current size, that seems to be built from modern day red bricks. This tells me that the world has a decent level of masonry, hopefully this is proof I am not in a cliche dark ages type fantasy setting. I’m hoping for some level of technology, if anything it would make it less suspicious when I begin doing experiments. The ground is wooden, and I am seriously going into more detail than I need to.
. ‘Seriously who puts a metal lid on top of a crib?’ This puts a serious obstacle in the way of me exploring my new home. As my eyes droop I see a small blue dot in the corner of my vision. Focusing on it brings up a small map with a smaller arrow in the middle. Around it are black lines that I assume are used for marking walls based on their positioning. This must be the effects of my mini map skill, doesn't give me much more information than my own eyes but looking at it I can tell that the room isn’t as big as I thought seeing as how my five meter radius extends past the room’s wall into what looks like a hallway. Staring at it for a moment I see two blue dots moving through the hallway towards my room. Using my lightening fast baby reflexes I assume a natural newborn pose, essentially I fall over onto my back again and close my eyes.
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I hear a soft creaking noise off to my left and know the door is open. I keep my breathing calm and stable in an effort to appear as if I am sleeping. Soon I hear a scraping sound above me and know that the lid of my crib/jail has been lifted. At this point I figure anyone would wake up so I open my eyes. Above me are a man and a woman that appear to either be in their late teens or early twenties. I cheer up a bit because they are both good looking; the man has a heroic aura around him with well defined face, black spiked hair and brown eyes, the woman has long brown hair, soft eyes, and luscious lips. I am refraining from looking at her body because there is a really good chance these people are my parents. Either way this is good news as far as my genetics go, well as long as the void didn’t change my DNA too much.
(3rd Person POV)
As Liam observed his new parents his parents also observed him and were a little shocked to see the subdued reaction of their firstborn son. Yesterday when he was born he appeared to be a normal infant that cried until his father eventually rocked him to sleep. Now he seems to have completely forgotten that he is a newborn and calmly observed them even when they made so much noise removing the crib’s lid. Seeing his abnormal reaction made Almha break out into a large grin as she watched her son inspect them. On the other hand Julian couldn’t help but release a sigh to the side, it would seem that Almha wasn’t lying about their son being special.
“Still think I was crazy to make his crib out of steel?” Almha asks looking towards Julian still smiling.
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“Yes, I still think you are crazy” Julian says without missing a beat, he moves to her side and wraps his arms around her. “I’m crazy too though to love someone as crazy as you.” He said as he smiled and gave her a quick kiss. Almha’s face quickly goes red before she pouts and slaps him on the shoulder.
“Not in front of Liam, I don’t want him learning anything weird.” She says as she looks back to her son who is now intently looking towards Julian with his eyes sparkling. Seeing her son’s look she can’t help but frown and wonder if it may already be too late. Julian seeing his son’s look of reverence chuckles and winks at him only to receive a thumbs up in return. Seeing this his jaw drops at the implication of his son’s action, he looks to Almha to see her jaw is open in shock as well. Then he sees his son tilt his head in confusion looking at their reaction before looking at his thumb and back to them. As if just realizing what he did he quickly drops his hand and begins to cry.
(Liam’s POV)
‘Well fuck, are they suspicious of me?’ I think as I continue to cry before I am startled by a monotone voice in my head.
“More detail needed.”
‘What was that? Wait was that the Divinity’s Knowledge skill?’ I think.
“More detail needed” the voice replied again.
‘Is the voice in my head the result of the Divinity’s Knowledge skill?’ I think.
“Yes.”
Well it is nice to know that I won’t need to ask questions out loud to ask questions but the detail needed will be a little annoying. Regardless I will be using that skill a lot more often if I am going to trapped in this crib/jail. It doesn’t help me out of the situation I placed myself in as I see my parents looking at me with their mouths open. I seriously doubt I can still pretend to be a normal baby, I really should work on my acting, that was only a single day and I wasn’t even really conscious for almost all of it. I am still crying as I try to think of a solution before remembering that Luke told me my parents would expect me to be special.
‘Will my parents freak out if I begin speaking?” I think.
“Yes.”
‘Will my life be in danger if I speak in front of my parents?’
“No.”
Well I guess that is as good as it will get, I can’t really expect anything better even if it seems Luke tried to prepare my parents for my abnormalities. Knowing I am in no danger I decide to figuratively rip off the bandage and get over with the introductions.
“Hello, nice to meet you.”
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