FJTTS - Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Another thirty minutes later,

As promised, Zoe managed to convince the cat not to treat the divibot as prey. 

How? No one knew. The secrets of the cat-whisperer were a skill passed down only from master to disciple, and according Zoe, her master forbade her from sharing it hundreds of years ago in ancient China.

The cat, for her part, was still eyeing the flying gizmo but didn’t pounce on it.

The loli adjourned the meeting, saying it was almost ‘time’ and tried to push them out of the room. But Arthur still had a few things to consult with her.

“You don’t want to become CEO?” the loli asked.

“Yeah. I don’t want all that attention. If Tecsov suddenly changed management and people found out it was some no-name college graduate who took on the post, there’ll be trouble.” Arthur replied with a shudder. “TV trouble.”

“Are you sure? Most sentinels don’t refuse.” 

“Why?”  

“Well, being my pope basically makes you the boss on the planet right? And if you have to look after the civilization, the status of a CSO (Civilization sphere observatory) leader will be tremendously helpful. Just by authority alone. A lot of the other sentinels act as emperors, presidents, demon lords and god-kings in their own civilizations.”

“That’s true but,” Arthur looked at Zoe, who nudged him with her stare. They had actually discussed this the day before. Zoe was very adamant about letting Arthur into the world of wall street unprepared. According to her, and many dramas she had ingested, that kind of sudden change in status would definitely lead Arthur into depravity. Not to mention the way Arthur already started acting money after getting his first salary.

Of course, most of her arguments were pretty flimsy if your purely count how logical it was. She just kept mentioning it would ruin ‘our home’.

Arthur was pretty conflicted when he guessed the actual reason. But on second thought, he agreed that he didn’t want to be under the celebrity spotlight.

So he affirmed his choice to the goddess once again.

“…Is there a way to keep the authority but not be a CEO?” He asked with a bit of embarrassment. 

“Ohoho, so you want to eat the cake and have it too?” the goddess giggled. “Well of course there is. It’s not a big issue. Lemme think.”

Arthur was astonished. He in fact felt pretty bad about shamelessly asking for the best of both worlds. He was only asked because he agreed with the loli’s opinion on having authority. But didn’t expect her to agree so readily.

“Didn’t ya want to start an inn or something?” The loli suddenly asked.

“Ah, that. I decided not to do it after all.” 

“Why?”

“Well, I really don’t need the money. And my main goal from now is to search for clues regarding my parents. I don’t really have the time for managing an inn.” Arthur had discussed this with Zoe yesterday too. He didn’t think Zoe would actually support his notion of not opening the inn even after the plans had been made. He had already contacted a renovating company beforehand and was planning on cancelling them tonight after his meeting with Vileplume. So, he thought Zoe would’ve scolded him for wasting the deposit. 

But she was rather elated, saying she didn’t want strangers coming and going into her ‘shrine’. She only supported it before because she doubted if Arthur actually had any other ways of making a decent livelihood, and didn’t want to ruin his chances at entrepreneurship because of her own selfishness. 

“There’s actually no need to cancel the renovating company. Keep the inn open.” The loli said with a grin.

“… Can I ask why?” Zoe asked.

“Okay, this is my grand plan that I just thought of. Arthur, how about you become the director of special affairs?”

“Special affairs?”

“Ya. Namely, supernatural affairs! You don’t want the attention that comes with being a CEO, right? So I’ll tell Kralterror to make a new department for you alone. That’ll let you utilize all Tecsov assets on Sol. You can also use it to make fake identities for any supernatural beings like the jellyfish.”

“Umm, I already have one. Arthur’s dad managed it.” Zoe interjected.

“Hmph, and did you know that you’re already on the watchlist of United Bureau of Investigation, the United Intelligence Agency, Tower of Gods, Rathcart Wizards, and a dozen other mortal and supernatural organizations?” The loli asked haughtily.

“… I’m what?”

“You heard what I said. You guys should remember this. While the supernatural forces generally don’t meddle with mortal affairs, they have deep roots on the surface world. You’re ID is suspicious as fu-…frick. Umm, why did you even put your birthplace as Eastern New Zealand? That place has been underwater for a hundred and fifty years. The only reason they didn’t move to arrest you is because Tecsov intervened.”

Arthur was dumbfounded. So apparently the UBI were keeping tabs on his housekeeper!

“So..?” The loli asked again.

“Wait, that wasn’t a rhetoric question?” Arthur said.

The loli simply pouted. Zoe, on the other hand, was squirming in her seat. Her face was red as she answered, “B-But I was born there.”  “Say again?”

“Umm, it was two million years ago. Zealandia was still active tectonically and two giant islands crashed right in the middle of where I… well, the ‘I’ before I gained sentience was sleeping. So I consider that my birthplace!”

‘That must’ve been one hell of a wakeup call.’ Arthur thought.

“Doesn’t matter. The point is, you need Tecsov to make you a more rock-solid identity.” The loli continued. “Not just you, being a Sentinel means getting into contact with many alien species. And other Sentinels might come to Earth for joint missions, in case you mess things up too bad. You can house those people in your inn.”

“M-Mess up?”

“Yeah, you’re a noob. So I don’t expect you success in every mission you take. In that case your seniors from other branches might need to intervene. And, if you don’t like the director of special affairs position, you can be the director of dormitories or something.”

“No, Special affairs is good!”

“Glad to know!” Vileplume sheepishly said.

“But, why use my house for housing, umm, aliens? I’m sure the Tecsov branch has better accommodations.” Arthur asked.

“Where’s the sincerity in that!” The loli replied. And then she jerked her head towards the clock and screamed, “It’s time! Go, go, go, go, GOOO!”

Even before he could aske more follow up questions, the trio of Arthur, Zoe, and Snowy suddenly found themselves in the reception hall of the Tecsov building.

No wait, there was also the divibot. It somehow made its way inside Arthur’s pocket.

“Hi!” Hedeltharellai beamed a smile at them. 

“H-Hi. Umm, Hedeltharellai right?” Replied Zoe instinctively.

“Take this, it’s from Mr. Kralterror. He said to give it to Mr. Arthur and Ms. Zoe.” The receptionist girl took out 2 ID cards and handed them over. “And just Hedel is fine.”

Arthur’s ID said, “Director of Special Affairs, Tecsov” with a bunch of other technical jargon. Zoe’s said she was apparently now a ‘Secretary’.

‘Fast! Too Efficient.’ Arthur mused. They were just talking about it 2 minutes ago, and the loli, or the cyclops, already made another department.

Arthur then bade the receptionist girl farewell.

The loli goddess told him a lot he had to digest, not to mention all those superpowered confections he had.

And he also had a cat-collar to calibrate.

***

The first thing Arthur did after getting back was use the divibot, which was seemingly named ‘Digibee’, to scour the senti-net for more information about powerups.

Why was it named Digibee? Apparently, the manager where it was assembled was in charge of naming each unit, and his favourite way to do that was to hit the randomize button. 

The bots in the divine realm had long figured out how to hack into their own physical server to change their names to something more acceptable.

No one wanted to be named ‘R76aSD7AS>H%@Nsad$qUwu’. Not even machines!

There were a bunch of free tutorials (Not like the one the goddess gave, but actual video tutorials) pinned on relevant forum pages.

He decided not to interact with his fellow sentinels online for now. The priority was getting a power up first.

It might have not looked like it, but Arthur minded quite a bit when the loli goddess said he’d need other sentinels to clean up his mess. This was the only way he could find his parents, and he was definitely not going to mess things up.

After browsing for a bit, Arthur was disappointed to find that he understood less than 1 out of 100 ‘tutorials’ the sentinels posted in the ‘Free Contribution’ section, where all the free tutorials were.

From what he learnt, there was no standardized technique, or martial art, or magical art that all sentinels practiced. They each used their own local specialty, and the divine confectionary was there just to supplement it with godly might, to a certain extent.

Also, Ferrero Rocher wasn’t the only form those things came in. They had a more standardized name, Divine Seeds.

The best advice they had for newbie sentinels was to go to a local gym first. Why? Well even though Arthur felt mighty good after his body was ‘reconstructed’, he still had some lazy flab.

The divine seeds would not give an eight-pack bod with killer pecs for free!

It made it so his body had the best potential for improvement, and then helped preserve it.

Arthur dismissed the divibot with a sigh, disappointed that the whole ordeal would be more difficult than he thought.

With a heavy heart, and a broken will from countless failures in the past, he once again downloaded the ‘7 days total fitness – Cardio for Amazing Gainz!’ app for one last try.