"Are you alright, my Lord?!" Olivia asked, rushing over to me.
I looked at her bleeding arm, "I should be asking if you are alright instead? You're the one who got shot."
She looked down at her arm, as though only just realising that.
"It's just a scratch, my Lord. It's nothing that I'm not used to."
"You got shot. The bullet is literally still inside your arm."
She clenched her fist and electrical sparks appeared along her arm before something shot out from the bullet wound to fall onto the floor, a spurt of blood following after it.
Without a word, she tore off a bit of cloth from her shirt before she tied it around her arm, stemming the bleeding.
"I'm fine, my Lord. Are you?"
"Well… Yeah I guess? Though I'm starting to wonder just how many people are after me now? I was already expecting myself to be targeted but I didn't think it would happen literally just a few days after my reveal."
She looked around the room that looked like a reception area of an office building that we had just wrecked.
She pursed her lips before nodding at me, "We have to go, my Lord."
I didn't argue and went with her as she led the way through a side door that led to another corridor before going through another door a few feet down from the first door.
We came to what looked like a storage room of some clothing shop judging by the mannequins and the clothing racks with various different clothes thrown over them haphazardly.
"What are we doing here?" I asked.
Olivia started sifting through the clothes that were laying around, "They most likely already know that you are with me, my Lord. I will use myself as a decoy to lure them away while you escape. I'm afraid that I will need you to lend me your clothes."
I frowned at her, "I don't think they will fall for you dressed up as me… No offence but you look nothing like me."
She shook her head, "I mean to dress one of the mannequins up as you, my Lord. Then I will carry it out with me which should draw their attention away. You will then slip out from another side of the building and leave this area."
"Unacceptable. I will not abandon you. At least if the both of us fight them together, we can at least deal with them."
"I will not put you in more danger than I have to, my Lord. The fact that this happened is already a blunder on my part."
"And I already said that the blame does not rest solely on your shoulders."
"But part of it still does. I will have to atone for it, my Lord," She sighed before standing up to face me, a set of casual clothes in her hands. "Please, allow this much of me, my Lord."
I narrowed my eyes at the clothes she was holding, "You expect a Mortal God to run and hide like a coward?"
"I am pleading with my Lord to grant this Guardian of yours the honour of serving you."
"No," I answered immediately. "You will not be playing the role of a sacrifice here. We will face them and break out of here if we have to. Besides, even if you were to lure them away, they would figure out that I'm still alive anyway and continue to search for me while you're gone. And without you around, do you expect me to be able to handle it? Do you expect me to even know who I can or cannot trust?"
She pursed her lips, "Then… What should we do, my Lord? I… Do not wish to put you in more danger… But my presence draws their attention by itself…"
I thought about it for a moment.
Assuming that they are still looking for me and that they still hadn't given up, they're most likely searching for the tall red skinned woman with horns on her head as a beacon to know the one travelling with her was their target.
Of course, the most sensible thing would be to have both of us split up to draw their attention away but that would most certainly mean death for Olivia and I had already thrown that idea out the window.
An idea came to mind, "Do you have the contact number for the Guardian candidates?"
She paused, "I do. What does my Lord intend to do?"
"Call Avatasia."
"The elf? Why?"
"You mentioned that she is proficient in space and gravity magic, yes? Then she should be able to create portals or something right?"
"I am unsure if she is able to create localised teleportation portals since I have only seen her use it to summon meteors. And my Lord… I'm not sure that we can trust any of the Guardian Candidates at this point…"
"If she really is hostile, then she had the chance to wipe all of us out from the very beginning. Also, why would she turn down all the other Guardian offers just to come all the way here and wait for me to awaken then? Even if it was to assassinate me, she could have done so before I awakened, which would have been easier to do, right?"
"I'm not sure if that is completely the case but… She could also just be unsure of who you were before you awakened…"
"I'll take the chances."
"If my Lord wishes to seek her aid, I will attempt to do so."
I nodded, prompting her to pull out her phone to start dialling a number.
She put it on loudspeaker and the phone only rang once before a familiar voice came from the other side of the call.
"Ah… I see that this is the route the young God has chosen to take?"
Olivia narrowed her eyes at the phone, "You knew?"
"In a way, but not how you think I do. I will reveal that one of my awakened abilities is a limited form of clairvoyance. I sometimes have visions of the future but they are never set in stone. That was also how I was able to lead my people to safety as I figured out the safest path to guide them through the Anomalies invading my World."
"And what about our current predicament?"
"I have seen visions of the young God being betrayed by your own organisation… But there were many different choices that he could have made. One of which was to call me for help of course, that was why I was waiting to see if it would happen."
"If you already knew about this, why did you not just warn us about it?"
"Because in the future that I saw, my warning did more harm than good. The fact that I am telling you this ability of mine is already setting some things in motion which may or may not be detrimental for the young God in the future. That's why I am not doing this lightly. For now, I will address the question that you no doubt have. Yes, I am able to teleport to you and get you out of there. But there is one caveat to this."
I frowned, "What is it?"
"In one of my visions, you did not choose to get my help and instead, snuck out through the door the store to leave the building. If you were to follow that route, you would find a girl who is currently trapped under some debris from another bomb that was meant for you. If you choose to use my teleportation, that girl will die. If you choose to save the girl, you will encounter another group of those assassins which in several visions, you end up losing your life. What will you do, young God?"
Is this some other version of the trolley problem?
Olivia spoke for me, "Teleport my Lord out of here of course. Is there even a need to consider this?"
The elf sighed, "The choice belongs to the young God, miss Olivia. Let him choose."
I frowned, "Isn't the answer obvious? Teleport yourself here and join us in the fight to save that girl of course. Why wasn't that even an option?"
There was a pause and I thought she hung up before her voice came from the phone again, "I… Admit that I had not seen a vision that showed you choosing this particular option… As expected of a Mortal God…"
Really? I thought this was a pretty obvious choice? Since I know someone's in trouble, I would of course go to help. And since I also know that there will be enemies, then I want to bring as much backup as I could to ensure my victory, is it that hard to understand?
"How interesting… Fufufu~ I see. Now I understand the power of a Mortal God's divinity… Their future is never set on a path… Their divinity removes them from the webs of fate. Very interesting indeed."
The call then hung up before a portal appeared beside us and the elf walked out, still dressed in her mage outfit and holding her staff.
The elf did a curtsy, "I have come to answer your call for aid, Mortal God."
Then let's go.