Starting from Douluo Continent, I've become a god through daily check-ins.

Chapter 259 The Girl with Horns

In a forest, a boy with black hair and an exceptionally handsome face slowly opened his eyes on the grass, gazing at the dense foliage. He sat up, took a device from his pocket, pressed a button, and a wing-like component popped out, above which a panel appeared.

This is a communicator. The screen displays an avatar of a girl with purple hair, her hair covering her left eye. The communicator then switches to a chat window. The girl has sent several messages to the boy.

"The briefing is over. I have something to tell you, so contact me soon."

"Hey, you truant, where are you right now?"

"Anyway, you must attend the induction ceremony tomorrow, understand? It's a pity about the partner situation, but Dad and the others said that Zero can stay, so don't push yourself."

After watching for a while, the boy frowned slightly. Suddenly, he seemed to hear a sound, and walked out of the woods to a grassy area that was relatively higher up.

As soon as he got there, the boy saw bloodstains on the glass cover in front of him. He walked over, touched it, and looked at it. "Fresh blood."

Then I turned my head and saw the little bird struggling on the grass. There was blood on the bird. It looked like this was the bird that had crashed into the glass cover.

Seeing the poor little bird, the boy wanted to bend down and help treat its wounds. But the bird seemed ungrateful, flapping its wings and stumbling away into the forest.

Watching the bird's flight path, suddenly, a bright light appeared in the sky behind the boy, accompanied by a deafening roar of machinery. The boy turned to look at the transport plane in the sky, raising one hand to shield his eyes from the light.

……

The boy returned to the forest, intending to find the injured little bird he had seen earlier. He walked through the forest, searching for the bird.

This boy is named Zero. If you ignore his looks, Zero is just an ordinary boy. In this world, there exists a gigantic monster called a Klaxosaur, which constantly threatens human lives.

Of course, humanity has its own ways of coping in this world. Humanity invented a type of mech that requires a male and female pilot to operate simultaneously. Zero, however, has no partner.

Zero suddenly noticed some blood at her feet, and at the same time, she heard birds chirping.

"Still alive!" Zero heard birds chirping and immediately realized that the little bird was still alive.

After walking a short distance further, Zero saw a small lake shrouded in mist. "So there are places like this."

It's easy to tell from Zero's words that he's been to this place quite a few times. But it seems like he's never been to this particular place.

Zero surveyed the small lake and suddenly spotted a set of clothes on a crooked tree nearby. Judging from the style, Zero could immediately recognize the identity of the person who owned the clothes.

"The manipulator?"

Zero went over to take a look, and suddenly heard the sound of water splashing in the lake. Curious, Zero walked to the lakeside, wanting to see what was in the lake.

Because of the surrounding smoke, Zero couldn't see very clearly, but judging from the shadow in the water, it was a person, and a woman at that. But who would be swimming here at this time of day?

Zero realized belatedly that what he was doing seemed like spying, so he quickly turned his head to the side and blocked his view with his hand.

A moment later, Zero looked at the lake again, but the person was gone. Zero's brows furrowed slightly.

From the uniform she wore earlier, Zero had already guessed that the woman swimming in the lake wasn't from here. But why would someone who shouldn't be here be swimming in the lake right in front of Zero?

Looking at the shimmering lake, Zero fell into deep thought.

Suddenly, Zero realized that he hadn't seen the woman for a while.

"Could she have drowned?" Zero suddenly realized that the woman was very likely drowning.

Without a second thought, Zero rushed into the lake, wanting to rescue the woman. He had only run a few steps into the lake when the woman suddenly burst out of the water in front of him, a fish still in her mouth.

Zero stared in shock at the naked woman suspended in mid-air before him. Although the woman was completely naked, Zero's attention was entirely drawn to the two brightly colored horns on the woman's head.

The two stood facing each other in the water, the air seeming to freeze for a moment. Ever since the woman stood before Zero, his gaze had never left her.

The woman threw the water from her mouth into the water, wiped the water droplets from the corner of her mouth, walked towards Zero, and then brought her head close to Zero's face, carefully examining Zero's appearance.

At this moment, Zero finally realized that the woman in front of him was naked!

"No... let me explain..." Zero shook his head, trying to explain the current situation.

However, the woman bypassed Zero and walked towards the shore, saying, "What? I thought you were dead."

Zero watched the woman walk past him and asked, "Are you the manipulator? Why are you swimming here?"

The woman who had reached the shore stopped and, seemingly unrelated to the question, said, "That's strange. I've always heard that seawater is salty." As she spoke, she licked her arm, as if trying to taste whether the water was salty.

"This isn't the sea," Zero said.

"I do know that. But this is the place I know that I miss the sea the most. Don't you swim?" The woman turned her body slightly, touched her chin as if she was recalling something, and then turned to look at Zero.

"I... I'll pass," Zero said, and walked towards the shore.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself, but seeing you staring at me like that made me think you really wanted to go swimming," the woman said, looking at Zero.

"No, I thought you were drowning and I wanted to go down and save you," Zero said.

Looking at the woman's body, Zero turned his back to her and said, "Excuse me, could you please put on some clothes first?"

The woman rested her chin on her hand, thought for a moment, then pointed at Zero with a look of sudden realization and said, "I know, you're a pervert."

Zero was startled by the woman's sudden words. "Huh? Why?"

The woman kept staring into Zero's eyes. Zero seemed to realize what was happening and quickly turned around. "No, no!"

The woman burst into laughter at Zero's behavior. After laughing for a while, she turned to Zero and said, "But since you came to save me, I should thank you." The woman smiled and said, "Thank you."

Zero sat on the shore with his back to the woman, who was already dressed and also had her back to him.

As the woman put on her coat, she asked, "Are you one of the manipulators, wearing that uniform?"

"No." Zero's mood was slightly down.

"Aren't you going to manipulate it anymore?" the woman asked, pulling her hair out from under her clothes.

"It's not that I don't want to, it's that I can't. I simply don't have the ability." Zero picked up a stone beside him and threw it into the lake.

Ling paused for a moment and continued, "I have no partner. There's no one here who can be my partner, and there's nowhere for me to go."

Zero's tone was devoid of joy or sorrow; it was so calm it was somewhat frightening.

"What? Isn't that just like me?" the woman said.

Hearing the woman say this, Zero was slightly shocked and turned to look at her. The woman was holding something that looked like a headband and put it on her head.

"I'm always alone, because of this diagonal. A place to stay is something you have to create yourself. If you don't have a partner, you can find one. If you can't find one, you can just steal one!" As she spoke, the woman raised her hands and quickly grabbed Zero's collar.

Zero was startled by the woman's sudden action; she licked Zero's face. This lick made Zero lose his balance, and he and the woman fell to the ground.

"Hey, it smells like a butterflies in my stomach. It's a little prickly, like something's been weighing on my mind." The woman propped herself up, looked at Zero lying beneath her, and licked her lips. "It smells dangerous."

"What are you talking about?" Zero said.

"Should I kiss you?" the woman asked.

"Dear?" No doubt.

"Oh, you didn't know?" the woman whispered in Zero's ear. "It's something very special."

The woman stood up, looked at Zero who was still lying on the ground, and said, "I seem to be somewhat interested in you. Would you like to become my Darling?"

"Darling? Does that mean partner?" Zero asked, propping himself up.

The woman stretched out a hand and said, "Your power may just be dormant; I can awaken it. You see the horns on my head, yet you are not afraid."

Zero said, "I don't know why, I should be very scared, but I feel normal."

The woman didn't speak, and Zero didn't continue speaking either. Looking at the woman's outstretched hand, Zero hesitated to grasp it. Just as Zero was about to reach out and hold it, the woman withdrew her hand.

"Unfortunately, time's up." Then he turned and looked at the woods behind him.

Several guards appeared in the woods, along with a man covered in wounds whose left arm was slinged in front of him.

"I've finally found you." The man walked up to the woman and asked, "Why do you always act on your own?"

"Anyway, there's still some time before tomorrow's induction ceremony," the woman said calmly.

The man took out a hat, put it on the woman's head, and said, "As your partner, I'm going to have a lot of headaches."

Hearing their conversation, Zero stood up, looking neither at the man nor the woman, and murmured to himself, "Partner..."

The man walked up to the woman, looked at Zero, and said, "You're the pilot candidate, right? Tomorrow's the induction ceremony, sorry this guy bothered you."

"No," Zero said.

After thinking for a moment, Zero still asked the man, "Excuse me, are you her partner?"

The man said, "Here's a piece of advice: don't go near this woman. She's not someone anyone's natural prey." With that, the man turned and left with the guards.

Zero watched their departing figures, lost in thought.

The National Team arc officially begins here. When writing the plot, the author mainly replaced the original protagonist with the protagonist of this book, so the plot will not be much different from the original version.

(End of this chapter)