About the time I was picked up and adopted by Tallulah

After the change of positions, the fifth fish, Orson, stood up first, the survival instinct roaring in his body.

"Um—Sister Ta, how did you catch the fish?"

Orson took the initiative to ask Tallulah.

"Just follow what others have taught me, throw the hook down and keep an eye on the float."

"Fishhook...what do you put on your fishhook?"

Tallulah pulled up the hook and saw a piece of...ice wrapped around it.

"..."

"..."

The two looked at each other.

"Are you fishing for fish or ghosts? Even ghosts can't be as foolish as you...Pfft! Sorry, I was wrong--"

Orson told Tallulah the correct way to choose bait very gently.

Later, when Tallulah caught her first fish, she smiled clearly, but when she thought of Orson right next to her, Tallulah immediately put away her smile, but her [melody] did relax a little.

With a fruitful harvest, Orson followed Tallulah to the next place - a simple cross.

This time, Tallulah didn't say what needed to be done. She just lowered her head slightly and closed her eyes.

Orson soon realized that this was probably a grave for those who had died in the past, so he closed his eyes.

"Who are you mourning?" Tallulah's voice came over.

"The infected people in those villages."

"And what about the villagers?"

In response to Tallulah's question, Orson smiled bitterly.

"I have no intention of mourning those guys. I'm not a saint."

"—You are different from her."

Facing Orson's answer, Tallulah spoke thoughtfully.

"Actually, I was planning to go to that village again with Shuangxing today, but she wouldn't agree no matter what, so I suddenly became free. Is she worried about me? Such unnecessary worry. I won't be overwhelmed by such a level... Absolutely not."

Tallulah's tone was serious, and Orson frowned.

The melody, which had been slowing down, suddenly became tense again. Not only that, the hidden noise became more and more obvious and harsh.

"Sister Ta, can I ask you something?"

"What"

"Maybe this question is a little strange, uh... have you ever had another personality, or been possessed by something?"

Orson was just asking tentatively; he didn't expect Tallulah to give an answer.

However, Tallulah's reaction was completely beyond Orson's expectations:

"How do you know—?"

Talula opened her palm and pointed it at Orson, and a scorching heat wave was about to burst out.

08. Tuning Song

"How do you know—"

The heat wave in Tallulah's hands was not fake, and the dark flame in her eyes seemed ready to devour everything at any time.

"I'm not entirely sure about the specifics...! After that incident, I suddenly began to sense something like a melody in my head, and your melody, Tallulah-san, always had a strange, unsettling noise."

Orson saluted in French on the spot. He didn't know what part of the young dragon's reverse scale he had touched, but he just admitted defeat first.

"melody……?"

Tallulah hesitated, then stared at Orson for a few seconds.

After confirming that the guy in front of her was not hiding anything, Tallulah finally lowered her hand hesitantly.

"Based on your description, perhaps you have awakened your Originium skills."

"Originium skills?

It was a very familiar name, but for Orson, who hadn't gotten any golden fingers in half a year, it was also a very unfamiliar word.

Talulah regarded Orson's doubts as his ignorance of Originium skills. After all, there were not many people in this world who could manipulate the mysterious power, let alone in a remote place like the northern part of Ursus.

"...I'm sorry, I was a little too nervous just now. I don't want to explain the 'noise' you mentioned right now. But I might be able to help you understand and master this ability."

Talulah didn't put on airs. She apologized to Orson sincerely and offered to help teach Orson how to master this power.

"Actually, there are quite a few people on Terra who possess Originium techniques, but most don't intentionally use staffs to cultivate this power. However, the infected are different. Their bodies have been assimilated by the Originium, and they themselves are the staffs. Therefore, they can unconsciously use Originium techniques that originally required a medium to release."

Talulah brought Orson back to the settlement with the fish they caught, and explained the various Originium techniques on the way.

"Infected... So I did acquire this ability after that day."

Orson looked at his palm. Although he didn't show any symptoms of being infected yet, the seed was already buried in his body, and he didn't know when it would devour him.

"Try it with this sword."

After storing the things, the two came to a forest behind the settlement. Talulah directly handed the long sword at her waist to Orson, which scared the latter.

"Ah? Sister Tazi, are you asking me to commit suicide...?"

"...This sword can serve as a staff."

Tallulah began to worry that she might have accidentally cooked part of Orson's brain.

"But this sword should be very suitable for you—"

"Is it commemorative? Yes, I have some special feelings for this sword, but it's not something worth cherishing."

Tallulah handed the greatsword to Orson. After taking the sword, which was slightly lighter than he had imagined, Orson did feel something different.

Those invisible melodies that were originally just floating around in his mind began to take shape, but for some reason, these visible melodies were extremely blurry, and he couldn't even see their content clearly.

"Although I can barely see the entities of these abilities, they are becoming even more blurry..."

Orson squinted his eyes hard in an attempt to focus, but it was of no use. The only effect was that he almost made Tallulah beside him laugh out loud.

"Ahem... Perhaps your Originium skills have poor scalability, or perhaps you're not good enough at manipulating this ability."

Tallulah coughed twice and put herself back into teacher mode.

"What is certain at this point is that you have indeed awakened your Originium Skill. Next, try to devise a circuit switch that triggers the use of your Originium Skill."

"Sister Ta, can you please speak human language? I'm crying! Why are you still holding half a corn cob?!"

Orson was hit in the face with popcorn by Tallulah again.

"In short, to put it simply, it means turning the act of 'using Originium techniques' into a tangible entity in your mind."

Talula stretched out her palm, and scorching flames leaped out from her palm.

"If your ability is a kind of [melody], then try to design the switch with a similar feeling."

"So what's your switch, Sister Ta?"

Orson rubbed his temples with both hands and asked Tallulah about the structure of his Originium technique.

“…It’s a snake.”

"..."

It seemed that he had touched upon a minefield again. Orson wisely stopped the topic and instead focused all his energy on figuring out how to use the switch for his Originium skills.

After an unknown amount of time, Orson finally succeeded in materializing his Originium skills - those chaotic melodies gradually turned into a black musical score.

"I saw it. There was black music on the stone, and... it seemed to be touchable."

From Tallulah's perspective, Orson stretched his right hand into the void. But for Orson himself, he actually touched the "black music score" belonging to the boulder in front of him.

Kah!

With a loud bang, the stone suddenly broke, and in Orson's hand was a piece of music score that had turned into noise.

It seems that not only that, direct external force will cause it to break, but if you use more precise operation...

Orson looked toward a tree and this time turned up the pitch of the black music.

“Chi—boom!”

The frozen dead tree suddenly caught fire from within, but was quickly extinguished by the cold wind.

Could it be that the "black music score" can change the physical form of the object it belongs to?

This time, Orson set his sights on the icicles on the edge of the cliff, but before he could even listen to the melody, his eyes suddenly went dark and he fainted on the ground.

----

"Well……"

After a brief coma, Orson opened his eyes and saw Tallulah's fair and resolute face in his field of vision, and felt a soft and warm touch on the back of his head.

It took Orson about two seconds to understand the situation - he was lying on Tallulah's legs.

"Eh... am I dead?"

Orson, who understands the current situation, chooses to escape it.

"Don't get me wrong, you're not dead. It was my mistake just now. I didn't notice that you were overloaded. It's easy to overdraw your energy when using Originium techniques for the first time. This was my negligence. Also, I need to express my gratitude for your previous actions, Orson."

Orson—this was the first time Tallulah called her name.

Orson looked at Tallulah with mixed feelings, looking at her and OMO.

"...Could you please stop staring at me like that?"

Tallulah was a little annoyed by Orson's constant stare at her, but before she could say anything, Orson suddenly sat up - still looking at Tallulah.

"No, I just—uh, I saw another kind of sheet music."

Orson looked at Tallulah, and at this moment, not only a [black music score] appeared in his eyes, but also a [white music score].

"It's different from the black music sheet before, this is white music sheet."

"White?"

"Yes, pure white, without any impurities, just like... a soul."

Orson stared at the white music score. He had never experienced this kind of "resonance" feeling before.

"So what does my soul look like?"

Tallulah also asked Orson with some interest.

"It's so tight, it seems like it will break at any moment, and outside the music sheet, there are black lines floating around—wooo!"

Orson tried to touch the foreign object, but it bounced back as if it had been shocked by high voltage electricity.

Black music can change physical characteristics, and dead things only have black music. White music, on the other hand, is the existence of living people with souls.

Is this my ability? Like [Tune], the ability to change objects, or even souls?

Wait a minute...if I could really control the white music score—no, I really could.

Just as humans firmly believe that they can see the world with their own eyes, Orson also naturally believes that he has the ability to "tune the soul."

"Sister Tallulah, that Elafia—I might be able to revive her."

Orson looked at Tallulah and said this in a calm but firm tone.

"…Alina?"

Tallulah looked at Orson in surprise. This was the first time he saw Tallulah with such an expression.

"—"

Tallulah wanted to say something, but couldn't. She just looked at Orson for a moment, then looked away.