"Phew, that was a close one, huh?" I said with a smirk.
I opened my palm and revealed the 9mm bullet casing. Both Leia and the fat man looked at me as if I was some kind of extraterrestrial being. After all, I had just stopped a bullet with my hands.
"Y-You... who the hell are you?" He shook his head, confused. "No, no, what the hell are you?"
"You’ll find out soon enough on the news," I said nonchalantly. "Anyway, I can take her now, right?"
The fat man pushed her right away, no longer interested in my plans with Leia. In fact, he wanted nothing to do with it at all. He practically handed her to me, putting her hand into mine.
His eyes kept drifting back toward the bullet in my palm. He looked like he wanted to say something, but no words came out. Instead, he took a few shaky steps backward before turning around and disappearing deeper into the alley.
However, there was one small problem, Leia was just as scared as me as the man.
And let’s just say that I wasn’t the best when it came to comforting someone. I was the complete opposite.
"Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you," I said with a smile. "I’ll take you somewhere safe just you and me."
She kept looking away, her arm trying to pull away from mine.
Before I could say anything else, she finally looked directly into my eyes.
"If I go with you," she said quietly, "I can leave whenever I want."
I raised an eyebrow.
"And you don’t touch me unless I say it’s okay," she continued. "No forcing me to do anything. No selling me to anyone."
For someone who looked so scared a few seconds ago, she was still able to stand her ground.
"Fine," I said. "You can leave whenever you want. I won’t touch you, I won’t sell you, and I won’t force you to do anything."
She remained silent for a few seconds, as if she was trying to decide whether I was lying.
"I really don’t want to hurt you. I swear on everything I have. I actually need your help." I took a deep breath and decided to explain when I noticed that she was only looking around herself, trying to find a way out. "The reason I was able to stop the bullet is because I entered that big Tower over there and became much stronger than normal humans."
"T-That thing over there?" Her voice filled with awe.
"That’s right. That’s actually the reason I’m here, I want to bring you inside the Tower with me."
She frowned, extremely confused. "Me? Why?"
’Fuck me. How can I come up with a convincing lie...’
"You just seemed like you had a lot of potential."
She looked down at her appearance and figure, looking back into my eyes. "Really? Me? You sure you didn’t make a mistake?"
I shook my head as I decided to give her a few examples of why she had potential. For example, she noticed me when I approached her. She also reacted when that fat bald man pulled the trigger, trying to warn me.
Leia might not seem like much. But she was always careful of her surroundings and I knew she would became really fucking overpowered.
"Just trust me."
She weakly nodded, still unsure about my attention.
Growing in that neighborhood clearly had to change your view about people. Even now, she was probably thinking that I was a pervert after her body.
"As long as you trust me and listen to what I say, you’ll become extremely famous, powerful and rich."
"O-Okay..." She said while looking down. "I’ll trust you..."
It wasn’t like she had any other choice. However, she was still far from convinced.
That was the reason I called Alexia. It was about time I secured a decent place where I could live when I returned to Earth. After all, before entering the Tower, I had been living in the sewers like a dirty rat.
It didn’t take long for her to find me a place that was only a few blocks away from the Tower, which was where I guided Leia.
"This will be your home now," I announced to her.
"R-Really? T-This whole place is mine?"
It was a penthouse in New York City, it was probably evaluated in the millions if not more because of the appearance of the Tower right next to it.
"Yep, however, before you enjoy it. I need to teach you some things about the Tower since that will be our next destination."
Before I started explaining, I called Alexia one more time and asked her to send food, clothes, and a doctor. Leia’s bruises were worse than I had initially thought, and I wasn’t about to bring her into the Tower while she was still injured.
The doctor arrived quickly, treated her wounds, and left without asking any questions. Leia barely spoke the entire time.
However, when she saw the food and clothes being placed on the counter, her expression softened slightly.
She nodded as she looked directly into my eyes, no longer avoiding them. It seemed the apartment had been the tipping point in somewhat convincing her.
I began talking to her about the first floors and what she needed to do to survive and level up through each of them. It took about one hour to go over everything that she had to know. The next step was fairly simple, she needed some equipment.
Before I could continue, Leia spoke up.
"If I enter that Tower," she said quietly, "I want to choose the difficulty myself."
I looked at her for a few seconds.
"That’s fine."
She took a deep breath.
"If the higher difficulty really means I can become stronger, then I’ll choose [Hell]. I don’t want to be weak ever again."
For the first time since I had found her, I felt completely certain that I had made the right choice.
I called Alexia again and we went directly to her smithy where we bought everything Alexia would need.
We bought a small dagger, her preferred weapon in the past and a light leather armor that was perfect for swift assassins. Leia found it quite odd that I knew what kind of weapon and armor she preferred before she even tried them on, but she let it go fairly quickly when I told her that I just knew a lot about these things.
Then, it was finally time to head to the Tower and make Leia register into the [Hell] Difficulty.
When we arrived in the middle of Central Park, there was a huge line. Thousands of people were lining up, waiting to enter the Tower.
’To think this many people would sign up.’
In the past, it hadn’t been like this at all. Even with the first few people to return, many people didn’t believe in the Tower and its benefits, including me. That was one of the reasons it took so much time for me to enter it.
I only entered it when it became mandatory with the constant waves of monsters.
However, it seemed that I had somewhat became a known figure.
"I-It’s him!" One of them gasped. "He’s the one from the video."
"He doesn’t look that special. Maybe the video was fake."
"He doesn’t even have that elf next to him."
As everyone began talking about me, Leia found it odd as she got on her tippie toes and whispered to my ear, "Are you famous? Why do all these people know you?"
I just smiled at her. There was no chance for her to have seen anything related to the media in the past day or so since she had been with me.
I just pulled out my phone and decided to check out the news with her next to me and that was the moment I realized why everyone knew me.
There had been a video of me circulating AllTube.
[Official Sparring Video Between Easy and Hell Difficulty Challenger!]
[Views: 2.1M]
[Trending: #1]