“So once an illusion gets shattered, everything inside it starts losing its properties?”
Up in midair, Nyos looked at the burger in his hand — half-eaten, the tooth marks already dissolving into particles.
He licked his lips and dropped it.
Out of the four of them, this old geezer was clearly having the most fun of anyone.
Taking off, Leon carried Ritsuka Fujimaru on his back, while Clark carried him.
Their destination was already in sight, and he’d still found the spare time to conjure up a burger with psychic power from a drive-in diner along the way.
But it wasn’t long before his attention shifted over to Leon and Clark.
Feeling the weight of that stare, Leon could more or less guess what was on his mind.
The two of them looked completely human on the outside, and with abilities like his, he ought to be able to tell this wasn’t just some disguise.
Which meant a man who’d devoted a long stretch of his life to genetic engineering was bound to take an interest in the two of them.
Where their powers came from, whether they had a reproductive barrier with humans, whether it could be artificially replicated — all of it.
Who knew — maybe this guy had already started fantasizing about twenty little Viltrumite-style princes descending onto a planet.
Efficiency for the Great Crusade, maxed straight out!
Leon just hoped he’d also think ahead to how he’d deal with the inevitable Great Betrayal that would follow.
They touched down slowly at the highway junction, which still perfectly matched this illusion’s patchwork aesthetic.
Where they landed was a stretch of Japanese-standard road, abruptly connecting up ahead to a Beacon-Nation highway.
Toll booths in completely different styles were mashed together, side by side.
And standing in their way was a cloaked woman.
Leon set Ritsuka down and let her take the lead on this one:
“Who are you?”
The woman didn’t answer the question, only pressing her own:
“Ritsuka Fujimaru, why leave this place at all?
You have family here, friends, the quiet, ordinary life you always longed for.”
“Just because it’s an illusion?”
She tilted her head, puzzled.
“But if everything feels real enough, what’s so wrong with living inside a world of illusion?”
“Um, honestly, ma’am, I don’t think there’s anything remotely real about a place that mashes burgers and sushi together.”
The polite Boy Scout raised his hand and chimed in.
A clean, direct hit that thoroughly sank whatever atmosphere this mysterious figure had been building up.
“Ahem…
well, working with limited materials, piecing together a convincing modern society is admittedly a bit of a challenge.”
She cleared her throat, trying to salvage her composure.
A red light flickered in her hand, thin threads weaving themselves into a spear, leveled at Ritsuka Fujimaru.
“I’ll give you one more chance.
I—”
“I refuse.
I want my memories back.”
Ritsuka cut her off, disgusted — her resolve was iron, and she wasn’t in the mood to hear another word of nonsense.
“So mysterious and cryptic — Leon, do me a favor and rip that hood off her!”
Before she’d even finished speaking, Leon had already flickered right in front of the woman.
He wasn’t exactly fond of this whole talk-in-riddles routine either.
But her reflexes turned out to be impressively sharp too.
The instant he pulled at her hood, she realized her spear no longer had the advantage, and immediately put distance between them, conjuring a new weapon — a black pistol with a blade mounted underneath.
Bang!
The bullet fired at Ritsuka Fujimaru got casually snatched out of the air by Leon, something seeming to detonate right there in his palm.
By then, though, everyone’s attention had already locked onto the mystery woman’s face.
Even with that lively, cheerful face now covered in scars, the orange hair and golden eyes made it unmistakable — this was Ritsuka Fujimaru.
“That’s…
my face…”
“Even trapped in a dead end like this, you still manage to summon partners this powerful out of nowhere, don’t you?
Existences even I, in this state, can’t keep up with.”
The woman touched her hood, where Leon’s motion had sliced off a corner of it.
“You’re always so lucky, aren’t you.
This — and Mash’s situation too.”
“Mash?
Who’s that?
Hey—”
Some inexplicable flutter of feeling stirred in Ritsuka’s chest, but before she could press further, the woman had already vanished on the spot.
Leon tried to grab her, but ended up only tearing off her cloak.
“Maybe she’s some version of you from a parallel world, or some other possibility.”
Everyone traded glances, and Nyos offered up that theory.
“Or maybe not.
But there’s no question she knows more than we do.”
Not knowing much about this world, the group had no choice but to keep moving after this brief interlude.
The destination of this quest was a gas station off the side of the highway.
They opened the door, and inside lay a whole other world — unmistakably Leon’s own familiar Master’s room.
“I think…
I’ve been here before.”
The girl ran her hand along the pristine white wall.
But after everything she’d been through in a single day, she had no energy left to explore.
She leaned against Leon’s shoulder and drifted off into a deep sleep.
At the same time, a screen popped up in front of the three of them, standing guard.
[Quest Complete.
2000 points earned.
Special reward from this world incoming.]
[If you do not exit the world voluntarily, you will be automatically returned after 6 hours.]
They exchanged glances, each waiting on the others.
“Alright, you two, ask whatever you want to ask.
Considering we don’t often get to team up like this, I figure an honesty round couldn’t hurt.
All three of the minors have already had their brush with fate — I trust even the slowest among us can tell it’ll eventually come around to us too.
Besides, I get the sense we’re all cursed with this same workhorse fate, and a little more openness between us can only help.
I’ll go first.”
He laid out his own situation, more or less, though he kept the finer details deliberately vague.
Some of it, Nyos — with all his experience — could see straight through, and he accepted it without much trouble.
But Clark was still young; he hadn’t even put on his own suit with the S emblem yet.
“So you’re not the same species after all…
honestly, I really thought we were pretty alike.”
Hearing that, Clark’s tone carried a touch of regret, though he quickly switched to encouragement:
“You’re honestly incredible.
You’re even a few years younger than me, and if I found out my own homeworld was like that, I think I’d have been lost for a long, long time.”
He clapped Leon on the shoulder and started introducing himself.
His story was still a simple one for now — a son of Krypton, raised by a kind farming couple, determined to do some good with his abilities.
At the moment, he was getting ready to head to the Arctic to dig further into his own origins.
“Aliens, all of us, huh?”
Nyos murmured to himself — he’d more or less braced for that.
The success rate of humans and beings like these producing offspring together…
was usually about on par with humans breeding with morning glories.
But maybe there was room for an exception here?
With both their eyes on him, he began introducing himself.
Dark 29,000-Terra, humanity’s future bleak, and a powerful immortal determined to wage war and unify Terra, setting out on a campaign toward the stars themselves.
Make humanity great again!
At the same time, he made sure to work in a mention of his own genetic modifications, testing the waters for their reaction.
A whole pile of jargon left the Boy Scout thoroughly dazed, but eventually he zeroed in on the key point.
“Mr.
Nyos, you come from a pretty rough world, huh?”
“But hope still remains.
I’m working toward it.”
Nyos nodded, and turned his gaze to Leon.
Leon, in turn, went straight to the point:
“So, Nyos — the whole time we were flying over here, you kept staring at us.
Were you thinking through the possibility of applying our kind of power to your genetic engineering?”
Just as expected — this man never let him down.
Nyos’s eyes lit up faintly.
Could it be?
My tools slash offspring might actually be able to fly?