Over these past few days, Leon had been diligently carrying out the Commander’s orders.
He needed to have something to show for it, ready whenever Nolan decided to check in on him.
Naturally, that meant spending a lot more time with the little group that included Marcia and Eve.
“Did you catch the news the other day?
Omni-Man saved seven people in one go, and knocked out the Mauler Twins with a single punch, on top of that.”
Walking beside Leon in the hallway, Marcia threw a punch of her own into the air.
“I’d love to hear what they’ve got to say about that this time.”
From what Leon had gathered, this pretty, long-black-haired girl came from a pretty well-off family — a father who was a writer, a mother in real estate.
But she still worked a shift at the burger place, just to prove she could stand on her own two feet.
That, and to fund her favorite manga — two issues of Summoning Dog every month, over the summer.
Word was it wasn’t cheap.
Also, as everyone could plainly see, she was a diehard Omni-Man fan.
Hearing that, Eve on his left flicked her hair back and teased:
“There she goes again, Marcia.
If William were here, he’d definitely jump in with something like—”
She adjusted her voice.
“—rooting that hard for the underdog, you must be a Yankees fan.
But hey, he really is hot, especially that little mustache.”
Marcia hadn’t even reacted yet, but a chill was already crawling down Leon’s spine.
Though, to be fair, William really was the type you could be genuine friends with — just look at how he got along with Mark.
But clearly, Leon still needed some time to adjust to that around here.
“Forget villains causing the same trouble day after day — check this out instead!”
Eve pulled up a video on TikTok and held it out in front of them.
The two of them leaned in to look, nearly bumping heads.
The video’s title read —
Mystery powerhouse splits a building open, takes down The Immortal?!
Judging by the camera angle, Leon figured the person filming must’ve been in the building right next to the one he’d launched off from.
But what they’d managed to capture was pretty limited.
The dust Leon kicked up sprinting, the power plant crackling with arcs of electricity under the electric man’s control.
Then the shaking building, The Immortal flying in, and finally Leon’s hand-blade strike.
Last, the footage cut to The Immortal crawling out of the rubble.
“Don’t you two think that’s impressive?
Not many superhumans out there can pull off a clean cut on that scale.”
As Atom Eve, understanding matter on a deep level came with the territory.
No surprise she’d picked up on that.
But Marcia said:
“Personally, I think Omni-Man would handle a guy like that way easier than The Immortal.
He’s unstoppable.”
I could at least get one good hit in.
Leon pulled a face, while Eve pushed back directly:
“But Marcia, The Immortal’s strength is a well-established fact.
I think this was just a rare slip-up on his part.”
Leon had a hard time imagining he’d ever live to see two girls arguing over whose hero was stronger.
Predictably, before long, they both turned to Leon.
“What do you think?”
Leon mulled it over for a beat, then went with the truth.
“Honestly, even though he hasn’t shown much, I get the feeling The Immortal’s not quite as…
strong as Omni-Man.”
I took that punch personally, cracked bones as proof—
Oh wait, that healed up ages ago now.
“Go be a fan of your precious Omni-Man somewhere else!”
Eve shot him a sideways glare and stalked off to class.
Marcia, meanwhile, linked arms with him, positively delighted to have finally found a kindred spirit in this strength-debate wasteland.
“Knew you’d be on my side!”
Commander Nolan, are you seeing this?
I’m out here fighting for the glory of the Empire.
With that satisfying thought, Leon opened up the chat group.
Things had been on a steady upswing in the group lately.
After the last mission, Ritsuka Fujimaru had started exploring her own room.
By her account, that Master’s room seemed to connect to parts of Chaldea itself — training, even day-to-day life, could all be handled from in there.
Meanwhile, a countdown had appeared in her room; whenever it hit zero, presumably, it’d be time for her to set out.
On Yuji’s end, once training with Megumi wrapped up, they’d already picked up a third classmate, Nobara Kugisaki.
Whether it was some butterfly effect Leon had set off or not, whoever was pulling the strings behind the plot in their world seemed to be hesitating.
The gaps between their incidents had stretched out longer than expected — hard to say if that was a good thing or a bad one.
The Emperor was always in the middle of overtime at his gene lab, whenever he spoke up.
Either that, or complaining about Malcador, who kept saying things like:
“Emperor, back to researching genes again?
Take a break and go handle some governance for once, would you.”
He’d apparently gotten completely lost in fantasies of flying Primarchs by now, blind to the world around him.
As for the Boy Scout, he’d already gotten his hands on his own S-suit, and posted a photo of it.
Honestly, Leon thought he looked a lot like Henry Cavill.
He hoped that when the time came, Zod would show up matching that same power level, at least.
As for Amiya, her schedule really needed to be understood through the lens of this update to the chat group.
[Following this chat group update, members may now spend points here to generate requests, summoning other members to their world.
Combat Quests: Participants may move freely across the entire map of the target world, but the duration is relatively short.
Escort Quests: Participants must stay within a fixed range around the world’s central figure; leaving that range starts a countdown to automatic return.
Duration is comparatively longer.
Every quest comes with a specific objective, plus a chance to trigger special rewards.
Failure to complete within the time limit results in automatic return, and points are non-refundable.
Completing a quest early does not shorten the time limit.
Additionally, many more features are coming soon to this chat group.
Stay tuned.]
That day, Amiya had this very announcement in hand, hoping to request Leon over to her world.
Over this stretch of time, Nyos had gained a preliminary understanding of Oripathy through medical reports.
His exact words were as follows:
[Not-a-God Yellow Weasel]: Originium…
seeps into an entire industrial system, and doubles as an all-purpose material for casting Arts.
And it can corrode the human body too?
That sounds awfully familiar.
[Not-a-God Yellow Weasel]: Unfortunately, without a physical sample to examine, I can’t offer much more of a judgment than that.
That last message had nearly sent Amiya running off to try and reach the Warhammer universe herself, out of sheer panic.
After all, she was an Infected now too.
Lucky for everyone, she tended to actually listen to Leon, and a few words from him were enough to calm her down.
Right now, she was planning to travel alongside the Doctor.
The Doctor’s Oripathy suppressant had shown some preliminary results by this point.
But waking Amiya’s parents back up would require finding some more unconventional methods, somewhere on Terra.
Except it seemed their hands were tied at the moment.
Faced with Babel under attack from the Military Commission, the Doctor couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.
So, Amiya was hoping Leon could come lend a hand.
As far as she was concerned these days, there was no one stronger than Leon — any problem would surely melt away in front of him.
Along with the request, she’d also attached Kal’tsit’s exact words on the matter.
Looking over that riddle of a message, dense with references to this land’s suffering and all the rest.
The Viltrumite CPU in Leon’s head automatically filtered out all the fluff and landed on a conclusion.
[Viltrum’s Top Student]: In short: take out Theresis.
That’s the gist of it, right?
To be continued…
Viltrum’s Top Student — Leon (Invincible)
The Tiger of West Junior High — Yuji Itadori (Jujutsu Kaisen)
Not-a-god Yellow Weasel — Neoth, the Emperor of Mankind (Warhammer 40k)
Mala Donkey Head — Amiya (Arknights)
Orange-Haired Golden-Eyed Menace to Humanity — Gudako (Fate/Grand Order)
Kansas Farm Boy — Clark Kent / Superman (DC Comics)