MHA 18

"... and if I do that, we might not have enough WP to extract things or buy System Upgrades, until we don't start going into high-ranking worlds. So what do you think?" I finished my explanation, and both Sky and Olivia listened attentively.

Sky tilted her head to the side, her ears flopping around, and let out a curious "Woof?"

"No, or... I don't think so," I responded, humming in contemplation. "Because you were the one who finished the hero quest and not Olivia." I gave Olivia a pointed look.

"It was out of my hands!" Olivia protested, raising her hands in the air.

"Yeah, I know," I chuckled. "While you're completely capable, your fighting style doesn't align with their image. And Sky is cute, they wanted to use her as a mascot." I said, offering an apologetic smile to the pup.

Sky seemed shocked at the revelation, letting out another "Woof?!"

"Yeah... Sorry, you had to learn it this way," I said, patting the disheartened little wolf. "But don't let it get to you! You're amazing! They just don't realize how great you are!"

"Woof..." Sky whispered, looking away with a shy expression.

"You're welcome," I replied with a smile, then turned my attention back to Olivia, who observed our interaction with curiosity. Clearing my throat awkwardly, I continued, "So, getting back on topic... Sky cleared the 'Top Hero' quest while still being tier three, and the reward stayed at twice the original value instead of being four times, which would have happened if we'd cleared it at tier three. That means the system uses the highest tier in our group, or me, as the original user, as a base."

"That's plausible and probable," Olivia nodded. "We," She pointed to herself and Sky, "can't enter or exit a world without your approval."

"Really?" I asked, surprised. "Where did you get that from?"

"When I was searching for a DxD world variant, Index mentioned it in passing," Olivia shrugged. "I didn't think it was important, so I kind of forgot to tell you."

Deep in thought, I delved into the system options, searching for the companion settings. However, all I found were options to remove rights to systems or completely remove Olivia from the system. "Yeah, there is no option for that in the system," I mumbled apologetically.

"It's alright," Olivia shrugged once again. "It doesn't really matter. I believe you wouldn't endanger me or Sky, or am I wrong?"

"No, you're right, I wouldn't. Besides, you two can already bypass this limitation," I said with a grin, recalling the enchantment I gave them on the earrings and the tag. "If worst comes to worst, you can contact Mai through [Soul Cohesion] or [Link], and she can adjust her temporal clock, collect enough mana to establish a dimensional gate, and extract you. She's not tied to the system, so it wouldn't affect our time in the library."

"If she can do that, why aren't you using her temporal abilities to saturate the dimension you made? Why are we waiting?" Olivia asked, tilting her head in confusion.

I looked at her with a deadpan expression, unsure if she was joking or not. "Is that a real question, or are you joking right now?"

"Real..." she mumbled, avoiding my gaze.

"She is already using it," I replied with a sigh. "Saturating 30 light years' worth of space using the output of a single star can't be achieved in seven days. Even light would take 30 years to cross that distance. She's using a large amount of mana to supplement the temporal field around Elysium."

Olivia seemed worried and asked, "Does that mean she is spending years all alone?"

"No, why would she? She's speeding up time for everything, but also slowing down her own perception of time. Even though she's an AI and a hikikomori, the loneliness of spending years alone might actually kill her. Even now, she keeps in touch, sending reports about the progress and occasionally chatting with me."

"Oh... She never contacted me..." Olivia pouted.

"Yeah... Let's get back to my question," I said with an awkward smile, changing the subject. "What do you think? Should I merge those skills and possibly advance, or should I speedrun a few worlds before I do it?"

Olivia squinted her eyes at me, annoyed that I didn't play along with her brooding, but she sighed and answered my question with one of her own. "Well, that depends. Do you plan on getting any upgrades in the near future?"

"Four, actually," I replied with a nod. "The first one is the Advanced Title System, which, while costly, would allow us to equip all of our titles simultaneously while also granting them the ability to evolve. It has a prerequisite of having at least five title slots, which we don't have yet. So, accounting for the price of the two title slots and the cost of the system itself, it would be 31,000 WP," I explained with a sigh. "I also want to get us two class slots, which would cost 15,000 WP, and the Reincarnation and Limiter Systems, just for fun. Those two combined would be 18,500 WP."

"So in the end, we would need 64,500 WP, and we currently have 12,089..." Olivia did the math in her head and gave me a look. "We're quite far from the goal."

"And that doesn't even account for all the things we might want to extract from worlds," I added, nodding in agreement.

"Alright then," she clapped her hands. "You said you wanted to visit a dangerous world after this, right?"

"Originally, yes," I nodded. "But things have changed. I need a skill or a way to increase my soul strength, and I wanted to send you two into a Martial Arts world of your own choosing, as they tend to have a lot of things that increase spiritual power, like techniques or items. Also, they have quite a few sword techniques that might interest you. Meanwhile, I would jump around and speedrun a few quick worlds."

Olivia squinted her eyes at me in suspicion, "Why don't you want to come yourself?"

"That's a good question, and I have two answers for that," I said, raising a finger. "First of all, I hate those stories, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy a world centered around them. The whole 'Oh, you're weak, you're trash' premise of those stories annoys me." My blood pressure rose just from thinking about it. "They often follow the same pattern: the main character starts extremely weak, then reincarnates, transmigrates, travels back in time, or gets some cheat ability to become strong. But then, they get into a fight against someone and kill them. So somehow, the sect or group that the person belonged to finds out, and then the father or brother of the one they killed shows up for revenge. The main character fights hard and kills them too. But then, the grandfather of the first guy shows up for revenge, and he's even stronger than the last two, but the main character kills him as well. After that, the main character seeks revenge and eradicates the whole sect, but wait! There's more!" By this point, the air around me crackled with my annoyance. "That sect had good relationships with another sect, so this new sect sends their disciples, who, by the way, are even stronger than the grandfather of the last guy, to kill the main character. And the whole thing just repeats endlessly!" I raised my hands in the air in frustration.

"Okay, okay, okay. I get it, I get it. Calm down," Olivia said, waving her hands to calm me, while I took a deep breath. "What's the other thing?" She asked curiously.

"The other thing is that I'm pretty sure I would perform a genocide or two the second I meet one of the 'Young Master' archetypes. They are typically arrogant fools who have a powerful backing but are relatively weak themselves, and they are there to cause the main character some strife."

"Okay... Now I understand your reluctance to go to those worlds. You can go and do your thing, I'll go and get your soul-strengthening thingies," she said with a comforting smile, patting me on the shoulders before kissing my cheeks. "What kind of worlds are you planning on visiting in the meantime?"

"Really?" I exclaimed in surprise, not expecting her to agree. "You'll go into one of those horrid worlds for me?" I asked, touched by her gesture.

She snorted and chuckled, saying, "Yes, silly, you can rely on me, like I rely on you. You need that thing, and you really don't seem to want to go."

"Thank you," I said, pulling her into a hug, and making her laugh. We stayed in that embrace for a moment before she patted me on the back and pulled away, raising an eyebrow.

"You didn't answer my question," she said, gently planting a kiss on my cheek.

"Ah, right. There are a lot of movie worlds out there, where the quests would revolve around doing something easy with my current set of powers," I replied with enthusiasm. "Like saving the world from an alien invasion, an asteroid impact, exorcising ghosts, killing monsters, and similar stuff. Also, I actually want to go into a world based on a heist, and a video game world to try and learn new enchanting techniques."

"Oh, so those kinds of worlds," she nodded in understanding, while Sky looked between us in confusion. "Will you go to the world with those two gay guys and the mountain?" She asked, giving me a questioning glance.

"The what, now?" I asked, genuinely confused, as I was sure I hadn't watched "Brokeback Mountain" with her.

"You know... The three-part movie that took us almost ten hours to finish," she said with a groan, making my eyes widen in realization.

"Do you by any chance mean 'Lord of the Rings'?"

"Ah yeah, there was a ring in it too," she said, nodding.

"Blasphemy..." I mumbled under my breath, squinting my eyes at her. "That's the whole premise of the movie! And all you remembered from it is Frodo and Sam on a mountain?"

"No... I remember that gobblin that kept saying 'My precious' too, but he was kind of creepy. Oh, and there was that bearded guy who shouted 'You shall not pass!'" she said with a nod.

"You... Didn't like the movie?" I asked, concerned.

"Eh... It was alright, but couldn't they just, I don't know, fly to that volcano and drop the ring into it? Why stretch it out for so long..."

I opened my mouth to oppose her argument, but as someone who planned on using [Annihilation] on the ring, I simply couldn't. "You know what? The movie is a masterpiece, and I'm not going to argue with you," I said with a huff, crossing my arms.

"Sure," she shrugged nonchalantly and changed the topic. "By the way, won't those worlds be low-tier ones?"

"They will, that's why I said I will be speedrunning them," I replied with a sigh. "I'm pretty sure I could go into a world based on an Ocean's movie and do the main quest in an instant."

"I've got no idea what that is, but I'll take your word for it," she said with a chuckle. "So, are we leaving this world now?"

"There are a few quests I still want to finish here," I replied. "Plus, I'm yet to meet one of the military experiment subjects in a fight."

"You found out where they are?" she asked, perking up.

"Yeah, I found one in Russia and one in the USA, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture," I said with a wry smile. "If you want a real challenge, I can allow you to fight a weaker one, which can summon scythes out of its forearms. It's a tier four almost at tier five, and at best described as a literal monster. But the other one is way out of your league."

"Do you have so little faith in me?" she asked with a huff.

"No, but I understand your capabilities, and until you learn how to cut reality apart with your blade, you should leave reality warpers to me," I said, shaking my head.

"Why? Are they really so scary?" she asked.

"They are, and this one was pretty scary even before she became a test subject." I said with a sigh, "She was inspired by All Might as a kid, and wanted to become a hero, but ended up in the US military..."

"Oh... How strong are reality warpers?" She asked curiously, and I demonstrated by activating [Absolute Command].

"The coffee table is made out of strawberry-flavored jelly," I commanded, feeling a mild drain on my stamina and health as reality shifted, rearranging the molecular structure of the wooden table before us, before turning it completely into jelly. Unable to support its own weight, with a loud slush, it fell to the floor, making everything on it bounce on its bouncy yet squishy surface.

Olivia was stunned, looking at the table with wide-eyed astonishment. She reached forward, poking the jiggling jelly-like surface, trying to comprehend what just happened. With a wide grin on my face, I commanded again, "The coffee table is made out of wood," and reality obeyed, turning the table back into wood but keeping its squished form.

Without waiting for her question, I explained, "I picked up this ability from the hero you met at the airport. It has its limitations, but with a simple command, I could make oxygen disappear from the atmosphere, make molecular bonds impossible, or simply command everything to die." I turned to face her and asked seriously, "Do you now understand why I wouldn't let you fight something with this kind of power?"

"Yea, I understand," she said with a reluctant nod, then struck a thinking pose and squinted her eyes. "I just don't get one thing," she continued, giving me a confused glance.

"And that is?" I asked curiously.

"Why jelly?" A smile bloomed on her face as she asked the question.

"I don't know," I replied while laughing. "It was the first thing that came to my mind. Maybe I'm subconsciously craving it?" I added with a shrug, then asked, "So... You vs. Scythe guy?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Sure, why not?" she replied with a shrug before adding, "But not today. Let's do it tomorrow. I'm mentally exhausted from this day. It took me only this much to realize why you didn't want to be a hero. It's unrewarding and exhausting as hell," she said with a sigh. "Not the villain part, mind you, but the interaction with people and the bureaucracy. In the next world, I'm going to be a villain." She crossed her arms with a pouty expression.

"Took you long enough," I replied with a chuckle, giving her pouty lips a swift smooch.

"Don't even start," she rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed. "We caught a thief with super speed ability today, and the only way we could do it was by breaking his legs. I didn't even cut them off, just broke them! And after I did so, I was berated for my 'cruel' methods..." She huffed, "Like, you try catching a person moving ten times the speed of sound while also keeping people and surroundings safe..." She looked at me, anger evident in her expression. "They told me I'm creating unnecessary paperwork for them like that's not their job!" She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner and asked, "You know what they did when I told them to shove their paperwork up their asses?"

"I have an idea or two," I said, trying to hold back a laugh.

"They practically exhorted me into going on an anger management course, or I would have lost my hero license," she said, raising her arms in the air in annoyance. "Like, screw you, assholes. Let's just leave this world. Please?" She looked up at me with a pleading expression.

"Now that the quest is done, you don't need to go back to being a hero," I said with a grin. "How about joining the Quacker as his sidekick... Hmm..." I squinted my eye, recalling all the abilities I had observed while scanning the globe for information. A smile bloomed on my lips as I found a suitable combination for her. "How about Petal?"

"Petal?" She asked in confusion, but I brushed it off and raised my hands upwards, ripping a hole into spacetime.

Three spatial gates formed above our heads, and I extended three mana tendrils into them, activating [Assimilate] to copy two abilities while permanently stripping the third one from its user. The abilities I copied belonged to an arborist and a florist, while the third one was from a petty villain. Ignoring her puzzled expression, I affectionately booped her nose, transferring the skills to her permanently.

"Debuff Bestowal? Floral Manipulation? Bouquet Creation?" She asked, giving me a confused glance.

"Yep," I said with a smile. "If my instincts are right, merging the three skills into one will grant you the ability to create and control flowers with special effects. For example, sleep-inducing pollen, poison, aphrodisiac, and other similar effects. You could probably evolve it into something more advanced, like affecting people's souls or something similar, later on. Plus, it's stamina-based, so your mana generation won't be an issue."

"Huh..." She mumbled, activating the intuitive merging system for the first time since we bought it and merging the three skills into one. "You were right."

"I'm always right," I said proudly, puffing my chest out and earning a playful eye-roll from her. "Let me see the results." She nodded and shared the skill description.

[Bloomcraft 3x 1/100]

- Grants the user the ability to weave and control an array of blossoms, each possessing unique abilities, spanning from seductive slumber-inducing pollen to potent poisons.

She activated the skill, and a single pink rose petal appeared on her palm. Swiftly, it changed its color to obsidian black, its edges glowing with a yellowish hue. She flipped her wrist, launching the petal at the wall. Without slowing down, it sliced through the wall and the power cables, leaving the apartment and plunging the room into almost complete darkness.

With an apologetic and embarrassed expression, she turned to me and asked, "Could you fix that?"