Free Web NovelChapter 511: Turned Into Gacha?! - 511
"...I don’t have any troubles that need solving, nor do I need your help with anything. If you really want to be useful, just staying where I can see you would be a massive help."
Perhaps because she had distanced herself from Fubuki, Tatsumaki’s tone was considerably calmer than before.
"So, what are we doing next?"
"Patrolling."
Tatsumaki’s voice remained flat. "We wasted quite a bit of time today waiting for you, but there’s still enough time to make a round through the neighboring cities. A-City, City-D, City-H, and City-I."
"Patrolling several cities all at once?" Alice blinked. "Won’t that be tiring? Esper powers put a huge burden on the mind and brain, right? Fubuki said so before."
"Ha! How could a level like this ever be a problem? Are you looking down on me?" Tatsumaki let out a dismissive, cold snort.
"A trivial matter like this is a piece of cake for me. I don’t even need to step foot inside the cities; even from the outskirts, I can sense exactly what’s going on inside."
She phrased it a bit vaguely. While she could sense the situation, she could actually only detect relatively large disturbances.
Unless she used her psychic powers with intense focus, there was no way for her to directly see what was happening in every nook and cranny of the streets.
This was simply a matter of necessity.
She couldn’t just absorb every single image and sound; doing so might instead overwhelm her brain with too much data, preventing her from pinpointing a Mysterious Being’s location right away.
"Do you have to patrol that many cities every single day?"
"Isn’t it because there are too many utterly useless people around all day? Seriously, what’s with the B-Class and A-Class? Even among those S-Class heroes, isn’t there a whole bunch of them who just sit around and do absolutely nothing?"
Bringing up this topic immediately set Tatsumaki off into a rant.
"They can’t even figure out their own jobs, and they even expect other people to protect them. Can people like that just hurry up and get the hell out of this industry already?"
Well... she certainly sounded incredibly resentful.
And it felt like a huge portion of that resentment stemmed from the Blizzard Group...
Seeing that the robot-head didn’t chip in, Tatsumaki glanced at her once more.
Remembering that this robot-head was also a member of that Blizzard Group, Tatsumaki knitted her brows.
"Speaking of which, didn’t you stay in City-L? There hasn’t been much movement from Mysterious Beings over there lately, but don’t go thinking you’ve done a good job just because of that."
"Alice only did what a Hero is supposed to do." The girl looked back at Tatsumaki, her expression perfectly natural. Clearly, she didn’t think she had done anything spectacular.
"Hmph, that’s only a matter of course."
Tatsumaki withdrew her gaze.
The sight of the two walking together inside the Association drew many onlookers.
One was the long-standing, powerhouse hero ranked second, the one with the highest count of eliminated Mysterious Beings and the grandest combat spectacles—the Tornado of Terror, Tatsumaki.
The other was a recently fast-tracked S-Class hero with an excellent reputation. She had single-handedly reduced the frequency of Mysterious Being disasters in City-L while simultaneously driving the crime rate down to an absolute minimum.
Though she hadn’t been debuted for very long, her personality and appearance had already won over countless fans, making her an equally dedicated hero.
Both of them were exceptionally eye-catching beautiful girls, so walking side by side naturally made people curious.
It seemed there had never been any news leaking out about a relationship between these two.
How did two practically unrelated people suddenly wind up together? Could there be some sort of mission they needed to execute jointly?
Every now and then, Alice would warmly greet the people passing by, making no distinction between staff members and heroes.
Her friendly, cheerful demeanor perfectly illustrated to everyone why she had amassed so many fans in such a short time and held such a sterling reputation in City-L.
Tatsumaki didn’t even bother giving a single glance to the surrounding eyes and curiosity. She had always distrusted others and had no desire to interact with anyone.
Once the pair left the Association, Tatsumaki carried Alice along and flew up into the midair.
"It’s the ability to fly! With the addition of a new companion, Alice has temporarily acquired the skill ’Flight’!"
What companion?
Tatsumaki found herself utterly unable to understand this robot-head’s optimism and bizarre wavelength. Did she honestly not know about the hostility directed toward her? She had clearly given her a harsh reality check right from the start.
"I’m just using my psychokinesis to let you temporarily move through the air." Tatsumaki simply gave up explaining, feeling that even if she spoke, this robot wouldn’t understand anyway. "Otherwise, you won’t be able to keep up with my speed when the time comes, and you’ll just drag me down."
Flying was indeed much more convenient than running.
The figures of the two vanished from the spot in a flash, quickly circling the skies above the borders of A-City. After Tatsumaki confirmed that A-City harbored no danger, she flew off toward another city in the distance.
Tatsumaki’s psychic power was profoundly immense, enough to drag a meteor down from outer space, rip an entire city from the ground, or twist a city into a pretzel.
If she wanted to, not even the most cutting-edge fighter jet could rival her in flight speed.
Her patrolling process was brutally simple and direct.
She moved rapidly from one region to another, scanning for any traces of Mysterious Beings with her psychokinesis, and then used her psychic power to crush them to death on the spot.
Because of the green glow enveloping the Mysterious Beings, and the way they vanished without a trace, compressed alongside their own blood, such highly distinct features made it obvious to anyone that Tatsumaki was the one who solved the issue.
There was no need to worry about just anyone claiming the credit.
As for the Mysterious Beings no one saw, they died in absolute silence.
However, her efficiency wasn’t exactly a good thing for everyone.
Even if a hero was currently engaged in combat with a Mysterious Being, Tatsumaki wouldn’t hesitate to crush the fighting creature to death, acting in a way that essentially stole the credit.
Eliminating Mysterious Beings was a critical metric in the Hero Association.
Yet, if any hero expressed dissatisfaction over this, they would be snapped back at by Tatsumaki with a curt, "If you have time to complain, why don’t you use it to do something useful?"
After patrolling through several cities in this exact manner, Tatsumaki had already taken care of over a dozen Mysterious Beings.
If she maintained this kill count every day, it was no wonder she had become the hero with the most eliminated targets.
Yet, she didn’t just stop there.
Because she had zero social life, Tatsumaki had virtually nothing else to do except patrol and kill Mysterious Beings unless the Hero Association explicitly contacted her for a matter.
Consequently, she immediately commenced a second round of patrols, sniffing out and eliminating three more Mysterious Beings.
It wasn’t until her stomach started rumbling that she finally showed signs of stopping.
And so, she flew back to her own home, bringing Alice along.
It was a perfectly ordinary residential house, looking completely unlike a place where a rank-two hero like Tatsumaki would reside. Originally, Alice had assumed Tatsumaki would live in a luxury high-rise apartment or somewhere similar.
Upon returning home, Tatsumaki didn’t even take off her shoes, floating right into the house just like that. Seeing Alice standing motionless at the entrance, she used her psychokinesis to open the shoe cabinet and pulled out a pair of white, fluffy bear slippers.
By the looks of it, they hadn’t been worn even once.
"Ta-da! Unlocked a new map: Tatsumaki’s Residence!" After changing into the slippers, Alice walked into the living room, raising a hand with a face full of joy.
Startled by the noise that suddenly flared up, Tatsumaki couldn’t help but glare at her.
This robot-head always managed to pull off some completely inexplicable stunts.
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A/N: I didn’t expect everyone to have such a bad impression of Tatsumaki; it’s a bit different from how I perceive her... Aside from being way too proud and lacking understanding and patience for other heroes, Tatsumaki is actually quite qualified as a hero. During the Monster Association Arc, she even ended up nearly losing her life just to restrain herself for the sake of others.
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T/N: If you want advance Chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL
