hey all look at us, puzzled. However, they are trying to hide their confusion, except for the little boy.

“Is that… I don’t understand, but umm. Thank you for saving us!” he says.

Wait, huh.

I turn to whisper to Vacinay, “Do I have a bad memory, or isn't the concept of reality defenders known but just thought to be a Legend? But like, we took this guy down, so it should be believable that we are from Legends, right? Why aren’t they bowing down to us and showering us with praise?”

“Well… I guess we just don’t seem that impressive. I mean, people like Yamanda exist, and we are far from that level,” she whispers back while keeping eye contact with them.

Then the old lady smiles as she says, “Ah… we understand. You all want to be like the reality defenders of legends that President Cray Cray spoke about!”

Cray cray? There's no way that's his actual name, I refuse to believe… also!

Hessien steps forward. “We are not trying to be like them, we are them.”

Ghomas nods with his arms folded. “Exactly. Didn’t you guys see the giant clones I made?”

The old lady slowly nods as she and everyone of them look at us with pity.

“Y-yes darlings… I am sure you all would be able to become like those legends if you all work hard enough, one day, probably, maybe, undoubtful, but you never know!”

A man with brown hair steps forward with a smile. “Exactly! When I was younger, I wanted to be a reality defender like the legends too. So I get why you kids want to be like them.”

My eyes twitch with insane rage.

I mumble under my breath. “Do you all… want to die—“

Hessien clasps my mouth with his hand. “Sure sure! Anyway, do you all know how to make it back to your home?”

The old lady looks around before tiptoeing to gaze far. “Huh… well, parts of the forest that leads to our home appear… burn… And we are also worried about those half-men who may attack us.”

I try to pull the bastard hand away from my mouth, but… for some damn reason, his strength is ridiculous. Is this just the cause of the level-up?

Wait… he's covering my mouth with his white energy hand. Please don’t tell me that this bastard has a super-powered arm.

I bite it with all my strength, and to my surprise, he yelps in pain.

Ah, so he can still feel pain.

“What the hell!” he shouts as he rubs his hand. Tanya's eyes are twitching.

Pain transfer, right?

“You were violating my right of speech,” I say.

“You…”

He sighs and then turns back to the people. “We will help you?”

I have no idea why he says ‘we’. Since when did he start speaking French?

“Ah, thank you…” I notice another guy says… and he's… quite handsome.

I look at his perfectly chiseled jawline, tall and very toned build. His wide shoulders and muscular veiny forearms… He doesn't look like a steroid freak either, he just has the right amount...

I walk in front of Hessien and stand in front of them with a heartwarming smile. “Right, right right! I will lead the way!”

Hessien looks at me baffled, but I ignore him as I start marching forth.

The mega hot guy asks, “Um, that isn’t the direction.”

I turn quickly. “You're right, please lead the way, I would stick to your side to protect you.”

At max… he's 18. Only a single year older than me. There's no way in hell I'm going to fumble.

“Oh… okay,” he says as he makes his way from the middle of the crowd with his torn clothes, especially in front of his shirt, exposing his very inviting pecks.

... Calm down Lumine... Calm down.

“I will start walking,” he says.

“Yesss.” I walk alongside him.

There's silence, but I can hear whispers of Hessien and the other three behind me.

That isn’t important! But what am I supposed to say here? Isn’t he supposed to be gushing about my damn beauty?

Do I make the move?

I start dramatically nodding my head. “So… how’s life?” I ask.

He turns back to me with the dark circles around his eyes. “Oh. I think… it will be better. Seeing my parents getting killed during that raid by those half-men was a scary experience…”

Oh.

Shit. I forgot. These guys were about to be sacrificed. Was I being inappropriate and selfish…? No no no!

Dwelling on the negative is just bad, and I'm simply being positive with my thoughts and actions.

I look at his arms again.

Danggggggg it! I want them around me!

The only sad thing is that his pants are perfectly intact. What a shame.

“Tch.”

When we're about to enter the burned part of the forest, there's a sudden sound from a semi-burned bush.

Instantly, my mind goes to using time freeze, but then I look at the guy again and have an idea.

Suddenly, I gasp and bump into his chest for ‘protection’. “Oh dear! It’s a monster! Protect me!”

Ah yes, genius plan. Now, he would hug me, using his body as the shield and I would truly be in heaven!

His mouth trembles. “H-huh… Wh-what”

Instead of his hands being on my back, they're spread wide, shaking.

“Ayo, you have to embrace me to protect me fully,” I forget to change my tone.

He backs away from me and runs, screaming. “Mammy daddy! S-save me!”

I blink a couple of times, completely baffled. Then from the bush comes a very small half-man.

“I will eat you—“

Before he can finish his sentence, I punch a hole through his mouth, sending his scattered brain matter to the ground.

Tch.

I throw the body away and just walk forward.

Vacinay chuckles, mocking me. “You should have added ‘senpai’.”

She then jumps forward and starts to act.

On her knees with her, a single hand stretched forward and a face of pain, she screams, “SENPAI! Please! Touch me! I am touch-deprived! Please hug me! Please let me feel your arms!”

She then slowly retracts her hand and touches her chest emotionally like she's wounded. “Pickme choose me! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!”

Now she's lying on the ground, dying. “Please…” Then her head snaps to the side, and she isn’t breathing.

Hessien wipes tears from his eyes. “So… beautiful..”

Tanya is doing the same. “Ah, the tales of love.”

Ghomas, on the other hand, is on all fours, distraught. “Amazing… it truly captures the essence of love...”

I stare at them and instead of retorting, I raise my hand to the sky.

They stop their antics and look at me in disproval.

 

Hessien mocks me, “Come on, we know you can’t do anything. There are these people there.”

Suddenly, a fireball the diameter of 6 cars stuck together is formed above my hand.

They all look up as they see the heat affecting the air.

I grin. “Oh? I wouldn’t do it, huh?!”

They nod and say in unison. “Yeah, that’s what I said, what about it?”

Ouuu! I'm tempted to kill them. Holy shit!

I look at the people who are drenched in sweat from my flames.

I click my tongue and send it flying towards that mountain of sacrifices. It isn’t like I can out it.

Although, I suspect, I can come up with a trick for it.

Oh wait… I can get the fire suppression skill for 7 points, so I take it.

Then I look at the fireball that's heading towards the mountain and focus on extinguishing it.

I feel some strain as it quickly becomes nothing. Hm. I wish it was called heat suppression instead, but no matter.

Either way, the terrified and near heat stroke people are… still terrified and drenched in sweat.

I cough into my hand and apologize. “I will start back walking.”

And so…we move forward again; in the burned forest with nothing burned black soil and semi charcoaled trees with no leaves.

One of them asks, “This place… Did the half-men have some conflict here?”

“I did it,” I say smugly. “With a fire of such a scale, I imagine they are all dead.”

Puzzled, they all look at me before one of them asks, “You did this?”

“Yep!”

Wait, was that a bad thing to admit? Did they have ownership of this forest? Hell no, there was no way.

This place was overrun with those half-men after all.

“T-thank you!”

“You should burn the entire forest down too!”

“They may be from those legends!”

Ah, feels good. Instead of indulging in their praise, I gesture to where I spotted the guy still running.

I honestly probably have the eyes of a hawk.

We start moving again. It takes a long while, but we leave the burned section of the forest.

Back in the grassy forest… Wait, weren’t we brought to a jungle at first?

I rub my head. A jungle in a forest? Whatever, it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, we walk past huge plants that are about half my height and have flowers that smell like sweat and cotton.

After some more walking, which is boring to me, we come close to their village.

The little boy runs in front. “We are near home!”

The others follow suit, all moving forward with glee and happiness.

It's actually really nice to see.

Tanya is just glaring at them the whole time and energy chains around her are constantly glowing.

It's a damn good thing she made that pacifist-ish contract with Hessien.

Hessien bumps into me. I notice that Vacinay is on his shoulders, asleep.

“You sure do baby her,” I comment.

He shrugs. “I guess so.”

Ghomas yawns. I turn back to see him sitting in one of his clones' arms. He has one of his legs crossed over the other, and he is postured as if he's a king of some sort.

I ignore them and then push into the tall bush in front of us to see the villagers regrouping with their friends and families.

Upon getting past the thick bush, I smile as I prepare to say something, however… the situation is a bit… um…

All of them look around in horror. Some drop to their knees as if they lost hope.

The entire village is burned to the ground. There are some corpses there, but there are barely any remnants of burned houses.

There is absolutely no way in hell that I can be connected to this! That man, the ring leader of the sacrifices also had flames!

The old lady who stumbled and fell on her butt starts to cry. “H-how could this have happened…”

But why would the ring leader have gone to that village? It seems he was just making the sacrifices up there on that mountain.

Maybe it was someone else with fire powers?

The little boy then turns towards us and goes down on his knees. “You all are reality defenders, right?!”

I nod. But Hessien and Ghomas are looking away, awkwardly, as if they have no idea what he's talking about.

No damn morals.

I step forward and go on a single knee as I say, “Yes, we are. No, I am.”

The people then turn towards me, and with rage and sorrow request, “Please… avenge our home and families that were left behind to die.”

I stand up with a spring. “Of course! I will!”

The question is how…

Hessien rubs his chin as he gazes around before asking me, “You have time powers right? Can you look into the past?”

Oh right, I can!

Buying it for 6 skill points hurts my soul, but… I still have a lot more remaining.

I take past vision and tell them. “I will look into the past and see if I can see it.”

“Can… you make us see it too?” one of them asks.

…

I groan as I take the ‘Mind-influence’ skill card and purchase ‘Mind Projection’ for 4 skill points.

The things I do out of goodwill…

Anyway! I activate past sight and try my best to use two skills at once, which surely is going to result in my mind going splat.

With my mind connected to theirs, I broadcast my past vision.

There's the red version of the village and us here, so I guess I need to tap way back.

I go back 3 minutes, to where the people had just arrived at their burned villages, then I go back 10 minutes, where the fire was dying down… and I push it even further again! Up to 30 minutes.

(MY BRAIN HURRRRRTSSSS!)

The village has a lot of people, mainly the very old ones.

They're looking up in fear.

I too look up since what I can see in the future and past is limited to my vision. It's most likely something I can fix by pushing the boundaries, but that's a concern for another day.

In the sky is a huge fireball… It's exactly like the one I made back in the forest when it was burning down… and threw it in the sky…

The handsome dude that I had tried to make a move on suddenly says, “You did that…?”

I snap towards him with a confused look. “Did what?”

“Your thoughts! They were broadcasted as audio!”

… “What.”

The people slowly start looking at me with killing intent.

“That fireball looks exactly like the one you created back then too! Before you outed it!” the old lady picks up a stone and throws it at me.

I shout, “I can explain it!”

“Explain?!” they demand.

I raise a finger in the sky, thinking…

Shit.

I bite down on my thumb. “I will not make a statement until I get a lawyer.”

“DIE!” they run after me like a pack of hungry dogs!