1.24 – You sure this isn’t a fantasy setting?

Nathan felt restless. It was two weeks since he found himself in Tokyo in the world of [My Superhero Life], and it was the first time a week had passed in which nothing of interest had happened. A few days ago, the video from Red Lily came, but still it was strange. Back in the video game, this particular time of the main character’s life was fairly quiet. Hell, the explosion combined with the strange video already was far beyond what the main character had to go through.

The first semester, or even the whole first year, was more of a tutorial than anything, with barely any really difficult obstacles in the way. This semester was focused on meeting the main heroines in one way or another.

Nathan still had yet to meet any of the five of them. Almost all of them were in classes of S or A ranking, with one of them being a teacher that didn’t teach any of his own classes.

But he wasn’t here for romance. Even if the final goal of this strange system that he had meant that he would have to meet them eventually, he wasn’t going to do so now. He wanted to get Red Lily out of the way as soon as possible, prepare for what was to come. The final conflict. He needed to get stronger, but there were other ways to foil their goals as well.

Anyway, it was just too quiet, and he wasn’t used to that. Even back in New York, he spent a lot of time either training, going to parties, or studying; work took a lot of his time as well, and now he had none. He did spend a lot of time coding his app, but that didn’t feel like true work; it didn’t leave him completely devoid of any energy. Probably a good thing, but he was not used to it nonetheless.

And yes, the coding did leave him tired, at least somewhat, but Nathan at this point reckoned that the hard part would be getting it out, meeting with the heroes and the business owners of Tokyo. He had one hero in mind already. Vermillion Strike, who was a powerful teacher, and though she served the strongest organization of Japan, surely she wouldn’t be opposed to making some extra money. Opposed to saving a few more people. Honestly, she’d probably be interested in the second part of that deal more.

He was getting a read on her, deciphering who she was in this reality, and she seemed to be genuinely concerned for everyone that she met, concerned whether everyone was fine. About whether she was doing her job correctly. He already threw his former assumptions about her out of the window.

He couldn’t focus on her anyway. All that was left for him to do was to finish the final touches of the ads he prepared, but that would take time, and today he didn’t feel like working.

Alicia walked beside him as they strolled through Tokyo. Both of them seem to be enjoying the silence and each other’s company, so Nathan could focus on other things. He also reviewed the system, but he could not afford another ability without going bankrupt, so he left that for later.

This whole system, this whole superhero gig, made him think about what he wanted to be even more.

When he found himself in front of the Ako Academy, he made a promise to himself: to be more outgoing, make some friends, and live this life to the fullest compared to his last. So far he was following that promise, but now he found himself in front of another question: what did he want to be? He already kind of decided to be a superhero because the system placed him in such a role, but was it really what he had wanted?

He did want to help people. And it was exciting, but was the only thing that he wanted from this life to be excitement? Was helping people his ultimate life goal? He wasn’t sure yet, and no matter how deep he searched within himself, the answer became no clearer.

He would need to sit down and really think about the answer for that, but now he was split in too many directions. While it was an important thing to know about himself, he knew that he had some time yet. This quest that he had… he knew that he had to finish it, had to secure all six of those happy endings. And for that, he would need to stay in Ako Academy and complete whatever was in front of him for two and a half years yet. Almost three.

And at least the curriculum was fun so far. Mondays were biology and practical duels with Mrs. Gurehi and Deadlock, but the rest of the week was quite fun as well.

Tuesdays, he had to focus on the hero basics, and then they had a practical class of unarmed combat, which didn’t involve any superhero abilities at all. He stood out there: his muscles, the fact that he was taller than almost anyone in the whole two classes (if he didn’t count the one guy who was genuinely just a giant… and another guy with a rhinoceros head). These factors let him pull ahead. With his body enhanced by the money that he received, it was even easier to win, but it still wasn’t completely easy.

The techniques that they started learning there seemed useful to everyone, and Nathan didn’t know most of them. He paid attention to her, but some of the other kids were learning this stuff since they could talk. If Nathan had to guess, they just lacked practice.

The other classes all focused on something interesting as well: History of superheroes, trying to focus on their powers empowering them, laws that followed every superhero throughout their whole life, the current state of villains in Japan. And so on.

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All of them were made with a certain purpose, and for now Nathan felt content.

“Wanna grab coffee?” Alicia tapped his shoulder, pointing towards a small place across the street. She was a bit more cautious nowadays, strangely. Maybe Aiko and Minato got under her skin a little?

At least they managed to hide the fact that he was actually crashing at her house from them.

“You know what? Sure!” He stopped, missing a sentence from Alicia, as something caught his attention. He wouldn’t have looked that way if it weren’t for Alicia asking him the question, but now that he did, he noticed a person he recognized.

It took him a moment to connect the dots about who this was. Probably a combination of the fact that his memory was still blocked, and that it wasn’t that important of a character, but he did connect the dots eventually.

The man on the other side of the street was a gang member. He wasn’t from Red Lily itself, however. Those people were phantoms that rarely ever appeared on the streets of Tokyo or any other city. But he was from The Onis, something like a super-human Yakuza.

The Onis served Red Lily in the war that would happen two years from now. As far as he remembered, the main character never met any of them until the second semester of the second year, but here was a member in broad daylight, walking from the same cafe that he was just about to go to.

The man made a turn into a side street, disappearing behind the wall. “Alicia, follow me,” Nathan said and dashed across the street, careful not to get hit by a car this time around. There was enough of that already.

He approached the cafe but didn’t stop, heading towards the same street that the man disappeared in.

“What is it, Nathan? Why are we running like children?” Alicia asked, peering into the alley from the side of his shoulder. The man was almost on the other side. He was walking slowly, but with a clear goal in mind. His stride was determined, as if he needed to reach somewhere but not catch the attention of anyone.