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Dealing with Ethan's relentless pestering—and his insistence on moving into Misaka Mikoto's dorm room of all places—was giving her a headache.According to him, "You're both just pretty boys in disguise anyway. What's the big deal if we all live together?"
Faced with that logic (and his refusal to shut up), Misaka finally gave in. She decided the only way to get rid of him was to help him. Using her ability, she forged an official identity for him.
Of course, before doing that, she'd done a full sweep of Academy City's entire network, digging for any trace of his real identity. Just like he'd said, there wasn't a single record of "Ethan" anywhere online—not a photo, not a birth record, nothing.
Once she confirmed he wasn't some wanted criminal or a dangerous psycho, she reluctantly hacked into the police database and slipped in a temporary ID record for him.
Truth be told, she only helped him for three reasons:First, because he was annoyingly persistent.Second, because he really didn't seem to have a shady past.And third—the one she didn't want to admit even to herself—because, somehow, she just… trusted him. That weird, unexplainable trust was what finally pushed her to help.
"All right," Misaka said, glaring at him as she folded her arms, "your fake ID's ready. Now get out of Dorm Room 10 already!"
"Whoa," Ethan said, eyes sparkling. "You can control electricity and hack into networks? That's, like, top-tier hacker level! Damn, that's one hell of an ability." He gave her a big thumbs-up, clearly impressed.
"Hmph! Of course," Shirai Kuroko chimed in proudly. "Onee-sama is the third-ranked Level 5 esper in all of Academy City—the Railgun Princess! Naturally, her powers are incredible!"
Then she turned to Ethan, frowning. "But even if your new identity came from Onee-sama herself, if you cause any trouble, I'll arrest you on the spot!"
"She's right!" Misaka added sternly. "Ethan, don't do anything stupid. If you break the rules even once, I will bring you in."
"Yeah, yeah, I got it, I got it." Ethan waved a hand lazily. "I'm a law-abiding citizen, you know. Especially in a peaceful world like this—no random attacks, no monsters jumping out at you while you're shopping. Why would I ruin something this nice?"
"Hmph. Who knows what you're really thinking," Misaka muttered, still suspicious. "You can't judge a book by its cover."
"Believe what you want," Ethan said with a shrug. "I don't really care what guys think of me anyway." He turned to leave, adding cheerfully, "Alright then, see you two later. Have fun with your... dorm bonding or whatever. Oh right, I think it's your turn to clean the dorm tomorrow, isn't it? Heh. Good luck with that!"
And with that, he shot into the air and flew off.
Both Misaka and Kuroko stood there, eyes wide in disbelief.Flying—actually flying—wasn't something you saw every day, even in Academy City.Sure, Kuroko's teleportation sort of let her move through the air, but it wasn't really the same. True flight was something else entirely.
For his part, Ethan actually preferred living alone. The idea of sharing a room with those two—whom he jokingly (and completely incorrectly) referred to as "traps"—wasn't appealing at all. If he stayed overnight, who knew what might happen? What if they thought he was too handsome and tried to—
Of course, that was just his imagination running wild. His paranoia came from a recurring nightmare, one that still haunted him and warped the way he saw people. Thanks to that stupid dream, he couldn't even look at two innocent girls without assuming they were secretly guys in disguise.
Still, with his new ID and a few thousand yen donated by that spiky-haired "good Samaritan," Ethan managed to find a small place to stay.
It wasn't much—cramped, really—but it reminded him of his old apartment back in the One Punch Man world. Cozy, quiet, and familiar enough that he didn't mind.
Back then, out of pure laziness, he'd picked that place just because it was next to Saitama's apartment. Living near the Caped Baldy had its perks: no one messed with you, and if trouble showed up, Saitama would usually punch it away before you even got involved.
Even now, though he was in a different world entirely, Ethan couldn't help but feel a strange sense of déjà vu.
He'd already gotten used to living simply, so the thought of some fancy, luxurious apartment never even crossed his mind.
After paying about half of the money he had on him, Ethan managed to rent a small place for a month. As for next month's rent or daily expenses—that didn't really worry him.
Now that he had an identity here, he could keep doing what he'd always done back in the One Punch Man world—drawing manga. It was something he was not only familiar with, but actually pretty good at.
As for what he'd said before about letting Misaka Mikoto support him? Yeah, that had been a joke. Sure, Ethan could be lazy sometimes, but asking a girl—especially a girl like her—to cover his living expenses? No way. He still had a bit of pride left, a streak of old-fashioned masculinity. His hands and legs worked just fine—he wasn't about to depend on someone else to survive.
Creating manga was second nature to him now. He knew every step, every trick, every bit of the process inside out. So making something that could actually sell wasn't difficult at all. Within just a short time, he'd already drawn up a whole stack of pages.
Ethan drew with a kind of relaxed ease, his hand moving fast and confident. With his superhuman abilities—his mental speed, his precision—it was no wonder he could crank out high-quality work in record time. What might take an ordinary artist weeks or months, he could finish in a day or two without breaking a sweat.
By the very next day, he was already heading to a manga publisher with his new work in hand.
"..."
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