Incorrect data?
Incompatible?
Listening to the system prompts in his ear, Ian looked completely baffled. That kind of feedback was so strange it left him genuinely confused.
And sure enough, his system really did feel like something ripped straight out of a game.
"I am once again trembling for my life as an NPC."
Ian had failed to unlock a new class, and the disappointment hit him hard. He found himself wondering whether Kryptonian blood might work if he tested it later.
Getting his dad's blood would be hard.
But getting Jordan's blood?
That was easy.
Jordan got nosebleeds all the time. Since blood was life, Ian figured that if all else failed, he could always steal one of Jordan's nighttime supplies and test that instead.
Slowly getting to his feet,
Ian glanced back at Kara.
Completely oblivious to what he had just done, his big-hearted aunt was still in the middle of her call.
"We found a LexCorp biotech byproduct at the wastewater plant. At least two people have already mutated."
"I don't need Hank's help. I'm requesting D.E.O. support... yes, full quarantine protocols."
Kara was clearly speaking with some kind of government agency.
If Ian remembered correctly, Supergirl did indeed have deep ties to the D.E.O. It was an important covert organization dedicated to monitoring, studying, and responding to all kinds of supernatural phenomena, extraterrestrial lifeforms, and superpowered individuals appearing on Earth. The name was, quite literally, shorthand for the Department of Extranormal Operations.
As for Hank...
His full name was supposed to be Hank Henshaw, one of the higher-ups in that organization. It was actually an alias borrowed from someone else. Like Kara, he was an alien too.
Martian Manhunter.
Strong enough that he could probably kill three or five Ians with one punch.
"No matter who I'm standing in front of, I'm still just a tiny fry. An ordinary NPC."
Quietly listening to Kara's call, Ian turned his eyes back to the mutated green-skinned worker.
"That look is way too familiar."
Ian stared at the worker's fangs, deep in thought. There was something about the design that felt suspiciously close to the orcs in his memory.
Even the earlier lines sounded weirdly similar.
"Drink my blood... join us... child!"
The green worker kept his eyes fixed on Ian and began trying to tempt him.
"This world needs countless warriors to change it!"
"You and I... we will both gain glory! For the..."
Before the green worker could finish, Kara walked over from a distance and punched him square in the face.
The worker's voice cut off instantly.
"ROAR!"
Another furious howl erupted.
But it was neither enough to scare Kara nor enough to stir anything in Ian's heart.
"Don't tell me you actually want to drink his blood."
Kara shot Ian a warning look. Clearly, in her eyes, Ian remained full of dangerous uncertainty. She had heard every word of the green worker's attempt to lure him in.
Super hearing.
Useful sometimes. Not useful other times.
"Drink his blood? Of course not. Aunt Kara, I have standards."
Ian looked up, blinking very seriously through the two eyeholes cut into the stocking over his head.
"The way you're looking at him, you seem more like you're thinking about taking a bite out of him."
Kara looked at him suspiciously.
Ian immediately responded with the most wholesome sunshine-boy smile he could manage.
"No, definitely not. I was just thinking about how to scientifically prove he isn't human."
Ian meant that sincerely, but hearing it made Kara feel a chill run through her.
"Damn it. Do you really just have some psychological issues?"
She grabbed Ian by the collar and hauled him up.
"Someone's coming to deal with this poor guy."
"We need to check whether there are any other people still inside the plant and ask what happened... I'd bet anything this wastewater plant is just a front. This has to be one of Luthor's biotech labs."
Kara's voice was filled with absolute certainty.
"So you're saying our world might be getting its own Umbrella Corporation?"
Ian was genuinely surprised. His instincts told him it definitely was not just a biotech experiment.
"Could you try saying things in a language I understand?"
Kara let out a heavy sigh.
She kept hauling the stocking-masked Ian along as she quickly headed deeper into the plant. At this point the wastewater facility had fallen into a strange silence. The workers who had been bustling about before had almost all fled.
Once they entered the inner section of the plant, the lights overhead flickered nonstop. Every so often, a harsh electric crackle buzzed through the air, like the whole place had never seen a maintenance crew in its life.
"This place was built not that long ago. Unless someone skimmed half the budget, there is no way the equipment should already look this worn out."
Ian struggled a little until Kara set him back down on the ground.
He was still providing useful observations.
"You're right."
Kara nodded. Her enhanced hearing had picked up the sound of liquid moving and faint moaning deeper inside the building, but the strongest heat signatures were coming from the cafeteria.
"That way."
Kara moved Ian behind her protectively. There were damp patches on the floor, and every step they took produced a crisp echo in the silence.
After walking a short distance,
they found themselves staring at a sign.
Employee Cafeteria.
Kara suddenly sniffed the air.
"Do you smell that? It smells like food... and since this is around mealtime..."
Because Ian had stolen her dinner earlier, Kara was now absurdly sensitive to the smell of food.
"All I smell is sewage and disinfectant."
Ian frowned.
"No, it's definitely food. Don't question my super sense of smell."
Kara's stomach let out a timely growl. Even she could feel how strange this was.
"It's weird. In a place this disgusting, the food from the cafeteria somehow smells amazing?"
As she spoke, Kara led Ian straight into the employee cafeteria.
Her eyes swept across the broad dining area. Four or five workers in orange uniforms sat at stainless steel tables, quietly eating with their heads lowered.
To Kara, the air was filled with delicious aromas, warm bread, rich stew, and the clean freshness of herbs.
At least, that was what she believed she was seeing and smelling.
"This place cannot be just a wastewater plant if the staff meals are this good."
She even felt a little tempted herself, though she held back and prepared to question a few workers first.
"You call this good food?"
Ian looked at Kara in disbelief.
He suddenly felt his aunt's taste in food was a little special.
No, not special.
Cosmic horror special.
Ian's eyes swept over the workers' trays. Every single one of them was filled with glowing green soup and lumpy green chunks of meat.
The kind of thing that made your stomach turn just from looking at it.
"Barbecued ribs, cream soup, pan-seared salmon... if this isn't a feast, what is?"
Kara swallowed involuntarily and looked at Ian with deep confusion.
Did Clark's household really eat even better than this?
"????"
Ian's pupils shrank.
He stared hard in the direction Kara was pointing.
There, a worker was clearly cradling a bowl of bubbling green liquid with trembling hands.
Dark, meat-like chunks floated on the surface.
At that moment, Ian realized that Kara and he were seeing completely different things.
Mental interference?
Kara's eyes were already starting to glaze over.
"Damn it! Even a Kryptonian got caught in it?!"
Ian spun his head around, trying to locate the presence of some hidden high-level magic user.
Just then,
from behind the serving counter came a sharp clang of metal.
Ian looked over.
There stood a hunched chef, emaciated almost to the point of skeletal, staring at them with cloudy eyes.
"Those who witness it should share in the feast. Feel the flavor of my cooking flowing through your bodies. It will grant you strength. It will let you truly understand just how extraordinary you are."
"Come. Drink this soup infused with all my heart and soul."
The chef's voice was hoarse and low, carrying a distinctly seductive cadence. Slowly, he lifted a ladle. A single drop of green liquid fell from its edge, stretching into a sticky thread in midair.
"????"
Ian was dumbfounded.
His entire mind went blank, and the words escaped him on instinct.
"Gul'dan got reincarnated into the DC Universe?!"
The disbelief on Ian's face was overwhelming.
Clang!
The moment the chef heard Ian's outburst,
the ladle slipped from his hand and crashed to the floor.
He looked even more stunned than Ian did. His hunched frame started trembling violently, and his dry fingers clenched the edge of his apron so hard they almost tore the fabric.
"Impossible! Impossible! How do you know that name? That's from my dreams... my world alone... I wander through it every night!"
"Enlightenment! I was enlightened by the world in my dreams!"
"They're in my head, only in my head... I know what must be done! Oh, right, of course, you're my hallucination too. You came to remind me I need to speed up the pace of my rebellion against this world, didn't you?"
At first the chef looked utterly shattered, but after bending down to pick up the ladle, he suddenly wore the expression of someone who had understood everything.
His face became fanatical.
Only,
his eyes grew even cloudier.
"Oh, hell."
The more Ian listened, the more wrong this sounded.
At first he had just assumed the man was completely insane. But once the chef started describing things Ian found all too familiar, Ian's eyes widened at once.
"You bastard! What kind of budget-tier knockoff are you? We are not sharing the same cheat!"
For perhaps the first time since coming to this world, Ian was genuinely furious.
And sure enough,
his rage meter in the lower right corner shot all the way to full.
(End of Chapter)
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