Chapter 24: Normal Development
2023-10-23 Author: Rowing Without Oars 233
The person who had fainted behind Orin Vale was a homeless man. No family, no friends, and no one to recognize him—just like most of the homeless in Gotham.
Fortunately, the man seemed to be fine, and he slowly woke up after a while. He couldn't remember why he was here, only that he felt extremely hungry.
So he wasn't trying to scam me after all.
Watching the bewildering homeless man leave, Orin Vale felt a dangerous intuition, even though it seemed like nothing had happened on the surface.
It was a sixth sense, like "My Ultra Sense is tingling."
So, acting on the principle of caution, Orin Vale briefly stopped, activated his Ultra Vision, and performed a direct, full-body scan on the suspicious homeless man.
He wouldn't have known if he hadn't scanned him, but the scan quickly revealed something was amiss.
He was an ordinary homeless man, a genuine Earthling. Or so he should have been, except for a small amount of eerie residue Orin Vale's Ultra Vision detected between some of his internal organs.
Although Orin Vale was a three-thousand-year-old 'Ultra Otaku' who had basically been a shut-in in the Land of Light, never setting foot outside its borders, he had at least received systematic training and possessed a relatively broad perspective.
He recognized at a glance that the thing was not a creature from Earth.
Some kind of parasitic organism had once lived on this homeless man, but it was already dead. All that remained was a bit of residue, which had no effect on the host.
A thought immediately surfaced in Orin Vale's mind.
"It was after me."
It must have wanted to jump onto me like a symbiote, take over my body, and snuff out my spirit, right?
What a vicious and cruel alien!
Good thing I was one step ahead.
The fact that an alien was hiding in the DC Universe wasn't surprising in itself, but why would it target him?
A random, indiscriminate attack?
That possibility couldn't be ruled out. But Orin Vale quickly recalled his recent encounter with an alien.
The mantis-like alien that seemed to be tracking Kara.
Could they be working together?
Regardless, this served as a wake-up call for Orin Vale.
He really hadn't been vigilant enough; he'd let his guard down. In a world fraught with danger like this one, you could never be too careful.
What if the attacker hadn't been some noob that got one-shot by Thornmail, but a symbiote with similar abilities and, say, a thousand times the power?
Wouldn't he have been taken down without even knowing what happened?
Orin Vale made a snap decision. As soon as he got back today, he would start specific training. The goal was to maintain his mental energy in an external field, achieving a precognitive effect similar to the "Spider-Sense" from the Marvel Universe next door.
Back at the shop, the little Kryptonian girl, completely oblivious to all this, was only just getting out of bed.
The young girl wore a light white nightdress, her blonde hair was a messy poof, and her face was drowsy with sleep. She yawned lazily as she walked, her eyes half-closed, looking exactly like someone practicing the sacred art of head-nodding in an advanced math class.
Her little cat, Stryker, was much the same. The cat was perched on her small shoulder, also yawning listlessly. The duo, one girl and one cat, opened their mouths one after another as if in a race, and ambled into the bathroom.
Kara reached out with her small hand and casually twisted the faucet.
*Crack.*
With a crisp snap, the entire faucet broke off in her hand, and a jet of water gushed out, spraying her right in the face.
The little girl was so stunned by the spray she didn't even react. She just stood there in the stream of water, blankly holding the broken half of the faucet and blinking, until she was soaked through and shivering.
"What's going on?" Orin Vale asked, drawn by the sound.
The little girl finally realized she had caused trouble. Panicked and flustered, she let out a "Ya!" and instinctively flung the evidence in her hand.
The result was another *thwack*. The metal faucet handle embedded itself in the side wall like some kind of hidden weapon, shattering the tile and sending spiderweb cracks spreading across the surface.
So when Orin Vale peeked his head through the doorway, he was greeted by the sight of a broken, gushing faucet, a cracked wall, a soaked but pitifully innocent-looking blonde loli, and a Kryptonian orange cat that had leaped to one side, looking none too bright.
Kara hung her head, looking like a well-behaved child ready to accept punishment for her mistake. Wringing her little hands, she whispered, "I... I didn't mean to..."
Orin Vale understood what was happening at a glance.
The god-level pet he'd picked up was starting to level up.
She was a Kryptonian, a god-level "pet" of the same type as Superman himself. No pay-to-win, no grinding required—she could level up just by lying around, enough to make all the other dedicated grinders and pay-to-win whales on the DC server drop dead from sheer anger.
"It's okay. You're just developing," Orin Vale said gently.
"Huh?"
Kara's small face was filled with confusion. She looked at her own fair, delicate hands in disbelief.
"This is what 'developing' does?"
After all, Kryptonians were mortals on their own planet. This was the first time in her life Kara had been in an environment with yellow sun radiation, and she had no experience with the drastic changes her body was undergoing.
"It's normal, don't worry. I have a little experience with this," Orin Vale reassured her.
Superman's adoptive parents on the farm had managed to help him train and master his superpowers—they truly were a remarkable couple. Orin Vale figured that since he could also fly and shoot lasers, and had experience controlling over a hundred thousand tons of strength, he had some idea of how to coach a young Kryptonian girl.
"O-Okay."
Kara nodded, guiltily backing towards the door. She reached out and grabbed the doorknob to leave.
*Crack.*
The handle broke too.
Kara, holding the broken doorknob, hung her head and looked like she was about to cry.
"I-I'm sorry..."
Orin Vale: "..."
And so, for the next few days, Orin Vale had to set aside some time every day to help Kara adapt to her gradually awakening powers.
This was where his experience from systematic training in the Land of Light came into play. It turned out that a scientific method worked just as well on other races. Under his careful guidance, Kara quickly gained a degree of control over her body's abnormal development, at least to the point where it no longer interfered with her daily life.
Meanwhile, Orin Vale didn't neglect his own affairs.
The Negative Phase Wave Radar was operating smoothly. His battlesuit had also been fairly active lately, and it was already well on its way to becoming an urban legend, just like Batman.
Furthermore, because of the battlesuit's conspicuous red-and-silver livery and the light-based nature of its abilities, some people soon began to connect this mysterious armor to the giant known as "Ultraman" who had appeared once before. Some believed the two were one and the same, while others thought a large and mysterious organization was behind it, perhaps even an entire alien race.
But in any case, as his activities and public profile grew, the Light Energy index on his bracelet also steadily increased.
"*Beep beep beep~*"
The radar reacted again, and this time the reaction was strong.
Sensing that another large wave of experience points was coming his way, Orin Vale's spirits lifted. He swiped open the interface to confirm the location information.
The location was... an abandoned amusement park?
Gotham. Amusement Park. Abandoned.
Orin Vale fell into thought.
He had a feeling that whenever these elements came together, nothing good ever came of it.
(end of chapter)