Chapter 42: From Horror Film to Comedy
By: Rowing Without Oars 233
Night fell.
A blonde girl walked along a nighttime street, enveloped by deep darkness. She forced herself not to look at the shadows in the empty blocks around her, not to imagine eerie figures writhing in the dark.
If possible, Zola certainly didn't want to be out on the streets of Gotham alone at night. Everyone knew this was a city fraught with danger, especially for a young, beautiful, single woman.
Unfortunately, tonight's situation was special, and she really had no other choice. A rather dimwitted boss at her office had a sudden whim just as the workday was ending, demanding that tomorrow's proposal be revised. As the saying goes, when the boss speaks, the subordinates suffer. Zola had no choice but to work overtime until midnight, only now heading home.
Walking home at night was indeed risky. But this was her first time, and she thought that perhaps nothing would happen if it was just this once.
Obviously, she was naive.
She heard footsteps.
Zola stopped and turned to look behind her.
No one was there.
The street was still empty, without a soul in sight. In the darkness, the jagged forms of the buildings looked as if they were abandoned, their silhouettes appearing grotesque and sinister, involuntarily bringing to mind the various mysterious and terrifying legends that have accompanied the city for centuries.
The footsteps seemed to have stopped.
Zola turned and continued walking, and the footsteps started again. But when she looked around, the area was still completely empty.
An immense sense of fear washed over her, as if some ferocious monster was baring its fangs and claws, closing in from the darkness. She broke into a sprint, running with all her might. The footsteps immediately quickened to a run, shadowing her every move.
Fear clouded her mind. Zola couldn't remember how she had run here, but when she came to her senses, she found herself in this abandoned building.
Gotham is filled with numerous abandoned buildings and warehouses, and any ordinary citizen knows to stay away from these places. This is because they are mostly associated with legends of ghosts and monsters, or things like the Court of Owls.
Zola hid in a room full of cobwebs, locking the rusty but fortunately still functional door. These actions nearly drained the last of her strength. She slumped against the door, panting heavily.
The footsteps stopped. After two minutes of silence, she began to wonder if it had just been an illusion. Most supernatural incidents end with a similar conclusion—perhaps she was just tired from work, her exhausted brain playing tricks on her.
But that thought vanished the moment an axe smashed through the door.
She couldn't stop the sharpest scream from escaping her lips as her body reflexively recoiled from the door. An axe had aggressively broken through, and through the rift, a burly figure could be vaguely seen in the darkness. He wore a hockey mask and was continuously swinging the heavy axe, striking the old wooden door again and again.
Immense fear instantly numbed Zola. In a daze, she felt as if she had become Wendy Torrance from *The Shining*, watching with despair and helplessness as her last line of defense was broken down bit by bit, bringing her closer to death with every second.
Then, a hand landed on her shoulder.
Zola cried out again, darting away in the opposite direction like a frightened rabbit. Turning her head, she saw that a second person had appeared behind her, at some unknown point, in this room that should have only contained her.
A person completely covered in some kind of metallic exoskeleton, with red and silver paintwork and a conspicuous blue crystal on their chest.
For some reason, despite it being a cold, mechanical body, she felt a strange sense of reassurance the moment she saw him.
She remembered now. She seemed to have seen something about him on some paranormal website. Like Batman, he was a mysterious being recently active in urban legends.
Posters on the forum called him "Ultraman."
"Step back, ma'am."
The battlesuit-clad Orin Vale calmly walked forward, grabbed the handle, and with a *kachak*, directly tore off the lock.
The door was pulled open. Outside, the man in the hockey mask was raising the axe with both hands, poised to swing, apparently never expecting the door to actually open. He brought the axe down with the momentum, and with a clang, it struck the armored suit's metal head.
Sparks flew, and the axe spun away like a thrown Zero Slugger. The masked man, holding only half of the axe handle, blinked a couple of times under his mask, staring blankly at the armor before him, which didn't even have a scratch.
Then he silently hid the remaining half of the axe behind his back.
"...Sorry," he said meekly, shrinking his head back.
Orin Vale threw a casual punch. With a *bang*, the masked man flew straight down the corridor to the very end, his back cracking the wall upon impact. He lay on the ground, motionless.
*Thump, thump, thump...*
The sound of knocking.
The darkness seemed to thicken; there wasn't a single light source in the abandoned building. The eerie knocking sounded as if it were coming from all directions at once, making it impossible to pinpoint its origin.
"It's happening again!" Zola hugged her chest nervously. "First it was footsteps, and now this... I knew there was something wrong with this damn place, Gotham! There must be a ghost here..."
A ghost?
Orin Vale, however, remained perfectly calm.
In his previous life, he had been a staunch atheist, never believing in supernatural forces. But that all depended on which world he was in.
In his former world, there was a strict rule that "no spirits may be formed after the founding of the nation," which he firmly believed. But now, he was in DC, after all. This world was distinguished by its inclusivity; anything was possible. Aliens, Cthulhu, traditional ghosts, otherworldly demon gods—you name it, it was there.
Good thing he was an Ultraman.
The richness of the Ultraman worldview wasn't necessarily inferior to that of DC Comics. In the episodic TV series, both scientific and unscientific phenomena had basically appeared at some point.
Tsuburaya Productions, under the banner of being child-oriented, stubbornly kept trying to create horror movie material. The sets of the Showa-era Ultras were filled with various childhood traumas, collectively forming a vibrant tapestry of nightmare fuel for kids. Under such circumstances, the senior Ultramen were forced to fight all sorts of ghosts and vengeful spirits. The Land of Light's curriculum even included exorcism methods summarized from the experience of these predecessors.
Orin Vale had chosen related courses out of interest. His personal, concise summary came down to just two sentences.
There's no ghost or monster that can't be dealt with by a single Spacium Ray.
If there is, then use two.
It couldn't be helped. The Land of Light put its skill points into technology, not metaphysics. Asking them to perform proper exorcisms with chanting and rituals would be asking too much of an Ultraman.
They didn't understand nor could they perform overly complex methods. But as the saying goes, equivalent yield is justice, and there is truth within range. Ultramen believe in physical salvation; a 500,000-degree blast of Spacium would even make Satan pipe down.
*Thump, thump, thump...*
The knocking sound echoed in the darkness again, reverberating through the pitch-black corridor, making it seem dim and strange.
Without a word, Orin Vale raised his hand, and a blue glow lit up in his palm.
A beam of light pierced the darkness like a world-illuminating sword, sweeping through the entire corridor of the abandoned building.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM—*
An exaggerated series of explosions erupted, the doors of the rooms along the corridor blasting apart one after another. A domineering beam of light tore open the path ahead, nearly blowing through an entire floor and scorching a path that billowed with heatwaves.
Behind one of the shattered doors along the way, a humanoid form, scorched charcoal black by the heatwave, stood there dumbfounded. It blinked twice, utterly bewildered, its right hand raised mid-air as if poised to knock.
However, the door in front of it was gone, making its posture—charred black and with a hand raised—suddenly seem quite awkward.
Zola collapsed onto the floor behind him. Gazing at the steel back before her, her expression was complicated, and for a moment, she was speechless.
Just a minute ago, it had been terrifying.
It felt as if she had stumbled onto a horror movie set, and she was just the typical cannon fodder used to build atmosphere in a classic scene.
Now, just a short minute later, the entire tone had shifted dramatically. Not only had the fear in her heart instantly vanished, but looking at the knocking ghost's awkward pose, she even found it a little comical.
Then, she understood.
To get from a horror movie to a comedy...
...all it took was one Ultraman.
(end of chapter)