Chapter 372: The Start (3)
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It was the same bustling metropolis, a cityscape of steel, glass, and concrete that stretched toward the heavens. Inside the medical sanctuary, in the high-class room where Neji was strapped with medical gear, he began to stir on his spot.
"N-Neji? Do you need something?"
The blonde girl sweated even under the air conditioner, she was nervous about what to do.
"I will go call the doctor, can you stay still for a bit?"
"No thanks."
Neji coughed and replied. The girl was touching him, helping him move even as she told him to stay still. Anybody could see she was a delicate girl, easy to order around.
Neji got off the bed. In his blue hospital fit, his feet touched the floor. The girl quickly ran around the bed to stand by his side, in case he fell, while he began to take off his medical gear.
"N-Neji! C'mon, listen to me! You just woke up, the potion may have had side effects, we need to check you first – stop taking them off."
Neji continued taking his straps off. Jerking out the needles connected to his forearms, his oxygen mask, and the other things on his body. He gave her a narrow-eyed look when he heard the word "potion" for the second time during this conversation, though he didn't stop.
"Potion?"
His voice was ghastly. As if he hadn't talked for months. He tried to clear his throat, but there was no change.
"Uh… it's a long story."
A long story, she said. Neji frowned. As far as he knew, his first world was not magical. Unless there were hidden magic societies. Regardless, was it the potion that saved his life?
Neji stepped closer to her. With his usual height, he would have dwarfed this girl who looked to be around 5"8' feet. However, currently, he was barely any better than herself.
'Right. I am 15 in this body.'
He looked down on his body. His muscles… were gone. He was quite anorexic. Which didn't look good on an albino person. Looking at the window nearby, he realized he was an exception from that even here. His looks were unharmed as usual.
Neji turned back to look the girl in the eye. Their blue eyes clashed, and the girl – Lucille – backed off.
"Tell me what happened, make it short. I am in a hurry."
If there was a way in, there must be a way out. No matter if this was a world created based on his first life, or if this was the real deal, he had to escape. He had no lingering feeling here, he needed to return to where he belonged.
Lucille stared at him, hesitating. In the end, as she saw him standing fine, with no signs of uncomfortableness, she grumbled and frowned.
"N-no. I won't say it… Not until you are with me and see the doctor first. We need to report."
Neji frowned. This wasn't the time for this. He didn't even like this girl, back then he only picked her because she was rich. He was a bastard then, but even now he couldn't build feelings for her.
Neji tried to use the Mind Control properties from the Sharingan add-ons of his Jogan.
His blue eyes shone, making the girl blink.
Then, he hissed and held his head, as pain spread through his body. Right, the Goddess had sent him here while sealing all his Gnome Powers. Worst of all, his System was inaccessible too. Was he entirely powerless here?
"Neji! I-I told you to be careful!"
In the end, he sighed and went with the girl's whim, as she took him to see the doctor. Thinking again, going to the doctor would reveal a lot of things he wanted to know, too. So this wasn't that bad.
* * *
A miracle.
Apparently, that's what he was.
The overall news baffled Neji when he heard it, the story sounding stupid and cliché, because apparently, Gates opened around the world not long after his accident.
Before that, he needed to address his "accident". He didn't die, they said. He was severed in two by the shark, with his legs eaten, and his upper-body drowning. As Neji was on Lucille's father's yacht, she begged the lifeguards to jump and save him.
Doctors said it was stupid how he survived his way to the hospital. Almost as if magical. Neji understood it as that, he indeed died there, and it was merely the Creator Goddess Celestine manipulating reality itself to change the history of the world.
He was taken to the hospital, given the world's highest medical support, and kept in a comatose state. Lucille begged her father to keep him alive, and her father couldn't say no. That's how he survived for sixteen months.
Now, about the [Gates]. It was basically any KR Novel on the market, Neji noted. Celestine ripped off the idea and implemented it in this world.
'Then, Hunters appeared and blah blah. Basically, Lucille's father awakened as an SSS-Rank Hunter and raided a tower recently. He came out with a magical potion, All Healing Nectar, and once again gave in to his daughter's demands.'
Lucille wanted to use it on him, and her father couldn't say no. Since the day Lucille's mother died while giving birth, her father had never said 'no' to her.
The magical potion was fed to Neji last night. And today, here he was, his lower abdomen had regrown, and he regained consciousness as well. It was shameful, Celestine didn't even try – she copied everything.
'Why the Hunter theme, exactly?'
Thankfully, this meant there was Mana in the air. When Neji learned that, he knew the chances of him escaping had suddenly increased.
He couldn't use Magic Spells since they were added to the System, he never memorized any spell, with a few exceptions, but he was sure he could use some of his powers at least.
"This is…"
Lucille looked at him with wide eyes. Neji was drinking coffee, his right hand holding the cup, while his left hand was facing the sky. They were on the roof, and it was evening, yet it was all lit up. Because on Neji's left hand, a blue ball was spinning in all directions.
"Rasengan! It's from Naruto! Neji, you're an Awakened!"
Neji was still in his hospital fit. He sipped coffee from a straw and stared at her reaction, his eyes questioning. Why was his name Neji in this world? The Goddess tried so hard to make sense of his white hair and blue eyes, but she couldn't do something for his name. Why?
No, to begin with, why did he have to have the same appearance and name in this world?
After questioning himself for a few seconds, he came to realize why. It was his status as a [Singular Existence]. Even if he is sent to another world, he keeps his true identity, the identity he saw himself as. Whenever he took over a Character's existence, the Cube Omniverse had to intervene to make people call him by the character's name, so that the Prime couldn't track him by name. Otherwise, they'd call him Neji, too.
'That could explain the name. As for my appearance…'
Honestly, he thought of it as a funny gag before, but something was weird. His charm, his looks, they were too reality-defying. Just what was up with that?
"Lucille."
"Huh?"
Lucille blinked when he called her, tilting her head.
"Why are you calling me like that? You just used 'Lucy' before…"
"My bad, Lucy. Let me ask you this, are there any Dragons in this world? Humanoid works too. As in, people who can transform into dragons, or are half-dragons."
It had been nearly a year and a half since the [Gate] thing began. There may be some dragon dungeons present here. That could be of help to him.
Lucille blinked hearing him, then she chewed her lips.
"Dragons… One of the first few dungeons, ones that raged destruction upon the world, was a Dragon Dungeon. It was cleared by my father and a group of other people, though. After that, no Dragon Dungeon appeared. Though yes, there had been Dungeons where the Boss was a "Dragon". Mostly Lizard or Snake-type Dungeons. All cleared, though."
"I see."
That was unfortunate. Because if he had Dragons here, he could have asked them for help. In the end, even if his Gnome Abilities and System weren't here, he noticed that there were two things that came with him.
His race, Draconic High Human.
His class, the Voidmancer.
With the help of these two alone, he was invisible in this world. Now he knew why Eurynome Celestine prepared this sort of magical theme in this world. So that she could suppress him with the Hunters if he tried to escape.
Meaning there was a way out.
"Iraq."
"Huh?"
"Google Iraq. Show me the latest news."
Neji told the air-headed blonde girl who quickly took out her phone and began typing.
The ancient city of Uruk was located in present-day Iraq, on an abandoned channel of the Euphrates River. As he confronted Celestine in Uruk, and that's where his entire existence was currently, the way back must be there too.
"…! Neji, look!"
Half a minute later, Lucille's eyes widened and she gasped. She must have seen some interesting news. Neji leaned over to see the phone, and slowly a smile crept on his face.
[Breaking News – A new SSS-Rank Gate has been spotted in Iraq. The world may be facing a danger equal to the Dragon Dungeon from a year ago. Breaking News.]
With the thumbnail of a dark red gate, the breaking news was filling the entire feed.
That right there.
It was his way out.
Neji clenched his fist, enraged and frustrated. Even if he was no match for that woman, he promised himself to land a jaw-wrenching punch on her pretty face. No matter the cost.
First, he had to find a way to Iraq. That country's situation had worsened compared to what he remembered.
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Master4thWall Note: Hahaha, can't believe we made it to 100 Powerstones in two days. Hurts a little as it reminds me of our prime when we could reach 200 overnight, but this is not bad either. Thank you for your votes, here is a chapter a day earlier than planned!
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