THE CURSED GAMER

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Chapter 110: Ah yes… (2)

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"You idiot, why the hell are you wasting precious Nomus in this place?" Izuku Midoriya grumbled as he rubbed his temple.

The Hero Killer didn't hurt civilians, and only hunted Heros. However, the Nomus that Shigaraki sent out because of his childishness, would kill anyone in sight.

Just to incite Stain and Midoriya himself.

Izuku could honestly care less. The death of civilians might have caused his old self to get angry, but the new him wouldn't even bat an eye.

"Sigh…" he simply sighed seeing the waste of Nomus. Heroes from other cities will surely come soon, and they'd destroy all these Nomus sooner than later. Izuku wouldn't have done such a thing if he was in Shigaraki's spot.

"Shut up, you know nothing!" Shigaraki yelled. "This will increase the reputation of the League, which will get us more, better, soldiers than those mindless beasts." 

Midoriya ignored him and instead frowned gradually as an idea occurred in his spot.

'Wasn't that Ida guy in Hosu?'

He had paid attention to every student's chosen hero, so that he could use it in any unforeseen situation.

So Ida was here…

Midoriya did not like Ida, at all. He was the one who called two of the Big Three when USJ happened. Meaning, if Neji somehow lost, the students would have survived either way because of Ida.

'Well well well…' Izuku grinned. 'Isn't this the best time to eliminate a future problem?'

It was indeed the best time to do so.

He snapped his neck at Kurogiri. "Kurogiri, look over my body when I am gone, alright?"

Kurogiri was surprised. "Why? Are you planning to go down there in your Astral Form?"

Midoriya gave a nod. "Yep. My range should be able to cover most of the city unless I go too far, which would cause my consciousness to return. For that reason, if you have to return to the base with my body, make sure you do that only in an emergency. Okay?"

"Hey!" Shigaraki yelled from the side. "Why are you ordering my Kurogiri?!"

Izuku shrugged while Kurogiri nodded, both ignoring the man-child. 

Then Midoriya lied down on the rooftop just below the water tank and then activated his Astral Projection.

—★—

Neji and Rumi were a bit late because, by the time they reached Hosu, the city was on fire.

"Uh…" Neji trailed off, as he dropped on a rooftop beside Rumi. "Should I say I am lucky or unlucky?"

Rumi turned to grin at him. "Eh, I don't know. I can certainly show you how a Pro fights, but civilians are in danger too. So I guess fifty-fifty?"

Neji nodded as he looked down on the city burning from spot to spot.

"A fire type?" 

"It's Endeavour," Neji replied to Rumi's question, pointing his finger below. "Look at the northern street."

Rumi followed his finger. "Oh…" she frowned. "Come on, we gotta be quick. Can't let him steal all the glory!"

With a battle cry, she kicked the ground and leapt ahead.

Neji was about to do so, as well, but he had to stop himself as a message from the System flashed by his eyes.

[Sudden quest generated!]

—=—

Quest: "White Knight in Shining Armour"

Description: You are in Hosu City, which is currently being attacked by mindless Nomus! The people feel threatened and desperate, even in the presence of the number two hero.

Objective: Save the poor civilians by defeating at least 2 Nomus.

Bonus Objective: Save ??? from death.

Reward: Title [White Knight], 6 billion exp

Objective Reward: ???'s deep friendship, +10 DEX, 1 billion exp

—=—

'A simple quest, huh.' Neji muttered to himself before he jumped behind Rumi.

There wasn't much to think about the ???-mark on the Objective Quest. It is most likely Ida, since it's even offering DEX which is the same as AGI in his system. But his guess has been wrong before, so he wouldn't bet everything on Ida.

Either way, he first needed to defeat the two Nomus, before looking for Ida, the most likely candidate. If he tried to save Ida first, it wouldn't matter if he manages to get the Objective Reward since he would most likely miss the Main Reward because by then Endeavour and Rumi would have eliminated all the Nomus by themselves.

Neji didn't remember crystal clear, but he seemed to recall there to only be 3 Nomus in Hosu in the Canon timeline. While there was a chance it's different in this timeline, based on USJ's incident, he didn't want to bet on it. Thats why, instead of following Rumi, who said she didn't like her kill stolen, he dipped to the side.

Mid-air, he used his Echolocation to locate his targets. It was hard to use the technique in this hyperactive place where everything was too loud for his ears to properly perceive the sound wave. However, he managed to locate a Nomu close by, away from both Rumi and Endeavour.

It was a Nomu with wings, which was giving the heroes below trouble to even touch it. 

'Perfect.' Neji smiled under his mask.

This Nomu was only Tier-4, even weaker than the one at USJ and the recent villain, Tier-5 Moonfish who almost killed Rumi if not for Neji's health potion. This wouldn't be hard at all.

'Easy quest.'

It was one of the rare, easy quests. He should finish this first, before hunting for another. After that, he would search for the one who needed rescue.

—★—

When the Nomus spread around the whole city, everyone went into a state of frenzy.

Pro Hero Manual, Ida's mentor, had immediately run over to help the fleeing civilians.

"Follow me, Ida!"

Ida didn't choose a proper hero name, and only chose his own name. However, even as his mentor called for him, Ida didn't follow suit.

His eyes were instead locked on an alley around the corner, where he managed to see the silhouette of a monster, pinning his prey on the wall.

Ignoring the cries of civilians, Ida burst the engines on his calves at the alley.

"Hero Killer!" Ida yelled as his kick went towards Stain's head. "Die!"

Then, his kick hit Stain on his face.  

Ida was more trained because of his Hero Middle school background, with his stronger and faster legs, he managed to kick Stain off the hero he was about to kill.

"Huff…" the other hero, Native, fell on his butt as he huffed. "Be careful, he has a Paralysing-"

The hero couldn't finish his words before Ida's helmet flung off his head, revealing his face as he heard Stain's hiss.

"A child." The Hero Killer, who has just punched Ida in the helmet, said before he swiped his blade at his cheek, making a cut, as he licked the blood from his blade. "Guess you get to die too."

—★—

Izuku Midoriya dived down on the city, floating casually, as he tried to locate Ida's location.

It wasn't particularly hard, but it took a few minutes. But he did find his classmate Ida, lying on the ground, as Stain stood over him.

Izuku decided to eavesdrop a little.

"I, Ingenium, will—"

Izuku stopped listening to Ida's hate-filled grumbles, realising it's nothing useful.

'So he's Ingenium's little brother, huh? I did see the resemblance before, but wow…' He whistled to himself before approaching the spot where Ida was lying.

From the looks of it, Stain was disgusted by Ida's hate. A hero shouldn't be like that—that must be what he was thinking. If Izuku had read him well in the last days, he knew Stain would kill Ida anyway.

However, there was a certain allure at the thought of killing Ida himself.

Quirks were science, they say. But there were lots of magical properties to it, that the so-called 'science' has yet to explain. One of them was his Astral Projection. Here, even though he wasn't physical, he could still use his quirk, in fact, he could use it perfectly.

With that said perfection in control over his quirk, Izuku made a point of «Attraction» on Ida's neck, and Stain's blade.

Stain seemed to want to listen to Ida for a while more, however, as he felt a pull on his blade, he didn't let go—assuming it was an invisible enemy, and instead pushed ahead in the hope to catch the thief off guard.

That action of his... only caused the blade to hurry at Ida's neck.

—★—

Neji had defeated one enemy already and was on his way to defeating another. Tier-4 wasn't anything special, honestly.

Moreover, they were fucking dumb. They even looked dumb.

Though it's most probably that their Tier was calculated after considering they were dumb, meaning they'd have a higher tier if they were smart—but the point still stood.

The current Nomu Neji was fighting was a greyish-green skinned monster with four unfocused eyes as it swung its arm at Neji, who dodged it via Eyes of the Lord. 

Using <EL> wasn't straining at all on such enemies. That's why he didn't even wear his [Ring of Invisibility (undead only)].

He could have honestly hurried this match by simply punching the creature's brains out—since these Nomus didn't have a healing factor. But that would be too gory for a future "Hero". So he was attacking its other weak points.

Neji dodged the creature's desperate attempt to attack before slipping his knuckles past its defence and landing a hit on its jaw. 

The strike seemed to shake its entire being as one of its eyes almost popped up, which in no sense was a pleasant sight.

From the looks of it, the enemy was just about to be defeated, and so Neji put more power onto his «Tremor» coated punch before throwing it at the Nomu's throat, which caused the creature's entire neck and vocal cord to twist and crack before it fell to the ground with an inaudible squeak.

Only seconds later did it quiet down as Neji huffed softly while system messages flashed by his eyes.

Seeing them, he frowned. He hasn't finished the quest yet, so why–

[Quest: "White Knight in Shining Armour" has been completed!]

[Objective 1 met!]

[Objective 2, not met!]

Neji's question was answered immediately.

["Objective 2: Save ??? from death" is unable to be fulfilled!]

[The person ??? has been killed, thus flunking Objective 2 automatically.]

[In other words, Tenya Ida, has been murdered.]

By the time Neji had stopped reading, he was already in the air, his Eyes of The Lord active as he tried to locate every micro-movement in the vicinity. 

He couldn't zoom in, unfortunately, however, even with what he had, he located the suspicious presences via the help of both EL and Echolocation.

As he blasted in the air, he reached above the alley where he found five presences…

One was Hero Killer Stain, another was a random Hero who was killed. Neji could tell the guy was dead because there was no Tier hovering over the guy's head. Another presence was Izuku Midoriya's half transparent floating body—meaning his Astral Form—and one was a bloody dead body of a man in a silver suit, Tenya Ida.

Something shook inside Neji as he stared at the scene for 2 seconds before he noticed something else.

There was another guy, Shoto Todoroki, laying on his back as he huffed with blood trickling down his arm.

Todorki must have reached at the last moment to save Ida, but still failed in the end. The half-hot half-cold boy was still alive. However, from the looks of it, Midoriya was going to kill him soon.

Silently, Neji raised his hands and pointed at Stain and Izuku.

He channelled Shockwave into a small golden ball, into a Gold Dragon's breath, before he added something blue into it. Something blue, that came from the gauntlet on his right hand.

That's the Power Gauntlet he got from the Sports Festival Quest, which was filled to its brink with Kurai's pure mana. A bit of it was used on the attack to destroy Moonfish's blade that almost penetrated Rumi's skull, but otherwise… it was full.

Izuku was dead, as Neji poured all its mana and his shockwave into the ball before releasing a beam of gold and blue, circling around each other, and rushing at Stain and Izuku at a brilliant speed.

They noticed it too late and looked up to find the beam on their faces.

Neji didn't end the beam for nearly a minute before he assumed their brain must have burst by then.

He stopped the beam, however, unlike how he expected one unconscious body and… he didn't know what state Izuku's astral form would be in any way, but he wasn't expecting what he was seeing.

Hero Killer's body wasn't there, at all, and nor was Izuku's.

Neji almost assumed they were dead before he realised that there was no notification of a kill either.

'Of course.' Neji growled in his mind. 'Kurogiri is here.'

They had, from right under his nose, escaped unharmed.

'Fucking hell.'

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