THE CURSED GAMER

Chapter 166: Misunderstanding

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Sir Nighteye decided to leave the city and go to UA asap so that he can try to save Mirio from death. He’d also need to figure out why nukes would be coming to Japan and how he should stop them, or at least survive against them.

He didn’t like abandoning the city when lots of civilians would face death just because of his absence, but it was his style to always pick the most rational choice. Saving them won’t matter now if nukes were coming in a few days.

That’s why, when the sun finally rose Nighteye took his sidekicks and a few of the other heroes to head for UA. He overheard some people calling him a coward, running to UA to gain All Might’s protection, but he could care less about other people’s opinions.

Nighteye’s car was attacked midway while traveling, so they had to abandon it and fight off the villains before hijacking a truck, as unheroic as that may be.

After a long 4 hours, he finally reached the gate of UA high, which was sealed and protected by many kinds of alarms and shock devices.

“Hey, can you hear me?” Nighteye said to the wall, knowing well there are multiple microphones hidden here. “It’s Sir Nighteye, I wish to go inside.”

There was silence for a minute, making the heroes behind Nighteye doubt if people could really hear him, but after a bit more a voice came from within the gate.

[“Hello, Nighteye. It’s me, Nezu. I was actually waiting for when you’ll arrive. Please come in, someone will guide you to me.”]

‘So he already guessed I would be here…’ Nighteye liked Nezu because of his scary ability to predict, even though there was more than one part of the mouse that he wasn’t fond of.

The gate trembled as it was retracted back into the wall, allowing entrance for Nighteye as he walked in with the heroes following him. The gate closed itself behind them as Nighteye noticed a woman wearing a white skin-tight costume walk over to them with her face strangely apathetic, as if she couldn’t feel emotions.

“Follow me, Principal wants to see you… you alone.” said the Pro Hero Midnight as she didn’t even wait for an answer and turned to walk away.

That was surprising. Nighteye was expecting the teachers to be sad, true, but they were professionals. Wasn’t this a bit too much? Either way, he followed her after giving out some orders to his sidekicks.

After entering a building, Nighteye was guided to a door where Midnight stopped.

“This is the place. That’s all, I will be going.” she did as she said, walking away dryly, not even trying to sway her hips like usual.

Shaking his head, Nighteye knocked on the door and received a call to enter almost immediately.

Going in, he found the people he was concerned about. All Might and Mirio, sitting on a couch opposite Nezu.

“Come, sit down. We really needed you, you know.” Nezu said as Nighteye walked and took the couch between them, sitting as he kept looking at Mirio, who looked down in shame.

“I am sure we don’t have to explain what happened to Mirio, seeing you’re already here,” Nezu said, taking a sip of his tea but Nighteye shook his head.

“You have to explain, actually. If you didn’t know, I have Future Sight, not Past Sight.” he said in a stern tone while the mouse chuckled.

“Hah, well All Might please go ahead.” Nezu handed over the responsibility to All Might who nodded with thin lips.

Nighteye was surprised why All Might was in his muscle form, wasn’t he scared to run out of time?

“So where do I start…”

As All Might began to speak, telling Nighteye about the healing and so on, he realised why All Might was comfortable enough to sit in his muscle form. His time limit was increased, so he can go on for almost a day without going skinny. That’s a good thing, even if All Might was much weaker now, Nighteye noted.

As the explanation continued, the bleak tone filling the room, Nighteye couldn’t help but grow anxious as sweat beads started to form on his forehead.

“I…see.” That was all he could reply to after hearing that explanation. He turned to give Mirio a look, who was still looking down, making him sigh. “It’s fine, Mirio… You were chosen to inherit One for All exactly because of this heroic spirit of yours, you haven’t done anything out of expectation. Don’t blame yourself.”

He patted the young man’s shoulder watching as his stiffness visibly relaxed. Truthfully, Nighteye was… mad and slightly disappointed. But maybe he was just biassed, but he couldn’t bring himself to scold Mirio.

“Anyway, Nighteye, do you know what all this means?” asked Nezu, putting his cup down, watching as Nighteye nodded. “Your vision hasn’t changed at all, even though you managed to give Mirio the OFA.”

“...Yes, I can see that.”

“Indeed. All Might says that AFO used some sort of transformation ability to turn into Neji, which is most likely the case. The ‘white-haired man’ in vision is none other than All for One himself because as you might remember, that man had white hair too before his presumed ‘death’. This certainly is a weird turn of events.” said Nezu in a serious tone, scratching his chin. 

Nighteye nodded, thinking rationally. “None of us ever thought of that possibility that the white-haired man from the vision might as well be All for One since it never occurred to us that a dead man could come back alive and even steal the quirk that he’s been failing to steal for centuries.”

“Well, I did theorise this, but I didn’t want to worry anyone so I didn’t speak my mind. But seeing the current situation, I think I really should have.” Nezu said with a sigh. “Anyway, since you are here without anyone notifying you, I assume you saw the future? Commendable that you managed to fight your fear and do it. Did you only learn about Mirio’s power lost or…”

Nighteye sighed at that. “Yes, about that. Shocking as this might sound, that part is actually of least importance right now.”

Nezu raised an eyebrow, before slowly as Nighteye started to reveal his vision, both his eyebrows were above his forehead, and Nighteye saw the mouse’s brain visibly go into overdrive.

After all, based on Nezu’s past, he was probably the most frightened of death amongst everyone in all of Japan.

‘Not that it’s a bad thing.’ Nighteye thought calculatingly. ‘If anyone can come up with a solution to the incoming problems, it's none other than this demon mouse.’

Nighteye almost felt relieved that there was someone smarter than him to help with this current problem. Because he wasn’t confident if he would be able to be of much help here, after all… his futures are absolute and he has never been able to change them by himself.

—★—

"So… what happens to me now?" 

Neji watched Lady Nagant ask in a strangely submissive voice. She seemed to have learned who's the predator here, which was a good thing.

Though that didn't matter much now.

"I wonder. You finished writing down the things I asked of you, going as far as marking the bases of the heroes too." Neji said, looking at Nagant, looking at him from the desk while her naked body was covered by a blanket. "It wouldn't be wise to let you go since you might have given false information, the same goes for killing you. But I don't want to keep you in this mansion either since I would need to put you under constant watch."

Neji scratched his chin while watching Nagant grow nervous with each passing second. 

"Ah, I know." His eyes shone as he smiled, pointing his finger at her. "You're going to be my Pokémon, my personal long-range Pokémon."

"What-"

Neji poked her neck with his finger, interrupting her by putting her to sleep as he dropped her inside his inventory.

"Hmm~ I will probably forget about her in a few years, and I doubt I'd ever need her. But eh, it's better than wasting her smoking body, and also better than to leave such a dangerous woman alive. It's a good middle point."

In other words, Lady Nagant was 'dead' from this moment and she would stay 'dead' until Neji decided to take her out.

"Hm, it's morning already?" Now that there was a solution to his current problem and Nagant was also dealt with, Neji finally noticed the sun peeking through the window.

"I didn't sleep… Nah, it's fine." Neji shrugged.

If someone were to drink a stamina potion while having full stamina, their fatigue will decrease. As far as Neji was concerned, that shouldn't have any backlash, but in the wildest chance that it had, his Gamer's Body will take care of it. He had enough [Stamina Potions] to live off a few years like this anyway. 

Yawning, he drank a few potions and went out of the room after picking up the [Orb of Silence] he dropped on the ground before. 

He went downstairs only to find nobody was up yet so he went to the girls' room where all three of them were sleeping on the same bed, hugging each other softly while Kurai was stuffed in the middle.

"Uh," Neji scratched his chin. "They must be tired from all the ongoing stuff, huh. Even Kurai."

Maybe he should leave a note and go out? He wanted to start hunting the horde of villains in this area, they were living exp-bags.

Nodding to that idea, he wrote something on a small piece of paper and put it on the table beside them. They would be fine even if he was gone. Kimi is strong, and so were Nejire and Momo after their latest power upgrades. Especially Nejire…

He didn't wake up Kurai either. She was too close to his level, barely 30 levels behind. He needed to increase the gap before she got too cocky. So it's better to hunt alone instead of sharing exp.

Deciding all that, he went outside the mansion and took off in the sky, noticing a quest getting generated before his eyes.

[An emergency quest, “Rise of the King”, has been generated!]

[Quest: You have gained a lot of power recently, but that doesn't mean you're invincible! Your final enemies can't even compare to the likes of Hisashi Midoriya, so even if you have the power to beat him it doesn't matter! Gain more power, for your life depends on it.

Objective: Kill 10 villains and steal their quirk!

Bonus Objective: Steal 5 quirks from innocents/heroes!

Reward: 10-levels worth of EXP (on top of what you'd get from killing), 5x HP Potions, 10x Stamina Potions, Magical ink.

Optional Reward: 2-levels worth of EXP, An Armour made by The Director of the Last Act.

Special Perk: During this quest, taking the Quirks of someone won't diminish their Tiers, so the exp you'd receive wouldn't be lessened.]

The quest was looking good. But Neji wasn't sure about the Bonus Objective. Mostly because of the reward, because it's made by the Director who from his experience didn't like gamers, so there's a low chance Neji would even be able to use the armour at all.

'Though I do need an armour because my Moonlight armour was destroyed along with my classroom. I also need a spear too… But then again, I would rather take a hero costume like Mirio since defence isn't really something that worries me anymore. I instead need something to keep me covered when I use ⟨Permeation⟩…'

Neji stopped thinking about the quest after that. Ten villains weren't a lot, finding them would be easy. But finding heroes to hunt would be the hard part since most were probably in hiding as of right now.

Whatever the case, he wasn't giving up on this quest. He already got rewards for letting Mirio live, and needless to say, he was addicted to more quest rewards because… 

The rewards might as well allow him to survive.

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Author's Note: Neji is finally debuting as a villain, knowing well that there will be no going back the moment he kills his first victim. 

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