MCLE | Chapter 19

Everywhere his gaze landed, the training robots crumbled with a sickening crunch, crunch. It was as if they were glass bottles being crushed in a compressor. Zero Nine raised his head and spoke directly to the camera. Though the sound wasn’t clear, his lips were easy to read.

[Is this it?]

“Hmm.”

Hexion felt a bit sorry for Zero Nine. He’d made him do something boring twice now. Hexion gestured to the sergeant, who scrambled to open the Level 5 training room door. Zero Nine walked out slowly, looking somewhat bored.

“Not even suitable for play, huh?”

“It wasn’t very fun.”

“Well, we’ll have to try something else.”

Hexion pretended to fix Zero Nine’s hair, which wasn’t even messy, as he spoke. Zero Nine obediently let him and thought to himself. Inside the lab, he had been no different from a doll. But now that he was out here, nothing could handle his power. Zero Nine was like a flea in a bottle. He didn’t know his limits. But regardless…

‘I don’t want to hurt anyone.’

Zero Nine didn’t voice that thought. This was one thing Hexion couldn’t predict—not yet, at least. Hexion led Zero Nine back to the elevator. Once again, salutes followed them. Hexion casually waved his hand and stepped into the elevator. As the two disappeared, the three guides who had been standing there finally let out the breaths they’d been holding. Master Sergeant Smith Walter immediately barked out an order.

“Send the footage we just took to all the espers.”

“Yes, yes, understood.”

“Damn, a monster like that just walked in.”

Smith roughly scratched his head. Meanwhile, Hexion, scrolling through his phone, came across a very interesting article.

[Earth’s Strange Weather? Lightning Strikes the Same Spot Multiple Times!]

It was a short article about the bizarre lightning strikes in Protected Zone A. The comments were mostly just expressions of awe, and no one seemed particularly interested. But Hexion didn’t stop there—he searched for related keywords. There was a fresh video uploaded just three minutes ago.

[Aberration Appears in Protected Zone A, Lightning]

The video, posted under a rather uninspired title, seemed to have been filmed by someone living near Protected Zone A. It showed the aberration suddenly emerging in the distance, the sky darkening in an instant, rain falling only in a specific area, and multiple lightning strikes following. All of this made the video mysterious.

These days, people had a habit of checking out anything related to aberrations, and the video had already surpassed 3 million views in just 30 minutes. The uploader seemed to regularly post aberration-related content. Hexion thought quietly. What should he do about this?

Should he let people know about Zero Nine’s appearance, or keep it under wraps? Hexion’s mind raced. And the conclusion came quickly. There was absolutely no benefit to exposing him too much to the public. Really, none at all.

Comments started pouring in under the video.

‘A large-scale aberration was taken down that quickly?’

‘Was there an esper controlling the rain and another controlling the lightning?’

‘I don’t know, but a large-scale aberration like that usually takes a team of at least five people to handle.’

‘Ah, it’s too far away to see anything but the aberration.’

‘If it went down that fast, there must’ve been at least ten people, right?’

Countless speculations flew back and forth in the comments. But no one seemed to think that a single esper could have caused all of that. After all, no dumb official would comment that it wasn’t multiple people but just one. It was better to let them play detective among themselves.

There were no witnesses around, so no one would come forward claiming they saw a single person take down the monster. Hexion put his phone back in his pocket. The management team would probably handle this. There was really no benefit to an esper’s identity being widely known. This wasn’t some hero play.

٠ ࣪⭑𓂃

In reality, the management team was already having a headache. Of course, with a large-scale aberration, its sheer size made it impossible to go unnoticed. But the fact that it had been taken down so quickly was becoming a hot topic among people. The management team was busy picking up phones to take down articles based on the video.

“Ah, so, it was just a large number of people. It’s nothing special, so please take the article down.”

“How many times do we have to tell you not to post articles prying into espers’ identities?”

“Huh? So you’re asking how many people were there? It was 100 people. 100! Don’t joke around. Ah, just take the article down!”

“Reporter, how many times have we agreed not to do this? You always disappoint me. So you’re asking who took down the large-scale aberration? You think I’d tell you?”

And reporters were truly not an easy bunch to deal with. No matter how much the management team shouted to take the articles down, they kept subtly circling back with questions. The management team’s heads were pounding. Liam Miller, the head of the management team, looked at his struggling team members and said,

“Tell them we’ll sue if they keep posting speculative articles.”

“Understood.”

An esper’s identity was extremely valuable. Of course, there were espers whose faces had become as well-known as celebrities because they were too flashy. But this was Zero Nine. That Zero Nine. A catastrophe! There was absolutely no benefit to revealing his abilities and existence to the world.

Miller first requested a communication with Hexion through his watch. Within seconds, Hexion responded.

[What’s up?]

“Have you seen the video related to Zero Nine?”

[I have]

“The reporters seem to have caught the scent. They keep digging into who, how, and how many people took down the aberration.”

[Hmm]

His voice was slightly higher, but Miller could tell his reaction wasn’t positive. A few seconds of silence followed. Soon, Hexion replied.

[I’ll handle it on my end]

“Thank you.”

[No, you should be apologizing. You’re dumping your job on me]

“……Sorry. This won’t happen again.”

The watch’s signal cut off without a response. Liam Miller sighed and rubbed his forehead. Once Hexion took over, the reporters would quiet down. And indeed.

“Uh, the articles are coming down. Team Leader!”

The articles that had been posted online started disappearing one by one. It hadn’t even been an hour since they’d informed Hexion. Almost all portal sites had removed the story about the aberration in Protected Zone A. But the original video still remained.

“Tsk.”

At that moment, Hexion, sitting in the living room, clicked his tongue while looking at his phone. Taking down the original video wasn’t hard. The problem was the hundreds of people who had already shared it. At this point, dealing with it was nearly impossible.

The video, ranging from 10 seconds to 9 minutes in length, had been copied and distributed across hundreds of sites. While they had managed to block articles within the country, stopping articles from other countries was quite a hassle.

[Was it a fight between aberrations? The mystery of the lightning!]

Now, even stranger videos were popping up. Claims that the large-scale aberration had been fought by another aberration started surfacing. Hexion decided it was better not to react at all from this point on.

As Hexion stared at his phone, Zero Nine, who had been sitting beside him, glanced at the TV playing aimlessly before turning to Hexion.

“What are you looking at so intently?”

“Ah, it’s nothing.”

“Doesn’t seem like nothing.”

His intuition was scarily sharp. Hexion looked at Zero Nine and replied.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“So it’s related to me.”

Ah, that’s why they say his intuition is scary.

“Don’t worry about it, Zero Nine. Special things naturally stand out.”

“Special?”

“Yeah, special.”

Hexion naturally moved closer, resting his head on Zero Nine’s shoulder as he pulled out his phone. He rewatched the video of the aberration being taken down. Zero Nine stared at the screen, trying to figure out what part of the video was problematic. Hexion chuckled lightly and turned off the screen.

“See, I told you it was nothing.”

“Is it troublesome that it’s uploaded?”