"Ando-chan, come check this out!" a sitting boy from across the playground yelled, getting my attention.
I could already see what they wanted to show, but I made no show of it as I strided over. In their hands a sickly sweet slime-like blue mess was frothing out. Reflexively, I pinched my nose with a smile.
"Whoa, that smell is strong!" I said, sitting in front of the kid, "What can you do with it?"
A thoughtful look came to the other boy's face as he looked up. Then, as expected, he slowly brought his dripping, frothy blue hands to his mouth to get a small lick. Instead of recoiling, he let the taste settle in. Like a jack-in-the-box, he jumped to his feet without warning, taking on a triumphant pose.
"It's super tasty!" the boy exclaimed, extending his sweet-smelling hands towards me, "You should try it, Ando-chan!"
Completely taken off-guard and not at all recoiling at the gums strong aroma and texture, not at all. I stood up, making sure to take my time to think of a better way to not disappoint the kid in front of me as I reached eye-to-eye with him.
Like the active kid as we are, he stuck his hands further into my face, smile reaching ear-to-ear. I took a step back, before dipping two fingers into the blue gum and pulling. It felt exactly like what I expected, sticky, smooth, and slimy all in one sweet smelling gel.
Inwardly, I cringed, but I didn't want to disappoint him so I gave a tentative lick. It… was bad. Yeah, it was sweet and it took my energy levels from a 8 to a 10, but that was the problem–it was too sweet.
"Do you like it, I sure do, I got such a cool quirk!" he said, throwing hands above his head and clapping, scattering his quirk everywhere like a one man- actually don't finish that thought.
I guarded most of my hair from the airborne mess, unlike all the other kids who were displaying their quirks.
"Yeah, it's cool Hora. But it's too sweet." I said, clarifying, "I'm not a big fan with that much sweetness!"
It was like the sticky mess that Hora Takumi made was entirely ignored as the sleeper agents called "Children" perked up at the word. Hesitantly, they reached for the stray drops of gel plastered on them to give a taste, eyes lighting up as the fact of his quirk being so sweet.
Like vultures to carrion - or rather like flies to a corpse flower, they swarmed Hora, asking for a taste and praising him on how awesome his quirk really is. If I were to give my opinion on his quirk it'll be bar-for-bar of Hisoka Morow.
I looked towards the shaded benches where I saw our parents smiling at us getting along. As I scanned them, my eyes lingering on my mom. Her gray-streaked curly black hair was tied in a bun, and hazelnut eyes held a bitter sadness, despite the smile on her face. Her quirk was Stabilize, where any object she touches is refreshed, clearing any rust and stopping it from further damage as long as she stays in contact with it.
As for why my mom was so gloomy on such a day? Simple, I haven't shown any signs of a quirk myself. When we went to the doctors, they too were confused by my lack of a quirk, despite my double-jointed pinky toe. I suspect foul play, it was a prevalent theory in the MHA fan community.
… Seems like I'm internally monologuing again.
Shaking my head, I looked to a plastic picnic table on the other side, spotting a trembling girl whose head was buried in their arms on the table. I walked over, seeing her jerk her head from looking in my direction as I sat beside her. I gently patted her back, ignoring the chattering of the other kids and absolutely ignoring the increased intensity of the girl crying beside me.
It didn't take a genius to figure out why she was crying. She was quirkless. Decided on the basis of her lacking a joint at birth. I'm also in that same boat, doctors telling my mom that "maybe he is a late-bloomer".
As if.
So I stayed there, rubbing her back until my mom called out to me. It was getting late, and the crying of the little girl had long since stopped. As I was telling Takumi goodbye, a meek voice called out, causing both of us to look. The blonde long-haired girl with fiery red eyes looked at me with puffy eyelids, before quickly finding the ground easier to look at.
"Thank you, Ando-chan," she said, blush rising on her face. With a smirk, I began to walk to my mom, keeping my eyes on the blondie.
"No problem, Aimi. See you later!" I said as smoothly as a prepubescent kid could as I walked away.
As she was driving, talking on the phone with a work client. I looked at myself in the mirror. Gray-streaked curly black hair, hazelnut eyes, tanned skin. I was quite the looker for a kid. Too bad I doubt I'd manifest my quirk, it seems like all reincarnates from the fanfics of this world always seem to be.
I keep forgetting that this is my head, not some e-book, so I need to explain things a lot better. My name is Ando Saboru, a six-year old kid who was a stillborn but was resurrected by a 30 something year-old soul entering his body, causing the medical staff who were about to give the bad news to my parents quite a scare.
In my past life I was an absolute gamer growing up. Into my adult years, I took on freelancer jobs as a handyman for local construction companies. This was during a massive boom in construction where I lived. As a result, there was never a time I didn't have food on the table, and I was dating some fine-shit? I had it on!
Too bad all that went down the drain when her brother decided to ram his truck into my living room because he thought I was a gangster, the racist bastard. Now I live the life of a Japanese kid in Saitama, Japan. It was kinda cool, I had to learn how to speak Japanese from scratch, but that should've been expected, though I can still speak English and Spanish though so that's neat.
So if some RPG system were to suddenly manifest in front of me that would be great! However, that hasn't panned out, even after washing up and eating dinner, nothing happened.
And here I lay in bed quirkless, staring at the apartment ceiling of my room as if it held a rather deep answer, after a while I closed accepting my fate as someone destined for greatness, but quirk stolen.
Except that wasn't what happened.
____
Storage: 1/50
Ammo: None, None, None, None
Coins: None, None, None, None
Equip Slots: Plain White Tee, AND1 shorts, White Socks
Vanity Slots: None Equipped
Dye Slots: None Equipped
Accessories: None Equipped
____
…What.
I was joking! But hey, I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth! But something's weird about this. Not the fact that this menu only appears when I close my eyes, learned from me rapidly blinking to see if it persists, but its layout, it seems to be…
"Am I looking at Terraria?" I yelled out in instinctive English, as I bolted upright in my bed at the revelation.
As suddenly as I yelled out in English I looked to my bedroom door. It was cracked open slightly, so as to not let the room get too hot at night as I waited for my mom to come in. With every measured breath, my tension rose. Until after a minute of listening to the white noise of the refrigerator in the kitchen nearby, I sighed.
Sitting cross-legged, I closed my eyes to look further into the Terraria menu I had, especially at whatever was in my inventory. As if listening to my intentions, the inventory opened, revealing hyper-smooth blue squares in that recognisable 5-by-10 grid. I honestly thought it would be pixelated but I guess it is the question of what resolution does a human sees in?
Looking at the filled space left me dumbfounded for a second, as I couldn't figure out where I got it in the first place, until I remembered.
It was Takumi's quirk!
___
Gel (1)
Ammo
Material
"Both tasty and flammable"
Research 99 more to unlock duplication
___
Yeah right. That shit was too sweet for me.
Again, reading my intentions, it edited the description of the gel.
___
Gel (1)
Ammo
Material
"Extremely sweet and flammable"
Research 99 more to unlock duplication
___
… It feels like I just skipped over a rather important detail.
What the hell does it mean by duplication? I didn't see the journey menu anywhere.
With the thought of the Power menu it opened, and my heart was like a snare drummer solo; absolutely hammering!
___
[Power Menus]
Duplication
Research
Sub-World Time
Sub-World Weather
Personal Power
Sub-World Infection
Sub-World Difficulty
Enter Sub-World?
___
Heh? This isn't what I remembered from Terraria, especially not "Sub-World" Anything! Hearing my thoughts, the system then manifested a blue menu from the dark of my eyelids, overlapping the others in its importance.
[Sub-World is an alternate realm where these powers manifest, allowing control over time, weather, Infection information, and its difficulty. Defeat in the Sub-World will place the appropriate timer based on selected difficulty. Items and materials collected and stored in the Inventory will be preserved to your specifications.]
That's fucking awesome, but what about the NPC's? I'd like to get a piggy bank if possible. On cue, the menu changed. Rapidly closing, then opening with a new message:
[Meeting the suitable house and spawn requirements will spawn the NPC, allowing them to persist within your Sub-World(s).]
That's cool, very cool. Now let's see what we are working with! Opening the personal power menu, my smile turned sour instantly at what I saw.
___
[Personal Power Menu]
Alter NPC Appearance
Unique Crafting
Enemy Harvesting
___
Is this Terraria or not!? With a sigh, I closed that menu, and opened the Enter Sub-World Menu.
___
[Enter Sub-World?]
None Available. Create new world?
___
Okay, now I need to decide, what do I want my world to be? Corruption has the Worm Scarf and Shadow Armor and it's a great early game option, but Crimson has Ichor and Vampire Knives. That is also not including the fish and tools…
Why not everything? The largest world, with all the ore, with both the evil biomes, and on Legendary mode! On command, a progress bar manifested, with the evil half of it rapidly flickering between Crimson and Corruption, and the smaller bar below it began to fill up. Sadly, no tooltips like the actual game, with that's to be expected.
Moving on, I opened the research menu and found a big 'ole nothing! Closing the Power Menu entirely, I finally looked at the singular gel in my storage at the top right. Curiously I opened my palm and my eyes, finding it in the center of my hand.
Well, I smelled it first before I saw it. It kept that sickly sweet smell, but it condensed slightly, now having a thin, bouncy film around it, more than likely having the same properties as slimes from in-game. When I willed it back, it disappeared from my hand instantly. No flash of light, but blurring speed. It was there, then it wasn't.
I did this a couple times, admiring the speed of it exiting and entering my storage before placing it in my ammo box for better safe keeping. Just like that I laid down finally, watching the progress bar hadn't even reached 1%, but that didn't matter. In terms of strength, The Terrarian is able to hang with the strongest of the MHA world.
I couldn't sleep, mostly because of the excitement and also because I'm always looking at the progress bar and menu when I close my eyes. On my request for sleep, the menu closed, giving me less to focus my attention on, but still like a ritual, I opened and closed the menus, watching the sudden disappearance and reappearance.
I am not getting any sleep tonight.