Chapter Sixteen: People Are Different

"Haha..."

"Just kidding. You can call me Free Man."

After making Rex tremble with fear, Jupiter smiled gently and addressed everyone in a warm voice.

"So the F on your chest stands for freedom?!"

Eve pointed at the big F on Jupiter's chest and asked.

"You could say that..."

Jupiter glanced at the F on his chest and raised an eyebrow. It was hard to explain what the F really stood for. He couldn't exactly tell these young superheroes that the F on his chest didn't stand for freedom, but for fuck.

"So the F might mean something else, too?!"

Hearing Jupiter say that, Eve immediately grew curious.

"I didn't say that. That's just your guess. Anyway, it's an F with a respectable meaning."

Jupiter had successfully piqued Eve's curiosity. If you wanted to win a woman over, the first step was to make her curious, so she'd think about you all the time. And when it came to piquing curiosity, Jupiter had clearly succeeded.

"Enough joking around. Robot, your name is Robot, right? What exactly was going on with that alien?"

"They were Flaxans, aliens who live in a universe with a completely different flow of time from ours. Based on the tanks they left behind, time passes very differently for them. In theory, even if we did nothing, their cells would age and decay on their own until they could no longer move in three to five minutes."

"What does that mean? Are you saying that even if our hero hadn't done anything, the aliens would have killed themselves anyway, without us having to beat them at the cost of half a city block? So our hero would've been busy for nothing?!"

After Jupiter had let him off the hook, Rex had started running his mouth again, acting like he'd already forgotten his lesson.

"Exploding Rex, the truth is that Free Man saved us. Without him, the enemy might have killed us before they decayed."

Robot couldn't help reminding Rex.

"I know, of course I know! I'm praising Free Man for his powerful fighting ability. He can destroy a whole street with ease."

After hearing Robot's words, Rex scrambled for an excuse for his blabbering.

"..."

Jupiter had heard Rex's stream of nonsense, but couldn't be bothered to deal with him. He'd just wait for a chance to make Rex have an accident, then let him blabber away to his heart's content in hell.

"What countermeasures do we have against the Flaxans' attacks?"

Jupiter ignored Rex and continued questioning Robot in the tone of a superior addressing a subordinate.

"I analyzed the Flaxans' teleportation energy. When the Flaxans attack again, the alarm will sound to warn us. Um... it should give us a few minutes' warning. Probably."

Robot looked at his machine, sounding uncertain.

"Robot... don't you have a name of your own? I've been calling you Robot this whole time, and it feels kind of strange."

No matter how Jupiter looked at it, Robot's name seemed bizarre. From every angle, Robot was a robot, but it was still strange for a robot to name himself Robot.

"I am Robot. Everyone calls me Robot."

Robot couldn't understand what Jupiter meant. Everyone had called him Robot ever since he was born.

"Listen, Robot isn't a name. The thing that cleans my house is called a robot, too. Or do you think you're the same kind of thing?"

"If everyone calls you Robot, then you don't have a name, right?"

"Good. From today on, your name is Jack! Robot Jack!"

Jupiter spoke in a commanding tone. He had no particular reason for giving Robot a name; he simply thought calling him Robot sounded awkward. Besides, Ancestor Person didn't need a reason to name people. He could call them whatever he wanted.

"Actually... I don't really care about names! But I'll accept the name Jack for now."

Robot hesitated, but Jupiter was right: he clearly wasn't the same kind of thing as the one that cleaned the house.

"When the alarm goes off, remember to call me. No matter how many enemies show up, leave them to me. I have a way to settle this once and for all..."

"Oh, right. You need my number, don't you?"

Jupiter said, looking at Eve.

After Jupiter and Mark left the Viltrumite Youth Group, they went to a certain pentagonal building to see their father and mother.

After two days, Nolan had almost completely recovered. He was still lying in his hospital bed, but was only adjusting his condition so he could get back to his best.

After chatting with Deborah for a while, Jupiter took Mark home again.

The night passed without a word. At dawn the next day, Jupiter and Mark headed to school together once more, ready to get through another long, boring day.

At lunchtime, Jupiter, a dedicated eater, headed to the cafeteria with Mark in the best mood of the day. He piled two whole plates high with food...

Jupiter was tall and broad, and he ate more than twice as much as an ordinary person.

"Hey!"

"Mark and Jupiter..."

When Frank, Mark's little sidekick, spotted the two of them, he immediately came over.

"Crunch, crunch..."

Jupiter ate heartily, ignoring Mark's sidekick.

"Frank..."

Mark, who was thinking about how he could get stronger, seemed rather uninterested in Frank, too.

"Hey, Mark, stop staring. I know Eve's a great girl, but don't forget you just met Amber. Besides... you're really too ordinary compared to Eve."

Following Mark's vacant gaze, Frank spotted Eve eating while playing on her phone nearby. He immediately misunderstood Mark.

"Frank, I wasn't looking at Eve. I was thinking about something."

Mark blushed at Frank's words and hurried to explain. He glanced at Jupiter beside him, because he felt like Jupiter might be interested in Eve, too. He'd already decided that if Jupiter liked Eve, he'd back off. His older brother had yielded to him in many things, and Mark wanted to do something for him in return...

"Beep, beep, beep, beep..."

Just as Mark was trying to explain, Eve's phone suddenly rang in the distance.

"Damn..."

Eve glanced at the information on her phone and raised her beautiful eyebrows slightly...

Eve lifted her head, and her eyes met Mark's. She blinked gently to signal that it was time for him to act.

"Bro, looks like... that F guy has shown up."

Mark spoke softly to Jupiter, who was focused on eating.

"..."

Jupiter swallowed the sausage in his mouth and drained all the milk from his bottle.

"Mark, you should know that the thing I hate most in this life is people interrupting my meal."

Jupiter crushed the milk bottle into a ball with a squeeze, stood up, and followed Eve out.

"Oh my god! Are my eyes broken? Jupiter just crushed a hard-plastic milk bottle into a ball?"

Frank stared wide-eyed at the milk bottle. It was made of hard plastic.

"Yeah..."

"Maybe my big bro's really angry right now?"

"Anyway, I have to go. See you later..."

Mark glanced at the crushed bottle, his eyes twitching slightly. Jupiter hated having his meals interrupted more than anything. If someone interrupted him, it meant they were about to have a bad time.

"..."

Frank looked at the crushed milk bottle, then at his own. He squeezed it with all his strength.

"Don't lie to me..."

"Everyone gets angry, so why can't I crush a milk bottle?!"

Frank didn't give up until both his hands were red. Then he helplessly tossed aside the bottle in his hands...

"..."

Mark was on his way out of the cafeteria when he heard Frank shouting. He shook his head. All he could say was that people were different from one another.