Can My Eyes See Ghosts?

Behold.

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The moment Ian's hand touched Homelander's blood-stained, severed spinal bone.

The system's voice sounded by his ear, just as expected. However, this was neither the prompt Ian wanted nor the bad outcome he had mentally prepared himself for.

[You have come into contact with an unknown extraordinary substance. Warning: this extraordinary substance has completely fallen dormant. A new mission has been acquired. Please enter the class selection interface to view it.]

"What's going on?" Ian was slightly startled. He hurriedly opened his class selection interface, where an additional [Dormant Class] option had appeared. As Ian's thoughts touched that strange option, a line of text visible only to him slowly emerged.

[Awakening Mission: Please ignite this class's Flame of Life.]

You never knew how baffling something was until you looked at it. The system's brief mission description completely threw Ian off. Was this telling him to resurrect Homelander, who had been dead for who knew how long?

"Hmm?"

Ian turned to look again at Homelander, whose head had been separated from his body and whose spine had been completely snapped. He had been dead for who knew how long. Ian felt that his system might be deliberately making things difficult for him.

"Wait, Hulk was thoroughly dead too. Why didn't it say the class he brought had gone dormant as well?" Ian tried to negotiate terms with his system.

However, the utterly mindless system gave no response whatsoever.

"This is bullshit! Complete bullshit!"

Ian had not gotten what he wanted and was somewhat furious. He yanked Homelander's head from the corpse's hand, then hugged the thing and slid down Hulk's arm to the ground.

Hesitation.

Conflict.

Repeated deliberation.

Ian clearly wanted to see whether he could sink his teeth into the head in his hands. He believed in the conservation of energy and thought that perhaps letting Homelander's matter flow into himself counted as reigniting Homelander's Flame of Life?

However.

Despite having such a unique train of thought, Ian still could not get past the psychological hurdle. After all, eating evil ghosts and eating people were clearly two different things.

"To hell with being a Bootleg Superman!"

In the end, Ian still could not overcome human instinct. He tossed aside Homelander's grimacing head and tried to kick it away like a soccer ball.

He put a lot of force into that kick.

National-team-level footwork.

Homelander's head flew far away. It did not hit the Trash Can Ian had aimed for, instead landing on an abandoned bus stop buried beneath snow in the complete opposite direction.

Homelander's head was completely undamaged, but the metal seat at the bus stop was smashed into a dent. It seemed that Bootleg Superman did have quite a bit of genuine superhuman strength.

"Sigh..."

Ian stared at the mission, which had not disappeared. This time, even his intelligence offered no help. The extremely barebones mission description truly left him at a loss as to what he should do.

"It can't really be telling me to resurrect Homelander, can it?" Ian looked up at Hulk's arm. He had originally wanted to look at Homelander's headless body, but the moment he raised his head, he noticed something wrong with the sky. Something was moving within the leaden sky that had always been dim and oppressive.

Its outline was blurry and indistinct. It did not look like a living creature, as though it were about to poke its head out from the clouds.

"So huge."

Ian could sense that the vaguely visible thing was as massive as an asteroid—wait? Maybe it actually was an asteroid? The boy stared wide-eyed in astonishment.

Behold.

The object within the dark clouds became clearer and clearer. It was a round object so enormous that it blotted out the sky. At that moment, in this world where Ian had stayed for a long time and which had always been completely silent.

"Hey!"

Someone's voice appeared!

Crisp!

Urgent!

The voice was like a thunderclap. Ian abruptly looked toward where it had come from, but he only had time to see a human outline before the familiar bell of return suddenly rang ahead of schedule.

"Dong~~~~"

The first heavy toll seemed to freeze everything.

"Dong—dong—"

The second and third tolls followed one after another.

Ian jolted awake in bed.

[00:42]

Even though he had returned early in such a strange manner.

The clock still pointed to that seemingly eternally unchanging time.

"There are still living people in that world!?" Ian's heart was still filled with uncertainty and shock. With a carp leap, he sprang straight toward the ceiling.

Then.

He fiercely pressed both hands against the ceiling, using the opposing force to land steadily back on the floor, slipping perfectly into the slippers placed beside his bed.

"All the superheroes are dead... who else could still be alive?" Ian could not make sense of what had happened at the final moment, nor could he understand why he had suddenly returned early.

This was something that had never happened before. Now that it had happened, was it related to the shout he heard at the end, or to the mysterious round object in the sky?

"Intelligence, get moving?"

Ian patted his forehead.

And surprisingly.

It did help a tiny bit, though clearly in the wrong direction—Ian suddenly recalled a certain image, then thought about his awakening mission and Hulk.

"Slap slap slap~"

Ian's slippers let out clownish squeaks as he ran all the way to his second brother's bedroom and pounded madly on the door. A bewildered Jordan rubbed his eyes as he opened the door and looked at his little brother.

"What is it?"

Jordan was completely confused.

He yawned, looking somewhat drained.

"Where are your comic books?"

Ian did not care whether the air was filled with the fragrance of hawthorn flowers. He rushed straight into Jordan's room and looked around. Sure enough, he found the box Jordan used to store his comics.

Under his second brother's bewildered gaze, Ian rummaged through the box, tossing away the discs hidden inside. Finally, his eyes settled on a yellowed comic magazine.

The Incredible Hulk

Behold.

That familiar green figure stood prominently on the cover, vicious and muscular.

"Seriously? You came looking for me in the middle of the night just to look at this obscure superhero comic that only released three issues before getting canceled because its sales were terrible?"

Jordan's final sprint had been interrupted, leaving him deeply annoyed. But when he remembered that his little brother had gone through something unpleasant tonight, he gritted his teeth and ultimately held back his temper.

"Can I borrow it?"

Ian looked at his second brother. Although displeased, Jordan still sighed and nodded, then drove Ian—who had lowered his head to read the comic again—out of his room.

"Damn it, I need to get back into the mood."

After adjusting his emotions slightly, Jordan picked a new challenge target from among the discs Ian had thrown onto the floor and once again began his nightly campaign.

Outside the bedroom door.

Ian stared at the comic in his hands. A powerful intuition told him that perhaps the reason Homelander could not activate a class while Hulk could do so directly was related to this.

There were no stories about Homelander in the real world where he lived!

But there were stories about Hulk!

"Being able to connect all of this is thanks to me being smart enough." Ian felt that he had found the key to solving the mission. Just as he was about to return to his room.

"Whoosh..."

The sound of flushing rang out.

His old man, Clark, walked out of the second-floor bathroom.

He and Ian locked eyes.

"Hmm?"

Ian's gaze passed Clark and looked behind him. He was instantly horrified, his expression shocked as he raised a finger and pointed behind Clark.

"Dad! You've got some nerve! Cheating at home!" Yes, Ian saw that an unfamiliar woman was actually following behind Clark as he came out of the bathroom.

"What are you talking about?"

Clark subconsciously covered the cuff of his sleeve. However, upon hearing Ian's accusation, his expression went blank. He turned around, but saw nothing at all.

"Putting on an act? No, that's not it!"

Ian saw something suspicious in Clark's frown.

His old man was genuinely confident, without the guilty look of someone caught red-handed. Besides, thinking about it carefully, even if he were cheating, Dad probably would not choose to cheat at home.

Unless Mom, Lois, had agreed to it?

Although Westerners were indeed relatively open-minded, this family was actually somewhat traditional. For that very reason, Ian did not think his mother had such a unique preference.

However.

Why was there a woman there?

"Maybe she isn't alive at all! Since I ate ghosts before, can my eyes see ghosts now?" Ian first thought of a web series whose ending he had never seen before transmigrating.

Then.

As though realizing something, he lowered his head and looked at the back of his hand.

The mark was flickering.

As though only he could see it.

"Is it because of this big shot's mark?"

Ian raised his head again.

The reflection of the woman, invisible to everyone else, remained in his pupils. She wore black clothing with a strong uniformed feel, had refined short hair, and enviably pale, cool-toned skin.

"Hmm?"

Perhaps sensing Ian's prolonged stare.

The woman tilted her head.

"A human? What a... special talent."

She seemed somewhat surprised as well.