Your superpower is good luck, right? A chance encounter...

Another sleepless and exhausted morning.

The unchanging streetscape outside the window flashed past in her hazy pupils, which seemed lost in thought.

She leaned gently against the glass, the cool touch seemingly soothing her restless, agitated heart.

"What is the company doing? Why would they make me transport a supervillain to a place like that?"

Sage Grove Center.

Dressed in casual clothes with her hood pulled up, Queen Maeve whispered her confusion, though deep down, she already had a vague answer.

Human experimentation on supes!

She simply didn't want to think about it, and she didn't dare let herself think about it.

Perhaps this way, she could keep her head buried in the warm sand instead of investigating whether that place was a secret facility for researching Compound V.

The building was rotting, despair was festering, and where was the hope?

The bus stopped at the next sign, and a young girl walked on, chattering away from the stop where she had been waiting.

Maeve was drawn to the cheerful voice.

The girl held up a phone supported by a selfie stick, announcing to the lens, "I've already boarded the bus heading to the suburbs..."

"What?!!"

The girl's expression changed abruptly before she could finish her sentence.

She leaned toward her phone in a panic, "Are you sure you saw that correctly?"

Saw what?

Maeve was startled. Did she see me?

Just as she thought this and prepared to pull her hoodie down a little further, she heard the girl shouting in a mix of confusion and frustration.

"Driver! Driver! Stop, please! I'm going the wrong way!"

"Get off at the next stop."

The driver refused coldly.

The girl frantically grabbed the partition of the driver's cabin, "Don't be like that, mister. I only have enough money for the fare to the last stop, not a single cent more."

"That's not my problem, kid."

"My god, are Greyhound drivers really this cold-blooded now? What is wrong with this society? Is there no love left at all?"

The girl finished her rant quickly, then shifted her tone, "Mister, I'm live-streaming right now, and I just accidentally caught your attitude..."

Screech—!

The bus slammed on the brakes, and the driver said gently, "Ma'am, the bus has stopped safely. Please disembark in an orderly fashion."

"Who would get off here?"

The girl muttered, complaining and grumbling, "We've already driven a distance; I'll have to walk a long way back."

Suddenly, a hundred-dollar bill was handed to her.

The girl looked up in astonishment.

Maeve smiled gently, "Take a taxi. That's enough for you to go back and forth to the suburbs."

"Uh... thank, wait? You, you, you..."

"Shh."

Maeve stopped the girl from screaming and said, "Go on, the driver is already losing his patience."

"O-okay."

The girl got off the bus in a daze, and the bus sped away.

It wasn't until two crows landed on her shoulders with a caw that she suddenly snapped back to reality.

She leaned toward her phone in disbelief, Countess of Crows asked in shock, "Did you guys see that? No, no, I don't mean the hundred dollars."

"It was her! The kind person from just now, she, she..."

Countess of Crows raised her voice sharply and shrieked, "That was Queen Maeve!!"

"I actually ran into Queen Maeve in disguise on a Greyhound! Oh my god, I saw Homelander just the day before yesterday!"

"Am I going to join The Seven? Are they scouting me?"

[Wake up, it's morning, not night.]

[It really is Queen Maeve! Even though I didn't see her face, I'm a die-hard fan, I recognize her voice.]

[For real??]

[Scouting you? You're killing me, scouting you to see how you f*** crows?]

"You're the one who... disgusting, get out of my stream!"

The Countess of Crows was dazzled by the motley barrage of comments in her livestream. She argued, spouted nonsense, and kicked users while hailing a taxi to the suburbs.

By this time, following last night's interview program, the Countess of Crows' channel was no longer that of a nobody.

That was why, early in the morning before the sun had even risen, so many people were watching her outdoor stream as she headed to the suburbs to find a crow with greater spiritual potential.

By the time she finally arrived at her destination, her argument with the viewers regarding whether she could join The Seven was still ongoing.

After getting out of the car, the crows dove headlong into the woods, while the Countess of Crows remained where she was.

She needed to wait for the crows to find a new companion before she could go in person to communicate with it and tame it.

[So we're just going to wait here??]

"Of course not. You are enjoying the beautiful image of the Countess of Crows bathing in the morning light of the forest. Look, the morning sun is piercing through the leaves and just..."

"Caw—"

Deep in the woods, two crows were searching very diligently for a new companion.

They flew quickly, and before long, they had moved far away from their mistress and reached the depths of the forest.

Suddenly, a blinding crimson glow leaked through a gap in the dense forest ahead, its swirling halo firmly hooking their gaze.

Crows are very intelligent birds.

And the fact that Russell and Cameron could be chosen by the Countess of Crows' superpower proved that they were the cream of the crop among their kind, possessing even stronger curiosity.

Their wings brushed through layers of branches, and their field of vision suddenly widened as a forest clearing, cleared by human hands, burst into the crows' sight.

Many thick trees lay scattered across the ground, and several large boulders were strewn about in a mess, the scene looking quite chaotic.

"...The temperature increase and penetration should be the secondary effects; wood cannot block it."

In the forest clearing stood a boy. The crows felt he looked very familiar, though they couldn't recall where they had seen him for a moment.

They landed on a treetop, tilting their heads, their pitch-black eyes reflecting the boy's figure as they watched him crouch before a charred boulder, muttering something at the cracks on its surface that had been vitrified by high heat.

"This shape... did an explosion occur inside where the stone was split?"

"So the tertiary effect of Heat Vision is to add a cutting form, and it slightly involves the range of an energy blast. I can still increase the power to make it officially enter the energy burst stage."

"That would be the fourth level, but the duration would be so short that..."

Ryan, who was studying the stone, faltered.

Testing the Berserk effect had to be done gradually from low to high, so he couldn't accurately determine how long the energy burst form could actually be maintained right now.

To get accurate data, he would have to instantly activate the energy blast stage during his next test.

Shaking his head, Ryan stood up and glanced at the sky.

He had specifically gotten up early to sneak out and find this desolate mountain wilderness while Azu was sleeping, all to test his new abilities and the trump card effect of his Heat Vision.

He wasn't too worried about his own safety, even though all his abilities were currently at -1, leaving him with only a level three Steel Body.

But then again, at this point in time, when Azu hadn't yet turned dark and The Boys Universe was still quite orderly, who would come to mess with him for no reason?

This was another reason why Ryan had snuck out, aside from keeping his trump cards hidden from the world.

The sky had already brightened; it was time to go back.

Up in the tree, Russell the crow finally remembered who the little boy below was.

It cawed at its companion while joyfully and enthusiastically raising its wing to greet the boy.