No Mora

A couple was taking a stroll through the Small Park.

"Hey, honey, look. Is that kid flying in the sky?"

"No way, sweetheart. You must be seeing things."

"Holy crap, I think she actually is."

"A mutant? Come on, let's go take a picture."

"Let's not. What if she attacks us?"

"Why are you such a coward?"

"It's called being careful."

"...My ass."

The boy sitting on the bench hung his head, his bangs tousled by the wind and obscuring his expression.

When the couple's conversation reached his ears, he wiped his face and stood up.

He clenched one hand into a fist and made a winding motion with the other, as though reeling in a string.

The little girl floating in the sky flew straight toward him.

The boy reached out with one hand and easily caught the little girl as she floated over.

"Oh, come on. It was just a hydrogen balloon."

"Haha, I told you you were seeing things. Good thing we didn't go over, or we'd have made fools of ourselves."

"You're certainly quick with the hindsight, huh? Hmph."

"No, come on, honey! Wait for me!"

Bickering and playfully shoving each other, the young couple disappeared from Lin Ze's sight.

Tucked in his arms, Paimon let out a long breath. She patted her chest and said, still shaken:

"Whew, that scared me to death. Good thing they didn't find us out."

"Traveler, are you okay?"

Paimon stared at the corners of Lin Ze's eyes, where traces of moisture still lingered.

"Oh, I'm fine. The wind just blew some sand into my eyes. I just wiped it away."

"Oh."

Paimon nodded.

The two fell silent again.

Lin Ze looked at Qiqi's grayed-out portrait in the party lineup, feeling a little heartsick.

That was the price of a high degree of character synchronization. Qiqi's emotions felt like his own. Even though he had dealt with Obadiah and satisfied his desire for revenge, he could still feel a dull ache in his chest.

Lin Ze finally understood why the External Transmigration Department's counseling rate remained so high.

He could have lowered his character synchronization, actually, and carried out the mission not as the Traveler or any other character, but simply as an ordinary person.

But what would be the point of a journey like that?

Without his game cheat, his mission might have failed right at the start.

Besides, a grayed-out character could still be revived. It wasn't as though he would never see her again.

Lin Ze took a moment to settle his emotions.

He opened the mission progress bar. Only 1% remained.

It seemed his mission would be complete as soon as Tony Stark officially announced that he was Iron Man.

Ugh, I wonder if my rating will drop to C this time.

After all, the mission had hardly gone smoothly. The villain had nearly turned the tables and killed him. Thankfully, Aether had been there as a fallback, or the consequences would have been unimaginable.

Iron Man was one of this world's pillars. If he died, the world would practically lose half its support.

Lin Ze felt immensely grateful for that.

Thinking of Tony, he wondered whether the man had received treatment. Although Lin Ze had blocked the flames during the explosion, Tony's earlier fall had looked pretty nasty. It was hard to say whether he had suffered a concussion.

"Traveler?"

"Traveler!"

Paimon waved her hands, interrupting Lin Ze's wandering thoughts.

"Huh? What's wrong, Paimon?"

Lin Ze came back to his senses and gave Paimon a questioning look.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

With her little hands behind her back, Paimon tilted her head and asked Lin Ze:

"Traveler, where are we going next?"

Where are we going?

That was a good question.

Lin Ze didn't know when Tony would reveal his identity. Until then, he needed to find somewhere for himself and Paimon to rest.

Grrrumble.

Paimon clutched her stomach miserably, her little face scrunching up.

"...Hungry."

The little girl's lively expression chased away much of the gloom hanging over Lin Ze's heart. He patted his clothes, paused at the sight of the red bloodstains, then said to Paimon:

"Let me wash my clothes first, then we'll go find something to eat, Paimon."

"Yay! Paimon hasn't eaten any food here yet, except sand. Let's hurry up and go!"

Finding a public faucet in the park, Lin Ze scrubbed his clothes. The blood hadn't been there very long, and soon only a few reddish marks remained. At least it no longer looked so horrifying.

Should I get another set of clothes? If Tony doesn't reveal his identity for a week, or a month, won't I have to wear this outfit until it stinks?

That was what Lin Ze was thinking.

Paimon needed a change of clothes too. It was fine if he looked a little scruffy, but he had to keep Paimon looking pretty and tidy, no matter what.

He began making plans.

But the most pressing matter was food. He couldn't keep letting Paimon go hungry.

Once he had cleaned up, he carried Paimon off to find something to eat.

"Paimon can walk by herself!"

The little girl puffed out her cheeks and declared confidently.

After Lin Ze explained the consequences of people discovering that she could fly, they had agreed on some ground rules. Paimon couldn't fly when other people were around, but when the two of them were alone, she could fly as much as she liked.

Although Paimon had patted her chest and sworn she could walk, Lin Ze had rejected the idea after seeing her try it once.

Even a drunken man by the roadside walked more steadily than Paimon.

Of course, that wasn't her fault. Whether in the game or here, the number of times the little girl had set foot on the ground could be counted on one hand-practically zero.

Still, he didn't undermine Paimon's confidence.

"Of course I know you can walk, Paimon. How about you walk once I get tired of carrying you? This is faster for now."

"All right, Paimon will listen to the Traveler. It's definitely not because Paimon wants to be lazy."

The kindly lie of a young boy looking after his little sister brought knowing smiles to the older people strolling and exercising in the park.

Steve had noticed the two children long ago. Ever since he had been awakened, he hadn't skipped a single day of physical training.

Every morning, he was already running laps around the park before dawn.

Today was no exception. When he first saw the two children, he thought they must have run into some kind of trouble.

Because the boy had been crying the whole time.

So he hadn't disturbed them. Children could have a strong sense of pride, and it wouldn't have been right for him, a stranger, to meddle uninvited.

After running a few laps, he looked over again and found that the boy seemed to be all right.

The two little ones had begun discussing food.

Only then did Steve relax. Seeing the boy carrying the girl toward the exit, he steadied his breathing and slowly followed them.

"Ah! That smells so good! Traveler, there's tasty food!"

Paimon's eyes lit up at once.

The smell of food was indeed drifting over. It seemed to be something fried, and the aroma was especially appetizing.

Lin Ze swallowed, feeling tempted too, but he quickly realized the crucial problem.

"Uh... Paimon, have you thought about something?"

He asked Paimon as he looked at the pile of Coconut Milk in his inventory.

"What is it? Can't you ask later? Traveler, let's buy something to eat first."

Paimon was already growing impatient. She had spotted the food truck in the distance, where the aroma was coming from.

"Could it possibly be that, uh..."

"We don't have any money."

!!!

"Traveler, why are you looking at Paimon like that? Paimon never brings Mora when she goes out!"

Paimon indignantly covered herself with her hands.

"Didn't you have lots of Mora, Traveler?"

Lin Ze put Paimon down and carefully searched himself from head to toe, finding nothing.

"Confirmed. No Mora."

"And even if we had Mora, we couldn't use it in this world."

After all, if the Transmigration Management Bureau had the technology to convert Mora into otherworldly currencies, it would have struck it rich ages ago. It couldn't possibly be as stingy as it was now.

"Then what do we do? Paimon's really hungry."

Paimon's face fell, and she gazed longingly at the food truck.

"How about drinking some Coconut Milk to fill us up?"

Lin Ze had plenty of Coconut Milk. When he was Qiqi, he had no appetite. Coconut Milk was merely a treat she liked, something that mostly satisfied her emotionally.

Physically, its effect was nothing special.

Sure enough, after each of them downed a carton of Coconut Milk, it hadn't done a damn thing.

"No good. Paimon's even hungrier now."

Never mind Paimon-after drinking the Coconut Milk, Lin Ze not only wanted food even more, but had also been reminded of happier times. As he drank, his eyes reddened again.

Just then, a tall shadow fell over the two of them.

"Kids, I'm exhausted from my run. I've got no energy left."

"Could I trouble you to buy me some breakfast?"

Lin Ze looked up. A handsome blond, blue-eyed man smiled as he offered him a banknote.

"Hello, I'm Steve Rogers."

"Could you run that errand for me?"