The Three-Month Deadline

In August, Meteor City was like a boiling steamer.

Outside the tin shack, the rising heat waves stewed the mountains of garbage, releasing a stench strong enough to envelop the entire city.

Inside the shack, Carl tugged at her sweat-soaked linen veil. Every breath felt like a test of his willpower.

"Clang, clang, clang~"

The sound of the old hinges was as grating as ever.

"Urgh~"

Carl staggered and grabbed the tin door for support.

Even though he had prepared thoroughly, the sour stench reaching his nose still nearly made him throw up.

The original owner of this body managed to survive in this place until he was eleven. He was practically Superman...

After a long while, Carl managed to suppress her nausea and silently grumbled to herself.

When he entered the manor three months ago, Meteor City clearly hadn't smelled this bad...

If I'd known, I would have eaten less Qi and Blood Pumpkin. Having such a good sense of smell is a curse too!!!

As her thoughts wandered, Carl kept walking, heading straight for the church.

The three-month deadline had arrived. He, Carl Tam, was going to the church to keep his appointment today!

As soon as she emerged from the alley, an even stronger stench swept over her.

"Urgh~"

Carl stumbled again and hurriedly pulled the veil tighter around her face.

Northern Meteor City, church, screening room.

Carl pushed open the half-closed door. The shade in the screening room was like a pain-relieving plaster, easing the tension in her sweat-soaked body.

"Carl~~"

At the sight of Carl, Sarasa's eyes lit up. Holding the Orange Warrior's dubbing script, she raised a hand in greeting.

"Where have you been these past three months?"

Sarasa had recovered two months ago, and the first thing she did after getting better was, of course, go looking for Carl at her shack!

Unfortunately, she had gone dozens of times without catching a glimpse of Carl.

"Went farming."

Carl closed the door behind her and brushed the salt crystals from her eyelashes with her sleeve, giving a casual, dismissive answer.

Every day, he was either working the fields or on his way to water them. When would he have had time to go out?

"Ready?" Chrollo shifted his attention from the book in his hands to Carl.

They hadn't seen each other for three months. Why did it feel like she had grown so much taller?

"More or less. Where is everyone else?"

Carl sat down on the little stool with a broken leg by the door and answered unhurriedly.

"They're all dubbing over by the stage. I'll go get them!"

Sarasa jumped down from her chair and volunteered.

"Bang~"

The door opened, then quickly shut again.

After the girl went out with a light step, the whole room fell silent.

"These are the seeds we collected. See if any of them are usable," Chrollo suddenly said.

"Oh?"

Following the direction of Chrollo's finger, Carl looked to her right. At some point, a wooden cabinet with a broken leg had appeared in the screening room.

Wooden dividers split the cabinet into eight small compartments, with "seeds" lying silently in five of them.

"Thanks for the hard work, everyone!"

Carl quickly got up and walked over to the cabinet.

To her as the manor owner, every new seed was precious. After all, each one represented an entirely new special crop.

The three crops he already had were enough to give him a foothold in Meteor City!

Standing in front of the cabinet, Carl quickly scanned its contents. The knowledge and prompts the manor gave her were enough to let her identify living seeds.

The manor didn't react to the first compartment.

No reaction to the second.

The third, the fourth, all the way to the fifth compartment, the manor still didn't react.

"Wait... who in their right mind roasted the seeds???"

Carl picked up a few black seeds and gently rubbed off their shells. The corner of her mouth twitched.

He should have thought of it sooner. The original owner had spent more than ten years in Meteor City and had barely managed to collect three kinds of crops.

That alone showed just how scarce seeds were in a place like Meteor City...

"The land in Meteor City is heavily polluted. We've always bought our food from the outside world..."

Chrollo sighed and offered an explanation.

Over the past three months, he and Paku had visited the homes of every resident they knew, only to find some seeds that had already been roasted and were being kept as food.

Even those had been picked out of the garbage mountains...

Meteor City survived on its mountains of garbage. There was simply no land for growing crops, so naturally, no one brought seeds in.

"It's fine. I've gotten used to it over the years."

Carl turned around and instead offered Chrollo a word of comfort.

"Bang!"

The door to the screening room slammed against the wall.

"Carl! Is your Nen Komugi ready?"

Before Uvogin even entered, his rough voice rang out through the entire screening room.

"Obviously. Would Carl have come if she wasn't ready?"

Machi rolled her eyes at him over her shoulder and was the first to step through the doorway.

Right behind her, the rest of the Phantom Troupe filed in.

Carl slowly turned around.

"Huh? Carl, how did you suddenly get so tall?"

Looking at the youngster standing level with the wooden cabinet, Nobunaga spoke in surprise.

"Did I?" Carl scratched her head.

These past few days, he had been eating Qi and Blood Pumpkin every day, but aside from getting a little stronger and having sharper senses, nothing particularly unusual seemed to have happened.

Clutching a wooden fan, Machi squeezed her way to the front. As her purple hair brushed Carl's shoulder, she suddenly froze.

"Have you been sneaking something good to eat?"

The girl gestured at the distance between herself and Carl's collarbone. The hole in the clothes she had worn three months ago had moved from her chest to below her lower abdomen.

"All right, when do we start?" Feitan asked coldly, leaning against the wall with his arms folded.

He couldn't wait to gain greater power.

"See? You're getting impatient again," Phinks teased from the doorway.

Feitan shot him a vicious glare. "You aren't? You sit at the church entrance staring expectantly every day, like some housewife!"

These days, aside from their weekly study session, Phinks was the one who came to the church most often!

And the thing was, they only had one motorcycle. Phinks kept saying he couldn't feel at ease leaving Feitan home alone, so he brought him along every time!

"What do you mean, like a woman? I was obviously coming to the church to study!!!"

Phinks flushed red but continued to argue.

"All right, all right, stop arguing."

Franklin sighed and stepped forward to block their view of each other.

"Sheila said she wasn't feeling well, so she isn't coming."

After hesitating for a moment, Franklin looked at Carl and spoke quietly.

"You didn't tell her about the Nen Komugi?"

Carl raised an eyebrow, her tone inscrutable.

"Snap!"

The sound of Chrollo closing his book was sharper than the click of a gun's bolt.

"Sheila already left the Phantom Troupe, two months ago."

Chrollo's expression was calm. Someone who treated a companion's life so lightly wasn't fit to remain in the group.

As the Phantom Troupe's leader, even if Sheila hadn't left of her own accord, he would have found a chance to kick her out!

"Nicely done!"

A satisfied smile appeared on Carl's face. She made no attempt to hide his dislike of Sheila.

Beside her, Franklin sighed helplessly.

Both sides were his companions, and he was truly caught in the middle.

"Enter the manor!"

Carl looked around the room. She hesitated no longer and spoke directly.

Space tore the last note of her voice into a metallic tremor.

In an instant, the Phantom Troupe felt the whole world spin. Amid silence and blurring, it changed without a sound.

A hum of warping space-time exploded in their ears. Heaven and earth bled together like an oil painting splashed with turpentine.