Chapter 6

[Request]

[Agreement]

[Unnecessary]

[Agreement]

[Agreement]

[Unnecessary]

...

[Request Accepted]

I opened my eyes.

I was on a beach, and the smell of the sea assaulted my senses. I looked at myself. I look like a scholar, dressed in a robe and wearing glasses. Fitting, I suppose.

I turned and looked around. There were dozens of people, all kinds of people.

An old man in a business suit with a rather mischievous face. A young woman wearing a sports bra and shorts. A child with red hair, his face full of childish naivety.

"Well, this is far more pleasant than I expected." The old man in the suit said this with a grin as he looked at himself. He was not wrong, as everyone seemed to agree.

"Still, it's a waste to delegate some of our power slots for this. We were already weakened as is." The young woman in gym clothes complained as she crossed her arms.

The red-haired child looked at her and retorted, "We were going insane as is; being completely deprived of our senses kind of does that."

I nodded in agreement. The inability to do anything was truly excruciating, and even if we slept for 12 hours, the remaining 12 hours seemed to stretch out in our boredom.

The young woman relented and let out a soft sigh.

"Ahem," said another person, a mature lady in regal garb, "I have a few questions about this arrangement."

Hearing this, I stepped forward.

"I was the one who created this power set, so if you have any questions, I will try to answer them to the best of my ability," I said with a small bow.

The mature lady raised her eyebrow and said, "You are The One Who Asked? Well, I suppose your appearance is appropriate." She turned fully towards me. "Well, first of all, how does this work, and what can we do?"

I smiled and began to explain.

"With this ability, we can create a... let us call it a mindscape, a physical representation of our mind. It allows us to enter and interact with aspects of our mind in ways that we ourselves should not be able to do. Strictly speaking, it should be at most the size of a medium-sized house, and the details of the inside should be extremely blurry."

Towards the end, I smiled nervously because I really did not understand why the area was larger than I expected.

Behind me, I heard a scoff, at which I turned to look. A white-haired boy in casual clothes was looking at me arrogantly. "The reason is obviously that our minds are much larger than the average one. Your calculations apply to the human mind; we are more than that."

I thought about it and nodded in agreement. That makes sense, and I can imagine how that would affect this area.

"And there you go again about how we are greater than humans again. You sound like some edgy kid going through puberty," said a gruff man, laughing. The boy frowned at his words, but decided not to retort.

"Well, let us talk about actual important issues." The mature woman said, "For example, about our plans."

"Thanks to the High Priest, we have been able to gather a considerable amount of knowledge about this world," the woman continued, "as well as about the nature of powers in general. Fortunately, thanks to the way our power works, we needn't be worried about having much influence, since we and the 'Passenger' have basically become one."

I shook my head. "If anything, the influence would be even greater because we have become one. The shards are parts of the Entities; they carry their will. It's possible that by fusing with the 'Passenger', we caused their will to be inherited by us."

Everyone then fell silent and slowly digested this information.

"God damn it!" the gruff man cursed, and I could see the agreement from the rest.

The red-haired boy shook his head. "It does not matter; our heads are too messed up to do anything about it anyway, so let us just focus on what we can do."

The young woman in gym clothes sighed and nodded, saying, "That's probably for the best. Honestly, I think we should focus on improving our environment. We should pretend to help others do a good PR stunt while, in reality, creating defences in case we need them. What do you guys think?"

Some thought about her idea, but some immediately rejected it. They thought it was a waste of time. This sparked a brief argument.

I sighed as I watched them argue. This will be problematic in the long run.

"While that's a good idea, I am actually more interested in collecting [Data]," said another person, an old man in a wheelchair. His gaze was focused as he continued, "[Data] gives us a more permanent improvement in comparison to our powers."

"And where can we get this [Data]?" Said the gruff man mockingly.

The old man frowned and replied, "From more parahumans, of course. Improving the environment may be a good PR stunt, but if we do the opposite, we may encourage new triggers."

Some at least made the effort to look scandalous next to those who actually are, but the rest thoroughly considered the old man's idea. Judging by their faces, they seemed interested in the idea.

A sudden "No" was heard. We turned and looked around.

A teenager with yellow-blond spiky hair and blue eyes and was wearing an orange and blue jacket with a white collar. He frowned and clenched his fist.

"You are basically going to torture people to make them trigger? Even disregarding the moral implications, you want to give us a kill order!?" The blond teen shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "People are obviously afraid of us; maybe Cauldron too, so if we do that, it will justify their actions."

At the memory of Cauldron, the onlookers' reactions varied between [disgust] and [angry] [annoyance].

The old man clenched his fist. "Alright, let us do the PR thing."

I smiled and said, "It's best to start now."