Chapter 34: Two Newcomers
RawrSoFierce: When dealing with this psycho criminal—once you manage to capture his Stand, kill it immediately. When a Stand dies, the user dies with it.
RawrSoFierce: Of course, how you choose to handle it is ultimately your call.
RawrSoFierce: Kill Angelo's Stand, and your grandfather is safe.
Crazy Diamond: Kill the Stand, huh… Hah. Thanks, Admin-dono. I'll think it over carefully. The guy's an irredeemable psycho, no question. But when it comes to actually killing someone… there's still something in me that resists.
Edward Newgate: Little Josuke, you've never killed anyone before?!
Crazy Diamond: Old man, I'm a high school student. How would I have killed anyone…
RawrSoFierce: Just watch yourself. Don't trip at the finish line.
After giving Josuke a few reminders, Ryū pulled his consciousness out of the Dimensional Chat Group.
Josuke was a member of the group, after all.
And as the Admin of the Dimensional Chat Group, giving a heads-up about potential danger was a basic responsibility.
At least, that's how Ryū saw it.
He tilted his head back and peered through the sparse leaves overhead, gauging the sky.
"Should be close to three or four in the afternoon by now."
Between testing Soru and Tekkai in this grove and then idling in the chat group for a while, a surprising amount of time had slipped away. It was getting late.
Geppo practice could wait until tomorrow.
A civilian wandering into a secluded area like this during the day was already suspicious enough.
If he was still here after dark, it would only invite more questions—
Like whether he was up to something shady.
Fortunately, the recent war had left ANBU shorthanded.
They couldn't cover all of Konoha right now.
Otherwise, Ryū wouldn't have dared test Soru and Tekkai out in the open at all.
Tekkai was fine—it just looked like standing there like a mannequin. Nothing visibly abnormal.
Soru, on the other hand, was far more conspicuous. Cracking the ground every time he activated it. Vanishing and reappearing ten, twenty—sometimes dozens of meters away in an instant.
Anyone who wasn't an idiot could tell that was not normal.
"I need to master Geppo before ANBU gets back to full strength and starts monitoring the whole village again. That'll give me half the Six Powers down. The other three, I'll have to spend Points on."
Sure, self-training only saved 200 Points. But 200 Points was 200 Points.
A certain Yōkai Sage's entire balance was only around 50.
By comparison, 200 was genuinely precious.
* * *
Without lingering any longer in the secluded grove, Ryū headed straight home.
The first thing he did upon returning to his two-story house was head to the kitchen to start making dinner.
Ever since enhancing his constitution with Points, Ryū had noticed his appetite climbing in a near-vertical line. He was eating many times more than before. Back when he'd been an ordinary homebody—and not even a particularly large one—a single bowl of rice had been enough for a meal.
Now, a single bowl barely registered. It didn't even fill the gaps between his teeth.
At this rate, the sizable inheritance left behind by this body's original parents would be eaten through in two or three years.
While he was busy in the kitchen, two notification chimes rang through the Dimensional Chat Group in his mind—one right after the other.
He plugged in the rice cooker, then directed his awareness into the group.
Two alerts were waiting for him.
New members had joined.
Including Josuke, that made three new additions in the span of a single month.
And what caught Ryū completely off guard—
This time, two had arrived at once.
Getting even one new member was a rare event.
Two simultaneously? That was genuinely unexpected.
DING!
["Green Grasslands Wolf King" has joined the Dimensional Chat Group!]
DING!
["We, Ying Zheng" has joined the Dimensional Chat Group!]
The two usernames made Ryū blink.
Compared to Josuke's handle—Crazy Diamond—these two were almost laughably easy to identify.
The first: "Green Grasslands Wolf King." Green Grasslands plus Wolf King.
Any millennial or Gen-Z kid would peg this instantly.
That was obviously Wolffy.
Then again, the group already had a sentient planet. So a wolf whose only weakness was his inability to catch sheep—but who was otherwise a genius at literally everything else—wasn't all that shocking. Surprising, at most.
Come to think of it, the "non-human" contingent in the group was getting rather large.
Yukari, the Wandering Planet, and now Wolffy. Three non-humans.
Even with the two newcomers, total membership was still only eight.
Three out of eight were non-human.
"As for the second newcomer—he just typed his own name out, same as Whitebeard. Ying Zheng. If that's not a joke username, then this should be the First Emperor of China himself."
Ryū rubbed his smooth chin, thinking: "But which world's Ying Zheng? The young Ying Zheng from The Legend of Qin? The Fate version? Or straight-up the historical one?"
There were countless anime, novels, games, and historical accounts featuring Ying Zheng.
Which world this particular Ying Zheng hailed from was impossible to pin down in one guess.
Either way, new members joining the Dimensional Chat Group was a good thing.
It meant the group's scale could keep growing.
* * *
Green Grasslands Wolf King: What is this bizarre technology?! How dare it invade the great Wolf King's consciousness—and I can't even stop it!
Green Grasslands Wolf King: Since when does the Green Grasslands have a scientist this formidable?
Green Grasslands Wolf King: Could this be the work of that old goat?!
We, Ying Zheng: This is… What manner of thing is this? Why can I read these peculiar characters?
We, Ying Zheng: …Why do my thoughts appear here the moment I think them?
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: Ara ara~ Two newcomers at once! "Green Grasslands Wolf King"… "We, Ying Zheng"… Ying Zheng? That name rings a bell.
We, Ying Zheng: Hm? Insolence! You dare address Us by name?!
Kaguya-sama: "We"? "Us"? Could this be a Chinese emperor?!
☆☆☆
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