He said, "Time is up, and you should be going, too."
"What?"
"Do not be afraid. You are not alone."
"Who on earth are you..."
Before he could finish speaking, his consciousness suddenly blurred, and his thoughts gradually calmed.
It was as if he had entered another world; his body and soul no longer felt like his own.
He said, "I leave him in your care."
Alas, no one could hear.
"..."
......
I do not know how long had passed, but when consciousness finally returned, his head was only buzzing, accompanied by the din of chaos and the sound of collapsing buildings.
"Tch, so noisy." The young man covered his head with a hand and slowly opened his eyes.
"Is this a demolition site? Why is it so loud?"
Right in his line of sight, a tall building came crashing down with a deafening boom. "They really are demolishing buildings, huh."
The young man said with half-closed eyes. Perhaps because he had just woken up and his brain was still groggy, he did not realize anything was wrong.
Until... "?", his consciousness fully returned. "I don't know whether I should be wondering why I'm outdoors, or shocked out of my mind wondering if I've stumbled onto the wrong set."
Accompanied by the collapse of yet another building, the young man stared blankly into the distance. "That is seriously a monster! Are you kidding me?! (?○Д○)?!"
Before his brain could even react, his body had already started sprinting toward safety. "Bad luck! Bad luck!! Bad luck!!!"
The first piece of bad luck, naturally, was seeing a monster the moment he woke up. They really didn't give him... any preparation at all~
The second piece of bad luck—well, to his embarrassment, it was probably because he woke up a bit late, and the surrounding crowds had already dispersed. Standing right in the middle of the street, he stuck out like a sore thumb.
Me: "⊙▽⊙!"
Monster: "~(￣▽￣~)~"
"Don't you come any closer!!!" The young man's voice rang out, slightly breaking down.
And then came this belated third piece of bad luck. "Crap, there's no way out." Perhaps he had run too anxiously and hadn't noticed that the path ahead was already a wasteland.
Just as he was about to change direction and keep bolting, the monster seemed to have grown impatient, no longer wanting to play this game of "you run, I chase." Thus, accompanied by a resounding "Zetton—", here comes a super-sized fireball just for you~
That is right, this was a Zetton. A Zetton that played dirty.
"You're playing foul!!" Watching the fireball draw closer and closer, just as the young man was lamenting that his life was about to be rebooted, a flash of light cut through the air, and a red-and-blue figure stood in front of him.
Along with him came that familiar line: "You're two hundred thousand years too early to go around causing trouble in front of Yours Truly!"
"Seriously?" That was his first thought.
"This is way too cool!" That was his second.
Although he had guessed it when he saw the monster, this—this was an Ultra Warrior, a living Ultra Warrior!
To say he wasn't excited would be a lie, especially since this particular one was none other than the number-one prodigy of the Land of Light's younger generation—Zero.
"It's Sai the Rabbit! So cool!" Watching Zero about to finish off the opponent in just a couple of moves, the young man finally relaxed a bit. He hid behind a street corner and felt bold enough to tease Master Zero just a little.
"? What? A rabbit?!" Zero, who was just about to charge forward and deliver the final blow to this troublemaker, almost tripped over his own feet upon hearing those words.
"Ah, are you blushing?"
"What? No, wait?! Don't... don't talk nonsense!!"
With a single ultimate attack that shattered the barrier and obliterated the Zetton, Zero finally spun around, intending to have a proper argument with this guy who kept handing out weird nicknames.
The young man looked to be around eighteen or nineteen, with slightly long black hair casually draped over his shoulders, looking a bit disheveled from the earlier escape.
His white shirt was also stained with dust. He should have looked rather wretched, but his glowing eyes made it easy to overlook.
Before Zero could even speak, he heard the young man say, "Thanks for saving me, huh? That fight just now was really cool~"
Perhaps startled by the young man's bluntness, Zero awkwardly averted his gaze and muttered, "Y-you're welcome."
"Click." Someone named Gai hid his merits and fame.
It wasn't until the "Ding-dong, ding-dong" warning sound rang out that Zero remembered he was still in that form within the city. Stunned into a freeze for more than ten seconds, he finally snapped back to reality and hurriedly flew away.
"How tsundere and cute~" the young man sighed. But the real problem now was: where was he supposed to live?
......
Turning this corner and that, the young man finally found the main crowd and, under the government's arrangement, walked into a shelter.
Although the battle came and went quickly, a small portion of the buildings had still been affected. Fortunately, the place where he had been standing happened to be near a park, and no surveillance cameras had caught him.
It was the greatest of misfortunes to be lucky, one could only say; otherwise, he would have had a really hard time explaining to people how he had appeared out of thin air.
That's right. Sitting down in a corner, the young man finally had some time to review the events of today.
First, he could be certain that this was not his original world. Why? Just intuition, really. After all, both monsters and Ultramen had appeared; it was only natural that he wasn't in his original world.
Second, it seemed this wasn't an Ultra world he was familiar with, either. Based on preliminary understanding, the defense team of this Earth wasn't one he recognized; it was called the Earth Alien Response Organization, or EARO for short.
And besides Zero whom he had seen this morning, there were at least two other Ultramen here.
Orb, the vagabond of the universe, and the "earphone baby" X. Oh? You ask how he knew? It was playing right on the screen beside him; he wasn't blind, he could see.
Though he didn't know how he had gotten here, since he had already arrived, there was no way he could just go back (actually, because he didn't know how to go back either (?ò?ó?)).
"Hah—" The young man let out a sigh. "An Ultra world... Man, this is exciting enough."
At that moment, an electronic chime sounded in the young man's mind. "Ding—Host detected, initiating binding... Binding successful."
"Huh? Could this be the legendary... system?" The young man was somewhat surprised. Was a system really a standard feature for transmigrators??
"That's right, Host. This System's full name is the 'Emotion Collection System'. As long as you collect emotional value from characters and complete certain tasks, you can exchange them for whatever you want in the mall. The task rewards are generous and guaranteed to satisfy you~"
A small, glowing orb-like creature said inside his mind.
"Is that so? Sounds pretty good. Oh, by the way, may I ask what your name is?"
"Hello, Host. You can just call me 'Xiaoyou'." The glowing orb said.
The young man chuckled softly. "Hello, Xiaoyou. My name is Ling Luo. Please take good care of me from now on~"