93: Chapter 93 The Confident Hedgehog

Inside the shop, everyone turned their heads in unison at the sound of the noise.

The Korean youth from earlier was staring at his own face in horror.

His cheeks, forehead, and chin were sprouting dense spikes at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Each spike was about two centimeters long, a healthy, oily black color that reflected a waxy luster under the lights; the tips were so sharp they could be used as needles.

The young man tremblingly raised his hand and touched a spike on his face with his finger.

"Hiss!"

A red dot instantly appeared on his finger.

"I've awakened a Special Ability? I've awakened a Special Ability!" The young man jumped up and down in excitement.

"Pfft."

It was unclear who couldn't hold it in first.

Immediately after, laughter spread through the crowd like a plague.

"Hahahaha, holy crap! Hedgehog Man!"

"What kind of Special Ability is this? What's it for? Scratching your own itches?"

"What do you know? He'll have his own skewers for barbecue from now on."

Kara watched all this with a smile. Since it was the first day of business, she had mixed in three genuine products specifically so Espers would manifest their powers in person to serve as promotion.

Barnes stared at the hedgehog youth with uncertainty. If the previous Espers could be explained by the placebo effect...

...then this young man was definitely a genuine Esper. After all, what normal person grows spikes on their face!

This immediately extinguished his desire to argue with Kara. Instead, he turned to the hedgehog youth, pointed out the door, and said rudely, "You, go outside for a physical examination immediately."

The spikes on the youth's face instantly retracted beneath his skin, leaving no trace behind, as if the scene just now had been a total hallucination.

He tilted his chin up and said with supreme confidence, "No!"

Barnes was stunned. In all his years in the military, this was the first time someone had responded to his command with that word.

"What did you say? I didn't hear you clearly?"

He pointed to his ear. Though his voice sounded normal, the veterans behind him had already begun to quietly step back. They knew this gesture all too well; it was the second of lowest pressure before a storm arrived.

The hedgehog youth turned his entire face to look him straight in the eye. "Why should I follow your orders? You're just a weak ordinary person."

Shhh.

The entire shop went silent as if someone had pressed the mute button. Everyone stared at the hedgehog youth in shock. One moment he was an ordinary person, the next he became an Esper and started looking down on ordinary people—that was a fast change of face!

Even Karl behind the counter was facepalming.

Even we, as B-rank Espers, haven't said such things. You, an F-rank little biscuit, where do you get the nerve?

The Black soldier behind Barnes already had his hand on his holster, his thumb flicking open the strap. The crisp "click" was exceptionally piercing in the silence.

Barnes, however, raised a hand to stop him.

Then, he unbuttoned his military uniform, folded it neatly to hand to a nearby soldier, and rolled his shoulders.

The muscle lines sculpted by years of military training were faintly visible under his T-shirt, and the old scar on the side of his neck from a shrapnel wound turned slightly red, like an awakened centipede.

He lowered his center of gravity, arms slightly spread, assuming a standard combat starting stance.

"Come on, kid."

He beckoned with his finger. "If you can beat me, you can leave without the physical exam."

The hedgehog youth's spikes instantly popped out. He grinned, revealing a smile so confident it could blind someone. "Do you?"

Barnes stared intently at him, his brain working at high speed.

He scanned the hedgehog youth from head to toe, then from toe to head.

Judging by his stance, the man's center of gravity was too high, and his feet were too close together.

Anyone who had endured even a single day of military training wouldn't stand like that.

Furthermore, while his arms tried to form a blocking posture, the angle of his elbows was too wide, leaving his armpits wide open.

Forget grappling; a simple push would knock him over. It seemed this youth had never received any military training.

However, that confident look in his eyes made Barnes swallow hard. This was his first time fighting an Esper; he was even anticipating that the spikes on the opponent's face might shoot out to attack him.

Meanwhile, standing behind the counter, Kara's body had been trembling slightly since the moment the hedgehog youth said "No."

She was all too familiar with that look of confidence.

In the royal palace of Planet Wuhu, A-Zu had that exact expression every time he received the worship of his subjects.

It was the expression of someone invincible in the world, someone who had never known defeat.

"Karl," she lowered her voice, "don't you think he looks a lot like someone?"

"I know." Karl's voice was also unsteady. "You mean that C-rank 'Overeating' Esper from thirty years ago?"

"Exactly!" Kara nodded. "Back then, he accidentally grew two new arms, then declared himself the 'Four-Armed Heavenly God' and demanded the Empire surrender to him."

"Heh! In the end, that guy was slapped to death by the S-rank Old King. Do you think the Special Ability he awakened wasn't actually 'Overeating,' but 'Confidence'?" Karl said with a serious face.

Before their conversation could finish, the situation in the room changed abruptly.

The hedgehog youth charged first. He leaned forward, all the spikes on his face compressing forward simultaneously; it looked like he intended to ram his entire face into Barnes's chest.

Barnes's muscle memory, trained over years on the battlefield, reacted instinctively. He performed the most basic 'step-back front kick' of combat arts, landing his foot precisely in the center of the hedgehog youth's chest.

Bang!

The hedgehog youth felt like he'd been hit in the waist by a truck. He flew backward in a parabola, limbs flailing helplessly in the air. Due to inertia, the spikes on his face all bent in one direction, making him look like a toothbrush that had been run over by a steamroller.

Thud.

He hit the wall and slid to the ground like a pile of mud, white foam beginning to bubble from his mouth.

"I was careless... didn't dodge..." He muttered his last words, his head lolled to the side, and he stopped moving.

The surrounding crowd instantly erupted.

"Holy crap!"

"That's it? That's it? I thought he was some big shot!"

"With that momentum just now, I thought his face could pierce through a tank!"

"He couldn't even take one kick? And he was looking down on humans?"

The Wall Street intern was the fastest to whip out his phone, snapping a photo of the foaming hedgehog youth. He already had the headline ready: 'SHOCKING! Esper looks down on humans, gets kicked down by a human! Watch now!'

Two old ladies poked their heads in to look at the hedgehog youth lying on the ground, clicking their tongues in unison.

"This kid, he bragged way too much."

"Young people nowadays, they drink a bit of alien soda and don't know the height of the heavens or the depth of the earth."

"Isn't that the truth? My old man used to say he could punch a bear to death, but ended up with a face full of scratches from a cat. People really need to know their own limits."

"Those spikes on his face looked quite nice, they just weren't very useful."

Barnes was also dazed. Facing an Esper for the first time, he had subconsciously struck with full force. He hadn't just kicked him to death, had he?

If he killed such a precious Special Ability specimen, he knew even with his eyes closed that the President and those politicians would make him pay until he was bankrupt.

So, Barnes walked over cautiously, praying the boy wasn't dead!