[Karura's Blessing
Elite Ability
Karura's Blessing is an autonomous sand shield that protects from danger automatically and does not consume mana.]
'Not bad. Even though it's somewhat weak, it has synergy with both Earthbending and Building' Yuuji thought. 'Thanks to this, the shield can not only take on different shapes that are more optimal or efficient depending on the threat, but it's also much more powerful when made of earth instead of sand.'
Thinking about that, Yuuji remembered that in Avatar, the most talented earthbenders could eventually even control metal and, although Yuuji himself did not consider himself a genius before, with the multiple abilities he had already surpassed the level of a mere genius.
'I'll try it later.'
After that, Yuuji moved on to the next reward.
[No Friction
Uncommon Ability
Allows you to eliminate the friction of the target you are touching.]
'What a shame. Even though the ability itself doesn't say it, I can feel that it has a limit' Yuuji thought with some disappointment.
If it had no limits, no matter how strong someone was, having all the friction around them disappear would be a huge obstacle that would make it easier for Yuuji to face them.
But well, in the end it was just a reward from a gold ticket obtained for "helping" stop an underground invasion.
As for Karura's Blessing, it came from a platinum ticket obtained from being with Lala earlier.
After finishing checking both rewards, Yuuji stopped paying attention to the system. At some point it had almost completely stopped talking unless necessary and Yuuji truly did not care.
Instead, he looked at the girl beside him, who had a somewhat nervous expression.
"Are you okay?"
"Y-yes. Perfectly fine" Lala replied unconvincingly.
"Yeah, you're definitely not." Yuuji sighed. "You don't have to worry so much about yesterday, you know? Didn't everything turn out fine in the end?"
"But!" Lala immediately exclaimed before lowering her voice. "What if I hurt someone because I got angry? In the end, I still think being happy is the best."
"It's fine, you can smile. It's just... you don't have to do it all the time."
"I'm not sure I understand." Lala tilted her head in confusion.
"You'll understand with time" Yuuji said.
Oppressed feelings are like water trapped behind a dam with a crack, once the dam cracks, it's impossible to contain them again.
'Or something like that was the phrase? The point is that now that she got angry once, she'll do it again. In the end she'll also learn how to control her anger and all her other negative emotions without hiding them and she'll stop being happy when she doesn't need to be.' Thinking that, Yuuji smiled in satisfaction. 'Wow, in the end, it looks like I don't have to do anything?.'
"Yuuji, why are you suddenly smiling so smugly?" Lala asked when she saw him like that.
"It doesn't matter."
"Eh? I wanna knooow." Lala acted spoiled while hanging onto him as she asked.
"It's nothing."
"Tell me, tell me, tell me... Waaaah!"
Faced with Lala's persistence, Yuuji activated 'No Friction' and pushed her on the back with one hand. Lala moved as if she were skating without being able to stop for several meters before reaching a curve.
Before she crashed, Yuuji caught her with the Third Arm Sash and pulled her back toward him.
"Yuuji?! Don't use your powers to mess with me!" she complained, although the smile on her face made it obvious she had enjoyed it and was only joking.
While they kept chatting, Yuuji and Lala arrived at class, which started shortly afterward once all the students had arrived.
The day passed with the normality Yuuji had already gotten used to, boring classes in the morning, lunch, and then boring classes in the afternoon too.
If his parents had not scolded him yesterday, Yuuji would have wanted to skip even more than he already did.
Finally, class came to an end and Yuuji was preparing to leave when something happened.
[Master Yuuji you have a message from Mikado-sensei, she says to go see her before leaving school.]
"Oh, Yuuji, looks like you did something bad and you're about to get lectured hehe."
"She's a nurse, she can't do that" Yuuji replied.
"Alright then, let's go see if that's true" Risa smiled.
"No, why are you coming too?"
"It's fine, right? I want to see what this is about. Besides, I have nothing to do after school."
"Don't you have any clubs?"
"Yuuji, almost nobody here attends any clubs, you should pay more attention to your friends" Risa said with fake disappointment.
"Fine, let's go" Yuuji gave in in the end.
"Alright, group, let's go!" Risa said while raising a fist.
'Group?' Yuuji thought, but it was already too late.
...
"I asked you to come, why did you bring your entire friend group?"
Seeing eight people suddenly walk into the infirmary, Mikado raised an eyebrow before questioning Yuuji.
"No idea." He shrugged.
"We came to see what this was about" Risa and Mío said at the same time.
Immediately afterward, Risa wrapped an arm around Haruna and pulled her forward. "And we brought her too" she said with a smile.
"I-I... was worried, so I came" Rito said while his embarrassed gaze occasionally wandered toward Haruna.
No one was surprised, even Mikado, who barely knew them, realized it. The only confused one was Haruna when she saw everyone looking at her for some reason.
"And I followed Rito!" Run raised a hand as if announcing her presence.
"I just wanted to see what everyone was doing here" Yui said in her usual serious tone. But while saying that she looked around curiously, especially at the strange beings inside the overly large infirmary she had never noticed before.
"And I'm with Yuuji!" Lala said last while hugging Yuuji from behind.
"No, it's fine for you to come. This matter concerns you too" Mikado said, surprising the group before briefly shifting her gaze over each of them. "As for the rest... I really don't care, just don't break anything."
"Alright!" they all replied in unison, earning a strange look from Mikado.
When she looked at Yuuji for an explanation, he simply shrugged. "Don't ask me, they're just this weird."
"I guess birds of a feather flock together" Mikado sighed. "Alright, let's talk about why I called you here.
As you can see, the infirmary is a little crowded right now."
Yuuji nodded as he looked at how the dozens of curtained beds in the infirmary were filled with clearly non human beings.
"The truth is that lately tourism on Earth has increased quite a bit. Alien species arrive every day wanting to see the planet. The problem is that Earth does not have any kind of lodging facilities for them, so those without camouflage powers end up staying here" Mikado explained.
"Isn't that your job as the Extraplanetary Liaison Officer? Why are you telling me this?"
"Tsk, so you know my official title? Were you investigating with your parents?" Mikado complained after hearing the pompous title she worked under before continuing.
"The problem is that there shouldn't be this many. In reality, the interplanetary visitors we normally receive are so few that there isn't even a specific agency for it, it's just me handling all of Japan" she explained. "However, for almost three months now this has increased so much that the infirmary can't keep up anymore."
"But shouldn't you ask my parents for help, hire more people like you, or just create an official agency? Why ask me for help?" Yuuji asked.
But when he saw the smile Mikado gave him before replying, Yuuji knew trouble was coming.
"I already talked to your parents. They said there's no need to hire more liaisons since most aliens end up leaving after a few days. That's how boring Earth is for them. The best solution would be to create a place where they can stay for a few days and in large groups, some kind of alien hotel.
And from now on, this is your job, since it's your responsibility in the first place."
"Ours?" Lala asked, knowing they meant both her and Yuuji.
"Yes." Mikado nodded while looking at the pink haired alien princess. "More and more extraterrestrials are coming but they end up leaving after a few days. That means they are not really coming because of Earth itself but simply because of influence. And since nobody out there is telling them to come to Earth, the only explanation is that they are following a trend or something similar.
What alien currently on Earth is popular enough that many would want to imitate her even without researching the planet first?"
Even though Mikado asked the question, it was obvious she had no doubts about the answer.
The same went for Lala and Yuuji.
"Hehe, sorry" Lala laughed proudly.
"Just fix it" Mikado said irritably. "And take your curious friends with you."
'Curious friends?'
When he turned around in confusion, he discovered that out of the eight people originally there, only Lala was still beside him listening to the explanation.
The rest had already scattered around the room observing the different aliens lying on the infirmary beds and using them like hotel rooms.
______________________________________
+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)