Chapter 233: The Last Team
Ryū's recollection of the Star Hero world placed it as a fairly high-tier setting in terms of raw stated power — one villain reportedly claimed he could level the surface of an entire planet. Add in the future-setting tech, and the numbers got even bigger on paper.
But that was technology talking. If actual human bodies in that world could shatter planets through sheer physical output, the fight scenes wouldn't have looked the way they did. The animated combat he remembered was considerably less destructive than what his own fist produced against open ground. Without leaning on tech or external power sources, his impression of the Star Hero world's baseline combat tier was: not actually that high. Roughly comparable to One Piece, maybe — and which one would come out ahead was really a question for whichever author wanted to write the crossover fight scene. Whoever's writer won that exchange determined which series had the stronger physical combat baseline on paper.
And this was an unfinished, defunded old domestic series with vague worldbuilding to begin with. Pinning down anything precise was a losing exercise.
Still — surviving the epicentre of a blast that levelled most of a street, walking away merely critically injured rather than dead — that puts a twelve-year-old at roughly Marine Vice Admiral tier, by Haki-world comparison.
Genuinely impressive for the age. Protagonist-grade, clearly. Most twelve-year-olds anywhere else would still be on basic conditioning drills.
Ryū looked at the boy with an expression carrying no hostility — warm, if anything.
"Want me to patch you up? You're hurt badly. Internal damage too, by the look of it."
He said this aloud to Maidang, while simultaneously tagging Yukari in the Chat Group. He couldn't heal anyone himself — that ability hadn't unlocked yet, if it ever would through his current build — but Yukari's inventory of talismans almost certainly had something usable.
Eternally Seventeen: A healing talisman? Let me check — I've got plenty stockpiled that I've never used, sitting in my gap somewhere.
Eternally Seventeen: Found one. Based on the injury description, a single one should cover it.
Eternally Seventeen: Using more would be wasteful. Though since the Admin has no magical energy of his own, give me a few seconds to adjust the formula… there. Oral administration should work fine.
RawrSoFierce: …Should work? You're not about to accidentally finish him off, are you?
RawrSoFierce: Pfft — imagine the new member dying from the cure. That would be a new genre of failure.
Eternally Seventeen: Ahh, I'm not a licensed physician, you understand.
RawrSoFierce: Fine, I'll try it. Tasks 1 and 2 aren't done yet, so I can't pull him into the group properly — if I could, a few hundred Points toward constitution would heal him as a side effect. Unfortunate timing.
Eternally Seventeen: Trust me, it'll be fine~
[Moderator "Eternally Seventeen" has sent a targeted red packet, claimable only by Admin "RawrSoFierce"!]
[The red packet has been claimed. Admin "RawrSoFierce" is the Lucky Champion!]
He pocketed the talisman without his expression changing.
He looked at the boy. "You seem a little wary. Don't worry — I'm not your enemy. If anything, after today, we might end up colleagues. Friends, even."
Maidang swayed and caught himself against a broken wall before he could fall. He wiped the blood and grit from his mouth and studied the stranger standing ten metres away with an expression mixing genuine gratitude with a thread of caution.
He was alive because of this person. That was undeniable, and the gratitude that came with it was real. But the timing of the rescue, the complete unfamiliarity of the man — something nagged at him about how convenient this all felt.
He held the silence for a few seconds before answering. "Thank you. For coming to save me — whatever else is going on, you're my saviour. I'll find a way to repay this."
His personality, and his age, made it hard to maintain the suspicion for long. Saviour was a category that overrode most other considerations in his worldview.
"No need to thank me." Ryū tossed the talisman over. "Your injuries get fatal in another ten minutes or so if left untreated, and at that point even I might not be able to help. Eat this. It shouldn't kill you, and it'll fix the damage."
Maidang caught it on reflex, the motion pulling at his injuries hard enough to make him wince.
He looked at the palm-sized talisman with open confusion. Is this... edible?
He didn't know Ryū. His guard had dropped specifically because of the rescue — in his framework, suspicion toward someone who'd just saved your life wasn't a workable position. But this strange paper card — was he really supposed to eat it?
The pain made extended deliberation impossible anyway, and even with time to think, he had no frame of reference that would make sense of a talisman. Gensokyo's spell cards weren't a concept this world had any vocabulary for — much the same way Kakashi and the rest of Konoha had no framework for understanding how Ryū's Shave technically worked.
In the end he trusted the man who'd saved him, stuffed the talisman into his mouth, and chewed. The texture was something like soft gel. He swallowed in a hurry, nearly choking on the speed of it.
Ryū watched closely, monitoring for any sign that this new member was about to die from the cure rather than the original injury.
The bleeding slowed. Visibly, within seconds.
"Looks like it's actually working. Bleeding's under control — not sure about the bone fractures yet, but Yukari said it would handle that too, so I'll trust it."
He opened the Chat Group again.
RawrSoFierce: @Eternally Seventeen — looks like it's taking effect. Was that uncertain tone earlier just for show? You wouldn't have handed over something with that much risk without being completely sure.
Eternally Seventeen: Just having a little fun with the Admin. Didn't expect to get caught that fast.
Eternally Seventeen: As expected of the Admin. Impressive!
RawrSoFierce: …Pfft, I knew it. You wouldn't have produced something potentially fatal without absolute confidence behind it.
Kaguya-sama: A scheming Yukari-nee running into a perceptive Admin!
Kaguya-sama: Following the direction the Admin gave, I've covered thirty or forty kilometres and located the remaining team precisely. Only two of them. Killing one, keeping one alive for questioning.
WolfKingOfQingQingGrasslands: Sacred Ground getting fleeced by the Chat Group, business as usual.
My True Form Is Cola: "Fleeced" is genuinely the perfect word lol
My True Form Is Cola: Watching everyone tackle group quests is motivating me to train harder. Can't fall behind — I want a shot at quest participation eventually too.
Eternally Seventeen: That's my disciple for you — proper ambition!
"…"
The topic had drifted within a minute, as it always did. Ryū had stopped being surprised by this a long time ago.
Kaguya had the last team's exact location. At her current level, the odds of her mishandling it were close to zero. With any luck, all three tasks could close out today.
And the new member's condition kept improving by the moment. Yukari had genuinely delivered. Worth sending her a Points red packet privately later — without that talisman, this new arrival might not have lasted past the ten-minute mark, possibly far less. A dead new member meant every reward attached to the quest evaporated.
Ryū walked over to the boy, found a section of broken wall, and cut it cleanly with a single gesture — the surface left smooth enough to function as a bench. He sat down.
"You probably have questions. Go ahead and ask — anything reasonable, I'll answer. You're going to be one of us soon enough anyway."
He registered, faintly, that the line had a quality to it that wouldn't have sounded out of place coming from a villain in a film. He dismissed the thought immediately. Obviously not applicable to him.
Maidang looked up and met his eyes. After a moment's hesitation, he asked the question sitting at the top of his mind.
"Why did you save me? We've never met before, have we?"
"Because you're about to be one of us. I'm sort of the leader of the group. Saving you was just part of the job."
Maidang blinked at the word us. When had he become part of any us?
"What... was that thing I just ate?"
"A talisman. I think that's the right word for it. Healing item."
"…"
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