The next day.
Morning.
Soft sunlight poured into the Kent family kitchen.
Lois, the lady of the house, had gotten up early. Filled with love for her family, she was preparing to make a hearty breakfast for her three children. Humming a cheerful tune, she walked into the kitchen and opened the cupboard doors. The star reporter had expected to see shelves full of ingredients, but the sight before her made the smile on her face freeze instantly.
There was nothing inside.
The cupboards were so clean that it was downright absurd.
Not even a single crumb could be found from the cereal boxes or the cookie tins. Lois rubbed her eyes to make sure she was really awake, then rushed toward the refrigerator.
The milk, frozen pizza, eggs, frozen chicken nuggets... all gone. The only things left were a few boxes of her facial masks, and even those had already been opened, as if someone had checked whether there was food inside.
"What is going on?"
Lois sucked in a sharp breath, a bad feeling rising in her chest. Her first thought was that the house had been robbed, so she quickly checked over the family's valuables. Fortunately, nothing expensive had been taken. Unfortunately, there was no longer a single thing in the house that could reasonably be called food.
She checked the doors and windows too. There were no signs of forced entry anywhere.
"Clark!" Lois stood in the middle of the living room, frowning deeply. She simply could not understand how a thief could steal only food while leaving everything else untouched.
At that moment,
Clark came downstairs yawning after hearing her call.
"You didn't hear anything strange last night?" Lois looked at her super-powered husband. A man who could hear cries for help from all over the city should not have stayed indifferent if their own home had been burglarized.
"Maybe it was a mouse."
Clark glanced at the kitchen and immediately understood why Lois was asking. His expression turned a little strange, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he still chose to make up an absurd excuse.
"A mouse?"
Lois almost laughed from sheer disbelief.
"It's fine. Leave it to me." Clark vanished from the spot in an instant. From Lois's perspective, he had only been gone for a few seconds before he reappeared carrying a huge pile of ingredients back into the house.
"Hm?"
Lois looked at her husband suspiciously. She was beginning to suspect that Clark had gotten hit by one of his random eating frenzies last night and devoured everything in the house, because otherwise there was simply no explaining the mysterious disappearance of all the food.
She wanted to question him.
But because of her shout earlier, Jonathan and Jordan were already coming downstairs, having finished getting ready. Neither she nor Clark intended to let the children know his identity that quickly.
"I'll settle this with you tonight!"
Lois shot Clark a look, then turned and went back into the kitchen to start frying eggs.
"Morning, Dad. Morning, Mom."
Jonathan walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of milk that had perhaps been blessed by Superman's freezing breath after Clark had restocked it.
Jordan, meanwhile, sat silently at the table waiting for breakfast.
"Jordan, go wake Ian up."
Lois spoke without even looking up, busy working at the stove.
Ian's older brother Jordan still seemed half-asleep, propping his face up with one hand, his eyes blurry with drowsiness.
"I heard him leave really early this morning."
At that, Lois frowned.
"Didn't we tell him to stay home and rest for a few days?"
Her voice carried obvious concern. Beside her, Clark was helping serve, carrying plate after plate of fried eggs and toast over to the two boys.
"You can't keep a bookworm locked up. He likes studying too much." Jordan shrugged, a faint trace of admiration in his tone. He genuinely did admire his little brother a bit. After looking as wrecked as he did last night from launching so many "missiles," Ian had still managed to get up early and go to school.
No wonder the guy had good grades.
"I'll talk to Ian tonight," Jonathan said, stepping up to his role as the older brother. As he spoke, he poured milk and coffee together into his protein powder and mixed it all up.
As a football player,
this was a standard breakfast.
The flesh was weak.
Only science and chemical assistance could help him fight his way through the brutal battlefield of the football field.
...
Metropolis Public Middle School.
Sunlight streamed through the windows onto the desks, forming bright patches of light. There were not many people in the classroom yet, and Ian was resting his chin on one hand, staring at the system panel that only he could see.
[Extraordinary Class: Berserker Lv.1 (6/10)]
All he could say was that this leveling speed had definitely failed to meet his expectations.
There was no helping it. He had failed to exploit a bug in the system and turn himself into a perpetual leveling machine.
"Even though I don't have a mana bar, my skills obviously still can't be used infinitely."
Ian sighed faintly, carrying the melancholy of someone who had suddenly aged to eighteen in a single breath.
"First, I need to strengthen my body," Ian calculated silently to himself. "My body is already a lot stronger than before, but only a tougher physique can handle more brutal training methods. That'll let my extraordinary class level up faster, so when my rebellious phase arrives, I can finally pound my old man a couple times."
Ambitious at heart, Ian was busy mapping out his teenage growth plan.
Just as he was calculating, a thick cloud of perfume drew closer. Without even turning his head, he knew his deskmate had arrived.
"Well, if it isn't Ian, who skipped a whole day of school. Where'd you go to have fun yesterday?" Madison Montgomery dropped into the seat beside him, her long blond hair tracing a dazzling arc in the air.
"Metropolis."
Ian did not turn his head. He gave a dry answer.
"What's so fun about Metropolis that even a study freak like you would miss Monday classes for it?" Madison curled her lip and rolled her eyes dramatically.
She was wearing a carefully done makeup look today. Her mascara had been applied so neatly that every lash stood out, her lips were painted a vivid rose-red, and she had deliberately left two extra buttons undone on her school shirt.
That exposed the necklace underneath, something clearly in the range of minor luxury spending.
"I went to Hollywood on Saturday and Sunday. I didn't run into some talent scout with a good eye, but outside a bar called the Lux, I did meet a guy even hotter than you." Madison was the kind of girl who loved sharing things. Most of the time, though, her urge to share existed mainly to satisfy her own vanity.
"Still, hot or not, that guy wasn't my type. Especially since he refused to let me into his bar just because I'm underage. That was seriously annoying."
"To use your words, he was a total turn-off. Come on, looking like this, who would think I'm only fourteen? I've already gotten into bars in Metropolis twice!"
And there it was.
The bragging, late but never absent.
Ian had no real interest in bars, but Madison's words still caught his attention. The boy turned to stare at his deskmate, his eyes filled with surprise.
"I have to say, little delinquent, you've got guts."
Ian offered the praise sincerely. He even set down his book and gave his brave deskmate a thumbs-up.
Madison froze for a moment.
"Obviously!"
Then she replied smugly.
Clearly, the blond girl thought Ian was talking about her daring to go to bars.
But in reality, what had actually made Ian's heart shudder was hearing the name "Lux."
If Ian remembered correctly, the person living there was one of the very few beings on Earth that his old man could not beat.
At least under normal circumstances.
(End of Chapter)
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