I’d Like to Change My Reincarnation Subscription, Please - Chapter 204

Lucas is standing a few steps within the seating area of the ground floor of the cafe, with Miss Masher in the process of cautiously climbing through the shattered window he had used as an entrance behind him.

The overdosed offender is breathing heavily while standing in place, his attention roughly in Lucas’s direction, but he is still glancing around with hazy unfocused eyes while trying to figure out where Jonathan has run off to.

Throughout his rampage so far, he has heavily damaged not just the area, but also his own attire. The shredded remnants of his shirt sway with every one of his ragged breaths, revealing peeks of exaggerated dehydrated looking muscles, soiled and sweaty, but completely uninjured.

Miss Chievous is still outside, looking in, but now that she noticed Jonathan dart outside, she promptly turns her attention over to him.

“Hey, are you okay? He didn’t manage to hurt you at all, right?” Miss Chievous lowered her voice so it doesn’t carry very far, crouching down close to Jonathan as he sits down on the sidewalk, slumped against the low wall beneath the large windows of the cafe while gasping for air even more desperately than the aggressive addict currently is.

“Y-yeah… I’m, haah, fine.” Jonathan’s voice is hushed enough that the searching stupefied strongman doesn’t hear him well enough to be able to figure out where he is.

With Miss Chievous’s immediate concerns assuaged, she then takes on a stern expression and tone.

“Why the hell did you stick around to mess with him? You should have at least come to find us, if not just bailed entirely!” Miss Chievous hisses at Jonathan, and he flinches before looking away.

“I-I… Um, well… I kn-knew Lucas was on his way, I j-just didn’t think he’d, um, t-take so long…” Jonathan continues panting after talking, then carefully reaches under his suit jacket into his shirt’s chest pocket to pull out his usual switchblade, which is now stuck open, as the blade is bent too much to be able to flip it shut.

Miss Chievous’s expression stiffens, as she immediately realized that her and Miss Masher’s verbal confrontation with Lucas was certainly a contributor to the delay. She doesn’t lament internally for long though, as her attention is pulled over to the damaged knife in Jonathan’s hand.

Almost as if he’s following a script, as soon as Jonathan notices her line of sight on the weapon in his hand, he speaks up.

“Th-they might n-need your knife. I… I don’t know if their strength will be, um, enough. L-look what happened when I t-tried to attack him directly…” Jonathan is slowly starting to catch his breath between bouts of speaking, but he’s still swaying a bit with every labored gasp.

[Oh, good job, Jonathan. He must have purposely used his knife, even though he already knew it was useless, just so he had quick proof to show Miss Chievous why he’d have to use the Viblade, and to perhaps also hopefully serve as encouragement for Miss Masher to be cautious.]

‘Ayyy, quick thinkin’ kiddo! …Heheh.’

[…]

Miss Chievous hisses again while looking at the knife, activates her power to disappear, then pops up to look through the shattered windows into the cafe. Taking a moment to observe the area, she quickly sees Lucas and Miss Masher warily approaching their opponent from two different directions, rolling their shoulders as they walk over.

“Careful guys! He has endurance too!” Miss Chievous shouts out after taking a few steps away from Jonathan, intentionally shifting the source of her voice.

Immediately after, she rushes back over and ducks down again, tugging Jonathan off to the side so they aren’t too close to where she yelled from.

Miss Masher loudly groans, though it isn’t enough to pull the militant man’s attention away from facing the source of Miss Chievous’s voice.

“Seriously!? Endurance is so fuckin’ annoying to deal with! Er… No offense, Lucas..? Oh fuck, careful out there guys!” Miss Masher doesn’t get to spare much attention to her apology, as the medicated madman apparently decided the outside voice might be an indicator as to where his true target has run off to.

Miss Chievous starts pulling Jonathan further away, using her power to make him vanish as well.

Jonathan is even quicker to respond, though, and while relying on the last moment of vision he had on Miss Chievous, combined with where her hand is on his arm to pull him along, he estimates her current position.

He grabs her with both arms, pulls her against his chest, and drags her along as he uses a portion of his own power to pull them even further aside.

Between his fatigue and the fact it’s only a limited burst, the speed isn’t enough to disorient her, let alone harm her, but it does help move them the intended short distance away.

Good thing too, as shortly after they vacated their previous position, the junkie has charged over and crashed through that segment of wall, smashing downwards with both of his fists balled together.

While he’s wildly turning his head around in an unsuccessful attempt to try to find them, Lucas and Miss Masher have both rushed over as well.

Jonathan is struggling to control his breathing enough that it isn’t too loud. Meanwhile, Miss Chievous is holding completely still, her chin resting on his shoulder while she consciously maintains shallow breaths, watching the aggressor in her peripheral vision.

There is a small amount of blood on some of the broken glass shards in the area between their current position and their previous one, and there are enough jagged pieces of glass surrounding them that any movement they’d make would noisily disturb the debris.

Lucas reaches the maddened medicated menace first, so Miss Masher stays back a bit to ensure they don’t potentially get in each other’s way.

Aware that the silence on the two outdoor people’s parts indicates that neither of them were hit, Miss Masher keeps her focus on their target instead of concerning herself with their current well-being.

Lucas, however, doesn’t even put that much thought into it, his attention fully focused on the task’s target.

Resisting his initial urge to tackle his opponent, Lucas skids to a halt once he’s nearby and lifts up his right leg, opting to stomp down on the druggie’s left calf, which is unsteadily supporting him, as he is still hunched over the now-ruined section of mini-wall.

“Don’t fuckin’ ignore me, asshole!” Lucas’s shout is quickly followed by a wet crunch as part of his opponent’s fibula snaps and breaks skin from the force of his attack.

After an almost alarmingly long delay of more than a full second, his overdosed opponent angrily shrieks out in pain, staggering from a mix of the momentum of Lucas’s strike and the poor balance he had to begin with.

‘Ohoho, guess that rank 2 strength wasn’t such a bad idea, eh?’

[That certainly made a difference, but this also proves he gained a significant degree of endurance from- SHIT!]

As Lucas is winding up to punch down at the man’s back, the man roars out something incoherent and throws his weight backward, wildly swinging his arms as he swipes in Lucas’s direction, not even remotely slowing down despite the fresh and substantial injury.

Lucas wasn’t anticipating an immediate counterattack, as he assumed that the wound would have at least distracted him for a few moments.

He gets struck across his chest in a backhanded swing that sends him flying back a few feet before colliding with the ground, digging a groove into the tile floor for a few feet more before he finally collides with a wall and stops.

While the collision with the ground and wall didn’t have much effect on Lucas, the hit itself had knocked the wind out of him.

‘Holy fuck, that hurts!’

[…If it wasn’t for the additional shock absorption from your attire, that would have quite possibly cracked at least one of your ribs. Apparently, not only was his strength increased, and he was granted endurance from whatever concoction he took, but he must have also gained a significant amount of pain tolerance as well, to barely react to an injury of that magnitude.]

—–

Lucas’s total kills: 7

Lucas’s total deaths: 11

Lucas’s total assists: 1

Lucas’s current GDV: 17.43 [Recalculating…]

Lucas’s fame level: 6.0* (Local fame is completely maxed, he’s creeping up on minor celebrity status even on a global scale. Thanks, internet.)

Lucas’s hero suspicion level: 2.0*

Jonathan’s total kills: 7

Jonathan’s total deaths: 4

Jonathan’s current GDV: 6.10 [Recalculating…]

Jonathan’s fame level: 4.0* (Local fame is near-max, but everyone thinks of him via his affiliation with Lucas, and not often just for him, alone.)

Jonathan’s hero suspicion level: 2.5*

Willy’s fame level: 4.75* (Recently increased thanks to a new wave of memes featuring him and Mr. Quacks.)

Mr. Quacks’s fame level: 5.25* (Recently increased thanks to a new wave of memes featuring him and Willy.)

Supervillain social circle size: 15

—–

Little character theater:

Jonathan belatedly realizes he’s still holding Miss Chievous once the attacker’s attention turns away. Immediately withdrawing and crawling backwards away from her, he becomes visible upon no longer having contact with her: I, um, s-sorry!

Willy’s currently peaceful rest is quite the contrast with the rest of the Lynn family’s antics.

Lucas, gasping and coughing a few times: How the hell did a backhand swipe suck that fuckin’ much!?

427, busily scrambling to collect, collate and document what data he’s able to piece together: [He really did only have grade 1 strength and nothing else, whatever he took is admittedly impressive… It’s a good thing you didn’t get hit by a full-on direct strike. He’s probably nearly as strong as you, according to my estimates with what data I have so far, and endurance is slightly weaker than its equivalent strength, to begin with…]

Author, stifling laughter: You’d be even more embarrassed, Jon, if you were able to see just how awkward the positioning you two were in!

Mr. Quacks is temporarily distracted from his baked goods consumption by going to fetch some rubber-ducky patterned bandaids to offer to Jonathan for a cut he just got on his hand: Quack!