Who else likes durian?
The effort of yesterday's training finally borne fruit, with the only exception that it wasn't a caramel sweet apple, but a stinky potent durian… full of thorns.
And the metaphor makes sense, at least for Naoyuki, the pain wouldn't be so different if a durian falls over him… and probably not just one.
In the most honest way, there was no a single fiber that didn't ache.
Incapable to move, the boy started to find distractions, the system was a something he had on hand. Bored and alone, he started to look around the panels to find something interesting.
His personal attributes did not change after one day of exercise… obviously.
But currently, he has 57 hero points, that's 1/20 of the one thousand points needed to get real power, but expecting that a 'quirk slot' can give hero points as well, he might preferer to unluck that first before a real quirk, at the end of the day, it's a double point bust.
Izuku's task is currently at 43%, half way to get the remaining 150 points, and just 2 days have happened, the hope to get the mysterious grand prize was pretty high.
The One Punch Man training task showed in its banner "Day 2", but nothing else changed. The Award was still "???", so what he thought yesterday may be true.
In respect of the new quirk, it's a useless one again, the [Glowing hair (Yellow)] quirk acts as its name says, making the hair of his body shine like a yellow light bulb, its pretty cool because he can falsely become a super Saiyan. But besides that, even the back of his hand can emit light due the villi.
And finally, the 'History' section, that shows him the quirks he has had until now, three F-class and one E-class. But if you ask Naoyuki, he would say for sure that [Partial Maturation] has been the most useful so far, knowing the feeling of having a smart brain, he fells pretty stupid right now, like if he had a membrane that stops him to interact with the outside world swiftly, his movements and perception feel slow too. These episodes were more evident yesterday.
After sleeping one night, he kind of recovered from that drug-like compulsion to feel wit. But Naoyuki would still consider transforming that quirk into a permanent one, the use of it is very wide, and very helpful to his future plans.
"Clack… thum!"
Suddenly, Naoyuki was able to hear a door opening sound, following by little steps that became more and more audible. When tapping sound against the floor stopped outside of his room, the door was opened.
"Nao-chan, wake up, you need to go to kindergarten…" Barely arrived, his mother enunciated her battle cry, realizing later that Naoyuki had widened eyes looking at her. "Oh, you're awake already. Come on, don't be lazy and change your cloths."
The boy stared at his mother, and then directed his eyes to his own body covered by a bed sheet.
"I can't." Naoyuki responded with a helpless voice.
The female who was about to leave the room gave a step back. "What do you mean by you can't?"
"I can't move (┬┬﹏┬┬)
I think I did too much exercise yesterday."
The woman first reaction was to stay immobile, but then laughed, so hard that even tears came out of her lacrimal ducts.
"Don't be exaggerated, it's normal to feel pain the day after you do exercise." She tried to be reasonable and asked. "How much did you do yesterday?"
"Ahhmm… 100 push-up, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats and ran 10 kilometers around the neighborhood."
As each exercise came out from Naoyuki's mouth, the mother had hers more and more opened.
"You what?!" She questioned.
"I did 100 push-up, 100 sit-ups, 100 squa-"
"No, I heard that already, but, I mean, why did you decide to do that!"
This time Naoyuki remained silent.
That was a good question, the 'why'. And what can he say? To test his power? To prove that he was better than Izuku? Those weren't enough excuses for a kid to go insane running 10 km like Olympic competitor.
But something he has to say, because he cannot spit out anything about the system.
Limited by options, Naoyuki took out the ol' reliable:
"Because I want to be a hero!" He spoke.
And the mother made the same face that the readers of this book are putting on right now.
---------
After a long and precise explanation, the woman finally believed about 70% of what he said, and not because Naoyuki was an effective orator, but because the mother assumed that a 4 years old kid couldn't lie that much.
After thinking a bit, and inspecting the 'cadaver' from head to toe, she opened her mouth once again, her tone was overflowing charisma, but her words were cold as a Di Caprio in Titanic:
"Well, we gotta do something, I called you teacher yesterday saying that you'll attend school again after a week of absence, we cannot betray the trust of others. Right? Nao-chan?"
'But you're betraying the trust of your son!' Naoyuki yelled internally.
"If I help you to get up, can you move your legs?" Not waiting for an answer, she abruptly slid her hands under the covers to grab his legs.
"Ouch! Wait wait wait! That hurts! Yamete!" Naoyuki screamed.
"Oh sorry sweetheart, did I hurt you?" She apologized, but seconds later smiled again. "Maybe you'll feel better if I give you a massage, it helps to blood circulation."
"A massage? That proba- Oh sh**!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
And it was all the start of a wonderful day.
------------
----------
-------
-----
8:35 a.m.
It's just morning, and the contemporary streets of Musutafu city began to fill with people, every single soul with clear vision of where they wanted to be in 5 minutes, in 10 minutes and in 8 hours. In such lifestyle as full of rush as the Japanese, a mother and son couple walking with resemblant calm was hard to see.
But none of this was because they didn't want to go faster, but because… if the boy goes one step longer than his pain tolerance, he would definitely trip on in the middle of the sidewalk.
And there they were, one walking like an old man in his 90's, and the other like nursing home worker.
"Mom, what's your name? Ouch." Said the boy, whose every step taken was torture, like an earthquake that shakes all his painful muscles internally.
"Why are you asking that?" The mother replied.
'To write it on the Death Note one day!!!' The angel and demon on his shoulder both screamed.
But Naoyuki of course didn't said that, the momentum made him remember a meme from his last life, and he decided to tell it to gain a laugh.
"Because I discovered that your real name wasn't 'Mom'."
"Hahahaha, how did you become so funny after coming back from the hospital?" The woman said with laughter.
".......….." And that was not an answer he was expecting for.
All of a sudden, the boy couldn't pronounce a single word.
That comment made his blood run cold, his face pale, and the desire to joke completely gone. Did his mother discover that he wasn't the original Naoyuki?
But it was like if that remark was just her way to shoot the breeze, she never turned around to see Naoyuki scared expression, and actually answered his question.
"My name is Airi, Eto Airi."
"What a great name…" Naoyuki said between relieved and nervousness. He didn't even make any comment on the name that would normally cause him so much morbid and grace, instead, he kept silent the rest of the road.