5.13

[Alexander's POV]

I have faced death more times than I can count, and have even fought a literal goddess, yet I was left hesitating as I stood in front of a simple house's door.

It took me several minutes to make up my mind, and with a sigh, I knocked thrice on the door.

I heard some shuffling inside, before the door was opened, revealing a woman. Well, not just any woman.

"Alexander!"

My mom.

"Hey, mom."

For her, it has been several months since we last spoke, yet the first thing she did was look at my body as she asked, "What happened to you?"

I smiled. My mother was about average for a woman, and I had inherited most of her height as I was only a few centimeters taller than her. Before the Super Soldier Physique, that is.

Placing a hand against the door frame, I revealed without any falsehood, "I got superpowers, and fought a god for a couple of minutes."

She snorted, "Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe you could make my wrinkles and grey hair disappear."

I looked at her fair skin and long blond hair and remarked, "You look fifteen years younger than you are already. I can follow a bullet with my eyes, but I can't see a wrinkle on your face."

She got closer to me, and furrowed her brows, "See?"

A bit confused, I asked, "You are frowning, isn't it normal for wrinkles to appear."

She slapped my shoulder, "I know that! But look, there's more than there used to be."

"Then… don't frown?"

She shook her head like I had said the dumbest thing in the world, "Don't play dumb, you got my eyes. We got sensitive eyes."

I finally paused, before smiling. This conversation didn't make any sense. And that's exactly why I came here.

"We're in Brighton mom, when is there any sun?"

She was about to answer, when my dad shouted, "Who is it?"

My mom shouted back, "It's Alexander!"

She looked back at me and said, "We should probably go inside."

I nodded, and followed her in.

Nothing had changed since the last time I was here. It was the same old house with the same shitty decoration.

And there, in the kitchen, was my father, preparing lunch.

He looked our way, and I saw his gaze go to my chest, before rising to my face.

"You finally grew up?"

I snorted, "That's it? No question about it?"

My mom immediately said, "He said he got superpowers. I think he took too many steroids and they got to his brain."

She grabbed my arm, which was thicker than her thighs, and laughed, "I mean look at these, that's not something you get in a few months."

I flexed my arm, smiling down at her, "I did cheat a little, but it didn't get to my head."

With my free hand, I taped her on the forehead, and doing so injected some lifeforce into her, rejuvenating her body. That should add a few years to her lifespan. And make those imaginary wrinkles go away.

She slapped my hand away, scolding me, "What the hell are you doing?"

I smiled and said nothing, sitting at one of the kitchen stools in front of my dad, and asked, "What are you making?"

He didn't look up to reply, "Nothing for someone who doesn't give news."

I would have defended myself by saying I was in another dimension, but to be fair it's only been slightly less than two months since I got in God's Game, while I haven't contacted them for… five months?

"What if I have a cool sword to show you?"

My father paused, his eyes momentarily darting to the three swords hanging on a wall of the adjacent living room, before he asked, "Is it in your car?"

"No, I came here flying."

He snorted, and asked, "Where is it then?"

I grabbed the Expended Bag, and pulled Shiroishi out of it.

Both of them looked shocked as they saw me pull out a sword that should have never fitted into the bag it was pulled from. I threw the bag at my mom, who caught it and started looking inside, while my father's eyes now locked onto Shiroishi.

He put down his kitchen knife, a custom knife my mother and I had made in Japan a couple years ago for my father's birthday. As he grabbed Shiroishi, I grabbed his kitchen knife, and noticed the edge was as sharp as the day we gifted it to him.

He may have been using it every day, he took great care of it. It did become slightly smaller, however, probably from the repeated sharpening.

"Why can't I unsheathe it?"

My father was trying to take the blade out of its sheath, but was unsuccessful at it.

"It is a mystical blade, only I can open it."

With a thought, I used Reality Warping to unsheathe the sword from across the counter. My dad looked shocked, but he was more absorbed by the blade than the show of magic. The same went for my mom and the Expended Bag, actually.

"Imagine how much easier groceries would be with this!" She was rapidly stuffing items from the cupboards and the fridge into the bag, seemingly trying to test its limits.

My parents could be… quite peculiar. They could be quite self-absorbed, and they did not really behave like everyone else. Growing up, the main motto of my education was freedom. Had I wanted to, I could have pumped myself full of drugs, and while they would have been disappointed, they would have let me.

Of course, they weren't completely out of their minds. While they didn't directly forbid me from much, they raised me to have certain values. Taking drugs as an example, I didn't avoid them because my parents said I couldn't, but because they taught me to make my own choices and learn the consequences of my actions.

And they applied this to their lives too.

My dad looked up from the blade, and asked, "Did you make this?"

I couldn't help but ask with surprise, "How did you know?"

I was genuinely surprised. How could he possibly tell? I never even showed any kind of interest in forging anything in my time on Earth, and I hadn't signed the blade.

He shrugged in response, "I could just tell. The blade feels like you."

Oh. Well, I did start to try to infuse it with my essence, but I didn't think my dad would be able to pick on it. Paternal instinct?

He sheathed the blade back, and my mom put the bag down as they asked, "So, you got powers?"

I smiled, and said, "Well, it's kind of long, but it all started with a prompt…"