I’m angry! I’m angry and ready to unleash that on the nearest target.

Everything that’s happened to me these past few days... everything that’s been revealed to me. I just can’t stand it!

Without a word to either Francis or Delta, I march down past the train station and back onto the beach, where practice and warm-ups for the Great Barbara Games are currently ongoing.

One cannot say that my life has been treated fairly, especially recently. I’ve been lied to, misled not only about the true nature of this trip—to help mend the friendship of these two people who I have come to call my allies—but misled about my entire life under the Destiny Deck System. I’m being used by everyone around me! I’m a single piece in a large board game whose shape and goals I know not a single detail of.

What does Rare truly want me for? Are they being honest about wanting me to overthrow The Goddess herself? It sounds so brazen, so foolish, so idiotic, that I can’t possibly accept that as the truth.

No-one ever tells me the truth, and it has built my rage up into levels that I had no idea if I was capable.

It is a good thing, then, that my system has no capability to track my anger stats. If it did, then I would be getting some sort of annoying, beeping warning telling me that my anger levels are too high and I need to calm down. And that would prompt me to, of course, bash my head against walls in order to get the sound to stop. That’s how furious I am.

But I am at least calm enough to focus this rage into something less destructive than violently beating up every passer by I encounter. I am far too strong on Earth to be resorting to something like that; I would injure far too many innocents that way.

Instead, I injure only one innocent; I punch a random surfer dude (+1 DP, total 82) and steal his surfboard before he even realizes what has hit him (my fist is what hit him).

Everyone stares at me. Yeah, that’s right, stare away.

Pink haired fools with low intelligence, that’s all we North Spirans are. Sure, one of us took over the Slayers and conquered entire nations, but most of us are just country simpletons, bumpkins of the highest order. These people here on the beach have every right to stare. Nobody this stupid should be attempting a dangerous surfing maneuver, should they?

That is surely what everyone is thinking as they watch me pace towards the ocean tides. They surely expect me to crash and burn and fail, because I am apparently only good when being manipulated by others.

King Bodhi wants me to be her pawn too, now. I can feel the manipulation from that young woman before she’s even said the words out loud.

But you know what? I am not going to take it.

I hop on the surfboard and shred the waves.

Literally shred them. Quite literally, the waves are cut in half, down to the molecular level. The intensity of my board-riding is at that sheer level of precision.

If, underneath the suit of my disguise, I am truly a [Demigod,] then this should be a small feat indeed. And I prove it to be so by jumping up in the air, doing a spin, and landing back on my board just as it braces up against a gentle wave.

A bigger one comes my way.

I want to blow it up. I want to destroy it like everyone has tried to destroy me. But instead, I decide to show off a little.

A [Demigod] does not only destroy. A [Demigod] also captivates. And that is what I do. I flip and jump across the wave just as it hits its peak, and I even perform a fabled Wave Ollie move. Then, at the perfect moment, I use my high [Viscosity] stat to hang onto the wave like it is a half-pipe. I hold up a peace sign and flash everyone a smile.

Back on Mystix, they call this move the “Airwalk.”

“Amazing!” one of the onlookers shouts. “Holy shit!”

“How is he doing that?!”

“Superb!”

“Mom, is this guy gonna surf tomorrow?”

“King Bodhi’s gonna love this guy.”

The chatter of the onlookers is encouraging. It shows my true heroism in spite of everything else that has gone wrong for me. In a way, I feel vindicated.

[Achievement Unlocked!]

Eh?

[Perform a stunt so impressive that a bystander shouts “Superb!”]

Well, what do you know...

I finish surfing a few minutes later and throw the surfboard back to the man I beat up previously.

I am a Very Important Dude. I cannot let myself forget that.

The slack-jawed Francis and Delta join me silently, unable to respond to what they just saw. and I’m perfectly OK with that. I don’t need compliments. I only need backup, because I’m not letting myself be trapped in a heinous city like this.

I’m going to make King Bodhi pay for trying to trap us here.