“Umm… is this a common occurrence?” Alex asked Clint as the announcement of the robotic voice went on.

“Well, if it is a weak Intruder, killing them will be just a piece of cake for the Espers, but for something like a Class-S Intruder, lockdowns are really necessary.” Clint said as he made a move in his board game. “Hahaha! Wifey, let’s see if you can still win now!”

“….” Alex fell into a silence as he remembered what Clint told to him about the relationship between the Espers and the Intruders.

According to Clint, around 1000 years ago, nobody that lives in this planet are Espers. All of the people at that time were all ‘normal’ humans.

But then one day, a powerful gamma ray burst went through the planet, and this gamma ray burst brought countless changes in the planet.

Majority of the living beings died, as the heat and energy inside a gamma ray burst were extremely fatal to living beings.

If the scientists in Alex’s world saw this, they will exclaim that this gamma ray burst is a world-ending calamity.

But not everyone died from that gamma ray burst, including humans.

Even if they were few, some humans survived the initial disaster.

But for these surviving humans, something within them changed.

They were different from the normal humans.

They gained the power to manipulate the objects and even concepts around them just with their mind alone.

They were the first Espers.

With that power in hand, the humans were able to redominate the whole planet, and just after 1,000 years, they were back as the apex species.

Even their technology had changed as both Esper Abilities and Technology improved mutually with each other.

This prosperity in human power and level of technology ushered the Golden Age of Humanity.

However, that gamma ray burst brought in something else.

500 years after the gamma ray burst incident, a race of foreign beings suddenly appeared amongst humanity.

These beings have varying abilities and properties, but they all have one thing in common.

And that was that all of these beings wanted to kill the humans.

Up until now, nobody knows where these beings come from. They just spontaneously appear at a certain place before anyone could expect it.

Because of this and the fact that these beings wield powerful abilities too, most of an Esper’s job usually deals with combat against these beings.

Because of the nature of their arrival, these beings were just called Intruders.

When the Intruders first appeared, humanity suffered a lot, since they were unable to anticipate where the Intruders will appear. Many powerful Espers died because of this.

But these problems were alleviated when the first quantum computer was created.

By pooling all the possible resources the humanity can use, they were able to create the strongest quantum computer of all time, which was called the World Diagram.

The processing power of the World Diagram was so great that it can monitor the whole planet 24/7, 365 days a year with all of its cameras.

As long as an Intruder gets detected by one its cameras, the World Diagram will immediately take note of its arrival.

The World Diagram will then record this Intruder’s location, and it will also estimate the Intruder’s level of strength.

An Intruder’s strength will be ranked in Letter System, with Class-F as the weakest, and Class-Z as the strongest

[F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS, Z]

The World Diagram will then send a warning signal to the nearby Espers, telling them about this certain Intruder.

This efficient information-gathering system by the World Diagram had allowed the humanity to push back the unrelenting invasion of the Intruders.

When Alex heard about this part, he smiled wryly, as he realized that when he was brought to this Planet, the World Diagram must have mistaken him to be an Intruder.

And it actually treated him as a Class-S! Alex was not sure if he should feel proud of that.

It was a good thing that Alex changed his face before entering the Dragon Esper City, or else he might have been shot to death with lasers too.

But aside from defending against the Intruders, the World Diagram is doing other things too like weather forecast, business management, Esper training and many more.

In fact, one can say that the current human civilization fully relies on the World Diagram.

If the World Diagram somehow gets destroyed or taken, then humanity will surely take a hit.

This fact alone made Alex extremely angry.

After all, his mission was to destroy the World Diagram.

Won’t the very act of him doing this lead to a catastrophic life for humanity?

Alex of course is not happy that his mission might lead to deaths of countless innocent people.

So much was his anger that he confronted Asteria about this fact last night.

**************************

(Flashback)

“So what if many will die because of your mission?” Asteria said as she gave Alex an indifferent look. “Your mission is to destroy the World Diagram. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“But the World Diagram is the pillar of the humanity!” Alex exclaimed as he glared at Asteria. “Do you want me to just destroy it?”

“Well, if you don’t want to destroy it, then don’t do anything. But if you do that, you will be the one dying…” Asteria said as she closed her eyes. “Well, its still up to you if you will do it or not.”

“…………….”

“Fine. Then I will just solve both of the problems at the same time.” Alex muttered to himself as his eyes glowed with determination.

“I… will find a way to destroy the World Diagram and keep the humanity safe and intact at the same time! “

“Wow, good luck with that.” Asteria said with her eyes closed.

“Just the act of trying to destroy the World Diagram is already hard. And now you want to find a way to keep the humans safe once the World Diagram is destroyed? You are just digging a grave for yourself!”

“We’ll see.” Alex declared as he closed his eyes to sleep.

(Flashback ends)

**************

Back to the conversation with Clint

“But just to make sure that everyone is safe, nobody will be coming out of the house during the duration of the lockdown.” Natasha said as she played her move. “Only I and Clint will get out to get supplies and other stuff.”

“Mommy, that’s no fair!” Natalia said as she raised her tiny little hands. “I want to play outside!”

“Just play with your father and Alex.” Natasha replied quickly. “Aren’t you having some fun with them?”

“Oi, don’t sell me out like that!” Alex thought to himself as he saw Natalia agreeing to what her mother said.

“………..”

Clint and his wife spent most of the noontime playing their board game while Alex and Natalia ate their lunch.

As for Natalia’s brother, whose name was Clive, he was holed up in his room playing video games.

Alex could not help but smile a little as he watched the tiny Natalia stuff food in her mouth, making her look like a hamster.

“This is a nice family… If my sister just experienced this too…” Alex thought somberly as he continued eating.

********************

“Now that you have trained your body and mind, it is now time for you to train your creativity.” Clint said as he tapped the wall in front of him.

At the instant that he did this, a white screen appeared on the wall which was filled with countless scribbles.

Cint waved his hand, and these scribbles disappeared.

“You will spend the whole afternoon creating new ways of using your abilities.” Clint said as he tapped the white screen.

“This screen will record your progress all throughout the process. As for me, I will be here to prevent accidents from happening if you mess up with your training.”

“That… sounds ominous.” Alex muttered as he looked around him. “Are you telling me that I could create an explosion just because I slightly messed up on my training?”

“If you slightly mess up in the process, you might create a heat ray that can penetrate your skull.” Clint sternly replied as his eyes told Alex that he will not leave. “If you want your head to be a slot machine, then feel free to experiment without me around.”

“…………………”

*****************

As it turns out, Clint was right.

Just the number of times that Alex almost died that afternoon far exceeded the amount of his fingers and toes.

“Do not worry. Now that you have somehow grasped your power, you will have fewer accidents like this happening in the future.” Clint said after he stopped a thick stream of electron beam from melting half of Alex’s face.

“And once you have perfect control over your power, you will experience no accidents at all.”

“Tsk.” Alex obviously did not look happy about this. “But can I achieve a perfect control over my ability in just a week? I will be happy if that was possible.”

“It is possible.” Clint said as his gaze at Alex became more serious.

“But if you want that to happen, then you must prepare for a more intense power training starting tomorrow. Not only that, but I will also include punishments everytime you mess up in the ability training…”

“Fi-fine! Do that!” Alex exclaimed as he scrunched his eyebrows. “I am not scared of some mere electrocution!”

“Then can you tell me why your legs are shaking right now?” Clint mused as he looked down.

“This… this is just the remnant shock from earlier!” Alex replied desparately. “That’s right! There are some residues of electricity earlier, and my legs are just feeling it now.”

“….If you say so.”

“………”

Alex was able to finish his ability training for that day, with him being saved by Clint half of the time.

“50% fatality rate. Not bad for the first day.”

“………..”

*****************

“Schwiing…” Alina pulled out her swords from their sheath as she started her daily routing of cleaning them up.

She rubbed them carefully with military-grade alcohol, and she made sure that she’s using silk cloth as the medium for the alcohol.

She observed her swords intently as she looked for any signs of damage in them. Upon seeing that there was none, she let out a deep breath as she sheathed the swords back.

She then opened the door to her room as she left her current dwelling.

Right now, Alina was near the center of the Dragon Esper City.

She spent the night resting here in order for her to recover her energy.

At the instant that she left the hotel that she was staying in, she heard the robotic voice announcing about the lockdown.

“So it just decided to start the lockdown when it saw me ready to hunt the intruder? What a scary sense of timing.” Alina muttered to herself as she walked briskly among the panicked crowd.

Her clothes and mask might stand out if it was a normal day, but with people rushing back towards their houses, none of them noticed Alina’s unsettling visage.

“If the Intruder will hide in an Esper City, 70% of the time, the Intruder will hide in the slum area.” Alina thought to herself as her foot led her towards the slum area.

Her presence started to become hazy as if she was about to meld with the air.

Even the killing intent that Alex felt from her yesterday was also gone, as if it was not there at all.

Alina then adjusted her mask as she muttered to herself,

“No matter what tricks you use to hide, I will see through them all!”