I Became the Cute One in the Troubleshooter Squad-Chapter 135: The Incident on the Luxury Airship (3)

Suddenly, familiar faces flashed through my mind. Raven, Greg, Alice, David, Sabrina... The people I had met in this world, who had become so precious to me.

And with the nightmare of possibly causing harm to them because of my own mistake, a cold sensation pierced my heart, freezing my emotions.

‘It’s too late to hide it. I have to figure out how to get through this crisis.’

Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Just a moment ago, I couldn’t think rationally, but now, my mind had cleared up.

After all, there’s an old saying—if you get caught in a tiger’s den, stay sharp and you’ll survive.

Of course, I wasn’t in a tiger’s den, but in a dragon’s den.

‘But wait, if Tempest can recognize psychics, then how do invaders sneak into Night Haven? Shouldn’t he be catching those who sneak in? Why am I the only one he notices?’

Now that I thought about it, it seemed quite unfair. If Tempest could recognize psychics, he should be catching invaders hiding in Night Haven. Why was he tormenting someone as insignificant as me? Did he hold some sort of grudge?

Suddenly, such thoughts surged in my mind, and a hot, angry emotion rose within me. That, combined with my clear conscience of never having done anything wrong, fueled the resolve that had been wavering in me.

I hadn’t harmed anyone in this world. If anything, I’d been trying to help. Shouldn’t you be thanking me instead of accusing me?

With that burning sense of justice, I glared directly at Tempest.

He stared at me for a moment before, as if sensing something, stroked his beard and said with a look that revealed no clear intent, "Hmm, I see. I’ve asked the wrong question. Let me rephrase. Yuria, are you a psychic born from the Nexus Project?"

It seemed that while I was gathering my thoughts, Tempest had been reconsidering his question. Considering that I couldn’t speak, he probably adjusted the question to extract the necessary information by using yes or no answers.

I listened carefully, furrowing my brow in deep thought. I could feel that the answer I gave would determine my fate from here on out.

‘First of all, the Nexus Project is something I know very well. I couldn’t not know it. After all, it’s a huge event that’s central to this Fixer world.’

The Nexus Project was a large-scale, secret experiment conducted during the war with other races. Its goal was to implant the power of dimension invaders, called Invaders, into humans.

When I thought about how influential dragons or true ancestors were, it made sense. Tempest, a one-man legion, possessed enormous strength and influence. True ancestors were so powerful that even Tempest couldn’t easily challenge them.

But Invaders were the ones who destroyed this world, the birthplace of dragons and true ancestors.

Humans would never have left such dangerous beings alone, no matter how greedy they were.

‘Of course, the result of the Nexus Project was a clear failure. The plan to give humanity the power of Invaders only led to them increasing the number of their loyal followers. It might even be considered one of humanity’s greatest mistakes.’

However, the plan to wield Invader power was doomed to fail. Humans who were implanted with special factors, psychics, ended up becoming slaves to the Invaders.

The power from another dimension seduced them, driving them to bring about the destruction of Earth. As a result, they even attempted to summon incomplete Invaders to Earth.

Luckily, we caught it early and managed to stop it in its tracks, but since we didn’t completely root out the cause, the same thing could happen again in the future.

In fact, in the future, there were instances where Invaders regained their strength and succeeded in summoning the invaders.

‘...’

So, how should I respond here?

Thinking about it, Tempest’s question could be interpreted as him wondering whether I, a psychic, was created by the Nexus Project. He was likely implying that I, too, was tainted by Invader power and thus might be expendable.

With that in mind, I knew the answer should be "no," but it wasn’t that simple.

The Nexus Project had happened years ago, and I only woke up a few months ago. I didn’t think «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» I could be a psychic from the Nexus Project, but how would I explain that?

But if I said "no," I had no way of explaining what I really was. How could I tell him I was someone with memories from a past life?

So, the best response I could give was...!

"...."

"Hmm? That reaction... Does that mean you don’t know what it is?" Tempest said.

"...!"

I stared at him intently, not responding, until Tempest, puzzled by my silence, soon realized my intent.

My answer wasn’t yes or no, it was "I don’t know." Since I had no knowledge of what happened before I opened my eyes, I wasn’t lying.

Tempest, being an exceptional magician who could detect lies just by looking, quickly sensed that I wasn’t trying to deceive him.

But that led to an intriguing question. How did I know about the Nexus Project, buried in the darkness of the world?

‘This is where the game begins.’

I subtly grabbed the Tesseract hidden beneath my clothes and slowly stood, lifting my shirt just enough to reveal my stomach.

Tempest reacted in surprise as he saw the scars all over my exposed belly.

"Those scars, could they be...?"

"...."

Without saying a word, I quickly pulled my shirt back down, as if to indicate that was enough.

Could he figure something out from this action? Tempest’s face contorted in a grimace.

Well, Tempest likely imagined that I had been tortured by Invaders, and somehow managed to escape the organization. He probably thought that was how I got these scars.

Of course, that was all a lie. The scars weren’t fake; I had briefly swapped with the version of me from a world where my body had scars using the Tesseract.

In a way, it was an extension of removing the previous wounds from my body. If I could heal myself, creating new scars wasn’t too difficult. It did hurt a little due to the energy expenditure, though.

‘I don’t need to answer directly. If I do, the truth will be exposed.’

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Tempest, despite being a dragon, was a surprisingly kind-hearted individual by human standards. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t be the mayor of a city or the deterrent to world wars.

If I were him, I wouldn’t take on such stressful jobs.

So, what I did was guide him to make the wrong assumption and get him to believe something else. A mute psychic with scars would surely make anyone second-guess their judgment.

And did my little trick work?

Tempest, seeming to consider it a troublesome matter, sighed and then spoke with a much gentler tone.

"Well, the signs of abuse... I thought you were a bit different from the usual psychics. But, let’s get straight to the point, Yuria. Are you on humanity’s side?"

"...!"

"I see. You know about the Nexus Project and gained psychic powers, but you’re using them cautiously... I still can’t completely trust you, but at least I’m sure there’s no hostility."

This... was good!

I had to resist the urge to jump for joy and kept myself composed, sitting back down in my chair.

I couldn’t afford to let my emotions show, not when I might still change Tempest’s mood at any moment.

And after a minute, two minutes, three minutes...

Looking out the window, Tempest finally turned toward me and said, “Then, how about this? Yuria, would you be interested in receiving ‘protection’ from the Association?”

His offer brought with it a whole new set of considerations.