At this moment, Anthony had lapsed into a long, drawn-out reverie.
He lifted his head and stole a glance at Erlang Shen, then lowered it again and looked over his own outfit.
Especially when his gaze lingered for a good long while on the centre of Erlang Shen's forehead — in the end, he still chose silence.
Erlang Shen's forehead, much like that of any ordinary young girl's, was — for the moment — bare of any such thing as a Third Eye.
Hisss… hold on, you, hold on a second.
What was going on right now?
The Third Eye — somebody, throw me a lifeline. Don't tell me it hasn't even been opened yet?
Just as Anthony was standing there in a daze, Erlang Shen had already begun ushering him into the apartment. It was at this moment that Anthony finally jolted awake from his earlier reverie and hastily spoke up:
"True Lord, I —"
"Hm? So it can talk."
Erlang Shen looked up, glanced at Anthony, and then couldn't help but inwardly sigh in admiration.
Not bad — looks like that merchant didn't pull any consumer fraud.
"Mm, now I still have to think about where to put it…"
Watching the silver-haired girl muttering to herself, Anthony heaved a long sigh, feeling waves of throbbing headache wash over him.
At the same time, he couldn't help glancing once toward the door.
He still hadn't quite figured out what kind of situation this even was. And besides…
Minato? Where the hell is he? Wasn't he supposed to be dragged along here as my backup?
Where did you wander off to?
I told you the location, I told you the time — I even said the world in the chat group — so how can it be that I'm here at the place and you're nowhere to be seen?
[Lord of the Ivory Throne: @Yellow Flash of Konoha, where the heck are you?! You're not at Erlang Shen's place at all!]
[Yellow Flash of Konoha: Don't get worked up, I'm carrying something]
[Lord of the Ivory Throne: ? Carrying something?]
[Yellow Flash of Konoha: Oh, there was someone who looked like a delivery guy downstairs trying to haul a big-item package upstairs. He was saying it was too heavy. I glanced at the package — the delivery address was exactly the place you gave me]
[Yellow Flash of Konoha: I thought about it, and figured this would actually be a less awkward way to drop in, so I just went ahead and helped carry it up]
[Yellow Flash of Konoha: Don't worry, I'll be up in a sec]
And so, in the very next moment, Anthony understood what Namikaze Minato had meant by "in a sec."
He raised his head, and the next instant he heard the sound of the doorbell ringing. For a moment, Erlang Shen's movements halted.
"Hm? Someone coming over at this hour?"
A pair of finely shaped brows lifted slightly, as she murmured to herself with what seemed a touch of surprise. The silver-haired girl set Anthony aside for the time being.
"If someone's coming at this hour… it should be the Junior Underworld King."
Erlang Shen, having suddenly put it all together, gave a wave of her hand, a faintly headache-stricken expression flickering across her face.
At this moment, Anthony seemed to suddenly realise something.
He very much wanted to immediately speak up and say that he was the current generation's Lord of the Underworld — but before Erlang Shen could give him the chance to react, he felt himself being lifted by some inexplicable force and stuffed into a cabinet off to the side.
"Let's just stash you here for now… it should be fine, no one should notice."
The next moment, Erlang Shen flung the front door wide open.
"Hello, here is your delivery. Please sign for it."
Behind the front door stood a delivery box, with a delivery courier on one side and a handsome young blond-haired man on the other.
In that instant, a flicker of surprise crossed Erlang Shen's face. She glanced at Namikaze Minato, then at the delivery box, her brain failing for a moment to make the connection.
Hold on, Namikaze Minato…? Are delivery drivers cosplaying now too?
Wait — no, this is the delivery man. So the Junior Underworld King is…
Hm? This is a delivery? But I only bought one thing… so the one who came earlier must have been…
Erlang Shen belatedly put it all together. Or rather, it wasn't that she had only just now realised — it was that, the instant she'd seen the delivery box, she had been refusing to let herself put two and two together.
The next moment, she felt her hand trembling ever so slightly.
Stiffly, she turned her head, bit by bit, toward the cabinet. By this point, Anthony had already pushed the cabinet door open and stepped out. Letting out a long sigh, he looked at Erlang Shen with an expression of utter resignation.
"So, um… True Lord?"
"Don't speak just yet."
Erlang Shen cut him off with finality, and then the room sank into a long silence. Only the delivery courier, clipboard and pen in hand, after hesitating quite a long while, finally spoke up to ask:
"Uh, miss, your delivery?"
"Oh. Oh, right."
Erlang Shen answered woodenly, and with mechanical movements signed off on the clipboard. With that done, the delivery courier all but fled downstairs with palpable relief.
Meanwhile, the silver-haired girl remained exactly where she had been, her brain working overtime trying to guess what could possibly be inside this box.
Hahaha — you know, the Junior Underworld King is actually pretty interesting, isn't he…
Going so far as to pack himself up inside a delivery box and have himself shipped over, hahaha…
In truth, Erlang Shen already knew everything.
She just didn't want to face it.
Until, much later, Namikaze Minato quietly shifted positions to come up beside Anthony, and shot him a meaningful look.
"Is this situation right at all?"
Namikaze Minato asked with his eyes. Anthony's only response was a thoroughly disgruntled expression.
How the hell would I know — you're the one asking me?!
"Uh, True Lord Erlang…"
"Go on, speak."
The silver-haired girl raised her head with a trace of despair, her calm tone concealing some inexplicable emotion.
"Actually, I'm this generation's Lord of the Underworld… My apologies for showing up like this, I'm afraid I've imposed."
Anthony sighed as he said this.
"Ah, so you're the Lord of the Underworld."
Erlang Shen affected an unruffled tone: "And here I was thinking it was…"
"What?"
"...Nothing."
Erlang Shen turned her head away.
Now that things had reached this point, the words I mistook my colleague for a figurine I bought were stuff she absolutely could not bring herself to say out loud…
So really — what on earth was up with this Junior Underworld King?!
Erlang Shen scratched the back of her head in a slightly frazzled gesture, then suddenly jerked her head up and looked at Anthony.
"What's with this bizarre getup of yours, and who's this guy beside you…"
Erlang Shen, clinging to her last shred of stubbornness, was absolutely determined not to expose her two-dimensional weeb identity. She stubbornly used a stiff, formal tone to ask the question.
As though deliberately performing a complete unfamiliarity with these two people.
"I thought coming to see you like this might be more appropriate."
Anthony spoke with helpless resignation. At the same time, his gaze flicked briefly toward the box at the side, and for an instant the corner of his eye twitched.
To be honest, this delivery packaging was, in his eyes, no different from not being there at all…
Are you kidding — he was the King of the Underworld, after all. With his soul giving the box even a passive sweep, whatever was inside it was already laid out clear as day.
And so, upon seeing that what was inside was a life-sized figurine of himself, the expression on Anthony's face became something to behold.
Of course, given that the person in front of him was Erlang Shen, and given that the atmosphere currently felt distinctly off, Anthony wasn't dumb enough to just bluntly ask about it.
And so, in the end, Anthony heaved a sigh.
"Let me reintroduce myself. My name is Anthony — or you may also call me Haku, the name of this particular avatar of mine."
"I'm the current Lord of the Underworld… in other words, the newly inaugurated Junior Underworld King. As for the gentleman beside me, this is Namikaze Minato — the genuine article, no substitutes."
Anthony bowed slightly toward Erlang Shen as he spoke, and for an instant, Erlang Shen failed to react.
Haku…? He really just calls himself Haku? And the one next to him is named Namikaze Minato?
Not cosplay?
Even as her brain blue-screened, Erlang Shen had not entirely forgotten what to do.
And so, in the next moment, Anthony felt the time around him seem to pause for an instant. At the centre of Erlang Shen's brow, a golden eye resembling some kind of magical formation silently opened in the void, sweeping over both of them in a single glance.
The Third Eye.
And so, through the Third Eye, Erlang Shen, dumbstruck, saw the true nature of the two figures before her.
There was not a single shred of cosplay involved — the outward appearance of these two people was indistinguishable from their true essence…
Except for Anthony. Because layered above Anthony's true essence, there were countless phantom silhouettes of unknown number of identities… and through the prying gaze of the Third Eye, every single one of them was unmistakably his true essence as well!
And the one currently manifesting before Erlang Shen was, indeed, Haku!
"No need to keep looking, senior. It really is Haku — the Haku from Arknights that you're so familiar with."
Anthony sighed, then continued: "And at the same time, the current Lord of the Underworld."
"Huh? What are you talking about? Arknights? Is that, like, a sister to Noah's Ark from the Western circles?"
Erlang Shen let out a forced laugh, putting on an act of not recognising the reference:
"And the blond fellow beside you — that one I really don't know… Is he a friend of yours from your duties as Lord of the Underworld?"
"...Senior, the truth is, I already know."
"..."
Once again, silence reigned in the room. Namikaze Minato just stood off to one side staring at his kunai, not daring to utter a single word.
It wasn't until a long while later that Erlang Shen quietly asked, "So… that dead monkey is the one who told you?"
"Uh, you could say the Great Sage told me…"
Remembering the scene where he had been peeking in on her at the time, Anthony's tone couldn't help but ring a touch guilty.
Forget it — the Great Sage had been his accomplice anyway… so let's just say the Great Sage was the one who told him!
"...That dead monkey!"
For an instant, the silver-haired girl was grinding her teeth and roaring. It took a long while before she finally calmed herself through a deep breath, and squared her shoulders.
"Fine, I'm an otaku, so what about it!"
At last, she shouted out, as if having given up on everything, abandoning herself entirely.
"So now, go on, speak — what is actually going on here."
She plopped down on the bed, crossed her legs, and looked at Anthony. The aloof senior persona she had been maintaining earlier had evaporated.
Or rather, that earlier maintenance had only been a final, desperate struggle… and the instant she had mistaken Anthony for one of her ordered figurines, that whole notion had effectively already collapsed.
"Before I awakened as Lord of the Underworld, I had ventured outside this world."
Anthony exhaled lightly and spoke calmly: "After that, I went on journeys through many different worlds… Haku is one of my identities, and Namikaze Minato is a friend I met during my travels. That's all there is to it."
For a moment, Erlang Shen looked at Anthony and Namikaze Minato beside him with what seemed to be some surprise.
Then, she couldn't help but have an idea.
"Are you the real deal?"
"Didn't you just check with the Third Eye, senior… But to be precise, you could call this an avatar."
Anthony sighed and said: "The main body of my soul will normally pick one out of many avatars and operate through it. The others, after that, the avatars maintain autonomous operation, or are simply shut down."
Erlang Shen's gaze flickered.
"Shutdown and autonomous operation?"
"When in autonomous operation, an avatar's intelligence is somewhat lower — basically an AFK state that can still respond normally. As for shutdown… let me just give you a direct demonstration."
Anthony spoke briskly, and in the next moment, Haku's gaze suddenly dimmed, his hands fell limply to his sides, as though he had lost consciousness.
With a touch of curiosity, Erlang Shen stepped forward and opened the Third Eye again. But this time, the layered essences she had seen before had vanished — leaving only this Haku in front of her…
Out of curiosity, Erlang Shen reached out and gave Haku's cheek a pinch.
So soft.
That was Erlang Shen's first reaction in her mind.
Her gaze instinctively drifted toward the packing box off to the side. Even though she knew that thing was probably the work of some immortal with too much spare time, the feel of it probably wouldn't be quite like this, right?
Instinctively, she pinched again.
And then, she saw the helpless look in Haku's freshly-opened eyes.
In the end, Anthony — now restored to his avatar — let out a sigh.
"Um… Senior?"
"Oh, no need to be so formal."
Erlang Shen spoke with magnanimous ease, but her hand didn't actually stop what it was doing.
Once Erlang Shen had cast off the burden of "I must absolutely keep up my senior-mentor image," you could say her code of conduct went into freefall…
It had already plummeted clean through the centre of the earth.
Hey, Senior — what happened to your dignity?
For a moment, Anthony didn't know whether he ought to keep calling her "senior" anymore.
Especially when he watched what looked like little stars gradually beginning to glitter in the silver-haired girl's eyes.
Anthony had the feeling things were about to take a turn for the worse.
"Senior, are we about done here?"
At long last, Anthony, with a sigh, asked this question.
"Ahem, just about done."
Erlang Shen slowly withdrew her hand, gave a couple of light coughs — but her eyes were still sizing Haku up and down.
Honestly speaking, I'm telling you — no, I'm seriously telling you — the feel of this is nothing like a figurine at all!
And what's more, when you knew that the person in front of you was the actual, real-life human from the two-dimensional world…
When the very boy who had once faced down the Sui Beast in Grand Flame, who had strung everyone back together and pieced the entire Sui Family back into wholeness, was standing right in front of her in the flesh…
Whoa — that feeling is completely different, okay?!
You understand or not what it means when a character of MY waifu-tier obsession is standing right beside me?!
"Senior, if you really are this interested in real-life humans, I could leave Minato here with you…"
Anthony, realising someone had been entirely overlooked this whole time, said diplomatically to Erlang Shen.
Namikaze Minato: ???
But the next moment, Erlang Shen waved her hand dismissively, letting Minato breathe a long sigh of relief:
"Don't know him."
Anthony fell silent.
So… now her sights are set on me, is that it?
Looking at the silver-haired girl's sparkling gaze, Anthony couldn't help but feel his scalp tingling in waves.
"Senior, can we actually talk business now?"
"Oh, business, right… ah, forget it, no rush."
Erlang Shen thought about it for a moment, then simply gave up on thinking.
Turning instead to Anthony, with that same sparkling gleam in her eyes, she asked directly:
"Speaking of which — since your soul isn't even in this avatar most of the time, this thing's basically in escrow, isn't it?"
"Wherever you put it, it's the same — so why not just stash it at my place? I'll help you train the avatar."
Anthony: ?
Train the avatar? Is that what you call it?!
For a moment, the look in Anthony's eyes toward Erlang Shen acquired a faintly peculiar quality. After a moment, in the midst of his silence, he heaved a sigh.
"Um, I'll still have to head back to Grand Flame…"
Anthony spoke with diplomatic care: "This Haku trip is basically just a brief outing for me. Sooner or later, I have to head back to Grand Flame."
"I can do you a few extra favours."
Evidently, as far as the current Erlang Shen was concerned, the concept of dignity had completely vanished.
She tossed out this extremely tempting offer without a moment's hesitation, and for an instant, Anthony's eyelid twitched, his eyes seeming to waver slightly.
A favour from Erlang Shen… honestly, the temptation was enormous.
Erlang Shen, watching Anthony's seemingly hesitant expression, planted both hands on her hips, an air of smugness creeping onto her face as she watched Anthony's indecision.
But after wavering for a while, Anthony only let out another sigh.
"Let's just leave it."
He spoke with what seemed like a touch of weariness, leaving Erlang Shen briefly taken aback.
"Why?"
Erlang Shen tilted her head slightly, and asked Anthony curiously.
"...I can't very well stay here forever, can I? I have to go home eventually."
Anthony shook his head and answered, sounding helpless: "I quite like it over there."
Truth be told, had this been back in the early days when he'd first joined the chat group, Anthony might well have actually said yes.
But now… that was a different matter.
For a moment, Erlang Shen fell silent, looking Anthony over from head to toe.
But a moment later, she unexpectedly nodded.
"Mm… now that feels much more right."
Erlang Shen said, as if having come to some understanding. A pleased look surfaced in her eyes, and then seemed to burst into a glow of delight.
This was the Haku she was familiar with!
Wasn't this exactly the side of him she had fallen for back then?
And besides…
"You actually look pretty much the part of Lord of the Underworld, Junior Underworld King."
Erlang Shen said with satisfaction. Anthony let out an awkward laugh, then suddenly leaned in close to Erlang Shen and asked in a low voice:
"Uh, but, even though I can't stay forever, a brief stay every now and then wouldn't hurt, right…"
"About that earlier promise of yours…"
Anthony rubbed his hands together, eyes glowing faintly, and looked at Erlang Shen, asking with what looked like a touch of embarrassment.
Well now, this made him even more like a King of the Underworld.
That mooching-off-others look — it was a dead ringer for that dead monkey!
Erlang Shen rolled her eyes at Anthony, scooted a bit further along the bed, lifted her chin slightly, and addressed Anthony directly:
"Alright, no need to keep going on about it. Speak up — what is it you came to me to bother me about?"
"It should be about repairing the Underworld, right? But the Underworld's maintenance involves all kinds of things, so you'll have to give me at least a rough direction of what you want…"
Listening to Erlang Shen, Anthony was instead caught off guard, having picked something else out of her words.
"The maintenance of the Underworld… what do you mean by different aspects, specifically?"
Anthony asked, puzzled. His knowledge of the Underworld couldn't really be called deep — he just had a rough idea of which spots in the Underworld were broken, along with a rough sense of the repair conditions for some of them.
As for the facilities of the Underworld, he had given them a once-over and, drawing on the experience of the Forgemaster, had figured out the function of the majority of them — but there was still a small portion he hadn't quite gotten through. Coincidentally, the repair conditions for that part had been so off-putting that after a glance or two he hadn't wanted to look further, and had just shelved it.
Thinking about it now, perhaps Erlang Shen was referring to that aspect?
For a moment, Anthony thought this to himself.
Erlang Shen raised an eyebrow and looked at Anthony — and so Anthony spoke with finality:
"I'll bring back some merchandise from Grand Flame next time for you…"
"No need. Just bring back some stuff of yours."
Looking at Erlang Shen's sweetly smiling expression, the corner of Anthony's eye gave a violent twitch.
But in the end, after taking a deep breath, Anthony immediately said: "Deal!"
"Alright then, I'll explain things to you, and just consider it returning a favour — I'll throw in helping you figure out how to fix something on the side."
Erlang Shen leapt down from the bed in one bound, giving Anthony a momentary headache.
You're a deity! Mind your dignity!
But evidently, the now thoroughly weeb-transformed Erlang Shen didn't much care about that sort of thing.
She cleared her throat, and then began explaining things to Anthony.
"To put it simply, the Underworld is actually a multi-functional thing."
"The most basic function is, of course, to handle the cycle of reincarnation — sending people on to be reborn… The facilities for that side of things, you should basically already understand?"
Anthony nodded. The Yellow Springs Road which had been repaired, the Eighteen Levels of Hell, the unfixed Bridge of Helplessness, and Meng Po's Soup — these were all basically of that category.
But in the next moment, he saw Erlang Shen blink her eyes ever so slightly.
"But the Underworld's most important role is not this."
Erlang Shen said calmly: "Its critically important function is — backup."
"Backup?"
"Mm, yes. In a certain sense, it is the backup of this world…"
Erlang Shen said this as she lifted her gaze toward the neon-lit world outside the window, the faintest smile at the corners of her eyes — as though, at this moment, she was that all-powerful deity, that Erlang Shen.
To Anthony, hearing this only brought a touch of astonishment.
"The Underworld is the place where the souls of all living beings travel after death."
Erlang Shen explained slowly:
"So — take a guess. After a soul arrives at the Underworld, what does it leave behind?"
"A backup… of information?"
"More or less. In any case, after the multitude of souls arrive at the Underworld, they leave their backups within the Underworld… of course, only when the Underworld is in repair."
"Later on, Lord Laojun stepped in to give this whole thing a power-up, and combined with a bunch of other miscellaneous additions, the effect that was finally achieved is quite impressive."
Erlang Shen said softly: "You can lock onto a specific point in time, then read out the backups of all souls from that point in time, and then have everything roll back to the state it was in at that point in time…"
"All living beings will remember what happened before. However, for ordinary mortals, they'll quickly forget — it'll feel to them like they had a dream. Later on, they'll get plenty of déjà vu. They'll feel as though they've seen that thing before. And actually, they're not wrong — they really did experience it, only that experience faded as a dream."
"This is the greatest meaning of the Underworld's existence. It's also the key reason why, no matter how many times it has been broken over the years, it has always been repaired."
"If I remember correctly, even if the reincarnation function were broken, every effort would be made to ensure the backup function remained at least somewhat usable…"
"Why?"
Anthony asked instinctively, and then saw Erlang Shen cast him a sidelong glance.
"Because of the worry that the world might accidentally be played to pieces. Final safety net, you get it?"
Anthony was momentarily silent.
Just from Erlang Shen's description, he had the feeling this world was a calamity-ridden place that kept getting wiped and rebooted.
But in the next moment, what rose up in him was a fierce surge of excitement.
He felt this thing was extremely useful.
According to Erlang Shen, this function, though broken, shouldn't be completely beyond use.
Moreover, its effect didn't seem to be confined to just this world.
What if you added the divine power of the Forgemaster and the divine rank of the Primordial River to it?
Could one then achieve the result of rolling back the entire timeline of a whole world?
For an instant, Anthony's gaze fixed onto Erlang Shen, making this two-dimensional otaku girl wary in turn:
"What? You want me to fix this one?"
"Ahem — this humble one is unworthy."
Anthony cleared his throat lightly, then said earnestly: "If you really can fix it, I'm willing to do anything."
Erlang Shen was momentarily at a loss for words, sizing Anthony up from head to toe — then, in her gaze, there seemed to appear a flicker of softening and hesitation…
She really didn't want to.
But, you know, she also hadn't anticipated this generation's Junior Underworld King would actually have this kind of leverage!
How was she to know the one coming would be an actual real-life human from the two-dimensional world?!
"One-time use only!"
At last, Erlang Shen emphasised: "I can't fully fix that thing — getting it to a state where it can just barely be used once is about the limit. And it's a real pain to repair."
"If you want it fully fixed, you'll probably have to go to Lord Laojun."
Hearing the words Lord Laojun, Anthony fell silent for a moment, and then heaved a sigh.
"That'll likely be difficult. Lord Laojun said he can't get his alchemy to come out right and won't see anyone…"
"Huh?"
A look of confusion spread across Erlang Shen's lovely face.
"Him? He's currently doing alchemy?"
She pulled out her phone, flicked it open to a social app with practised fluidity, then tapped on a video account and showed it to Anthony.
Anthony fixed his eyes on it, and then heard the sound: "The lad just performed a little dance, and got beaten alive by his butler—"
He hurriedly looked down, and saw: Your friend · Supreme Lord Laojun recently liked this.
Anthony: ...?
"He only liked this today."
Erlang Shen said: "How could he possibly be doing alchemy… no, more importantly, how could he possibly be unable to get his alchemy to come out?"
Anthony lifted his head in some bewilderment, and then saw Erlang Shen tilt her head and ask him: "Who told you about this?"
"The Great Sage."
"..."
Erlang Shen was silent.
After a long while, she said in a weary, complicated tone: "That would just be Lord Laojun simply not wanting to see that monkey…"
"But how could the Great Sage not know…"
"He's been blocked by Lord Laojun."
Anthony closed his eyes.
Damn, that's perfect.
"Then should I go to Lord Laojun for the repair?"
"Forget about it. While he's not in the pill chamber doing alchemy, Lord Laojun is probably slacking off through and through."
Erlang Shen said lazily: "You'd be wasting your time looking for him right now — at the moment he probably just wants to slack off… unless you can find something he'd be interested enough to lend a hand for."
Anthony was silent.
Well, that's another quest added to the list — this Lord Laojun definitely has to be hunted down now, and I'll have to think of a way…
But in the next moment, he felt his cheek being patted. He saw Erlang Shen rise to her feet and beckon to him.
"Let's go. This isn't my first time repairing the Underworld — I know the procedure more or less."
Erlang Shen said offhandedly: "Since we're going to fix it, then let's get moving. We'll grab a few wicked ghosts from along the way, then head back to the Underworld, and I'll help you fix the backup function!"
In an instant, Anthony perked up.
"Let's go!"
But the next moment, he suddenly noticed a problem.
It seemed he was being carried out by Erlang Shen.
As he was being lifted up by Erlang Shen, Anthony fell silent and turned back to look at her.
"...Are you sure this is fine?"
"It's fine."
Erlang Shen smiled, but beneath that smile, Anthony could only say — he couldn't read her at all.
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Homelander: Founding the Hero Association
Let's hit these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = 1 extra chapter for the public!