Chat Group: Plus Ultra! Ch 14 (Patreon)

Chapter 14:

The three of us appeared back in All Might's penthouse in a flash of Golden Light. I looked out the penthouse window and noticed it was nighttime. The clock on the wall said it was about 3 am. A door from a nearby hallway burst open, and an incredibly fast, large figure burst forth and appeared in front of us… in nothing but his underwear. We had clearly just woken him up.

"To dare infiltrate the home of the Number One Hero! Prepare yourselves villains!" All Might declared. Emma and Alice looked slightly nervous at my dad’s sudden appearance. Even in his skivvies, he cut an imposing figure with his large stature.

"Dad, it's me. I’m back," I said with a sigh.

He visibly deflated to his smaller form. "Oh! Welcome back, Akane.” He smiled at me.

“Are you ok!?” Alice asked in shock at seeing him literally deflate to his emaciated form. He just waved her off and told her that that happens sometimes.

“Dad, these are Alice and Emma from the group chat.” I introduced Alice and Emma to him along with their handles so he knew who they were in the Chat. I gave him a quick rundown about how we could now freely travel between worlds and that they wanted to stay in ours for now.

“Welcome to our home!" He temporarily bulked up again to give them a warm welcome. "It sounds like you all had quite the adventure. You’ll all have to tell me all about it. *Yawn.* Tomorrow though. A hero needs his sleep after all. Don’t stay up too late, girls.” Dad deflated again as he turned around and went back to his bedroom to get some more sleep.

“So your dad is this world’s number one hero?” Emma asked. She looked surprised at that fact. “Even with his injuries?”

“Of course, he is!” I declared. “And I’ll find a way to heal him soon. Maybe Asia would even be able to heal him once she becomes a devil and gets a power up.”

“Are you going to inherit his title?” Alice asked.

I shook my head. “The title of number one isn’t something you can inherit. It’s something that you have to earn yourself,” I said.

With that, I also let out a yawn and decided to call it a night. The time zones between DxD’s Japan and my own didn’t match up for some reason. Their night was my day and vice versa. I needed to reacclimate. I showed Emma and Alice to the guest rooms. I know Alice doesn’t sleep, so I told her she had free reign of the penthouse's entertainment room while we slept.

…

Dean Nezu came over the next morning as soon as he heard I was back. He was enthusiastic to hear about everything that happened as well as meet the two other-worlders that I had brought back with me. He brought a bunch of scanning equipment with him. I told Emma and Alice that they didn’t have to submit themselves to any testing. They didn’t mind, though. From Nezu’s scans, Alice’s DNA was almost alien and unreadable. That made some sense because the vampire venom in her world was borderline magic. Emma’s DNA closely resembled our own. Though, she did not have the identifiable quirk factor in her DNA. The X-gene was found to be very similar. As thanks for playing along with him, he promised Alice and Emma that he would set them both up with official identities in this world.

Nezu also had stars in his eyes when I handed him the Star Wars blaster and mind-blocking headband I had on me. “The world we were sent to didn’t have any advanced tech because it was 150 years in the past.” I explained. “These two pieces of tech came from… elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?” He asked.

“Allow me to explain,” Emma started off. We all gave her our undivided attention. “When the transmigrator took over Gasper’s body, he was not part of any chat group. However, when he escaped, he was provisionally invited to one. They offered him some advice and the bare minimum of help by sending him those two items. According to them, if he couldn’t beat us on his own, he wasn’t worthy to join their Transmigrator Chat Group.” Emma explained. I furrowed my brows. An entire chat group of transmigrators sounded annoying to deal with, especially if they were not friendly.

My annoyance turned to worry when Emma continued her explanation. We were not the first Hero Chat Group... According to her, the transmigrators claimed to have killed all the members of the last group when they tried to oppose them. All the transmigrators believed themselves to be akin to gods in the universes they found themselves in. They all conquered or were in the process of conquering those universes. Apparently, that blaster Gasper had been giving was Han Solo’s actual weapon. A member of the other chat group had killed him and taken it as a trophy. Then he got bored of looking at it and gave it away.

“That's some disturbing information,” Nezu stated as he took on a pondering look. “What are the odds that they could come to our world?”

“Right now that's impossible,” Emma thankfully said. “Their multiverse is infinite after all. The odds of them finding us are basically zero. Gasper asked them the same question. According to them, they were only able to find the last Hero Chat group's home worlds by placing some kind of dimensional tracking devices on the members when they had a mission to stop one of the transmigrators from ruining his own world. Thankfully, the member in charge of creating these devices was not online at the time Gasper temporarily joined. We're incredibly lucky because of that. Otherwise, they could have immediately had the coordinates to Rias’s world and attacked us.” Emma finished her explanation.

I agreed with her. We were incredibly lucky. It sounded like some of those members were going to be bad news. That Star Wars transmigrator didn't even care about killing such an iconic hero. Him also getting bored of his ‘trophy’ and tossing it away also spoke of his mental state. There were plenty of villains like that in this world. They were people who were never satisfied with what they had.

"Why don't we put away the depressing topics for now,” All Might said. “I have something to give you, Akane. This came in the mail for you when you were gone these past few days.” Dad handed me an unsealed envelope. “Sorry about opening it, but all mail to this tower must be screened.”

I reached inside the envelope and pulled out a plastic card. Upon closer inspection, it was more than that, however. It was an official hero license. The kind that the HPSC distributes after you pass the official hero exam.

“This isn't even a provisional license… This is an official hero license!” I exclaimed.

“That's right, Akane,” Dad said with a serious look on his face. “With that license, you are officially recognized as a pro hero. Hell, you could even start taking sidekicks if you wanted.”

“Wait? How is she a pro hero already?” Emma questioned. I wondered that as well. “I thought she had to go through a bunch of training at UA and then pass the provisional exam beforehand?”

Nezu answered her. “Plain and simple… It's nepotism. The HPSC wants to get in the good graces of the next great hero. Even if Akane doesn't become the next symbol of peace, she'll still be an incredibly powerful hero.”

I was feeling a bit conflicted. I had worked, trained, and sweated buckets to get where I was. To the point that I had expected to sweep through the UA exam and even the first sports festival. I didn't expect my efforts to be officially recognized until then. Suddenly becoming a recognized hero just like that gave me a strange feeling.

Dad walked over to me and patted me on the shoulder. “You should be proud, Akane,” he said. “Your dream is to surpass me, right? This will just give you a head start.” He gave me a thumbs up and a bright smile that I returned.

“It's not like you still can't go to UA either,” Nezu added. “Usually, it's our third-year students who get their official hero licenses, but there's nothing in the rulebook saying a freshman can't join our university already having one. I'm sure there's a lot of specialized training you still need anyway.” He explained.

He was right about that. I had no problems when it came to combat, but I was lacking in most hero activities beyond that. For example, I wouldn't even begin to know how to properly organize a rescue operation efficiently during a natural disaster.

“I would also like to go to UA,” Emma stated. “I never got the chance to attend university in my world before everything fell apart. I barely got to attend high school as I had to take over my family's company when I was 16.”

“We’d be happy to have you, Miss Frost. Provided you can pass the exam. I have no doubts you’ll at least make it into our business course with your unique mind-reading quirk,” Nezu said. I figured Emma had no qualms about cheating and pulling all the answers out of the instructor's heads judging by the smirk on her face.

Alice looked thoughtful. “I’ve never actually been to school. Ever since I woke up without my memories, I've been constantly on the move. Can I attend as well?” She asked Nezu as well. He gave her the same response as he did Emma. Alice would have to spend the next few months studying to a modern high school education level, but I was confident she would be able to catch up in time. She had the advantage of not needing to sleep after all. She had a determined look on her face and she told us that she wouldn't be left behind by her new friends.

It would be great having some more of my friends attending the Hero course with me. They could also bump off some of the lower ranked students who didn’t deserve to be there. Needless to say, if Mineta made it into the school… Momo and I had agreed to immediately transfer to Shinketsu.

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