The green-haired girl, after locking eyes, coldly returned her raised smile and slowly descended to the ground. There was a divine aura about her, reminiscent of an angel descending from the heavens.
As I looked closely at the girl lightly stepping onto the ground, the first thought that popped into my head was just how shockingly thin she was. Not in the model-like way but more like you could snap her like a twig.
While the green-haired elf I met a short while ago embodied the aroma and beauty of nature, this girl seemed to reveal nature’s raw form without pretense. She possessed both beauty and a touch of grotesqueness.
“This area is off-limits to outsiders.”
“I know. You must be the Scientist from City E?”
“If you know that, you should leave immediately. Do you not understand this is illegal?”
“—Illegal? Who decided that?”
Her words sounded as if she hadn’t even completed elementary education, rendering me momentarily speechless. She seemed to think she’d won the verbal battle, smiling broadly as she continued.
“The earth is a creation of nature. It cannot belong to anyone, so my presence here is my right.”
“…Did you maybe not attend elementary school?”
“Oh my, why do you ask? Although I look young, I am indeed an adult.”
“Good to know.”
I wondered what I’d do if she really was an oblivious little brat, but it appeared thankfully she was not. I glanced slyly at Levitan, who had just woken up and looked dazed. She shook off the sleepiness and darted towards the girl in an instant.
As Levitan reached the girl at an unbelievable speed before I could react, she froze, fist raised.
“—Huh?”
“Levitan?”
“No, wait—”
And then, in the next moment, something invisible struck Levitan hard. I barely dodged Levitan as she hurtled towards me before turning to the girl, who had transformed the cloak she wore into a figure.
A thug, tightly wrapped in bandages, appeared, his front barely visible. I grimaced at the sight.
“Adding assault to the list. If you get shot, you wouldn’t have much to say, would you?”
“Oh my, that’s scary.”
“Just one question—did you rot the plants here?”
“Rot them? I simply returned these poor young lives trapped in this city to the vast embrace of nature.”
“Okay, I get it.”
I commanded towards where Levitan would be buried in the sand.
“—Rip it apart. Levitan.”
“Roar—!”
Levitan emerged from the sandstorm, seized the bandaged thug, and flew away. Despite her comrade vanishing right before her eyes, the green-haired girl stared blankly at us.
Maybe she was overflowing with confidence in her abilities. It did seem she possessed powers similar to a Meister. Superpowers that made her nearly invincible against modern civilization…
Thinking she had come unprepared would be a grave mistake. I aimed a capture net gun at her.
“Move, and you’ll get hurt.”
The moment I pulled the trigger, the heavy net covered the girl. As the weight of the net pinned her down, she calmly stroked it, unfazed.
“…This is a man-made object.”
“Exactly. It’s a net. You’ll never get free.”
“Wasting a gift from nature like this? Only humans could do such a thing.”
The girl mumbled something incomprehensible and caressed the net wrapping around her. To my astonishment, the net began to rot away. Like the land once vibrant with life now reduced to powder, it crumbled to dust.
Watching the scene unfold, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the girl. It shouldn’t be made of rotten material. She’s not a machine, so she shouldn’t be able to control it just by touching it.
However, the girl casually escaped the net and put her hands behind her back.
“Such tricks don’t work on me, as long as it’s a man-made product.”
It seemed the nature wielder’s abilities were more dangerous than I had anticipated. I swallowed hard, observing the girl, who appeared confident.
This fight was going to take longer than I thought.
* * *
Name: Flower
Superpower: Nature’s Advocate
Description: Loved by nature. Excludes artificial things.
* * *
“Ugh, huh…”
“What? Is it already over?”
Levitan looked down at the bandaged thug, who groaned beneath her but didn’t even move an inch. He squirmed as if trying to escape, but such resistance was futile against Levitan’s strength, which surpassed even the beastmen.
Levitan, uninterested, broke the thug’s limbs again and dragged him back toward Eight’s location.
“This is—!”
“Agh, agh—!”
“—Eight!”
Upon hearing Eight’s scream, Levitan dashed off. No way, was Eight losing?
In the blink of an eye, Levitan returned to where Eight was and saw him engaged in a tearful struggle with the green-haired girl, who had grabbed him by the hair and was biting his arm.
“Ahhh—!”
“Let go, let me go!”
“This is ridiculous!”
Gone was the net gun he usually carried, and Eight was wrestling the girl bare-handed. The scientist, accustomed to avoiding exercise, was now just barely equal to the stick-thin girl…
Levitan watched the pathetic scene from a distance, sighed, and approached them. She naturally twisted the girl’s arm behind her and looked at Eight.
“What are you doing?”
“Uh… Levitan…”
“Hey, Eight—how about some exercise when we get back? Struggling like this isn’t good…”
“Haha… I’ll keep that in mind.”
Eight, whose dusty white coat was now covered in sand, looked at the subdued green-haired girl. The girl shot daggers at us with her eyes, but Levitan, not appreciating her attitude, buried her face in the sand, instantly making her calmer.
“Is this the one behind it?”
“Probably…”
“So, we just take her, right? Let’s go.”
“But Levitan, what about that bandaged thug you were carrying…?”
“Oh—.”
Just as Levitan belatedly remembered she had left the thug in the desert, an arm flew in from afar and sent her flying.
This time, Levitan was ready, successfully defending against the blow, but still got pushed back a few steps by the arm spewing blood and flesh like a rocket.
Once the green-haired girl was freed, she sprinted towards the direction the arm came from. Simultaneously, the bandaged thug, hidden in the shadows, grabbed her and took off into the sky.
“What the—!”
Frustration boiling over, Levitan threw her hand out, turning the blood and flesh arm into a swarm of bats that returned to the bandaged thug’s limb. The arm, moments away from being wrecked, reattached perfectly.
The first thing that came to Eight’s mind was the existence of villains from cartoons: vampires—immortal beings that wouldn’t die even when killed…
“Haah, haah—idiots! Just you wait! Next time, it won’t end like this!”
Soaring high above, the green-haired girl screamed as the bandaged thug flew at an astonishing speed.
Finally, the dormant smartphone buzzed to life. The previously frozen CCTV and Evilus Android flickered on.
Levitan looked at the duo flying away and turned to Eight.
“Should we bring the robot?”
“No. That girl’s abilities are more impressive than I thought…”
“Oh really? Can’t even beat Eight, huh?”
“It’s not that she can’t. She can definitely win, but…”
We could prepare ourselves from the beginning. Eight contemplated the green-haired girl’s face and immediately began fiddling with his smartphone. Knowing her powers, finding out who she was had become a top priority.
Of course, figuring out someone with such nonsense abilities would be harder than usual, especially if they were good at hiding their identity. I’d probably have to utilize every ounce of the AI’s computational power to just manage that…
* * *
“Let’s protect the environment!”
“True Natural, environmental protection agency.”
“Chairperson: Flower.”
“Haha, really.”
The next day, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the openly available profile information of the green-haired girl I found on the internet.
