Chapter 401: Ah, Great America (4)
Chapter 401: Ah, Great America (4)
Perhaps it was because Ultimate was the one behind the wheel, but fortunately, no major accidents occurred this time.
Actually, I know the truth now.
Dr. Ludwig, who stubbornly insisted on resuming the experiments even after experiencing that total chaos, had finally proven that the problem really did lie with me.
I did manage to get him to announce the results without mentioning my name, so I avoided the worst-case scenario of being penalized by the Management Bureau.
…Though it did involve me literally getting on my knees before Dr. Ludwig to achieve that outcome.
I couldn't quite grasp the petty details because of all the technical academic jargon flying around, but I did learn exactly what conditions trigger the phenomenon.
To summarize the experimental results: the vehicle itself wasn't the problem.
Simply put, any structure with a certain level of complexity that lacks self-repair capabilities will experience issues.
According to Dr. Ludwig’s more precise explanation:
Apparently, complex objects break down just by being near me.
This even applies to living organisms, which are incredibly complex.
However, the damage is so minuscule—comparable to being "hit by the air" while walking—that it’s practically meaningless for living things, which possess natural self-healing functions.
The problem lies with complex machinery that lacks such features because self-repair technology is prohibitively expensive.
Just by being in my vicinity, these machines slowly wear down for various reasons, and eventually, their structures collapse, leading to malfunctions.
I’m not joking. It’s for real.
It literally means that my mere presence shortens the lifespan of various devices.
After the results came out, I argued that even I couldn't have failed to notice something like that. If machines were breaking down around me every day, I would have known ages ago.
But Dr. Ludwig ruthlessly crushed my last shred of hope.
He explained that if a machine guaranteed to last ten years breaks down in five or six, people usually don't find it suspicious. Furthermore, machines commonly used in daily life aren't likely to cause major issues just from that level of malfunction.
On the other hand, precision instruments—the kind you see in daily life but are extremely delicate—are a different story.
In other words, vehicles are bound to have exceptionally large problems.
He added that while a malfunction in a phone or computer just ends with an error message, a similar glitch in a vehicle—like the example he gave of an electronic motorcycle brake disconnecting for a fraction of a second—leads to a catastrophic accident.
Conversely, this meant that simple machines wouldn't have much trouble.
This also explained why I had pulverized Branch 02 of the Technology Research Institute.
Experimental devices built for functional demonstration, lacking proper safety measures, were hit directly by my Collapse Trait. They malfunctioned instantly and blew up.
If they had been purely analog devices relying on gears without any electronic or Otherworldly Technology, they would have held up much better.
But what was Branch 02?
A place where Otherworldly Technology was the baseline and electronic systems were a given.
Naturally, everything had exploded.
Anyway.
According to what we gathered from the experiments, machines malfunction when I'm around.
The causes are the causality distortion created by my presence and the pure waves of Otherworldly Power.
The latter applies to anyone with a certain level of power.
When someone possesses immense power, all the Otherworldly energy around them causes anomalies that spread like electromagnetic waves, affecting all matter.
Theories about this phenomenon had existed for a long time, but the values were supposedly so minuscule they were dismissed as margins of error.
However, it was proven through the observation of me, as my wave intensity clearly exceeded the margin of error.
The former, however, was a phenomenon not observed in others—or perhaps something even harder to detect than the waves of Otherworldly Power.
The reason for this causality distortion is still unknown. We only discovered that it happens.
Dr. Ludwig showed his typical madman side, ecstatic that this would further the field of Otherworldly Studies.
"If this phenomenon happens to all Heroes, then the answer is definitely biology with self-regeneration!" he raved.
Well, he was a guy who became a villain just to do whatever he wanted, so doing something helpful for humanity didn't mean he wasn't crazy.
At any rate, now that I knew the unfairness I'd faced was actually my own fault, I planned to be a bit more careful in the future.
Though I have absolutely no intention of letting the outside world know it's my fault.
After all, it just means the probability of problems increases when I'm around, not that things are guaranteed to blow up, right?
And there was a slight flaw in those results.
I now knew the mechanical failures were my fault.
However, the experiments failed to prove that incidents caused by external factors—like the Titanic II or the recent bomb terror—were also my doing.
Dr. Ludwig said it was impossible to set up a control group for such phenomena and that he wouldn't even know how to observe them.
In short, it meant this:
Internal mechanical failures: Likely my fault.
External problems: Not my fault.
When I presented this brilliant, flawless, and historic equation of mine to Dr. Ludwig, he simply asked:
"What kind of bullshit are you talking about?"
But I don't listen to former villains.
Just look at the reality before my eyes.
The vehicle Ultimate drove had issues—the brakes suddenly wouldn't work, a tire went flat, and a car door randomly flew open—but we arrived in Detroit safely without any actual accidents.
There were minor malfunctions, but the vehicle wasn't destroyed, and since there was no intervention from external phenomena, we arrived safely. This proved that external factors aren't my fault.
Anyway, putting aside that special ability I never knew I had...
We arrived safely in Detroit in a car missing a door.
The location of the enemies had been found by some unknown ancestor summoned from The Afterlife.
And because of that, the danger they posed felt even more amplified.
"…Of all places, Detroit."
In this era, wasn't it the second-largest slum in America?
The most famous slum was Las Vegas.
From what I knew of Detroit, it used to be a fairly populated place before the invasion. Even if public safety was a bit rough, it was a functional city.
"It's a mess now."
As soon as I stepped out of the car and looked at Detroit, I couldn't possibly think of this city as normal.
Tall buildings rose here and there, but they only added to the eerie atmosphere.
Neglected and poorly maintained, windows were shattered everywhere, and some sections had collapsed, exposing the internal steel frames.
I had seen scenes like this before.
In post-apocalyptic movies or the ruined old cities outside the Great Barrier.
That kind of scenery was unfolding right here in Detroit, inside the Great Barrier.
It was completely different from Las Vegas, even though they were both slums.
I'd heard stories, but I didn't expect it to be this much of a wreck.
I'd been to Las Vegas once, so I knew exactly what it looked like.
A flood of light and people that made the title of "America's Largest Slum" seem unfitting.
The countless gaudy decorations installed by casinos to lure in customers were enough to make one's eyes and ears ache.
The boulevards, filled with light and noise, were packed with tourists.
However, if you stepped just a little bit away from those crowded, glowing streets, you'd see exactly why it was called a slum.
A dark, murky place where you could find a corpse within an hour of walking.
A place where Mutants, clearly lacking Bureau permits, walked around with total confidence.
That was the essence of Las Vegas.
Tourists and ordinary people didn't know that. Or even if they did, it was just trivia to them.
If you searched the internet, you'd easily find posts saying, "I heard Vegas was a slum, but it's so lively and sparkly, it's nothing special."
That was only natural.
Las Vegas was a slum ruled purely by money.
Naturally, the massive syndicates ruling that slum wouldn't put their prey in danger.
To them, tourists were targets to be fleeced and squeezed for money, not killed.
The safety of tourists meant more tourists.
More tourists meant more money.
More money meant more power for the organization.
To this end, they strictly protected the safety of tourists and stationed members at every alleyway leading to the lawless zones to keep civilians out.
With such a thorough separation, even if a massacre occurred just fifty meters away from a luxury hotel, the tourists would never know.
A slum where light and darkness were sharply contrasted.
That was Las Vegas.
Compared to that, this place—Detroit—was just a straight-up apocalypse.
Buildings were in shambles, and the streets were littered with broken cars and stone fragments.
Up to that point, it was a common sight of ruin, but on top of that, various attachments were stuck to the buildings, proving that people were actually living there.
Barbed wire that sparkled silver, free of rust.
"No Trespassing" signs that looked brand new, standing in stark contrast to the crumbling buildings they were attached to.
And even the gazes staring intently at us from behind those building windows.
Hmm. It's similar to Nanjido, but subtly different.
Nanjido felt like a cramped space packed with venomous, stubborn people struggling to survive.
Here, it felt like the city had completely collapsed, but people were somehow just... living.
In Nanjido, I felt hostility in the eyes watching us.
But the gazes from these people felt merely indifferent.
Maybe it's because the land is wider.
As I thought that and idly scratched my chin, wondering what to do next...
"…This is America, right?"
I heard A-bin’s voice, filled with a "What is this?" kind of emotion.
"It is. It's just Detroit."
"…How did it end up like this?"
"I know the gist of it, but not the exact details. Hmm… let's see."
Since it was another country's business.
Still, I figured I should tell her what I knew.
Just as I was debating how to explain it...
"I shall be the one to tell you that!"
The refreshing voice of a Young Man rang out.
The tone and pressure were definitely like someone shouting, but the actual volume was that of a normal, average voice.
"…."
I stopped organizing my thoughts and stared blankly at the guy.
A handsome Young Man was standing there.
A Blonde Man with well-defined, but not overly bulky, muscles.
Even though he had transformed his body, he approached Han A-bin with a grin that revealed teeth exactly like a certain someone's.
"Detroit is a massive metropolis that we failed to save because we were lacking!"
"What do you mean by 'failed to save'?"
At the words of the Young Man who clearly resembled someone, Han A-bin continued the conversation normally, as if there were no problem.
Honestly, I wasn't very interested in the conversation, so I poked around the surroundings to see if there was anything useful while waiting for them to finish.
Even so, the Young Man's voice was so full of presence that it was forced into my mind.
To summarize:
The moment the Otherworldly invasion began, Detroit—surrounded by massive lakes—fell into ruin due to a combination of several unfavorable conditions.
Being surrounded by lakes made it difficult to defend properly, its location was awkward, and it lacked anything of vital importance.
Naturally, it was a festival of bad conditions that made it a prime candidate to be used as a sacrificial pawn.
Of course, that was the story of the early invasion.
As water zones like seas and lakes became safe zones due to certain events, Detroit's terrain conditions shifted from being near-worst to being optimal for defense.
Inland but not adjacent to The Sea, possessing giant lakes, and surrounded by urban areas.
Despite these advantages, one major problem remained, preventing the US and the Management Bureau from touching Detroit.
The presence of refugees who moved in after the city fell.
While the US ignored Detroit because it had been utterly ruined early on, word quietly spread that Detroit had become a safe zone, and refugees began to settle in the area.
While forgotten by everyone, Detroit—now teeming with refugees—grew in its own way.
After the establishment of the Management Bureau, when things finally stabilized enough for the US to look around, they realized that Detroit had become safe and was inhabited by a significant number of people.
They wanted to kick them all out and redevelop the area, but the city was—no joke—a wasteland. They lacked the time and money to both evict the people and rebuild the city, so it was left abandoned. A very common story.
Well, it's a common occurrence anywhere in the world.
The only problem was that those two mad doctors had intervened here.
It had simply become a hellhole where anything could happen.