Tsuna, who hadn't slept the entire night, was now leaning back in his chair, resting.
He turned his head and glanced out the window.
"The sun's up."
"Ahhh—"
He let out a deep yawn. After an entire night of brainstorming, the excitement of possibly finding a way home had kept him unusually alert.
But once that excitement faded, the backlash from his intense focus came crashing down.
Sleepiness!
And a serious kind, the sort that wouldn't go away without proper rest.
"Beep beep!"
A metallic badge on the desk emitted a soft chime.
Tsuna straightened up a little, tapping the badge's surface with a finger. A holographic projection rose from it.
The image displayed a 360-degree view of the lands outside the Labyrinth City.
Soon, more scenes began to appear—each one showing the main roads leading into Orario.
There were even smaller, lesser-known paths among them.
He had placed Mimicry Eyes along all those routes, ensuring that anyone or anything entering the city would pass under their gaze.
"Still, whether these Mimicry Eyes can avoid detection... that needs to be tested."
When creating the Mimicry Eyes, Tsuna had added several layers of disguise—camouflage, presence suppression, and sensory masking. Even so, he couldn't help but worry that they might still be discovered.
After all, even those presence-reducing badges he'd crafted had once been noticed by the Dungeon's Cleaners.
That meant that against beings with excessive power, stealth abilities could become ineffective.
Until he could confirm that neither gods nor adventurers would notice the Mimicry Eyes, he had no intention of deploying them inside Orario.
That would be far too reckless.
After verifying the status of the Mimicry Eyes, he moved on to testing the Pheromone.
"I'll need to run some finer tests on it too."
The metallic badge on his desk was labeled Pheromone—a device designed for information warfare, built with his return to his original world in mind. Its full name was "Information Warfare–Grade Data Collection Unit," but he simply called it Pheromone.
"It has zero combat capability. All its attributes are focused on analysis, data capture, and information offense. But I still need to test its data acquisition speed and its information organization efficiency."
In his original world, information networks had already spread among ordinary people. There, Pheromone would have been immensely useful. Here, in a world without such systems, its applications were limited.
Even so, it still required testing—both here and when he returned home.
After deactivating Pheromone, Tsuna leaned back in his chair once more.
Fatigue washed over him, and his eyelids grew unbearably heavy.
The adrenaline was gone. Now, he truly felt sleepy.
He summoned the Healing Hot Spring.
Stripping off his outer clothes, leaving only a pair of shorts, Tsuna slipped into the bath.
A translucent barrier surrounded him as one of his puppets remained behind in the room to stand guard.
Life had been too comfortable lately; he'd let his guard down. Realizing that, Tsuna decided to reclaim the caution he'd once had.
Especially during sleep—the most dangerous time for any human being.
Losing consciousness meant vulnerability, so to sleep safely, he retreated into the Alternate Dimension.
Two hours later—
Knock knock knock!
The sound of someone rapping on the door echoed through the room.
The puppet opened the door. Standing outside was Bete Loga.
"Hm?"
He peered inside but didn't see Tsuna anywhere. The chair by the desk was pulled out but not pushed back.
"At this hour, he's gone, and only the puppet's here."
"Resting, huh?"
After a moment of thought, Bete understood.
He had originally come to ask about the Dying Will Flame, but since the man himself wasn't around, he'd have to find another time.
He left without saying anything.
He knew Tsuna's puppet couldn't speak anyway, so he simply closed the door behind him and walked off.
If he couldn't ask today, then he'd go to the Challenge Space and ask the Floor Bosses with his fists instead.
The next Amphisbaena respawn was less than a month away.
After that battle, he'd need time to adjust his updated status—just in time for the Joint Expedition.
Bete didn't have a single moment to waste.
He wished he could squeeze two minutes' worth of work into every one.
Not long after Bete left, Loki came knocking at the same door.
The puppet answered again.
"Hm? Eh~? He's not sleeping in his room today?"
Loki looked a little surprised.
Usually when she dropped by, Tsuna would be resting here.
But today, only the puppet remained—a clear sign that he had gone into the Alternate Dimension to rest.
"Tsuna's puppet, can you take me there?"
The puppet gave a slight nod. The Space Rabbit appeared, and a translucent field enveloped Loki, transporting her into the other dimension.
The gray-white world of the Alternate Dimension was utterly unlike the real one.
Everything, including the people within it, turned monochrome.
It was like stepping into the mirrored reflection of reality. Loki stood before a familiar door, pushed it open, and found it unlocked.
Inside, in the muted gray world, Tsuna was the only being who retained his color.
Though, he didn't look so great.
Wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, he lay immersed in a transparent bath. Pale green liquid surrounded him, slowly mending his body.
Loki walked up to the edge of the bath, clearly seeing the exhaustion on his face.
"Didn't sleep well last night?"
Was it about Hephaestus? Loki shook her head slightly.
Tsuna could get excited, sure—but not to the point of insomnia.
"Ah~ suddenly, I really want to know…"