Leo picked up one of the stray lemons, and tossed it in the air. "Well, old friend. It looks like it's just you and me."
His eyes shifted around the room, landing on the water tap. Then they moved to the three lemons on his counter.
He had initially saved hundred credits to last a month comfortably. But with half of that already spent, his calculation had gone a little awry.
Still, it was barely enough to last a month if he lived frugally. It wasn't a problem for him, who had been living like this most of his life.
"I'll just drink lemon water," he decided, even as his stomach grumbled. "It's a detox! Very popular in the early years, according to that historical document."
"Yes! Who needs three times a day food when you have a proper healthy hydration drink?"
His stomach let out a low, sad grumble that sounded suspiciously like, "I hate you."
Meanwhile, thirty thousand feet above the city...
Timmy, the Porter, was not having a good day.
His small rusty ship, which sounded like a dying washing machine, was rattling violently. He was flying in the high-altitude commercial lane, heading toward the gleaming, mile-high tower that was the Hero's Guild Headquarters.
"Okay, Timmy," he whispered to himself, grabbing the controls with sweaty palms. "You can do this. Just drop it off. It's just a delivery. Don't look the S-Rank Heroes in the eye. Don't breathe on them. Don't exist near them. Just deliver and..."
[EMERGENCY ALERT: ALL CIVILIAN CRAFT EVACUATE!
REPEAT: ALL CIVILIAN CRAFT EVACUATE!]
The sky suddenly exploded with the announcement. Timmy's ship looked no different than a bicycle on a freeway filled with F1 jets. It was suddenly swarmed.
More advanced Hero interceptors and police gunships rushed past, sending his rusty ship spinning end over end.
Alarms roared inside his cockpit.
[Warning! Navigation offline!
Probability of Crash: Ninety Percent]
A loud warning came from Timmy's ship, almost deafening him.
"No, no, no, not the goat incident again!" Timmy screamed, fighting with the controls. He was losing altitude, and it was happening fast.
He was no longer heading for the Hero's Guild. He was just heading down.
...
It was the seventh day when Leo replaced his breakfast and lunch with Leo's Miraculous Lemon Elixir. And he was miserable.
The only happy time of his life was the dinner when he finally had proper food, if it could even be called that.
He wasn't having luxury dishes for dinner. He was only having a solvent paste that was helpful for hunger and gave his body the necessary boost needed to survive.
The solvent paste was even called the food for the lower class on which the wealthy class wouldn't even spit on. Even the soldiers on the battlefield would flinch when they would have to eat this.
Fortunately, for the person surviving on lemon juice, this didn't feel all that bad.
He was pretty sure his teeth were starting to feel soft with all the lemon. He had even developed an involuntary eye twitch.
"I can do it!" he grumbled, sipping another cup of sour water.
To distract himself from the agonizing emptiness in his stomach, he decided to check on the status of his delivery. He pulled up Glitzy's tracking app.
[Tracking: Order #969-A]
[Status: Uhmm... In Transit?]
[Last Update: 3 days ago.]
[Location: Unknown]
[Driver Status: Probably Fine]
"Is he fine? Did they already lose the package?" Leo said, scrolling through the vague details. "These people really have a talent. When I become rich, I should invest in them to become even richer with losses."
"Don't worry, Timmy. I'll give you a 5-star review! The best 5-star review!"
Leo wasn't sad that his items hadn't been delivered. Even if they were lost on the way, it didn't matter. The company's terms and conditions explicitly mentioned that in case of the items being lost, they won't be responsible for compensation.
Even if they lost the items, it would still be considered a loss for him. It wasn't as if he was cheating the system after all. It was clearly a situation that couldn't be avoided.
"My dear system, you can't blame me for this. I didn't have money to hire the expensive delivery guys or take delivery insurance."
Leo maintained a neutral expression on his face, even showing some sadness on the surface. However, his face didn't cooperate perfectly as his lips kept creeping up into a smile.
He took another gulp of lemon juice, and was immediately brought back to earth as his eyes started twitching with that irritating taste.
...
At that exact moment, on a skyscraper rooftop in Sector-G...
Timmy's rusty ship was a smoking wreck, half-buried in the building's air conditioning unit. He had crash-landed.
Below, the sounds of battle echoed—explosions, monster-roars, and the sonic booms of high-level combat.
There was a massive booming sound as a figure fell from the sky. His fall formed a big crater on the concrete.
The figure pushed his body out of the crater. His entire body was shrouded in golden lightning energy. His red and gold armor was scorched and dented.
It was S-Rank Hero Blaze. Earth's representative, and the man from the holographic ads.
He looked angry when his gaze fell on the person merely ten meters away from him.
"Civilian!" Blaze roared like thunder. "This is a Level-S restricted zone! Get this heap of junk out of the sky!"
Timmy was already shivering. He wanted to run away as well, but the fall had already ruined his ship. Moreover, the door was locked from the other side, so he couldn't even leave the roof of this tower.
Timmy had stopped breathing after being scolded. He was pretty sure his soul had left his body. "S-S-S-S-Rank... B-Blaze... Sir! I... my ship... I'm just... delivery..."
Blaze ignored him, as he stood up. He clutched his side, and when he pulled his hand away, his glove was covered in a black energy. Every time that black energy flickered, he felt pain that was impossible to hide.
"Tch. That bastard even poisoned me. If I don't do anything about him, this entire city will be destroyed. But this poison..."
His body felt heavy but his heartbeat was unusually faster. His high-tech med-kit was empty. It was as if everything had been planned to take him out.
It was clearly the work of an insider in the Hero Guild. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to think about it.
He was barely able to keep the poison suppressed, but it was causing an even worse problem. The unusual movement of his mana was causing a mana overload in his body and the poison wasn't helping.
If mana mana overload actually manifested, then things would get even worse. He didn't even want to see what would happen. His entire body was going to blow up, taking the entire city down with him.
"I need to take this fight out of this city. Even if I die, I have to kill that bastard while saving this city!"
Blaze was panting, leaning against the smoking wreckage of Timmy's ship... when he smelled it. Through the smoke and ozone, he smelled something different.
His eyes shifted to the pile of crates that had spilled from the cargo hold. There was a hand-drawn label on the bottles that were still intact.
"Leo's Miraculous Lemon Elixir."
"What is this?" Blaze asked.
"It's... it's a sample, sir!" Timmy squeaked, terrified out of his mind. "It's a new miraculous potion! I'm... I'm delivering it to the Hero Guild!"
Timmy didn't really know what this thing did. He just made up the use case based on the name of the product.
Blaze was out of options. The black energy was already creeping up his arm. "Potion? Good enough."
Even if the potion wasn't actually useful for his condition, he still wanted to take all the hope that he could receive.
He didn't think the potion would heal his mana overload or detox the poison. But if it was a potion, it could at least give him a few more seconds of strength to take this fight outside the city.
He ripped open a crate, grabbed one of the shady-looking bottles, and tore off the cap. He read the label Leo had so carefully designed to look as stupid as possible.
'A magic potion that will definitely, probably, maybe cure... stuff.'
"What a joke," he scoffed. But he was dying.
He put the bottle on his lips and chugged the entire thing in one sitting.
A long, agonizing, silent beat passed.
Timmy watched in silence, really praying that the shady product was actually useful. What if it was bad, or if it was a poison in itself, wouldn't he be killed?
Even if he survived this place and Blaze died later, he was going to be arrested by the Guild for being complicit in poisoning the greatest hero of earth.
Blaze's eyes went wide after he finished drinking the bottle. He looked at his hand. The black, creeping veins on his arm had started recovering, albeit slowly.
He stared at the empty bottle. He stared at his now-clean hand.
"This... This thing..." Blaze gasped in shock. "Not only is it neutralizing the poison but it's also soothing my mana pathways?"
He turned to Timmy, his eyes burning disbelief and curiosity.
"This stuff!" he exclaimed, "Who made it?!"