"W-what do we do?! I’m not a Hero!"

President Ronald scrambled behind Bagani’s men, his eyes darting around as he frantically counted the soldiers storming the tavern.

"Shit... I should’ve brought my own guards," he hissed.

<Nothing will happen,> Bagani whispered, though his voice vibrated with a sharp, frustrated tone. <This is all a misunderstanding. Please, Bala. Go.>

"Payin ko lat yan!" Bala roared. The words flew too fast for the translator to catch, but the way he brandished his sword and the spray of spit from his mouth made his intent perfectly clear.

Adam moved to step forward, but Bagani’s arm shot out, blocking his path once more.

<Please. Let me handle,> Bagani pleaded. And even through the robotic filter of Beatrice’s software, the desperation in his voice was quite obvious. The AI she made was definitely improving.

"Okay." Adam met his gaze, then nodded slowly, taking a step back... again.

Again? Adam, you’ve been pushed around all day by half a dozen different people. When are you going to take charge? Just because they’re experts doesn’t mean you’re a bystander—you’re the reason they’re even here. Shut up. No, you shut up. You’re getting frustrated, aren’t you?

Adam cleared his throat and gave Bagani one last look before turning toward Katherine’s table. While the room felt like it was about to explode, Katherine remained entirely unbothered, even sliding a mug of beer toward Adam as he approached.

"Interesting, isn’t it?" she chuckled softly, gesturing toward the standoff. "When you called, saying humans were popping out of the Leaks, I knew things were about to get lively."

"Lively?" Adam blinked, looking at the circle of foreign steel surrounding them.

"The atmosphere, the stakes." Katherine shrugged, lifting her mug. "I’ve seen scenes like this a hundred times on a set. But seeing it happen in real-time? Right in front of me? Ha. This is for all the people who said the plot of Where Seas Meet was nonsense. It’s literally happening right now."

"Huh..." Adam watched Bagani and Bala. He took a seat, deciding to observe the unfolding drama with her. The two men were arguing too fast in their own language, which left the translation program trailing behind in silence.

But it didn’t take a translator to understand the body language. Bala kept snapping his sword through the air, the tip passing inches from Bagani’s nose.

Bagani didn’t fight back, however, only gesturing for the other to leave.

But then... Bala shoved Bagani. In an instant, Bagani’s men drew their weapons. Even the patient Bagani reached his limit; he raised a hand, a sphere of water swirling into existence and bobbing aggressively in his palm, eager to be launched at the enemy in front of it.

Bala countered, his own hand rising. The sword he held slipped from his grip, hovering menacingly above his head. And just like that, silence fell over the tavern as both sides waited for the other to make a move.

A second.

An entire minute. The two sides were locked in silence for an entire minute until a chair creaked. Every head in the room whipped toward the sound, shocked that someone would actually dare break the stillness.

But as soon as Bagani saw who it was, his eyes almost fell out of their sockets. It was Adam, slowly making his way back to the entrance of the saloon that they were blocking.

Bagani spoke up, but Adam didn’t wait for the translation to whisper in his ear. This time, he was the one who stood in front of Bagani, standing between him and the problem.

Bagani’s entire body trembled upon seeing this, and he gulped loud enough that everyone inside the establishment heard it. He started shaking his head vehemently, gesturing to Bala to stop.

Bala’s men saw this, and they kept looking at each other in confusion... as well as worry. They all know that Bagani’s ability allowed him to know just how strong a person was—and they’d never truly seen him acting like this at all.

He was... scared.

Bala, however, didn’t realize that at all, or perhaps refused to acknowledge it as he stood tall in front of Adam.

"F—" Bala was about to say something, but before he could do so, he felt a whistle brush past his ear. He looked to the side, confused as to what that sound was at first. But when he didn’t see anything, his head snapped back to Adam.

But once again, before he could speak, he turned his head to the side.

The sword that should have been hovering close to him was gone. He didn’t have to guess where it went, however... as Adam was holding it with his bare hands.

"Lower your weapons," Adam said, casually handing the sword back to Bala while holding the sharp end. "We are not here to fight. We come in peace."

He made sure to speak slowly, so that there wouldn’t be any mistranslations. Bala’s face, however, only twisted in anger. He stepped back, snatching the sword from Adam’s hand... only for him to stumble closer to Adam as he couldn’t pull the blade away from him at all. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Bala’s eyes widened, but instead of realizing that something was definitely wrong, his face twisted further. He let go of the sword and then pushed Adam with both hands.

Well, at least he tried to. He ended up just sliding and moving back to where he was previously standing a moment ago. Adam didn’t even budge a single millimeter.

"We come here in peace," Adam repeated. He slowly crouched down, gently placing the sword on the floor as he carefully stepped back. "But if our presence here is causing this much trouble, then we will leave for now and just speak through representatives."

President Ronald sighed in relief upon hearing that, nodding to himself as he got ready to leave.

"President Ronald will be our representative. We’ll leave him here."

"Huh?!" Adam’s words, however, almost made him choke. He wanted to rebuke, but didn’t have any chance to as Bala’s men reacted to him suddenly moving. Still, this didn’t deter the president at all, as the thought of being left alone with these... primitives scared him more.

"I think the best course of action here is to just seal the Leak!" he reasoned. "We will put up a thick steel door to prevent people from passing through the portal. Their people aren’t ready to accept—"

"Then we’ll do that." Adam cut him off.

"No, you don’t understand. If we don’t—huh?" President Ronald blinked. "We’re... doing that?"

"Yes. We’re leaving." Adam sighed, glancing back at Bagani. "I’m sorry it didn’t work out between our people."

<Wait!> Bagani raised his voice. <Please. At least wait for our chief!>

"We’ll... wait for him outside. It was a mistake coming in here this early." Adam turned to Katherine, Beatrice, and Manager Chase’s proxy. The three didn’t really say anything, just shrugging as they started moving toward Adam.

Adam faced Bala again, just sighing and gesturing to him that he’ll be walking through the door. He stepped forward, but Bala didn’t move from his spot at all. Adam didn’t seem to mind this, however, as he just walked around him—and so did Katherine and the others who followed behind him.

To Adam’s surprise, however, there were dozens of people surrounding the tavern outside. Not soldiers, but the people who were hiding inside their houses. All of them were... eavesdropping.

They all stared at Adam for a moment, completely frozen. Adam also stared at them, and it wasn’t until he waved that they all started running away.

"Ah. Wait! Please, be careful!" Adam screamed. But alas, like cockroaches, they all ran to hide. But with how many of them there were, some of them started pushing each other to get ahead—and in situations like this, it was the children who were at a disadvantage.

And as soon as the thought came to mind, one of the children did indeed trip.

The little boy started crying immediately, causing the people to stop running. The mother quickly turned around upon hearing her son, only to find Adam already right in front of him.

The woman gasped and was about to rush to save his son—but then noticed how gentle and slow Adam crouched behind him.

"Are you okay?" Adam softly said, smiling at the crying boy. "Here, look at this."

The little boy was about to crawl away and cry even harder when he saw Adam pull out something glowing from his pocket—a smartphone.

The boy stared at the phone, and his eyes widened as soon as he saw how colorful the images were on it... and they were moving, too.

<Hi! Hello! Peek-a-boo! Where’s Ms. Rachel?>

"An to?!" The little boy gasped, his eyes darting from Adam’s face and the phone as a sound came from it. The little boy obviously couldn’t understand the words, but a smile still crept onto his face when he saw the woman moving on the screen.

"Do you like it?" Adam’s smile didn’t falter.

"You can have it if you want."