VT - Chapter 3 : Tree Logging, Blindspot & Sole unpowered human.... (Patreon)

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Earth?

—Simon–

A wide smile adorned his face as he just floored the pedal, the smile widening as he heard the sweet note of the engine doing its job as the entire car bounced on a particular large rock before clearing the entire clearing with ease and continuing without missing a beat.

He was now on his way to the other side of the grasslands, curious about what was on the other side of the hill, and since he did not have to worry about gas now, he moved about freely, taking his time to explore his surroundings. Alas, he couldn't document anything because he did not have notebooks, and while it felt fairly straightforward to use his power to just carve words onto the stone, it was not particularly necessary, so he just got into the car and kept on driving.

His hope was to find some pathway that he could use to get his car across the vast forest he was in. Even better if he found a road that led to some town or city. Even without plates, he would be more than happy to just know that there were humans nearby.

Even if he was terrified of actually going to a city and walking amongst people who could easily have caps within them, people who could and would kill him without much issue, he would be glad knowing that people were at least there. 

He did not want to experience racism in a world that had superpowered humans. Humans couldn't handle fellow humans being of a different color. He was pretty sure what would happen when superpowers were added to the mix. Total Chaos.

Hell, it was pretty much a miracle that Earth Bet in canon even semi functioned properly. All because of Cauldron’s intervention, which turned what should have been a dead end into a slow death situation. If only they too hadn't fallen victim to the whole conflict drive thing and engineered a path that technically led to their victory, but only with the maximum possible conflict in the path. A psychic victory, at best, or so he remembered anyway.

Or at least, that’s what he told himself. He could scarcely fathom having to plot around a threat so massive while trying to path around the innate chaos that was part and parcel with the entire human race.

Shaking his head, he slammed the brakes down before looking at the steep hill ahead of him. Chastising himself for letting himself get caught in thoughts that had no business occupying his mind right now, with all the immediate crises in front of him. Putting the Car in 4L, he climbed the whole thing, and this time, his eyes widened in barely restrained glee as he found smoke.

No road or river, though, but at least there was smoke, which meant there was fire nearby. With the hope that it was manmade instead of natural, he hurriedly got out of the car and began piling up all the rocks nearby quickly. He was burning daylight here, and while there was no invisible path to the smoke and fire, he was not going to be deterred by that.

This was the first sign of civilization nearby, so he was going to modify the car if need be. Thankfully, aside from the engine modification, which should take the bulk of his time and effort, the other modifications were very pedestrian. Something that anyone should be able to do. 

Building a tree logger in front of the car, as well as tuning the engine to output far more power than usual, all so he could cut down any tree in front of him, was probably the only option. The other one was to walk, and as a Vehicle Tinker, that just felt wrong. Plus, it was actually the wrong choice, as he was in an unknown forest and the distance was not short, so he would have to keep walking for many days and nights.

Totally not a safe option.

As he looked at the pile of material in front of him, he smiled and activated his power, focusing more on primitive tree logging as well as all terrain specific engine tuning, and voila!

A steady stream of information entered his mind as he knelt next to the rocks and let his power do its thing. It helped that the sun was out, so he did not feel hungry or thirsty, only dizzy as his power consumed stamina, and pushing past his limit gave him migraines.

As he felt his limit nearing, he climbed into the car, lay down so that at least some of his body was in direct contact with sunlight, and cranked up the AC to get a power nap of sorts. 

The car conveniently had one of those old school alarms, the ones that you can shut off by slamming them. Setting the alarm for an hour so that he could take advantage of the daylight, he closed his eyes and immediately went to sleep.

___xx__

The whole thing took a day and a half. It would have been done far earlier, but unfortunately, it was cloudy for half the day, and he did not want to exhaust himself completely in case the sun did not come out for the entire day, slowing down the progress.

Thankfully, the whole thing was done now, which filled him with pride and fascination, because this was his first superpower product. Unfortunately, that happiness did not last long as he looked at the previously good looking and aesthetic car.

The tree logger should work flawlessly, but it did not look good. He did not have the time or the patience to properly color match everything, even if his power did have the necessary data to make paints. It was a hodgepodge of stuff, but it was solidly attached to the chassis, and while the car had to be lifted to accommodate the other engine parts, it was only going to be beneficial for the road ahead.

Sighing in relief, he checked the extra headlights attached to basically all corners of the car before getting inside and checking everything for the fifth time. The car had been idling for a better part of the day, and the drifts near him were proof that the engine could handle being cranked.

Though the car wheelie was too much, it was fun!

Once again, the grass had become the unfortunate victim of his tinkering. Silently praying for the grass, he shifted into Drive before moving forward. 

The car was very front heavy, which was fine since he did not care one bit about the suspension, not now anyway. He could have worked more on it, but he had a fire to track down.

The smoke was already thinning, and he would be very annoyed if he lost the chance to talk to another human because of something as trivial as suspension.

That was for later on, he told himself as he reached the bottom of the hill. Looking at the tree right in his path, he mentally gauged the width of the tree before smiling and pressing a button on the dashboard. Thankfully, this being an offroad focused car meant there were many dummy buttons that he could use for auxiliary functions.

Granted, he was sure that the manufacturers did not expect someone to install a tree logger on them, but tough times called for tough measures.

The logger whirred to life, scaring the birds away, and while he would have been very concerned with making this much noise just a day ago, he was fine with that now. As long as he did not run into some mutated wild beast, he should be fine. As long as the mutated being did not have some truly absurd defenses, he would be fine.

Who would have known that the stuff that could make easy work of decades long large trees could also be used as attack weapons for animals.

Looking all around the car, he moved forward when he did not find a single animal headed his way. The tree logger had an arm that was attached to the tree, before the lower part began cutting through the tree.

The blade was only going to be good for maybe a couple dozen or so trees before the engine had to work harder to compensate, but that was fine for him.

As the arm threw the now-cut tree behind the car, he grinned and advanced forward.

That day, so many old trees fell victim to the rampage of an isekai protagonist.

__xx___

He looked at the now extinguished campfire in front of him with equal parts happiness and equal parts sadness. Happy because it proved that he was on an Earth that had camping culture, which meant at least a semi advanced society of humans.

Sad because he missed the people, but fortunately, he found a walking path headed away from the camp. The trail was not wide enough for a car, but the tyre terraces told him that they either used bikes or ATVs to get here.

Fortunately, while the car will not fit there, not with the logger anyway, the actual car was small enough to get through the tight path with just a few scratches. That was fine by him, but since it was nighttime now, he retreated a little and settled down to sleep in the woods.

Now that he knew he was on a populated Earth, he was more wary of letting someone discover his location. Otherwise, he could have very easily aimed a floodlight straight up, and with this being a campsite, someone should have come soon to investigate.

Unfortunately, he did not want to be known, not so soon in his power journey anyway. He just needed to know that there were people here and it was worth it to build it all.

Hope, he supposed, was what he was looking for here.

Since he couldn't find anything in his power that could help him traverse alternate dimensions, he knew that he was stuck in whatever version of Earth this was, so knowing that there were humans here was very encouraging.

The next morning, he was going to get rid of the tree logger, and as he had found during his experimenting, it was supremely easy to liquefy already manipulated matter and turn it into something else. It took basically a tenth of the stamina. If he could bring down that cost even further, then it would be a game changer, more than the power already was anyway.

___xx__

Cauldron Compound

–Legend—

He stepped in through the Door, thanked the DoorMaker for the Portal, as oftentimes they forgot that the DoorMaker was a person as well, before sitting down in his seat, looking at the entire roster gathered today.

That was rare, and he wondered just what fresh hell they had to deal with now. They were all never in the same place because something good happened. It was the sad truth of the world and the work they were doing to save the aforementioned world.

Mother Doctor took the lead, as she always did, despite being the only one amongst them without a single power to her name.

“5 days ago, Contessa’s power registered an anomaly on Earth Bet. In the Americas somewhere.”

Alexandria interjected here, “That is an awfully large location. Was Contessa unable to narrow the circle?”

Yeah, somewhere in the Americas basically meant that it was on the same continent as them. Nothing more. It would be easier to find a needle in a haystack.

Mother Doctor shook her head calmly. “No, her power seems unable to get past whatever it is that is shrouding this anomaly. The only thing that we know for certain is that this anomaly has shortened the Path by a fifth.”

Everyone in the room straightened up at that. After all, everyone knew what that Path was. Path to making sure that humanity survives the next decade.

Before anyone could ask more, Mother Doctor continued, “It also lengthened some other Paths and outright negated the need for some Paths. We are still investigating its impact, but so far, this is all we know, and the Path told us to have this meeting right now.”

“So, what do you want us to do?” David asked, leaning forward, barely restrained from going out and doing something to make sure Humanity survived.

His gaze softened at that. David had been taking the Endbringer attacks particularly hard on himself, as he found himself falling short not only in front of Scion but the other monsters as well.

All their lives, they had been told to prepare for Scion and the inevitable extinction level events to follow, but no one could have predicted the Endbringers, and it seemed to weigh heavily on David that he couldn't even defeat the Endbringers, let alone Scion.

Even though it was never going to be David alone who was going to defeat Scion, if it was even possible, that fact never seemed to register in his mind.

He sighed, just acknowledging the flaws in his friend before listening to what Doctor Mother had to say about their roles.

Because that’s what his meeting was about. To know more about their next assignment.

Such was the command structure in Cauldron.

The strongest Capes on Earth Bet, listening to the orders of a single unpowered human.