Lackey's Seducing Survival Odyssey

Chapter 1791: An Eye for An Eye!

Jonathan took Young Aether, Maiuri, and Sasha aboard a separate flying quadcopter.

The aircraft hummed with deep resonance as crimson energy rippled beneath its four rotors, forming vector-like streams that spiralled downward before effortlessly lifting the craft into the sky.

Below them, Delta City stretched into a nightmarish wasteland.

Entire districts had collapsed into smoking craters. Skyscrapers leaned at impossible angles, their steel skeletons exposed like broken ribs.

Swarms of autonomous construction drones hovered between the ruins, spraying metallic foam over fractured support beams while skeletal recovery drones silently gathered shattered bones into black containment crates.

Massive transport mechs hauled away mountains of debris as emergency sirens echoed endlessly through the ruined metropolis.

“Wooo…”

Young Aether’s eyes widened as he sat by the window.

NO! He wasn’t interested in the ruined city below.

His entire attention had been stolen by the quadcopter itself.

It looked exactly like a drone…

Just… bigger.

Much bigger.

The way it floated without shaking, the impossibly precise turns, the smooth acceleration without a single wobble… it was beautiful.

His eyes drifted toward the pilot.

They sparkled like a child discovering his dream toy for the very first time.

“Jonny… can I fly it for just five minu—”

“No.”

Jonathan answered before he could even finish.

He didn’t even bother looking back.

Young Aether blinked.

“…You didn’t even let me finish.”

“I already know where that sentence ends.”

Young Aether puffed out his cheeks.

“…You’re no fun.”

He really wanted to fly this thing.

When he was young, he had always wanted to buy one of those toys… he’d spent countless hours watching FPV drone videos. Tiny drones diving between abandoned buildings, squeezing through impossible gaps, rolling sideways through windows, dancing through forests with unbelievable precision…

Every single time he’d wanted to buy one.

But then…

His stomach would growl, dragging him back to the reality of his situation.

His bank account contained exactly enough money to choose between dinner…

…or existing another day.

Buying an expensive drone had remained a beautiful fantasy!

Thinking about those miserable days almost made him emotional.

“…Man…”

A tear quietly rolled down his cheek.

Maiuri, seated beside Jonathan, gently poked his arm before silently pointing toward Young Aether.

“…”

“…”

“…”

The entire cabin slowly turned to stare at him.

Their expressions all carried the exact same question.

…Seriously?

Was he actually crying because he couldn’t fly a drone?

Jonathan slowly rubbed his forehead.

Then he exploded.

“YOU’RE CRYING OVER A FLYING TOY?!”

His finger shot toward the destroyed city below.

“MOTHERFUCKER! YOU DID THIS!”

Young Aether glanced down at the massacre… Buildings lay bent and broken, blood had painted the streets crimson, shredded flesh dangled from walls and shattered signboards, and bones were scattered throughout the entire city.

Smoke billowed from burning ruins while overturned vehicles smouldered beneath collapsed highways, turning the once-thriving metropolis into a nightmarish graveyard.

The city looked like the aftermath of the world’s end.

He turned back toward Jonathan.

“Well…”

He casually interlocked his fingers.

“You killed my people too.”

He smiled with complete sincerity.

“So… doesn’t that cancel things out? Hehe~”

Jonathan’s eye twitched violently.

Veins bulged across his forehead as his hand slowly tightened around the armrest.

CRACK.

For one glorious second…

Everyone inside the aircraft genuinely believed Jonathan was about to throw Young Aether out of the quadcopter.

Maiuri quietly placed her hand over Jonathan’s clenched fist.

“Breathe.”

Jonathan closed his eyes.

Several long seconds passed before the murderous aura surrounding him gradually faded.

When he finally looked at Young Aether again…

There was no guilt.

No regret or grief.

Nothing!

Just empty indifference.

Jonathan bit the inside of his lip, disappointment weighing heavier than anger, before silently turning away.

Young Aether, completely unaffected, rested his chin against the window.

His attention shifted toward the enormous crater at the heart of Delta City.

Where the proud Delta Tower had once pierced the heavens… Now all that remained was a massive crater carved into the ground.

Water pipelines, power cables, fibre-optic lines, and countless underground utility networks lay completely exposed, each one severed with impossibly smooth precision, as though an invisible blade had sliced away an entire section of reality itself.

‘Damn… it really swallowed everything.’

Young Aether stared into the enormous void, genuinely impressed.

If this was the result of two portals colliding… then he’d love to visit the other towers.

‘I mean… I didn’t even do anything. It was just two portals colliding, that’s all… and an entire tower, along with thousands of soldiers, disappeared into absolutely nothing.’

He folded his arms, nodding thoughtfully to himself.

‘This has to be the most efficient method of mass destruction, don’t you think?’

He asked the question as if he were discussing an interesting scientific discovery instead of a catastrophe that had erased an entire military fortress.

The quadcopter soon arrived at Jonathan’s apartment complex.

Its crimson thrusters dimmed as it descended onto the rooftop landing platform, magnetic anchors locking the aircraft into place with a sharp metallic click.

Unlike most residential buildings throughout Delta City, this luxury apartment tower still stood.

Scarred…

Cracked…

Its panoramic windows had shattered, portions of its outer walls were dented, and several support pillars showed visible stress fractures, but the reinforced titanium-alloy framework had prevented it from sharing the fate of the neighbouring skyscrapers, many of which now leaned like dying giants or had collapsed into mountains of twisted steel.

Jonathan glanced sideways.

He gave Young Aether a small glare.

Young Aether simply looked away, pretending the sky had suddenly become fascinating.

The group stepped out and headed toward the elevator.

Jonathan pressed the call button.

Nothing.

No lights.

No movement.

Jonathan slowly turned.

Another glare.

Young Aether whistled innocently.

“So… stairs?”

No one answered.

They climbed down stairs through dim emergency corridors illuminated only by flickering backup lights. The walls bore long cracks from the earlier tremors, while dust drifted lazily through the stale air.

After finally reaching their floor, Jonathan swiped his access card across the lock.

…

Nothing.

He tried again.

Still nothing.

The display remained completely dead.

Jonathan slowly turned his head.

Another glare.

“Oh, come on!!”

Young Aether threw both hands into the air.

“I know you’re angry, so I’ve been keeping my mouth shut. But this wasn’t me! I didn’t make your apartment lose electricity! And I definitely didn’t make your Delta Tower disappear and turn half the city into a disaster zone!”

Jonathan let out a quiet snort.

“I know.”

He reached into his pocket, removed a concealed emergency mechanical key, and unlocked the door with an audible click.

The moment it opened…

The enormous floor-to-ceiling glass wall overlooking Delta City had completely shattered inward.

Thousands of glittering fragments covered the entire living room like frozen crystal rain.

The couch had been ripped apart by flying debris.

Paintings had fallen from the walls.

Decorations, kitchenware, electronics…

Everything had been reduced to broken pieces scattered across the floor.

Only a small glass coffee table in front of the ruined couch remained untouched, standing proudly in the middle of the destruction.

For several long seconds…

No one spoke.

This wasn’t merely an apartment.

It was their home.

Years of memories now buried beneath broken glass.

Young Aether looked around.

Then, despite every survival instinct screaming at him to stay quiet…

“…Damn.”

He scratched his cheek.

“It’s really fucked up in here.”

GRRRRRR…

A horrifying sound of grinding teeth echoed through the room.

Young Aether slowly turned his head.

Three pairs of eyes were staring at him.

Jonathan.

Maiuri.

Sasha.

Each one carried enough killing intent to make ordinary soldiers collapse on the spot.

Young Aether immediately looked somewhere else.

“…Nice coffee table.”

Jonathan inhaled deeply.

Very… Very deeply!

Then he simply turned toward his wives.

“Check your rooms. See what’s still salvageable.”

The two women nodded and quietly disappeared down the hallway.

Meanwhile, Young Aether awkwardly shuffled backwards.

His heel caught on a piece of shattered flooring.

“…Huh?”

He stumbled.

THUMP!

His back slammed into the already torn couch.

The weakened frame collapsed even further, sending an explosion of cotton stuffing into the air like freshly fallen snow.

Several fluffy white clumps floated gracefully across the room… before one landed directly on Jonathan’s face.

“…”

“…”

The room became deathly silent.

Young Aether slowly raised both hands in surrender.

“I didn’t mean…”

“Don’t… just don’t,” Jonathan said, pressing a hand over Young Aether’s mouth before turning and walking away.

Left alone in the ruined living room, Young Aether leaned back against what remained of the couch and gazed out through the shattered wall.

The apocalypse stretched before him.

A slow grin spread across his face.

‘It sure feels good.’

He rested his chin on one hand, thoroughly amused.

The city that had hunted him…

Now looked like a kingdom that had bowed before him.

Without thinking, he lazily stretched his legs onto the small glass table.

The only object in the entire apartment that had somehow survived.

Crack.

Young Aether blinked.

“…Huh?”

SHATTER!!

The glass table exploded beneath the weight of his boots, fragments scattering across the floor.

“WHAT HAPPENED?!”

Jonathan’s furious voice echoed from the hallway as he sprinted back into the living room.

He stopped.

His eyes slowly lowered.

The only surviving piece of furniture…

Had become hundreds of tiny glittering pieces.

Young Aether awkwardly looked back at him.

“…”

“…”

GGRRRRRRR!

Jonathan’s teeth ground together so hard they nearly cracked.

Young Aether slowly withdrew his feet.

“J… just rested my legs.”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Hah… haha…?”

Jonathan stared at him for several long seconds.

The silence somehow felt louder than shouting.

Finally… without saying a single word…

He turned around and walked away with slow, heavy footsteps.

Each step somehow carried more disappointment than anger.

Young Aether watched him leave before letting out a relieved sigh.

He turned back toward the ruined city, admiring what he considered his masterpiece.

Just as he relaxed into the torn couch like an emperor sitting upon his throne…

TTTTTRRRR…

A deep vibration spread through the building.

The floor trembled.

The walls groaned.

Dust drifted from the ceiling.

Young Aether immediately frowned.

“What the…”

It wasn’t an ordinary earthquake.

It felt… Different.

Like something unimaginably massive had awakened beneath the city.

Or perhaps… Beneath the world itself.

Ba-dump!

His heart suddenly skipped a beat.

A strange pulse rippled through his entire body.

His breathing became uneven.

His pupils contracted.

Every instinct screamed that something had just changed.

He slowly clenched his fist.

“…”

His eyes widened.

There weren’t one…

But twelve?

Twelve overlapping shadows of his hand flickered back and forth, each one slightly delayed from the last, as though time itself had fractured around him.

“What the fuck?”

He quickly looked at both hands.

Whenever he moved… twelve ghostly afterimages followed every motion.

Even the drifting dust seemed strangely distorted.

The falling particles appeared both painfully slow…

…and impossibly fast.

His own heartbeat echoed through his ears like distant thunder.

For one terrifying moment…

He couldn’t tell whether the world had slowed down…

Or whether he had accelerated beyond it.

Then…

!!!

Everything vanished.

The twelve afterimages disappeared.

The strange sensation faded.

His heartbeat returned to normal.

The room became perfectly ordinary again.

Young Aether blinked several times.

“…What the fuck just happened?”

He opened and closed his hand repeatedly.

Nothing.

No afterimages or distortion.

Nothing at all.

Did he fucked up something?

He normally wouldn’t overthink something like this.

But for some reason…

A very uncomfortable feeling settled in his chest.

He couldn’t explain why.

He normally wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but for some reason, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow fucking responsible for whatever the hell had just happened.

Before he could think any further, footsteps approached from the hallway.

Young Aether looked up.

Jonathan, Maiuri, and Sasha had returned, now dressed in fresh clothes and carrying several bags packed with supplies. Sidearms rested at their waists, portable communicators blinked with incoming emergency alerts, and compact energy rifles were secured across their backs.

Judging by their expressions…

They weren’t preparing to stay.

“Did you feel that?”

Young Aether asked the question the moment they returned.

“Feel what?”

Jonathan’s brows furrowed in confusion.

“The vibration… that earthquake just now.”

Jonathan glanced around before casually shrugging.

“Oh… probably the building settling. Half the city’s structural supports have collapsed, and the rest are barely holding together. Tremors like that are expected.”

Young Aether slowly nodded.

That explanation certainly made sense.

But… It still didn’t explain what he had felt.

The vibration hadn’t seemed to come from the building.

It had risen from deep beneath the earth itself.

Like the planet had…pulsed.

And those strange afterimages…

Twelve overlapping shadows following every movement.

He looked at Jonathan, then Maiuri, then Sasha.

None of them showed the slightest hint of concern.

Just normal expressions.

After a brief moment, Young Aether quietly sighed.

‘No point talking about it.’

Whatever had happened… Apparently, only he had experienced it.

“Anyway…” He pointed toward the bags resting beside the door.

“What are those for?”

Jonathan’s expression softened into a faint smile.

“We’re going to Otaku’s house.”

Young Aether blinked.

“Oh? Really?”

His eyes lit up with genuine excitement.

“Yes.”

Jonathan picked up one of the bags and slung it over his shoulder.

“We’ll be staying there for the time being. This place isn’t exactly livable anymore.”

Young Aether glanced around the apartment.

“…Fair enough.”

Jonathan gestured toward the exit.

“Come on.”

Without another word, Young Aether immediately followed after him.

The group returned to the rooftop landing pad, where the quadcopter patiently waited with its navigation lights blinking.

As everyone boarded, the cockpit sealed automatically with a soft hydraulic hiss.

Moments later, crimson energy vectors surged beneath the aircraft’s four rotors.

A low hum filled the air.

The anti-gravity field stabilised.

Then…

The quadcopter rose effortlessly from the helipad before accelerating into the skyline.

A wide grin slowly spread across his face.

Finally…

He was going to meet that otaku.

The thought alone made him strangely excited.

‘I wonder how he’ll react if I suddenly show up out of nowhere…’

His grin widened.

‘He’ll probably freak out.’

Just imagining the expression on his friend’s face made him quietly chuckle to himself.

“Hehe… this is going to be fun.”