“Do not fail me a second time,” the Overlord said before waving his hand in the darkness, sending the alien’s consciousness back to his body in the Alzard world.

It took him a moment to realise what had happened before sighing and muttering, “Seriously? The power the Overlord seeks is in this pathetic world? I don’t believe it! I can’t believe a world, where its own inhabitants worked to destroy it, would have what he seeks. This is completely unexpected!”

He leaned back on his chair and looked up at the ceiling, thinking about all the information he received from the Overlord. The meeting was short, but it proved to be very valuable because he found out that an oracle was given to the Overlord by the True Believer, who was a mysterious entity of unknown origins who had powers of foresight, someone his master heeds advices from.

“That mighty power… inhabiting a human being…” the alien muttered to himself before scratching his head and looking very annoyed. “I can’t believe this! These stupid weaklings have something like that living amongst them?! It’s simply unbelievable!”

He let out another sigh and looked back down at the book where he was noting down on Lakshman’s behaviour and trying to figure something out of it. Thus far, after showing off his powers, the king from another world did very little to stand out and simply blended in just like any other human being in that world. However, there was something that bothered him about a few aspects of Lakshman’s behaviour that he found were puzzling.

“At times his behaviour becomes radical, rude, and outright arrogant, but at others he remains cool headed, calm, in control, and kind to others.”

He thought back to what happened earlier that day, when the two members of the Raven’s Guild attacked and had to face the Sonic Hero’s wrath and the Tempest Hero’s decision to eliminate them on the spot. Their actions and behaviour were causing a stir in the watching crowd as they began to fear them. However, in order to quell the situation, the Solaris Hero delivered a powerful punch to Gram’s face, knocking him out and ordering Vikram to calm down, settling the situation and turning the negative attention of the people on himself.

“Well, it wasn’t unexpected,” admitted the alien, placing a hand on his chin while thinking about it. “One option was to deal with the villains right there that would make everyone fear the heroes while the other option was to settle their anger and divert the negativity of the people elsewhere. Lak… Laksha…. Argh!”

He grew irritated at not being able to fully pronounce Lakshman’s man, deciding to call him by what he commonly associated when he came to mind.

“The enemy took the second option of minimising the damage, keeping their enemies alive, and becoming the centre of attention. That got him a bad name, but it saved his colleagues from being framed as people that enjoy a good amount of violence. Now the public has a negative view of him, but… I didn’t expect him to do it so full heartedly.”

The alien was puzzled over the fact that Lakshman did not hold back in appearing to be violent when attacking Gram and ordering Vikram. It made the whole thing even more puzzling when Lakshman glanced at him and seemingly smiled with great arrogance.

“It’s like… he didn’t care whatever happened,” he muttered, leaning forward and turning the previous page to look at his notes. “Yes. He’s a smart person, alright, who probably knew I wouldn’t expect him to act that way despite me being already aware of that option. So… this leads to the question of what is he planning?”

Bruton remained silent for a few seconds, thinking about all the possibilities that came to mind and crossing each one out. He gradually grew frustrated as he did not understand what his enemy was planning, but he could sense that some kind of plot was being put into motion without his notice.

“He’s probably trying to do something that’ll expose my true identity to the world,” he said out loud, and he smiled faintly with a light snort. “Fool. Even before you succeed, I’ll run you and your reputation into the ground and make is so the entire world views you as a criminal!”

He began to let out a sinister laugh that lasted for several seconds before he calmed down and muttered, “Anyway, I have a more important mission now that the great Overlord informed me about the oracle.”

He remembered his master telling him, “The oracle told me, the whereabouts of what I seek dwells within a human being that lives on the planet that you are current inhabiting.”

“Dwells within a human that lives on this planet,” he repeated, furrowing his eyebrows and looking deadly serious. “Who could it be, where could they be right now, and what should I do after that?”

Presently, he had no means of transportation since his alien ship detonated a while back in an attempt to destroy a great portion of that city. Even though he was upset that it failed, it did give him the opportunity to evade detection and blend into the human society.

“Ah…!” He mused, remembering the events that led him to be there like it was only yesterday that it happened.

After evading the detection of the heroes, he took the form of a deceased body and admitted himself to their care. Then he was taken to their hospital, where he was given a bed in a spacious room with many others sustaining injuries like his. A while later, a nurse came over to him with a smile on her face to examine his injuries.

“How are you feeling?” She asked him lightly.

“I’m alright,” he replied, trying to imitate the other injured people in that room. “Just a few scratches here and there.”

She nodded as she could tell from the many bruises on his body and informed him, “Okay. Take it easy. I’ll examine you now and give you the medication details you need to patch up those injuries.” When he looked relieved, she added, “Do you have any of your identification documents on you?”

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“Identification documents?” He asked, looking apprehensively as he realised, he had nothing of the sort that belonged to the original owner of the body he had taken the form of. When she looked at him curiously, he quickly replied with an excuse of, “Sorry. I must’ve lost them during all that commotion.”

He thought it was a simple matter of fooling the nurse since it was a hectic battle that caused a lot of confusion. However, he was startled when she merely nodded her head and asked in the same manner as before.

“It’s fine. In that case, we’ll take a blood sample and run a quick check on your details.”

His eyes widened in shock at that revelation, and just as she turned to walk away, he called after her, “Madam! Please! Can I have a word?”

“Yes? What is it?” She asked, walking over to look intently at him.

He smiled at her and said, “I want you to do me a favour,” before aiming his hand at her and activating his magic to put her under his mind control.

In an instant, all light from her pupils vanished, and leaving her standing there in a daze like a statue that was fixed and unmoving. The alien quickly checked his surroundings to be sure that no one spotted him before breathing a small sigh and looking up at the woman that was now under his control.

“Take me to the most important person here. If someone stops you to ask questions about me, just tell them the doctor called for me, and that it was very important to meet him immediately,” he commanded her.

“Yes,” she replied simply in a flat voice void of all emotion.

He got off the bed and followed after her, waving through the people while keeping himself hidden behind her. She took him to the head doctor of that hospital, and easily opened the door for them to enter and close the door shut behind.

The doctor had been seated on his desk typing something on a keyboard when he heard his door open, making him ask, “What is it?”

He turned just in time to see the man with many bruises all over him aim his hand at him and say, “Just a favour,” before his mind went blank as he fell under the alien’s mind control. Throughout the process, he was on edge the whole time as he suspected something was going on because of how easily everything went for him. However, he soon realised that the magic in that world was very poor compared to his magic, and it took them almost two days to fully heal him, making him wonder whether it would have been faster if he had just healed himself.

Like that, the alien managed to confound everyone in the hospital and allow them to heal him free of charge and discharge him out into society, not before he made sure to make them forget ever encountering him, nor what they did for him before releasing his mind control over them.

“The magic in this world is so far behind that it’s laughable.”

That was the thought he had upon leaving the hospital feeling very stumped about the whole thing as he saw the doctors and nurses looking confused as they could not remember what happened to them. Ignoring them, he mixed into society with a mission to accomplish, which was to observe his enemy’s movements and discover his weaknesses. However, he was unsure how he should go about it because of how unfamiliar the whole world felt to him. He was able to mimic their language using his magic, but he could not easily grasp the ways of the world without some kind of medium to interact with.

While he was walking around aimlessly, thinking about what he should do next, he heard a voice call him from behind, “Hey. What’re you doing looking so lost?”

He stopped and turned to see a man wearing a suit of armour and looking very important as he walked towards him. The man was quickly put under his mind control and was led by the alien to his head office, where he put everyone in the office under his spell. The first thing he made them do was to find the whereabouts of the man he was tasked to follow, discovering his name was Asura and that he was a member of the Nine Heroes of Legends alongside eight others who were summoned from another world.

“Not bad considering how terrible the magic of this world had been up until now,” he admitted, looking slightly impressed. Then he had an after thought as he muttered, “Maybe it’s not their magic but an ancient summoning mechanism that caused the hero summoning to happen?”

He was unsure about the process, but he decided to deal with that aspect later and tried to find as much information on Asura as possible. However, as there was no background information on any of the Nine Heroes of Legends registered in their database, he decided he should go directly interact with his enemy so that he is both close to his enemy and can follow his every movements.

“Alright. Enrol me into the Hero Academy as one of the top students there,” he ordered his mind-controlled people, who obeyed him without delay.

After searching for his original human’s data from the International Populace Registry, they did the needed modifications to his profile so that he would be enrolled as a transfer student into the academy. After that, he took residence at a place near to the academy, but well hidden so that no one could trace him just in case his identity was discovered and a chase ensued.

“Never hurts to be secretive,” he muttered with an evil smile on his face.

A few days later, he received his uniform that he should wear to the Hero Academy, and he moved into his new home, from where he walked to the academy on a daily basis. Upon entering the designated classroom, he quickly befriended everyone by acting nice and cheerful while scouting out the most important person in the room.

“Those people told me the third prince from the royal family should be in this class, but… who?” He thought, unable to figure out who that important person was.

He remembered the faces of the three royal siblings vividly, so it did not take him long to spot the third prince, Santa, who was speaking with his friends. Sensing that he was being observed, the third prince turned and when their eyes met, he snorted and looked away with disinterest. The alien felt irritation, but he smiled nonetheless and decided to get his attention in the next inter-classroom battles.

Once the match began in a royal rumble style, he showed off some of his skills by defeating several of the students from the other class all by himself. This made Santa become very impressed with his skills and begin interacting with him, making the third prince take him to meet his big circle of friends.

Bruton chose to not use his mind control magic on any of them because, for one thing, he felt it was a waste of his magic when he was able to conveniently deceive them and mix into their group with ease. The second was because he knew the more minds, he took control of, the easier the discovery of his identity becomes. As such, it was efficient to use mind control magic only in situations where his intelligence and tact would fail.

Like that, he spent the ten days hanging around the third prince, hoping for the chance to meet the one man he was very keen to see again. As it so happened, on the tenth day from when he arrived on the planet, he finally met the man that he was defeated by in their first encounter, who was none other than Lakshman.

“Finally, I found you!” The alien thought triumphantly, smiling and shaking hands with the hero, who smiled warmly at him, suspecting nothing about him, nor the evil plan the alien had prepared for him.