Mash-Up: Anything for Money

"Wait, let me try first."

"You're not about to say you've never tested your ability before, are you...?"

"Maybe you've got the wrong person..."

Just as Hakuto was about to say that Nao might have mistaken him for someone else, a transparent sensation suddenly erupted in his mind and spread throughout his entire body.

At that very moment, Hakuto felt his vision become even clearer.

"What is that... dust?"

"But why... is it so big...?"

He noticed that Nao was completely still, seemingly trapped in some kind of time freeze.

Hakuto realized he could now see the microorganisms floating in the air and even discern what Nao had been doing a few hours ago.

In fact, his vision had automatically captured every detail on Nao's body, allowing him to deduce her actions from a few hours prior.

If the details were abundant enough, Hakuto even felt like he could simulate the entirety of Nao's life!

"Can this be explained scientifically...?"

"Seriously, why am I even thinking about physics and science at a time like this..."

Hakuto discovered that the room, which previously could only be dimly illuminated by his phone's weak flashlight, now appeared as bright as daytime in his eyes.

He scanned the room, his eyes instinctively capturing various details.

In the next moment, the previously shut door slowly creaked open, and a scruffy-looking middle-aged man stepped inside from behind it.

Like a phantom, the man passed through Nao, through Hakuto, and headed upstairs.

Without hesitation, Hakuto quickly followed because he knew that the figure before him was nothing more than an illusion—an echo of the gruesome event that had taken place in this house three years ago, reconstructed from the details he had observed.

Hakuto sped up and overtook the man. At this moment, the previously bare double bed was no longer just wooden planks but now had a complete set of bedding.

A white sheet, a white blanket, a white pillow... yet the people on the bed were engaged in something utterly disgraceful.

Hakuto could hardly believe that his ability could restore the details from three years ago with such perfection.

The adultery between the wife and her lover played out like an ultra-high-definition movie right before Hakuto's eyes.

Meanwhile, the husband, frozen in shock on the staircase, wore an expression of utter disbelief, overwhelming anger, and deep betrayal...

Hakuto couldn't hear their voices. Perhaps that was the drawback of his ability—it could reconstruct images but not capture sound.

"Damn it! I'm going to kill you both!"

Watching the enraged husband storm off, Hakuto was startled—he could hear his voice now.

"Could it be... that because I thought about it just now, my ability automatically filled in the missing details?"

As Hakuto marveled at the convenience of his power, the husband, now seething with fury, had already grabbed a knife and charged upstairs.

What followed was an extremely bloody and horrifying scene unfolding right in front of Hakuto's eyes.

"No! Honey, I don't want to die..."

"Daddy... don't hurt Mommy..."

"Big bro, I was wrong! Please spare me..."

The husband ignored their desperate pleas. Hakuto could feel the raging fire of hatred within him, a fury that could only be quenched by the spilling of blood.

Hakuto observed everything with indifference, feeling no discomfort at all. After all, this was just something he had simulated.

It's like telling a horror story—can you really scare yourself?

One thing worth mentioning was that a considerable amount of blood and flesh fragments indeed ended up inside the air conditioner.

And after the murders, the husband was the very same man who, as Utaha had initially encountered, had hanged himself near the internet cables.

He tied a rope to the railing at the top of the staircase, then took a step forward into the void.

The railing, originally meant to prevent people from falling, had now become an accomplice to suicide.

The scene abruptly stopped—not because it had disappeared, but because Hakuto had halted his supercomputing. 

If he continued, he felt like he could reconstruct every event that had taken place in this house over the past three years.

At that moment, due to Hakuto stopping, Nao, who had been frozen in his perspective, started moving again.

"So I was saying... huh? Where did you go?"

Upstairs, Hakuto waved at Nao.

"I'm right here. This supercomputing ability... seems pretty useful..."

To Hakuto, he had just watched a murder case unfold due to an affair, an event that felt like it lasted at least one or two hours.

But to Nao, in her world, not even a second had passed.

It wasn't that Hakuto's ability had paused time around him—it was just that, from his perspective, the flow of time had slowed dramatically.

It was like receiving the same information as an ordinary person, but processing it a million times faster.

As a result, from Hakuto's viewpoint, time around him moved sluggishly. A normal person walking a single meter could give Hakuto enough time to mentally travel from Japan to China.

Supercomputing wasn't just an advanced form of calculation—it was an enhancement of the brain itself. Right now, Hakuto was like a fully awakened divine entity.

"How did you teleport there in an instant? Does supercomputing include teleportation?"

"You probably won't believe this, but after using my ability, I saw what happened in this house three years ago. Oh... right."

Hakuto suddenly remembered Utaha, who had run outside earlier. He pulled out his phone and sent her a message.

He wondered how Utaha would react after running frantically, only to suddenly realize that he had disappeared.

Speaking of which, Hakuto also recalled seeing what had happened to Nao a few hours ago.

So, he activated his supercomputing ability once more. That transparent sensation instantly spread throughout his entire body again, and the surroundings fell silent.

Downstairs, Nao, who had been about to say something, once again froze in place as if time itself had stopped.

Seeing this, Hakuto walked up to her, grabbed her right hand, and swiftly took the handheld camera from her grasp.

"Sorry, but I can't let you keep this," he said as he removed the memory card, then returned the camera to Nao.

If it had only captured Ginko, it wouldn't have mattered, but this sneaky girl had recorded Utaha as well.

Since it involved his livelihood, Hakuto had to make sure nothing went wrong.

As he thought about it, he reached into Nao's school uniform pocket and pulled out a box of Pocky. He casually took one and put it in his mouth.

After doing all this, Hakuto deactivated his ability again.

"You said three years... huh?!"

Nao had been trying to figure out the exact mechanics of Hakuto's ability, but then she saw him standing in front of her, smiling—his mouth holding a very familiar Pocky stick.

"That Pocky…So you like this flavor too?"

"Oh, no, this was originally yours."

Hearing this, Nao instinctively reached for her pocket. Sure enough, the pocket that had held her Pocky was now empty.

"Hah? Who said you could just take my stuff?"

Almost like muscle memory, the two reacted instantly—one raising her leg for a high side kick, the other dodging with a sidestep.

As Hakuto evaded, he casually slipped the Pocky stick back into Nao's pocket while rebutting,

"You didn't ask for my permission before secretly filming me, either."

Caught red-handed, Nao instinctively hid the camera behind her back.

But the very next second, she came up with a way to counterattack.

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Check out the other translations too: [Mash-Up: I'm Not A Substitute]

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