Chapter 163: Work During the Day, Hueco Mundo at Night
Time flies.
Half a year passed quickly.
During that stretch, Matsushita Yusuke kept to his usual routine: training, running the squad, signing off on documents, meeting with Club members. Standard operations.
Because the repetition was so high, this phase of the game basically stopped generating quests worth paying attention to. His rate of improvement wasn't what it used to be.
That was understandable.
If the main character's growth rate stayed that steep indefinitely, there'd be no reason for anyone to pay to win. If everyone could breeze through the game without effort, who would spend money?
So at this stage, leveling the alt became Matsushita Yusuke's primary focus.
Getting the alt stronger would feed back into the main character's ceiling. The investment cycle was long, but given that you couldn't quit this game even if you wanted to, Yusuke had no choice but to hold his nose and accept it.
"Matsushita-kun, what are you doing?"
The voice from beside him pulled his scattered thoughts back together. He rubbed his nose, patted his cheek, and snapped himself back to full attention.
"Ah, sorry... I drifted off for a second. My apologies."
Standing beside him was Tosen Kaname.
The season had changed, but Tosen's overall appearance hadn't changed much.
Well. Accurately speaking, the only thing he could really change was his hairstyle.
"By the way, why did you switch to an Afro?"
Tosen raised a hand and touched it, his tone carrying an unusually self-satisfied quality.
"My aesthetic has been going in a different direction lately... what do you think? I put a lot of thought into this style. It has character, right?"
If you asked whether it looked good, Matsushita Yusuke would definitely say no. But if you asked whether it had character... Tosen, was there a single person in the entire Gotei 13 with a bolder hairstyle than this?
Not a chance.
"Well, it's the kind of look that makes you stand out in a crowd from ten paces."
"Good. That's exactly the effect I was going for."
Could you try to be slightly less conspicuous?
He kept that one internal, rubbed his cheek, and asked:
"So... was there something you needed?"
Tosen's relaxed expression shifted back to serious. He gave a small nod.
"Aizen-sama wants us to come over."
Boss is calling. No discussion needed. Have to go.
Matsushita Yusuke set down the map he had been holding and quickly straightened himself out.
"Matsushita-kun, what were you looking at just now?"
He fixed his collar and adjusted his lapels, smiling.
"A map."
"...Does Hueco Mundo have something like that?"
"Of course not. But we can make one. As long as you've covered enough ground and used the right reference points, even the most remote location can be plotted accurately."
Because this had been one of his recent projects, the topic coming up gave Matsushita Yusuke's mood an unusual lift.
"Look here — I've roughly mapped out these regions. This area... is where Menos-class Hollows are most active, relatively dangerous, not much through-traffic. And this area is where lower-tier Hollows tend to gather alongside low-level spirit bodies. They..."
Tosen opened his mouth.
Thought to say something, then let it go.
He couldn't see clearly. But if the only purpose was to share in a companion's enthusiasm, then even this incomplete body was more than up to the task.
After the extended rundown, Matsushita Yusuke satisfied his need to explain, finished adjusting his outfit, and smiled at Tosen.
"Alright. Shall we go?"
The two left together.
The moment they pushed open the door, the wind outside hit them head-on, and Matsushita Yusuke couldn't help squinting against it.
Cold night air.
Carrying fine grains of sand, scraping across the body like sandpaper.
No matter how many times he came here, Matsushita Yusuke, as a spirit body, still couldn't quite get used to it.
Hueco Mundo.
An empty desert, stretching in every direction. A cold, unchanging full moon hung overhead.
No sun. No warmth. The world painted entirely in black, white, and grey.
The place they had just left was an underground laboratory, a base of operations that Aizen had improvised after deciding to begin the campaign here.
Not exactly refined. But functional enough.
And now, after half a year of work...
Click.
A soft sound from behind them.
Before Matsushita Yusuke had even turned, a voice reached him.
"My lords, Aizen-sama requests your presence..."
An unfamiliar voice. Never heard it before.
Matsushita Yusuke turned with a slight raise of his eyebrow.
A man in white armor, kneeling on one knee, with a ram-horn-shaped mask fragment on his face. Pale yellow hair. Nothing particularly memorable about the features.
Judging purely by appearance, you might mistake him for a man somewhere around thirty, stiff-mannered and serious.
But looking more carefully, something different became clear quickly.
On the left side of his face, near the eye, lay the remnants of what looked like a fragment of a mask. His eye socket on that side was hollow and empty, and the off-white mask material extended upward from there, presenting a distinctive fractured quality, as if it had been torn forcibly apart.
And that, in the most literal sense of the word, was...
An Arrancar.
Half a year had been more than enough time for Aizen to complete experiments across multiple fronts and begin putting the results into practice.
And because the situation in Soul Society had largely settled, Aizen had been running on what could only be described as full energy lately.
Basically treating the whole place as a map to conquer.
Work during the day, Hueco Mundo at night. Pick an area, send everyone straight in. Those who could fight were kept for experiments. Those who couldn't were sorted and cleared. Plowing through region after region like working a field.
That was precisely why Matsushita Yusuke had enough reference material to build a reasonably detailed map from.
But...
An Arrancar?
'Isn't this moving a bit fast, progress-wise?'
He didn't know the exact timeline for when this was supposed to happen, but at this stage it should have been...
The thought didn't finish.
"Ugh..."
A short, involuntary groan. Something changed.