Strongest Superhuman System - Chapter 152

Chapter 152: Won’t you Come Back?
Later that night, after Arit was done with her session with Jeanne and she had finally come home, she was lying in Mark’s bed with the blankets splayed all over her. She was only wearing very short shorts and a thin spaghetti-strap top that she usually wore to sleep. She moaned in her sleep as she turned around to wrap her hand around Mark, but she frowned and opened her eyes blearily as she noticed that Mark was not in bed with her.

Arit pushed her upper body off the bed and looked around the room to see if Mark was there, but she was shocked when she noticed that he wasn’t. Where was he?

[And that’s the game folks -]

Click!

[There’s something about this television program that -]

Click!

[Welcome to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire -]

Click!

Arit rubbed her eyes sleepily and walked out of the room as she heard the sound of the television channel being changed over and over again. She walked into the main parlor and she stopped as she saw Mark sitting on the couch in front of the television with his back hunched and a frown on his face. He was staring at the television, but Arit could tell that he was not interested in whatever was being shown. He never even stayed on a station for more than a minute.

“Hey.”

Mark paused in the middle of changing a channel and he turned to look at Arit. Mark was only wearing his sweatpants that he used to sleep, but his hair was a little wet, so Arit guessed that he had just taken his bath again. Mark smiled at Arit as she came closer and sat beside him.

He spoke up while watching her put some strands of her hair behind her ear.

“Sorry. Did I wake you?”

Arit nodded as she put her hands between her thighs and looked up at Mark from below while talking softly.

“Mmh. Why aren’t you in bed?”

Mark forced a smile out as he spoke.

“It’s nothing. I just couldn’t sleep. Go get some rest.”

Mark turned back to the television to continue changing the channels, but a hand landed on his own and stopped him before he could change it. Mark looked towards Arit and saw that she was looking at him with a small frown on his face.

“Don’t say that Mark, I can tell that there’s something wrong. I know you, remember. Please, tell me.”

Mark stared at Arit for some time and Arit was afraid that Mark was not going to tell her after all. Arit knew that Mark had been going through a lot for far longer than they had been dating and she did not have a right to know everything about him just because she was his girlfriend now. But she still wanted to help him. Wasn’t it better to share a problem rather than allowing it to eat you from the inside?

Mark seemed to understand what Arit was thinking as his eyes softened and he hummed while turning back to the television. When he spoke, there was this serious depth in his voice that made Arit shiver as she realized how serious this situation was.

“I was just thinking about the mailman from the other day. I had Pat look into it and it may be more serious than we thought. He could be someone really dangerous.”

The results of the facial recognition that Patrick ran before finally came in and Mark couldn’t be more worried by what the results were. It turns out that the man behind the mask was literally a ghost. If Mark and Pat thought that the identity of the mask was strange, then the identity of the man behind the mask was even worse. There was only one record that showed anything about the man and that was a military record from ten years ago when he registered with a platoon, and all they got from there was his picture and field name, nothing else. Pat tried to find anything else that could track the man’s real name or even his base location, but there was nothing at all they could find. Every turn, every record, every possible file that could contain even a single piece of information on the man had been cleared from the internet completely. It was almost like the man did not even exist.

But after some extensive research and even more searching, Pat was finally able to bring up a recent record that showed a picture of the man as well as an alias that he was currently working with. When Pat told Mark about it, Pat had a look of slight worry in his eyes and Mark was immediately uneasy when he saw this. Anything that could make Pat worried was dangerous enough to put Mark on edge.

The Superhuman Killer.

A mass murderer who had already killed five superhumans in the past four years. It might not seem like a lot, but when you take into account how strong superhumans are, you understand how difficult it is for anyone to murder a superhuman without alerting every other superhuman and human in the surroundings. No superhuman would go down without a fight, but the Superhuman Killer was able to kill the superhumans and disappear without a single trace.

This shit ruined Mark’s mood completely, and Mark was suddenly not in the mood to sleep anymore. He needed to come up with a way to deal with this before Arit or Talia were hurt. He knew that the Superhuman Killer was after him. There is no doubt about it. If he was after Arit or Talia, then the killer would have killed them when he was pretending to be a mailman and Mark would have come back to find their dead bodies.

Just thinking about it was enough to make a new wave of anger rise inside Mark’s chest.

No, the Superhuman Killer was definitely after him. There is no doubt about it. And that meant that someone put a bounty on his head. Who the fuck could have done that? Was it Salazar? That was the only person that Mark could think about right now who would want him gone. Even though Mark and Salazar were not at odds openly, there was definitely enough justification for Salazar to want to kill Mark.

Fuck, Mark hated this shit.

With the way things were going, he would just walk into the NSA and kill that bastard.

“Mark… please don’t look like that.”

Arit gently caressed the back of Mark’s head as she saw his brow furrowing into a mad glare that made her chest tighten in slight fear. Mark quickly relaxed his expression and turned to give Arit a forced smile. He apologized for scaring her and Arit shook her head.

“No, it’s fine. I… I don’t know what happened really, and I know you’re just trying to protect me, but I don’t want you to have to force your smiles when you’re around me. I want to help you get through this.”

Mark’s smile disappeared as he leaned back in his seat. Arit was right. He shouldn’t be faking his expressions around her. But he couldn’t tell her about this. It was too dangerous and he didn’t want her to try anything stupid while trying to help him. He would deal with it without involving her or Talia.

“Don’t worry, Arit. Just being here with me is plenty. I’ll handle it and everything will be fine. I promise.”

Arit still looked worried as she ran her hand over Mark’s shoulder before moving to give him a hug. Mark was a bit surprised by it at first, but he eventually smiled and accepted it. He tightened the hold more than usual and Arit’s eyes changed to yellow as she felt some strain on her body from how tight his hold was. Arit whispered in Mark’s ear as she also tightened her hold on him.

“I’m always here for you. I’ll always be on your side. Even if the whole world is against you or if you have to fight against a god. Just do what you have to do, Mark. But please… please come back to me. I’m always here, so promise me you’ll always come back.”