Alex was inside a pawn shop in the city of Derry. At first glance, it was an ordinary store cluttered with old junk and forgotten items, but it was here that Alex was picking out a couple of useful things for hunting Pennywise.

Despite the truly impressive arsenal hidden in his inventory—from cold steel and firearms to devices capable of erasing entire cities from the map—Alex preferred to fight monsters using the most ordinary trash. Junk was universal, unexpected, and, most importantly, mockingly humiliating for those who believed themselves to be something greater.

Standing in the middle of the pawn shop, Alex watched the elderly man behind the counter. The old man muttered something under his breath while rummaging through piles of things, searching for the skateboard and the sledgehammer Alex had just bought.

Alex’s interest in this man had nothing to do with his striking resemblance to a certain famous writer known for horror and fantasy. The elderly man knew far too much about Pennywise. Far more than any resident of Derry should have known.

Alex narrowed his eyes, carefully watching the old man dig through the clutter while continuing to talk to himself. For a brief moment, Alex’s eyes faintly gleamed. He understood.

This man was not human.

Standing before him was an Observer—a cosmic being existing beyond time and worlds.

Alex thoughtfully ran his fingers along his chin, genuinely surprised that an Observer had created a projection just to be here. In this world. In this city. In this pawn shop.

As far as Alex remembered, Observers were not supposed to interfere with events in the multiverse. Their role was simple and unchanging: to watch, observe, and record—from the very beginning of a timeline to its end, whatever that end might be.

But after a few moments, Alex stopped dwelling on the questions of “why” and “for what purpose.”

This universe was strange enough as it was—especially after Chuck’s interference, when he had turned an ordinary world into an endless horror attraction, tangling timelines and realities where something bright rarely happened.

Alex didn’t care. As long as the Observer merely observed and didn’t meddle in others’ affairs or take Chuck’s side, none of it concerned him.

A few minutes later, the elderly man returned to the counter and placed a skateboard and a heavy metal sledgehammer on it.

“Here you go, just like you asked, young man,” he said with a faint smile.

Alex had to rise onto his toes to reach the sledgehammer.

He easily picked it up with one hand, swung it a couple of times to test the weight, nodded, and strapped it to the side of his backpack. Then he took the skateboard—he planned to use it to get around the city.

All the while, the elderly man watched him with the same calm smile, as if he didn’t notice that a ten-year-old child was handling a heavy sledgehammer as though it were a toy.

With everything he needed gathered, Alex headed for the exit. Now all that remained was to find Pennywise.

“Good hunting, King,” the old man said when Alex was already at the door.

Alex smiled, not at all surprised that he had been recognized. The multiverse was vast, but the appearance of a being like him could not go unnoticed. Even if many didn’t know his face, it wasn’t hard to guess in person.

Without turning around, Alex simply waved goodbye and left the pawn shop. He set the skateboard on the ground and calmly rode forward, thinking about where to go first.

One thing was irritating: Pennywise’s presence could be felt throughout the entire city. He could only be sensed by smell—rot, decay, putrefaction… and a strange hint of fresh popcorn, like at any fair.

Pushing off with his foot, Alex easily weaved between pedestrians. No one paid any attention to the ten-year-old boy on a skateboard, even despite the sledgehammer strapped to his backpack.

In the end, he found himself at the so-called Lovers’ Bridge—a place where couples carved their names into the wooden railing. Stopping, Alex picked up his skateboard and looked at the fence, recalling the past.

It was here that Ben, even before becoming part of the Losers’ Club, had suffered at the hands of Henry Bowers—a local bully who decided to carve his own name into the boy’s stomach. Running a hand over his chin, Alex remembered that Pennywise had already appeared nearby.

He hopped over the fence, went down the slope, and headed through the woods. After some time, Alex came out to a small river. He stopped, looked around, and pulled a candy from his pocket, immediately popping it into his mouth.

“And where to next…” he muttered, crunching the candy. “Hmm. That way is the sewer drain where the Losers were looking for Georgie. And over there… the place Ben built for his friends. Their hideout.”

Alex thoughtfully glanced around, choosing a direction.

While Alex was deciding which way to go first, his phone gave a short beep. Pulling it from the pocket of his hoodie, he saw a message: the first group had arrived at the designated point and had already begun installing the first field stabilizer in the sewers.

Alex quickly mapped out the route and decided it would be better to make a detour through the wastewater drain before heading to the so-called Losers’ Club hideout. Slipping the phone back into his pocket, he broke into a light run along the riverbank, holding the skateboard in his hand to reach the right drain.

When the path became impassable, Alex simply jumped into the river and continued moving straight through the water without slowing down. Just a couple of minutes later, he reached the sewer entrance.

Stopping, Alex narrowed his eyes slightly, peering into the darkness. At that very moment, a familiar, vile smell hit his nose—the smell of Pennywise.

“Hee-hee-hee… you found me. But were the others so lucky?.. Now that’s a riddle…” a cheerful, mocking voice echoed from the darkness.

Alex wearily rolled his eyes and slipped the backpack off his shoulders. Inside were flashbang grenades—he planned to use them not so much for tactics as to further irritate the clown.

Pulling out one of the grenades, Alex calmly pulled the pin and tossed it deep into the tunnel.

A couple of seconds later, a deafening bang rang out. A blinding flash of light, amplified by the echo, rolled through the sewers. In the moment of the explosion, the light caught Pennywise’s distorted face—and the clown let out an irritated, almost shrill scream before vanishing, taking the foul stench of his presence with him. Alex smirked and pulled out his phone again.

He called Dean and briefly reported that he had run into Pennywise, warned them to be careful, and explained in detail where exactly it had happened and what the clown had said. Dean replied that he would warn the others.

And just before the call ended, a faint female voice came through the speaker. Alex recognized it instantly. Mary Winchester. He didn’t need to see Dean’s face to understand the fury now flooding him—so intense it couldn’t be described in just a few words.

“Alright… I’ll call you later,” Dean growled. “First, I’m going to break that bastard clown’s spine. Another piece of trash put on my mother’s face and thinks it’s funny. It’s about to get very funny for him…”

The connection cut off. Alex only shook his head. Pennywise’s action wasn’t just cruel—it was stupid.

Yes, Dean, Sam, and even John Winchester blamed themselves for Mary’s death. But it fueled their rage far more than their guilt. Every bastard kept trying, again and again, to wear her face to play on their emotions.

Angels, demons, and other creatures had done it before. The first few times, Dean had been happy to see his mother alive—with that same warm smile he had missed so much. But over time, that joy was replaced by a cold, searing fury.

Putting the phone back into his pocket, Alex hopped across the stones to the other side of the river. He was certain Pennywise would feel not Dean’s fear—but his rage. And he was right.

At that moment, Dean stood at a junction in the sewers. Behind him, Bureau of Control operatives were installing a field stabilizer, while another group held their rifles trained on Pennywise, who had taken the form of Mary Winchester.

Dean stared at her with a grim, stone-like expression. A gentle smile played on Mary’s lips, but a deep gash glowed red across her stomach, blood running down her legs. Dean raised his hand, signaling that he would handle this himself.

He stepped forward. The smile on “Mary’s” face became unnatural, stretched. She reached out toward him. Dean clenched his fist—and it was instantly covered in thick, living darkness that crawled up his arm, coiling around his neck.

With eyes filled with fury, he swung and struck her face with such force that “Mary” was sent flying backward, her features twisting from the blow. But Dean didn’t stop. Ignoring Pennywise’s words, he drew the Blade of Cain from his back. The blade was immediately shrouded in darkness.

Stepping closer to the clown still wearing his mother’s face, Dean struck again—and Pennywise collapsed to the ground. Grabbing him by the collar, Dean leaned in, his voice cold and heavy.

“You thought that by putting on my dead mother’s face I’d get sentimental? Scared? Feel guilty?” He tightened his grip. “You’re not the first. Winged bastards did it before you. Then demons. And plenty of others.”

“Dean… son…” “Mary” said sadly. “You could have saved me. You could have saved everyone. You just had to kill Sam, like your father asked… If you had killed Sam, none of this would have happened…”

Dean’s face darkened even more.

“Like Alex says…” he said quietly. “Clench your teeth. This is going to hurt.”

In response, Pennywise—still wearing Mary’s face—only burst out laughing at Dean’s words. That laughter made Dean’s expression even darker.

Not letting go of the clown, Dean delivered a sharp blow—using the hand holding the Blade of Cain—straight to Pennywise’s face. At that moment, he didn’t care whose face the thing was wearing. All he saw was rage tearing its way out, demanding release.

Dean began striking again and again, with such force that the clown’s blood sprayed in all directions. Pennywise laughed hysterically, as if savoring Dean’s fury, as though it were a sweet delicacy.

But soon that laughter began to fade. The rage in Dean’s mind was replaced by cold, merciless clarity. And that was what broke Pennywise. His laughter cut off abruptly, as if strangled.

If Alex’s family had seen the way Dean dealt with the clown, they would have immediately understood why Alex and Dean had become close friends so quickly. Both carried an innate cruelty—not mad, but conscious, controlled.

The operatives installing the equipment and the armed security team flinched at what they were witnessing. Not so much because of the violence itself, but because of how Dean carried it out.

After several minutes of relentless blows, all that remained of Pennywise was something vaguely resembling a bloody pulp.

Dean straightened up. His face remained grim and empty. Without any emotion, he wiped the blood from his face and sheathed the Blade of Cain behind his back. At that very moment, everything that remained of Pennywise began to writhe and crumble, turning into a heap of white, squirming larvae that scattered in all directions.

Dean turned away and dialed Sam. As soon as the connection was established, gunshots and Sam’s voice came through the speaker, hurriedly explaining that they were under attack by dead children and were currently fighting them off.

“Need help?” Dean asked shortly.

Sam answered no. They were almost finished and would head to the surface as soon as the field stabilizer came online. Dean said goodbye and returned to the rest of the group. Now they were looking at him differently.

As for Lucina, Samantha, Alice, Enid, and Wednesday, everything was going relatively smoothly—they were setting up the equipment on the surface.

The only problem was the overly curious residents of Derry. Again and again, they approached, asking the same questions: what this equipment was, what it was for, and what was even happening.

Those who decided to approach Wednesday were particularly unlucky. In her usual, completely unfiltered manner, she coldly explained that it wasn’t their business and that they should focus on their own lives before asking stupid questions they wouldn’t get answers to anyway.

Even the operatives in her group tried to keep their distance. Wednesday’s grim, detached expression, along with the rapier in her hands, made it perfectly clear: ask one more idiotic question, and she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

GIR, MIMI, and Stitch had their own task—to find a passage to Pennywise’s lair, where the dead lights were. Alex knew what the place looked like but had no idea how to get there. So the search fell to this trio.

They tore through the sewers with deafening screams, often without realizing it, saving Bureau of Control operatives who had ignored Alex’s advice, separated from the group, and nearly became Pennywise’s prey.

GIR, MIMI, and Stitch destroyed everything in their path—including the monsters Pennywise had disguised himself as to lure people in.

The last thing the operatives saw, after life flashed before their eyes, were strange creatures hurtling past with screams, moving at insane speeds, brandishing weapons and firearms. Pennywise tried to get rid of them. He even revealed the dead lights to them.

In response, they were met with a bolter shot to the head and an incendiary grenade to the chest. Then the trio vanished back into the tunnels with a crash and a roar, not slowing down. GIR, MIMI, and Stitch didn’t care who or what tried to stop them. Their goal was simple—find the lair. Everything else was just an obstacle.

For the first time in a long while, Pennywise felt rage, fury, and fear all at once. Everything was spiraling out of control. He remembered the scent of Bureau of Control operatives—then he had dealt with them effortlessly. But now things were different. These people were far better prepared.

Alex himself had no idea that pure chaos was unfolding in the sewers, orchestrated by GIR, MIMI, and Stitch in search of Pennywise’s lair. All he knew was that Pennywise had taken the form of Mary Winchester and had deliberately provoked Dean—and that the lives of more than ten Bureau of Control operatives had just ended.

Alex let out a heavy sigh.

He had repeated over and over: don’t go alone, stick in groups, and do exactly as he said. But ordinary people struggled to resist Pennywise’s influence. In the end, they became his prey.

Alex didn’t blame them. In part, it was his fault—he was the one who had dragged these people into this kind of work. And now yet another burden fell on his shoulders—the memory of those who had died under his orders.

Continuing through the forest in the form of a ten-year-old child, Alex held his skateboard in one hand, with the sledgehammer attached to his backpack on his back.

He stopped, looked around, and thoughtfully stroked his chin. As he remembered, the so-called Losers’ Club hideout was an earthen dugout, built with Ben’s own hands.

Tapping his chin with a finger, Alex squinted and picked a direction at random, relying on luck. And, as usual, he forgot one important detail: the Goddess of Luck loved to play tricks on him.

He walked forward without watching his steps until he heard a crunch underfoot. Looking down, Alex barely had time to let out a heavy sigh before, once again in his life, he fell through the ground.

At the same time, the members of the Losers’ Club were lost in their memories when suddenly a crash and the sound of something heavy falling echoed nearby.

Everyone instantly tensed and jumped up, staring warily toward the source of the noise. The dust rising made it impossible to tell what had fallen.

“Hey, Ben, you’re the biggest one here,” Richie said, nudging him. “And you built this place. So go check what fell.”

“This hideout is old and worn out,” Beverly called from a distance, trying to stay back. “Maybe it’s just a branch.”

“Yeah… or maybe some creepy clown decided to throw something at us again,” Eddie muttered, pressing his back against the wall. “Or maybe it’s someone’s head.”

No one dared to approach until a cough came from the dust clouds. As the dust began to settle, they saw a ten-year-old boy in black clothes, with a black backpack on his back. And everyone immediately recognized him—the same strange kid they had seen the night before.

Alex himself was openly irritated. Coughing and waving his hand, he tried to clear the dust around him. Once the view was clear, he quickly looked around—and locked eyes with the frightened members of the Losers’ Club, who were watching him warily.

“Damn…” Richie exhaled, pointing at him. “That’s the creepy kid.”

“Your mom’s creepy too,” Alex replied nonchalantly, rolling his eyes and adjusting his backpack. “But I don’t scream about it on every corner.”

Richie froze and immediately got angry. And when Alex adjusted his backpack, a metallic clang came from inside, and the sledgehammer hanging on the side caused Richie obvious concern.

The others also looked at Alex with confusion and anxiety. They didn’t understand who this kid was, what he was doing here, or what his words at the Chinese restaurant meant—or the note he had given Billy.

Alex didn’t care. He calmly brushed the dust off his clothes from the fall. When he finished, he lifted his gaze—and noticed the Losers’ Club instinctively stepping back. Alex rolled his eyes again.

“Yeah… adults are afraid of a kid. What losers,” he muttered, tossing a candy into his mouth.

“Said the creepy kid carrying a sledgehammer,” Eddie replied nervously.

“Whatever you say,” Alex shrugged. “Alright, nothing for me to do here. I’m moving on.”

With that, he turned and headed toward the stairs, planning to get outside.

When Alex approached the ladder, everyone tactfully stepped aside, still feeling that strange, oppressive pressure from his presence. Alex himself didn’t react to it at all—his thoughts were occupied only with whether there might be something curious here, something worthy of adding to his collection.

“Wait…” Billy called out to him, stammering, before Alex could climb up. “You shouldn’t wander around alone. It’s dangerous.”

Alex turned around.

“Why’s that?” he asked calmly.

“Because there’s a creepy clown roaming the city,” Beverly cut in. “Let us walk you to your family.”

Alex gave them an indifferent look.

“You’re afraid of him yourselves. What good are you?” he said evenly. “You’ve grown up so much… and you’re still shaking. He was right to call you losers.”

“How do you know that?..” Eddie asked, his voice trembling.

“Pennywise told me,” Alex replied lazily. “How else?”

“Y‑you… you’re not afraid of him?” Ben asked quietly.

“Why would I be?” Alex shrugged. “He’s just a clown. If you can touch him, then you can kill him.”

“That’s why you’re carrying a sledgehammer?” Mike asked cautiously, pointing at the weapon strapped to the backpack.

“And how else am I supposed to break his legs?” Alex replied matter‑of‑factly. “I’m already sick of him. Always talking about flying, about his stupid balloons… If I hadn’t been stopped, I’d have already filled the sewers with gas and set them on fire.”

He said it as casually as if he were talking about buying bread.

The Losers’ Club was thrown off again—especially by the realization that it wasn’t Pennywise hunting this kid, but the other way around. They felt awkward. They were adults… and still afraid. And standing before them was a boy who felt no fear—only irritation and a desire for the clown to finally disappear.

Alex looked at their thoughtful faces and understood that they would most likely never even get the chance to start the Ritual of Chüd. As soon as the field stabilizers were installed, he would begin the hunt. For now, he was simply playing the role of a “useful team member.”

“Alright,” he said, turning away. “I’ll move on. Good luck fighting Pennywise… again. I hope your ritual works. You know—before I break his legs.”

He started climbing the steps.

“Wait!” Billy shouted after him. “How do you know about that ritual?!”

Alex stuck his head out from above and smirked.

“I read it in a book. What kind of stupid question is that? If you losers suddenly forgot—you have to believe you can win. Belief is the main weapon against that clown. Oh, and yeah… if you die, I’m not burying you. I’m ten. Digging graves for adults who are afraid of a clown isn’t my job.”

With that, he disappeared, humming a cheerful tune. The last thing he heard as he left was being called a strange and creepy child once again. Alex even had a fleeting urge to toss a flashbang straight into the dugout—purely on principle. But he restrained himself and headed back toward the city.

Climbing out onto the railway tracks, Alex remembered yet another idiot who had taken Pennywise’s side.

Walking along the rails, he spread his arms out to the sides and whistled a tune, thinking that maybe it would be worth killing Henry Bowers before he reached the Losers’ Club. He ended up back at the same bridge where his walk had begun and wondered where he should look for that psycho.

At that moment, there was a screech of tires and the roar of an engine. Alex lazily turned his head. A car was racing straight toward him at full speed. Behind the wheel sat a man with a wide, insane grin, gripping the steering wheel with a death grip. Henry Bowers.

The former local bully. A man who was afraid of his own father and took his anger out on others. The one who, on Pennywise’s orders, killed his father and ended up in a mental institution. Now he was charging forward, trying to run Alex down. Alex simply stepped aside.

The car slammed into the wooden fence with a crash and went over the edge. The hood crumpled, the body smashed into a tree, and Henry was thrown through the windshield, tumbling down, breaking bones one after another.

Alex watched it all in silence.

“Yeah…” he drawled, shaking his head. “Probably the most pathetic assassination attempt on my life. Can’t Pennywise find better helpers than this useless trash?”

Sighing, Alex slid down the slope once more, passing the car embedded in the tree. His gaze slid over the shattered windshield, where bloodstains were clearly visible.

Reaching the bottom, he heard gurgling sounds and looked down. Henry Bowers was lying on the ground.

He was choking on his own blood, yet still smiling—a crooked, insane smile, as if the pain no longer mattered. Henry’s arms and legs were twisted at unnatural angles, shards of bone sticking out of torn flesh. His head was split open, blood slowly running down his face and mixing with dirt. Even despite the soft ground and grass, the impact had been lethally brutal—and the rest of his body looked no better.

Alex calmly stopped over him. Henry looked up at him with a cloudy, deranged stare, continuing to make wet, rasping sounds.

Without the slightest emotion, Alex set the skateboard on the ground and took off his backpack. Under Henry’s fixed gaze, he opened it and took out an incendiary grenade. Closing the backpack and slinging it back over his shoulders, Alex held the grenade in his hands for a moment.

“Oh, Henry… Henry,” he said quietly. “Poor, stupid little bully. You do realize this isn’t the end. Your death won’t be easy.”

With those words, Alex placed the incendiary grenade into Henry’s broken hand.

In response, Henry only continued to stare at him with that insane glint in his eyes, as if trying to say something. But instead of words, only blood poured from his mouth as he choked on it.

Indifferently, Alex pulled the pin from the grenade and squeezed Henry’s hand so that the safety lever would fly off only when the grip finally weakened. Making sure the grenade was firmly secured, he straightened up and took out a handkerchief, carefully wiping the blood from his hands.

After wiping his palms, Alex tossed the blood‑stained handkerchief прямо onto Henry’s body.

“I don’t know if you’re capable of thinking clearly right now,” he continued in a calm tone, “considering the fact that the clown literally fucked your brain. But I’ll say it anyway. This is a special incendiary grenade. In effect, it’s almost the same as being burned at the stake. If you die before your grip weakens, you won’t feel the pain from the fire.”

He smiled faintly.

“For everything you’ve done, that would be far too merciful. So I’ll heal you… so you don’t die from blood loss.”

Alex snapped his fingers. Henry’s wounds partially closed—just enough to keep him from dying too quickly. And to complete this act of “mercy,” Alex wiped Pennywise’s influence from his mind. The madness was gone. Pain, fear, and a desperate unwillingness to die filled Henry’s eyes.

Seeing awareness return to his gaze, Alex smiled wider and pointed at the incendiary grenade in Henry’s hand, wordlessly explaining: let go—and flames would engulf his body, slowly burning him alive.

Henry tried to move his broken arm, attempting to throw the grenade away. But he could barely wiggle his fingers, let alone unclench his fist. Noticing the desperation in his eyes, Alex bared his sharp teeth in a grin.

“Bye-bye, Henry. How long you live depends only on you. Maybe you’ll get lucky. Or maybe not. Who knows.”

He said it in a cheerful, almost childlike tone, lifting his skateboard.

Without waiting for a reaction, Alex started climbing up the slope, humming a light, carefree tune. He didn’t even turn around to see the look of pure terror and despair with which Henry followed his retreating back.

Lying on the ground, feeling pain from broken bones pierce every cell of his body, Henry caught movement out of the corner of his eye near a tree. With great effort, he turned his head and saw Pennywise. The clown looked at him with a mocking expression and waved cheerfully.

Henry tried to call for help, but only a pathetic, gurgling sound escaped his throat. With a playful smile, Pennywise raised his hand and slowly began to curl his fingers. And along with his fingers, Henry’s fingers began to twist backward.

He felt bones crunch, fingers bending against his will. And when another finger snapped with a dry crack, the grenade’s pin made a sharp metallic click and flew aside.

In the very next second, Henry’s body burst into bright flames. He screamed—from the agonizing, all-consuming pain. And the only thing he heard besides his own scream was Pennywise’s laughter.

Reaching the top, Alex, of course, understood that the clown had been nearby. But it hardly bothered him—Pennywise could move through Derry however he wanted, parasitizing the city itself.

For a moment, Alex turned his head and met the gloomy gaze of the clown standing at the bottom of the slope. Without hesitation, he flipped Pennywise off—just to annoy him even more. Pennywise didn’t react, continuing to stare silently in his direction. Alex shrugged, set his skateboard on the asphalt, and rolled back toward the city.

Pushing off the pavement with his foot, Alex quickly made his way back into town.

Along the way, he wondered why Pennywise was sticking to him instead of starting to terrorize the Losers’ Club. After all, the clown had already seen his own death at their hands. It would have been more logical to act preemptively—but apparently, the monster had its own strange priorities.

Tossing another candy into his mouth, Alex grabbed onto the trunk of a passing car, letting himself ride without extra effort. Holding onto the metal, he slipped past the central square and caught sight of Richie out of the corner of his eye.

Richie stood nearby with his eyes squeezed shut, muttering something rapidly under his breath.

Watching Pennywise once again decide to scare his prey first and only then eat it, Alex merely shook his head, paying no attention to the terrified Richie. Letting go of the trunk, he rolled on and turned off at the corner.

He wanted to check on the girls—see how they were doing.

Reaching the central town hall, Alex saw Bureau agents finishing the installation of the field stabilizer under the wary eyes of passersby. Slightly off to the side stood Lucina. Over her regular clothes, she wore a Bureau Control jacket.

She scanned her surroundings until she spotted Alex on the other side of the road.

Seeing him—with a skateboard in hand and a sledgehammer attached to his backpack—Lucina immediately understood: he was fully enjoying the chaos. A ten-year-old child, tearing through the cursed town and hunting an ancient clown with a sledgehammer.

Lucina smiled and waved him over. Alex grinned in response, set the skateboard on the ground, and rode up to her.

“I see you’re having fun,” Lucina said, crouching slightly and giving Alex a gentle pinch on the cheek.

“Well… almost,” he replied with a pouty, offended-child expression. “The clown only showed up a couple of times. All I managed was to throw a flashbang into the sewer.”

“You’re upset you didn’t get to hit the scary clown with your sledgehammer?” Lucina asked, smiling as she stretched his cheeks in opposite directions.

“Of course,” Alex nodded. “Did I buy this sledgehammer for nothing? Where else would I get a chance to hit a creepy clown in the legs with a sledgehammer?”

“Ah… what am I going to do with you?” Lucina sighed, still smiling. “And why the legs?”

“Love, caress, and never let go,” Alex said cheerfully.

“I’m serious,” Lucina said, pinching his nose and quietly chuckling.

“So am I,” he snorted. “And anyway, where else am I supposed to hit him with my height, if not the legs?”

Lucina paused for a moment, forced to admit: Alex was right. At least if he was going to keep pretending to be a ten-year-old. And knowing her husband, she was certain—that’s exactly what he would do. Sighing, Lucina rubbed his cheeks and asked where he had been all this time.

Alex nodded and began recounting his entire route through the city: visiting the pawnshop, falling into the dugout, and nearly getting hit by a car at the end.

Lucina listened, occasionally nodding, fully understanding that for Alex, this was just another ordinary day in the cursed town. Towards the end, he casually mentioned that about ten agents had died.

Lucina already knew—she had been updated immediately through the general channel about the missing agents. Alex simply nodded silently, then decided to continue skating, planning to squeeze in a few more tasks before the main part of the operation began.

He quickly kissed Lucina on the cheek, hopped onto his skateboard, and rode off.

To be continued…

(Every time I write a chapter, I want to show as much as possible. But I always fail to squeeze everything into one chapter. Well, in the next chapter there’s a possible battle with Pennywise, and then straight to Silent Hill. As the voices in my head say, I need to show all three plot lines; it’s a plot after all. I’m still thinking about how to show it. I mean finishing one, then moving on to the next, and showing all three. Hmmm… What do you think, my dear readers?)

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep