The morning sun in xxxxxxxxxxx was particularly aggressive, a sweltering glare that made the pavement shimmer like a mirage. Inside "Ravi & Son," the air-conditioning unit—a rattling, rusted box that Harish suspected was powered by pure spite—was barely putting up a fight.
Harish sat on a crate of bottled water, his green vest soaked with sweat. He was currently staring at a clipboard held by his sister, Kaelen. Kaelen didn't look like she was suffering from the heat; she looked like a shark that had just discovered a school of tuna with very deep pockets.
"No," Harish said, his voice flat. "Absolutely not. I am a clerk, Kaelen. I stock shelves. I do not perform 'miracle logistics.' And I am certainly not going on that thing."
He pointed a trembling finger toward the storefront. Parked curbside was a sleek, terrifying piece of machinery: a High-Speed Mana Bike. It was a custom S-Rank vehicle, all matte-black carbon fiber and glowing blue mana-exhausts, looking like a predatory insect waiting to pounce. It belonged to Takeo, a gift from the Japanese Ministry of Defense that was meant for chasing Abyssal dragons, not delivering groceries.
"Harish, brother, listen to the vision!" Kaelen exclaimed, waving a neon-bright flyer in his face. It featured a poorly Photoshopped image of Harish on the bike, with Takeo in the background bowing to a carton of eggs. "The 'Sovereign Delivery Service.' We promise five-minute delivery anywhere in the city. From the slums to the high-rise district. If the milk is warm, it's free!"
"Kaelen, this bike runs on condensed mana-cores," Harish pointed out, rubbing his temples. "It's designed for Mach speeds. If I use this to deliver a single lime to Sector 4, I'll create a sonic boom that will shatter every window in the neighborhood. How am I supposed to explain a delivery boy moving at the speed of a railgun?"
"You don't explain it! You just... arrive!" Kaelen leaned in, her eyes gleaming with greed. "I've seen you do it. You 'clumsily' trip and end up across the room before the dust settles. Just do that, but on the bike. Think of the brand, Harish! Think of the profit margins!"
Takeo, who had been busy "purifying" the bike's handlebars with a silk cloth, suddenly dropped to one knee.
"Master! The Lady Kaelen is a visionary!" Takeo declared, his voice booming through the snack aisle. "She is challenging you to manifest the Formless Supreme Movement through the medium of my humble steed! To deliver the sacred sustenance of the 'Lentil' across the urban landscape is the ultimate test of your omnipresence! Speed is for the weak; the Master simply arrives because the bike realizes it is improper for him to be late!"
"It's not a test of omnipresence, Takeo! It's a test of my patience!" Harish yelled. "I just want to sit here and eat my spicy chicken in peace!"
"Harish, look at this list," Kaelen interrupted, shoving a stack of orders into his hand. "Address one: The Governor's mansion. They want one packet of premium milk. Address two: The police station. They forgot the Maggi seasoning. Address three: The local hospital. They need incense. Now. The timer starts... now!"
"I haven't even finished my lunch!"
"Eat while you're 'arriving'!" Kaelen pushed him toward the door. "Takeo, prime the mana-core! Priya, update the app! We're going local!"
Aris Thorne, currently "Priya," was leaning against the register, watching the chaos with a look of profound spiritual exhaustion. She looked at the GPS tracking software Kaelen had forced her to install.
"Harish," Aris said, her voice sounding like someone who had spent forty years in a desert. "You realize if you actually rev that engine, the Alliance satellites are going to think an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile is being launched from a grocery store. My scanners are already picking up a localized spatial distortion just from Takeo warming up the core."
"I'll be careful!" Harish hissed, grabbing a delivery bag. "I'll just... I'll use the Formless Supreme Movement to fold the space between the streets. To the outside observer, it'll just look like a blur. A very, very fast, lemon-scented blur."
Takeo grabbed Harish's arm, his eyes brimming with tears of religious fervor.
"Master! Before you depart on this Pilgrimage of the Lime, tell me! When the form disappears and distance loses meaning, do you feel the vibration of the Great Void? Or is it merely the hum of the bike's engine guiding your steps?"
Harish looked at Takeo, then at the lime in his hand, then at the ticking clock on the wall.
"Takeo, I feel the hum of my own impending heart attack. Now, let go of my vest! You're wrinkling the polyester, and Pa says if I ruin another one, I have to pay for it out of my commission!"
"Magnificent!" Takeo scribbled in his notebook. "Lesson 11: The Sovereign cares for his vestment even while traversing dimensions. The Polyester is the armor of the humble."
"I'M LEAVING!"
Harish hopped onto the bike. He didn't even turn the key. He simply nudged the reality around the tires. With a sound that wasn't quite a bang, but more like the universe suddenly exhaling, he vanished.
High above the city, inside the "Eye of the Storm" monitoring station, Agent 42 spilled his lukewarm coffee.
"Sir! We have a Mach 5 signature originating from the coordinates of the 'Ravi & Son' grocery store! It's moving through the city center!"
The Pupil lunged toward the monitor, his face pale. "Mach 5? In a residential zone? Is the Sword Saint launching a tactical strike on the Governor?"
"No, sir... it's... it's a delivery boy. He just crossed three districts in 0.4 seconds. Wait, he stopped. He's at a mansion. He's... handing a lime to a confused butler?"
"A lime?" The Pupil gripped the back of a chair. "A single lime at five times the speed of sound? This isn't a delivery, 42. This is a New Intercontinental Ballistic Grocery system. He's testing his ability to deliver payloads—biological, chemical, or citrus-based—anywhere in the city with zero warning! The 'Lime' is clearly a code for a localized acidic-vapor bomb!"
"Sir, he's moving again! He's heading for the hospital! My God... he just delivered a 5-rupee spice packet to the staff lounge in under three seconds! He's mocking our entire urban defense network!"
"Raise the alert!" The Pupil screamed. "Tell the Global Cabinet that the Demon King is weaponizing the city's supply chain! No fridge is safe!"
Meanwhile, back at the shop, the line of customers was growing. Takeo was currently standing at the front door, blocking a group of teenagers.
"Halt!" Takeo commanded, his hand resting on a roll of aluminum foil he had tucked into his belt. "The Master is currently traversing the Ninth Fold of the City. Your digital captures will only record a shadow of his divinity!"
"We just want to buy some soda, man," one of the boys said.
"Soda? You seek the 'Bubbling Essence of the West'?" Takeo's eyes narrowed. "Very well. But know that for every sip you take, you are consuming a fragment of the Master's patience! Priya! Process their tribute!"
Aris sighed, her hand moving in a blur as she scanned the sodas. "Fifty-two rupees. No, we don't take Mana-Crystals. This is a cash-only enlightenment zone."
Kaelen walked over, her cardboard box now overflowing with cash. She looked at Aris with a wide, manic grin.
"Priya, honey, you're doing great. But we need to scale. I'm thinking 'Sovereign Subscriptions.' For ten thousand rupees a month, Harish will appear in your kitchen on the mana-bike and flip your parathas at supersonic speeds. What do you think?"
"I think I want to be hit by a bus," Aris said flatly.
"That's the spirit! High-impact marketing!" Kaelen turned back to Takeo. "Takeo! Go out there and tell those girls that if they buy a 5kg bag of rice, they get to watch you do a 'Rice-Sack Kata'!"
Takeo's eyes lit up like stars. "A Rice-Sack Kata? I shall perform the 'Thousand-Grain Descent' immediately!"
Takeo grabbed a bag of Basmati and leaped onto a display of detergent boxes.
"STOP! NOT ON THE SOAP!" Aris screamed, but it was too late. Takeo began a series of high-speed martial movements, the heavy rice bag whistling through the air with the sound of a falling guillotine. Every time he swung the bag, a small shockwave of "Grain-Qi" rattled the windows.
Suddenly, the back door flew open. Harish stumbled in, looking like he had been through a wind tunnel. His hair was standing on end, and he was clutching the empty delivery bag.
"I'm... I'm back," Harish wheezed, collapsing onto a pile of sacks. "The bike... it's too fast. I accidentally broke the sound barrier over a wedding. The cake exploded. I think I created a localized fusion reaction in my pocket. My thigh is very warm."
Takeo stopped his kata mid-air and landed in a perfect bow at Harish's feet.
"Master! Your return is as sudden as the first strike of spring! Tell me, did the Formless Supreme Movement reveal the truth of the city? Did you find that distance is merely a lie told by the weak?"
Harish looked at Takeo with glazed eyes.
"Takeo... I found out that if you move that fast while holding a lime, the lime starts to glow. My leg is scorched."
Takeo gasped, his notebook flying open.
"Lesson 12: The Fusion of the Fruit. The Master teaches that even a common lime can become a star if given enough direction! Truly, his 'Formless Movement' is not just speed—it is the creation of new physics!"
"It's not new physics, it's a third-degree burn!" Harish yelled. "Kaelen! I'm done! No more deliveries!"
"Twelve minutes for twenty deliveries across the city. A bit slow, Harish," Kaelen said, completely unimpressed. "But look on the bright side. The 'Eye' is currently losing their minds. We're famous!"
"We're going to be executed by a drone strike," Harish moaned, burying his face in his hands.
"Not while I am here, Master!" Takeo declared. "I shall swat their 'Drones' from the sky with the Lentil-Shield!"
"Takeo, if you swat a military drone with a bag of lentils, the Human Alliance will declare war on this shop," Aris said, rubbing her temples. "Actually, please do it. I'd rather fight a war than scan another coupon."
As the sun began to set over xxxxxxxxxxx, the shop finally grew quiet. Ravi walked out from the back, looking at the massive stack of cash on the counter.
"Well," Ravi said, nodding in approval. "Good day's work. Takeo, you've got some rice on your shoulder. Harish, why do you look like you've been struck by lightning?"
"Work-related stress, Pa," Harish muttered.
"Work-related stress? Back in my day, we didn't have stress, we just had work!" Ravi barked. "Now, close up. I've ordered some spicy chicken for dinner. Takeo, you're staying, right?"
Takeo's eyes welled with tears. "To eat the Spicy Chicken of the Sovereign... It is an honor that outweighs a thousand S-Rank titles!"
Harish realized that his secret was safe. Because in a world this crazy, nobody would ever believe that the most dangerous man in existence was currently being yelled at for not bringing enough napkins.
"Pass the salt, Takeo," Harish said.
"The Crystal of the Sea! At once, Master!"