Unnamed isekai x superhero genre merge story

A/N: I've been sitting on this one for a while, hoping to either continue it or at least come up with a title... But since it just wasn't going to happen, I wanted to at least shared the concept with you.

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“...as such, the government still urges people to stay at home for the time being,” the lady in the TV said.

It had started six days ago. UMSs, or unidentified misplaced structures, or as normal people called them, dungeons, began to randomly appear all over the world. Understandably, global panic ensued and the government even issued a state of emergency, just like back when Covid had run rampant.

The obvious first thoughts of everyone and their dogs had been ‘Let’s go and conquer them!’, but unfortunately for all these dogs and their owners, it wasn’t that simple. The very first day these dungeons had appeared caused more deaths worldwide than Covid could ever hope to.

Obvious, in hindsight.

These things were unpredictable and dangerous. Aggressive monstrous creatures, traps, untraversable terrain…

But also… sweet sweet loot. Hence why so many people threw themselves into these death holes without thinking. All these articles and forum threads of people boasting about getting lucky, conquering a dungeon that had appeared in their back yard or basement, and getting artifacts with amazing effects - those didn’t help either.

I wasn’t one of those eager to die though. I silently stayed holed up at the mansion and browsed the net and played video games. Hey, I had to make use of the school being out for the time being.

Still, from what people said on the internet, these artifacts were really weird. Apparently, you just had to touch one, and you instantly knew its name and what it could do. I wasn’t sure I believed that, but then again, dungeons filled with monsters were a thing.

Well, I had been in the non-believer camp at first, but everything changed when I got bored of being holed up in grandpa’s mansion with nothing to do, and finally began cleaning up around the place.

Grandpa sure had been a collector of… things. All sorts of things. Paintings, decorated cookware and utensils, guns…

And also jewelry, apparently.

“Maybe this one…? Oh, there we go,” I said to myself, finally finding the right key for the little box.

The ornamented box opened, revealing various jewelry inside.

Actually, now that I thought about it, maybe they used to be grandma’s. Grandpa had probably kept them in her memory.

Out of curiosity, I reached out into the little box to take a closer look at the shining necklace. As soon as my hand touched it though, I froze.

Necklace of shadows. Can be activated while worn to make the user change appearance. People will recognize you as a different person.

I fell on my butt from the shock, still holding the little box.

“W-what…?”

Information had suddenly invaded my brain, telling me the name of the necklace and what it could do. Just like what the people on the internet claimed about artifacts.

“Wait… but how?”

Was this mansion secretly a dungeon? Or had my grandparents conquered some of these dungeons in the past? Had grandpa left me not just with a mansion but also with artifacts?

No…

This entire dungeon phenomenon had started way after I inherited this place. How had he gotten his hands on an artifact before then?

“Grandpa… what the hell…?”

“... the prime minister called another meeting to discuss the potential end of the state of emergency, more at six.”

After that particular discovery, I brought the entire box to the living room and placed it on the table.

I had always been a fan of puzzles and solving mysteries, so getting to the bottom of this excited me in a way.

But also… I was a coward. The paranoid part of me was screaming at me to dig a hole, toss the entire box into it, and never speak of it again. After all, what if there was some kind of secret artifact-hunting organization out there? What if just owning this box put me in danger?

I sighed to myself.

“... a masked man, who proclaimed himself to be a superhero named Marshal. The police believe he is using artifacts to mimic supernatural powers…”

Superheroes, huh? What the heck was the world coming to? Maybe it was to be expected… Or rather, if superheroes were a thing now, supervillains had to be a thing too. And realistically, the psychopathic puppeteer-type of supervillains are bound to appear sooner or later. Power hungry jerks who won’t stop at anything to get every artifact in existence. Including the very necklace I had in front of me.

Yup, I should investigate. Even if I didn’t, just having this artifact probably put a target on my back already. Still, I promised myself to be extremely careful and secretive about the necklace.

I  opened up the jewelry box and reached in to grab the necklace again. My fingers brushed against some of the other objects inside, and I froze up once again.

…

“No way… There’s more…?”

The necklace wasn’t the only artifact in the box. A moment of shock later, I breathed in to steel my determination, and began taking everything out of the jewelry box.

With everything laid down on the table, I separated the four objects I reacted to.

A ring, a hairpin, the necklace, and… a dagger…?

Why were they all women’s accessories? Even the dagger looked to be ornamental rather than one meant for stabbing.

Well, unless grandpa had had a hidden side to him he’d never shown me, this box probably had belonged to grandma.

Obviously, whether it was grandma’s or grandpa’s, this wasn’t a coincidence. Someone had been purposefully gathering artifacts… before dungeons supposedly even existed.

I gulped.

“Time travel…?” I voiced my thoughts out loud.

I felt like I was diving deep into something I shouldn’t. But at the same time… Grandpa specifically had me inherit this place in his last will. Had he planned this somehow? Had he left instructions on what to do for me somewhere?

I grabbed the hairpin shaped like an angel’s wing. It was pretty, and more importantly, the effect it had was…

Guardian wing. Erects a protective barrier when the user is about to be struck.

… very useful if there were evil artifact-hunters after me.

Since I had it, I had no reason not to use it.

…

Although… It was a cute hairpin. An accessory meant for girls. How would it look on my ugly male head…?

With that dumb thought, I took the hairpin and went straight to the bathroom in front of the mirror. I put the accessory into my hair and… as expected, I looked dumb. Sure, it would probably do its job regardless but…

…

I remembered the necklace. Would that work?

Without any further thought, I went back to fetch the necklace before returning to the bathroom again.

The necklace was even more feminine and I felt almost dirty touching it. But for the sake of the experiment, I put it on.

Once I looked into the mirror again, my eyes widened. Just as advertised, I didn’t recognize myself whatsoever. I looked like… a girl. But even if that’s what I thought, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what had changed. Was it the shape of my face? The texture of my hair? Had my eyelashes changed?

Looking down, my chest was as flat as ever. And–

“Oh, what the hell?!”

I facepalmed.. What was I even thinking? Turning myself feminine just so the hairpin wouldn’t be out of place? Moreover, nearly thinking of myself as a woman? That was going a bit too far.

I took off the necklace… and left the hairpin on for the time being. Sure, I looked dumb… but I was locked in the mansion on my own anyway. Nobody would see me. And if someone were to break in… being protected mattered more than looking dumb, didn’t it?

I kept the hairpin on.