Someone Is Waiting for Me

"I have no intention of capturing you, I..." Han Jiang shouted from behind.

Yae Sakura slowly turned around. Perhaps influenced by the enormous fox demon within her heart, her gaze was frighteningly cold.

"Speak!"

"I only wanted to ask why you were eliminating Honkai Beasts and Deadwalkers by yourself, living here alone," Han Jiang hurriedly asked.

No matter how aloof Yae Sakura appeared, Han Jiang knew she would not take the initiative to harm others.

"Living alone in a city afflicted by Honkai, silently eliminating Honkai all by yourself... aren't you lonely?"

Han Jiang's words made Yae Sakura's heart skip a beat.

That was right. All these years, she had been searching for someone.

In the blink of an eye, five hundred years had passed. Human civilization had changed tremendously, yet she was still clinging to the thoughts she had held back then.

"Kill this nosy brat immediately! He's trying to get information out of you and stall for time. He must be secretly using some strange device to contact others and have them come here. Do it!" the enormous fox roared relentlessly, urging Yae Sakura to act.

"I am a shrine maiden. Protecting civilians is my duty," Yae Sakura calmly said to Han Jiang. "And besides, I'm not lonely. Someone has always been waiting for me."

Yae Sakura turned and left without another word.

"...Sigh."

Han Jiang slightly shook his head and kicked away a pebble by his feet.

"You got that many points so quickly? What did you do? You must have used other students to help you hunt Deadwalkers, then made them give you all their points, didn't you?!"

Kiana's voice rang in Han Jiang's ear through the communication channel. In the virtual display, she was waving her arms and shouting furiously.

"We haven't even been apart for long. You must have cheated! This is infuriating—you actually overtook Miss Kiana's first-place position!"

Han Jiang glanced at the point rankings. There was not much difference between his points and those of Kiana's group of three.

Perhaps because he had marked the location on the map, the armor chip had credited him with the kills of those Deadwalkers, causing his points to instantly surpass first-place Kiana's.

"Look, it's just me over here." Han Jiang continuously adjusted his display so Kiana could see the Deadwalker corpses all over the ground.

"You..."

"No, I think I forgot something important. Why can you connect to my channel without my permission? Who gave you the authority?"

"Please don't be angry, Han Jiang. Kiana was the one who asked Bronya to do it," Bronya's voice sounded beside Han Jiang's ear.

"I told you, Han Jiang must have earned those points through his own strength." Mei's voice followed. "Over the past few days, everyone in class has gradually begun forming teams, but he's still clearing out Deadwalkers alone."

"Ah, Mei, you didn't turn off your communicator!" Kiana cried in panic.

"Kiana, Bronya already reminded you not to rashly speak to Han Jiang. Things had been going fine before, but now he's discovered us," Bronya said regretfully in a calm tone.

The more Han Jiang listened, the more his head hurt. Everyone's communication channel was supposed to be independent, so how had it become a team channel for the three of them?

And from what they were saying, it sounded like they had been monitoring his communication channel for quite some time?

Seeing Han Jiang's expression begin to change, Kiana nudged Bronya and told her to explain.

Bronya stepped forward without hesitation. "Deciphering a communication channel takes less than three seconds. It was idiot Kiana and Mei who insisted on monitoring your channel."

"According to Bronya's understanding, adolescent girls are curious about boys around them. The two of them grew up in a girls' school, so they wanted to see what boys usually did and whom they contacted."

"But judging from the past few days of observation, Han Jiang actually managed not to contact a single person. That's truly impressive."

Perhaps afraid Han Jiang would get angry and report the matter to Himeko, Bronya added something that made him even angrier.

"Please rest assured, Han Jiang. Bronya can guarantee that the three of us monitored you in the same way humans study other primates. There was no malice whatsoever."

"Teacher Himeko said that adolescent boys are different from girls. You are the ideal research subject. And Teacher Himeko also said that even if you found out about this, you would not get angry."

Han Jiang sharply inhaled, suppressing the urge to curse.

When did I become a monkey for humans to study?

And some time ago, Teacher Himeko called me over to talk and told me to interact more with girls. Girls aren't ferocious beasts; they can be friends too.

Yet behind my back, she had the girls study me?

Monitor my communication channel?

Fortunately, the chip in his armor had an emergency response system. Otherwise, Bronya could have activated the armor's shared vision without him knowing a thing, couldn't she?

"Armor is an enhancement tool that assists Valkyries in battle. It does not possess any computer system. No one can remotely control another person's armor—not even the armor's designer. At most, they can track its location."

"So Han Jiang needn't worry. Armor operates by relying on a Valkyrie's Honkai Energy. Since its invention, no remotely controllable armor has ever appeared."

Hearing Bronya's explanation, Han Jiang let out a sigh of relief. The hidden danger he had imagined did not exist.

As soon as Bronya finished explaining, the three immediately exited the communication channel, leaving Han Jiang no opportunity to get angry.

Han Jiang tried connecting to their communication channels several times, but no one answered, leaving him to sulk alone.

"Tell me, how many people have been monitoring my communication channel? Is it only the three of you?" Han Jiang asked in an angry tone while sending another connection request.

"Eight students from our entire class took part, including us! Aunt Himeko led it all, so don't blame us!" Sensing Han Jiang's tone, Kiana could not help selling Himeko out as well.

"I...! You're even pretending not to answer! This is making me furious!"

"But you're so boring. After training for so many days, aside from brief calls with us, you either report your hunting results to Aunt Himeko or don't say a single word all day. If all boys are like this, that's so boring," Kiana complained.

Han Jiang's eyes widened. "Hey? You're the one complaining..."

Well, the channel had been manually cut off again.

Han Jiang did not know whether to laugh or cry. Since Kiana said Himeko had taken the lead, these girls probably really had been studying him with the mindset of studying a monkey.

"Don't be nervous, Han Jiang. Girls' curiosity toward boys is like that of someone raising a pet for the first time."

"Some people raise kittens or puppies and cannot resist observing what they do every day. Caring about one's pet is an instinctive human behavior."

The communication channel fell silent for a while, then Himeko's voice and image appeared before Han Jiang. She truly had the authority to open his communication channel.

"At first, I also thought you might have invited other students to help. But your communication records over the past few days showed that you hadn't interacted with many people. I even thought you had secretly gone looking for other girls. Turns out a kid is still a kid."

Han Jiang crouched on the ground, repeatedly stabbing his Tang Dao into the asphalt. Could a girl's allure really compare to the combat power gained from making himself stronger first?