When Humans Fall, They Only Love Valkyries

But Otto was a little strange.

Could a person really stoop so low?

What benefit was there in bullying Mei?

Putting pressure on her to make her withdraw?

He felt something was off.

But he couldn't put it into words.

"This might be someone's prank," the female teacher said awkwardly, feeling the sting of being proven wrong so quickly.

Otto's fingers traced the surface of Mei's desk. He seemed to have thought of something, but the teacher's interruption made that flash of insight slip away.

"Let's clean this up first."

Otto said to Kiana. Kiana nodded, rolling up her sleeves. With her strong sense of justice, she couldn't ignore something like this.

If she found anyone engaging in bullying, she wouldn't hesitate to throw a punch.

It was probably this kind of justice-driven Kiana who could open Mei's heart.

"Dear miss, could you take my precious daughter to get a rag or something?"

"Yes, yes." The female teacher led Kiana away. After they left, Otto looked at the school building and walked in alone.

The female teacher brought Kiana to where the cleaning tools were stored. Kiana picked up a bucket to fetch water.

Watching Kiana's bouncing figure as she ran to get water, the female teacher hid herself in the shadows, her flirtatious demeanor vanishing completely.

After carefully observing her surroundings, she took out her phone and dialed a number. When it connected, she spoke urgently.

"Lady Cocolia, I need to report a situation."

Chapter 26: Within Ten Steps, the Gun Is Fast and Accurate

On the rooftop of Senba Academy stood a young girl.

Her long, violet hair reached her hips, her figure was tall and slender, and her light purple eyes were tied up with a bow into a ponytail.

Her black sailor uniform accentuated her curvaceous, graceful body. Her slender legs and full hips were wrapped in black stockings, which tightly outlined her sexy, toned leg lines without a hint of excess fat.

She wore no accessories, but her slightly plain attire couldn't conceal the elegant aura about her.

However, her cherry lips were slightly pursed, and her delicate face carried a trace of confusion.

As if she were worrying about what to make for dinner tonight.

Her right hand rested on the slightly rusted railing, her violet eyes looking down from above, surveying the entire Senba Academy.

A gentle breeze passed, her hair fluttered, and her skirt flew up.

"Black... oh, it's safety shorts. Never mind, then."

Then a discordant voice broke the harmony.

The young girl named Raiden Mei turned her head to see a man wearing a mask walking out through the rooftop door.

Otto looked at Raiden Mei and said with a smile.

"No matter how hard life gets, I don't recommend jumping off a building. That's a form of escape."

Seeing Mei standing by the rooftop railing, Otto thought she was considering jumping.

"I'm not planning to jump," Mei shook her head, her eyes carrying a coldness that kept people at a distance. "This place is yours. I'm leaving."

Mei walked toward the door. Since someone had arrived, she decided to leave.

"Don't leave so quickly, Raiden Mei. Let's chat a bit."

Otto smiled, then reached back and closed the rooftop door. He stood in front of it—if she didn't push him aside, Mei couldn't leave.

Mei frowned. She looked at Otto warily, reaching behind her back.

She carried a long bag on her back, and inside it was a bamboo sword.

"Who are you? Why do you... what do you want from me?"

Mei didn't ask why he knew her identity. Ever since her father was imprisoned, many adults coveting the ME Company had tried every means to get close to her.

Her words were cold. Since her family's upheaval, she had seen through many things. The "friends" who used to approach her were only after the identity of Raiden Mei.

There wasn't a single sincere friend by her side.

So she gradually distanced herself from others and began to walk alone, to ease the torment in her heart.

She only needed to be alone now. That way, she wouldn't get hurt.

Raiden Mei had once used a mask of strength to disguise her fragile heart, and this time, she had put on another layer.

"I just think a cute girl like you being bullied like that—I can't stand it."

"I saw your desk. Someone wrote those filthy words on it. It's really unpleasant."

"Desk?" But hearing what Otto said, Mei frowned. "I don't understand what you're talking about."

"Aren't you being bullied? Aren't they hitting you, cursing you, shoving dead rats into your desk?"

Looking at the frost-faced Mei, Otto also found it a bit strange. The feeling Mei gave him now was simply one of seclusion, nothing like a child who had been bullied.

She was like Kamisato Ayaka shrinking into a turtle shell, warily watching everything around her.

He really wondered how a girl like this could become the Housewife.

"Bullying? Perhaps." Mei took a bamboo sword from her bag. "But for me, the bullying was probably what they call the silent treatment."

No insults, no humiliation—just pure cold-shouldering. Yet Mei found it even more painful.

That desk wasn't Mei's?

Otto was startled. He had thought that desk was Mei's. Good thing he hadn't said it out loud, or he'd have made an awkward blunder.

But this academy had some serious problems if other girls were being bullied too.

However, that wasn't what Otto cared about right now.

Otto looked at the bamboo sword in Mei's hand and said with a smile, "We're both civilized people. No need to bring out weapons."

True. Although Raiden Mei looked like a delicate, ordinary high school girl, she was actually a master swordsman of the Hokushin Itto-ryu!

If anyone tried to bully her with violence, they'd first have to test whether their head or her bamboo sword was harder.

"Besides, I mean you no harm."

"I'm a friend of your father, Raiden Ryoma. I came to see you this time because I want to help you."

"Seven times." Mei looked at Otto, who seemed puzzled. "I've heard that line seven times already."

Mei's face was cold.

"Why does every single one of you use the same wording? Do you really think I'm an idiot?"

To be honest, Mei was tired of it.

At first, she had actually believed them.

But later, she found out they were people with ill intentions toward her. Luckily, she was strong enough to escape danger.

Deception after deception had made her stop trusting anyone who approached her.

Otto's heart was also a bit shattered. Damn, had someone else already used up all his lines?

This Mei was completely unreachable. To break through to her, he'd need to be as energetic and passionate as Kiana, with the same loneliness inside, so Mei would feel like she'd found a kindred spirit.

"Move aside. Don't let me see you again."

Bamboo sword in hand, Mei fixed Otto with a cold, piercing stare.

Otto realized that conventional methods wouldn't work on this girl.

"I just want to talk about you and Raiden Ryoma. I really want to get your father out of prison."

In truth, Otto had already done that—only to lock Raiden Ryoma up in his own prison instead.

"I have nothing to discuss with you."

Another line she'd heard before.

"Really not talking?"

Otto asked again.

Mei didn't answer. She was already preparing to use a bit of force to make him leave. If she didn't teach these people a lesson, they'd keep clinging to her.

Mei didn't want to get close to anyone, and she didn't want anyone to get close to her.

"Then... will this let us talk?"

Otto aimed a USP45 at Mei.

Mei's expression froze. She had seen people pull guns before, but never someone who drew a weapon the moment they met.

This was the famous Senba Academy. Pulling a gun here—was this guy out of his mind?

And with that weird mask on his face, was he actually a lunatic?

Communicating with a gun-wielding madman was extremely dangerous, because you never knew when he might shoot you.

Mei stared at the cold muzzle, gripping her bamboo sword tightly. She was calculating the possibility of resisting at this distance.

She was about a dozen steps away from this man. If she closed the distance a bit more, she could knock the pistol out of his hand with her bamboo sword.

"Beyond ten steps, the gun is faster."

"But..."

Otto moved like a magician, and the pistol that had been in his left hand simply vanished.

Mei could swear she hadn't blinked, but the gun had disappeared right before her eyes.

And when it reappeared, the USP45 was in Otto's right hand.

This was Otto flexibly using the system to equip and unequip weapons.

"Within ten steps, the gun is both fast and accurate."

"Miss Raiden Mei, why don't you guess which hand I'll use to hold the gun next time?"

"Left hand, or right hand—let your bamboo sword decide."

"Choose wrong, and I'll put a hole through you."

Chapter 27. Moral Blackmail

His right hand rested on the young girl's shoulder, the two of them pressed close like lovers.

If not for the gun in Otto's left hand, its cold muzzle pressed against Mei's slender waist, they would have looked like an enviable, perfect couple.

Breathing in the sweet fragrance of Mei's body, a smile curled at the corner of Otto's lips.

But that smile, as Mei saw it, sent a chill down her spine.

Even the usually composed and graceful Mei felt her legs go weak.

There was no helping it—if a masked lunatic with a gun smiled at you, anyone would be a little scared.

It reminded Mei of the time she was kidnapped by a terrorist group as a child. Even after being rescued, the psychological trauma had kept her in a private facility under ME Company for three years of quiet recovery.

No matter how many masks she wore now, perhaps her truest self was still that little girl trembling in a dark room.

The fear even made Mei hallucinate. She felt like a fawn tangled by its limbs, and the footsteps on the narrow staircase sounded like a blade being sharpened on a whetstone.

Once the footsteps stopped, she would be gutted open.

I can't do anything!

"Don't be afraid. I'm not a bad person."

Otto whispered gently into Mei's ear. The man's breath crept into her ear canal, but it only made her more terrified, as if an invisible hand had seized her heart.

Mei had once watched a movie from Shenzhou. In it, there was a gang called the Axe Gang, and their boss, Brother Chen, was always dressed in a suit and tie but was deeply unhinged. He would say tenderly to a girl, "Don't be silly, ma'am. I don't kill women," and then, as she turned away, he would cruelly stab her in the back.

In Mei's eyes, Otto at that moment was just like Brother Chen of the Axe Gang.