The promised third collapse, where is it?!!

Given her extensive background, when his wife was in labor, he naturally did everything he could to provide her with the best medical care.

In other words, Mei's birthplace was the Anti-Entropy headquarters.

According to the laws there, infants born within the country automatically receive citizenship.

"So I'm simply curious about your swordsmanship level, Fu Li. Do you need me, a Menkyo Kaiden proficient in Hokushin Itto-ryu, to give you some hands-on guidance?" the girl asked with a charming smile. "As for where and how you learned these sword skills, I'm very interested, but I won't pry."

"So you mean?"

"You've misunderstood~"

Fu Li breathed a sigh of relief.

However, someone else wanted him to stop breathing.

"Ah! Li!"

As everyone knows, LOVE stands for Level of Violence, a measure of a person's ability to harm others.

For example, Kiana, bursting with jealousy, wanted to have a good LOVE session with Fu Li to avoid the tragic fate of having her wife (or husband?) NTR'd by him.

"What, you wanna fight?"

Having secured Mei, Fu Li wasn't going to indulge her. He drew his Crescent Moon and assumed a stance, then thought better of it and sheathed his sword.

This wasn't giving up halfway; he had thought of something interesting and decided to test a new move on Kiana.

'Rumble...'

At this critical moment of tension, for the first time in two and a half hours, a peculiar sound echoed from Kiana's empty stomach.

The two exchanged a calm glance.

"A Li~~~"

Fu Li dropped his drawing stance, identical to the one he used with Miko Ling when performing Immeasurable Evil, and hugged his arms with a look of disgust. "...No, can you at least change your expression a little slower? Give me some time to prepare myself."

"I don't want to!" Kiana said coquettishly.

"You go find Mei—never mind."

Mid-sentence, Fu Li shook his head to himself.

Ever since Raiden Ryoma went into advanced training to become a "prison-bound" talent, the assets of the Raiden residence had been either confiscated or distributed.

Mei herself was currently living in the girls' dormitory. How could she possibly have the money to satisfy the big eater that was Kiana?

"Let's consider it a celebration for Mei joining the team. I'll treat you to a good meal," he said, raising his hands in surrender. "After we eat, we'll depart from Changkong City."

"Actually, we could prepare the ingredients and go to Kiana's place," Mei suggested earnestly. "I've been learning to cook recently, so I can handle the cooking."

"I'm really looking forward to your cooking, but let's skip it this time."

Fu Li was genuinely regretful. He had tasted Mei's cooking in the previous loop, and it was more than just delicious; it was a feast for the eyes, nose, and palate.

For a long time, he had playfully called her "Cook."

Unfortunately, everything changed after she (Sinner's Elegy) joined World Serpent.

It was quite amusing; at the time, Fu Li thought World Serpent had done something outrageous to Mei, causing her personality to change drastically. In a fit of rage, he not only destroyed thirty-seven of their branches in the Middle East but even confronted the mercenary legend—Kojima Bakubaku-ya.

Fortunately, Mei herself, a flash of lightning tearing through the sky, made a brilliant appearance at the crucial moment, saving Fu Li, who was then an A-rank outlier, from being completely dominated.

Oh, that "completely dominated" was Ms. Shiora's unilateral statement afterward.

The win probability between them had always been 30/70, with Fu Li having the 30%.

Many people know that Schicksal boasts three active S-rank Valkyries, each possessing strategic deterrent power.

Among these three, only Rita Rossweisse barely made it into the S-rank category thanks to the performance of the fourth-generation God-Slaying Armor "Azure Knight: Moon of Oath."

Raven's situation was similar; her S-rank rating was entirely due to the powerful support of the third Divine Key, "Judgment of Thunder: Seven Thunders of Purgation."

In her normal state, she was at most at the peak of the critical level. Back then, an A-rank outlier like Fu Li could still contend with her.

The 30/70 win probability was calculated when he was already injured from raiding World Serpent's branches. Otherwise, a 40/60 or even 50/50 split wouldn't have been impossible, as he was famously undefeated among those of his rank.

With that thought, Fu Li glanced at Mei's delicate, shapely legs, encased in thigh-high stockings.

Afterward, when Mei helped treat his injuries, he had rested his head there, and she was wearing white stockings that accentuated her legs.

To this, someone's impromptu comment was that they were too hard and uncomfortable, unlike a pillow.

Then his injuries worsened.

This time, it was electrical damage.

He deserved it, to say the least.

Chapter 40: "Mei: I'll be Saionji Sekai!"

As one story unfolds, the other two are not paused in time.

"Huh? We're leaving already?" Kiana asked, tiptoeing slightly, looking reluctant. "Can I go home and change my clothes first?"

He shot Fu Li a look usually reserved for lunatics, as if to say, "Are you kidding me? How dare you ask Mei to cook?"

Fun fact: Mei's cooking skills were slowly acquired after her family went bankrupt, and she's still enthusiastically learning.

During this time, Kiana was a guinea pig for Mei's culinary experiments every other day. While the brain could be tricked with "love is the best seasoning," taste buds and digestive systems didn't care.

In the previous timeline, Fu Li didn't have the chance to be her test subject in the early stages. By the mid-game, he'd already encountered a fully-fledged culinary master, which led to his unrealistic, fixed impression.

Oblivious to all this, the person in question said, "Going back to change? As long as your piggy belly can handle it."

Mei, curious about Kiana's outfit, then realized that the clothes her friend was wearing belonged to Fu Li.

However, the young girl thoughtfully didn't ask.

As the newcomer, Mei had always understood that both she and Kiana kept Fu Li at a distance precisely because they didn't want to drag him into their inhuman world.

Ordinary people were simply too powerless there. For one thing, Kiana, with just a slight clamp of her legs, had nearly given Fu Li a concussion before he'd even activated the Demonic Blade · Unknown Fire.

If they had truly gotten together, during some intimate moment, one accidental slip-up could lead to a tragedy of a parent outliving their child.

For instance, getting overly excited and sitting on a kidney, turning into a 2.5-dimensional being, a Flanders.

It was different now. Since Fu Li had become one of them, there was no longer any need to maintain the deliberately cold facade from the past.

Mei believed that as long as Fu Li and Kiana continued to interact, Kiana would eventually shed her unhealthy, "fruity" way of thinking and establish normal views on relationships between men and women.

But the problem now was...

Reflected in her beautiful eyes was the scene of "Fu Li holding Kiana's gleaming white forehead with one hand, preventing her from touching him as she thrashed about." Miss Mei sighed softly.

The problem now was that Fu Li seemed completely uninterested in Kiana.

In the three months since her father's arrest, Mei, who had been bullied at school, had gradually developed a keen eye for judging people.

She was certain that if Kiana had just accused Fu Li of secretly learning their family's ancestral Kaslana gun-fu, he wouldn't have even bothered to lie. He would have just said, "So what if I learned it?"

When Mei asked, the boy's relaxed heart suddenly tensed, his tone laced with a hint of panic and forced composure.

As a woman, Mei felt a secret delight at the boy's flustered reaction when faced with her.

But as a friend, she couldn't help but worry about Kiana.

Should she help her out?

A gentle breeze brushed past Mei's falling bangs. The beautiful girl with a cool, refined aura gazed with a soft smile, like flowing water over high mountains, at the bickering duo who were about to draw their swords at any moment.

"Huh?!"

"Stop fighting!"

"Don't get cocky! If I hadn't held back and not used my gun, how could a mere A Li have the upper hand?!"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, our Lady Kiana is so amazing! How about we try a different binding method next time? The Shadow Blade can do more than just the 'Rose Armor Bind.'"

"Why are you so skilled at tying that! How many times have you tied the Rose Armor Bind with people before!"

"Thirteen times. Compared to some scoundrels who like to play with enemies using threads, I prefer the thrill of a blade cutting into muscle. That's much more exhilarating."

"Ew! Pervert!"

In the apartment hallway, Kiana kicked Fu Li in the shin, then turned and pulled Mei into B201 with great fanfare.

Fu Li leisurely followed behind.

Kiana turned and glared at him, a fierce glare. "What? You want to peek at me changing?"

Fu Li shot back, "Actually, I learned from Kuang Heng and carved a hole in the shared wall between our apartments. I've already seen everything I should and shouldn't see."

This statement was half true and half false. The hole was fake, but seeing Kiana naked was true.

Not only had he seen it, but in the previous timeline, he'd also touched her entire body.

It was all bloody and messy, and didn't trigger any XP system at all.

"I don't care! You're not allowed in!"

Kiana treated his words like his previous threat to attack someone. She pushed Fu Li, who had half a foot in the room, back out and slammed the door shut with a 'bang!'

Turning back, she couldn't help but ask in surprise, "Mei, what are you doing?"

Mei, who was leaning against the wall searching for holes, gave an awkward laugh. "N-nothing..."

She had visited Kiana's home quite a few times.

What if she had also been...

"No, Mei, you don't actually believe A Li's nonsense, do you?"

To this, Kiana expressed great speechlessness.

She put a hand on her hip and said with great confidence, "A Li isn't the type to peek at people. I can guarantee that."

Mei subtly inquired, "Kiana, you trust Fu Li a lot. Did you go through something together?"

"Go through something together? I guess you could say that."

Kiana went to the wardrobe in the corner, rummaging for clothes that were easy to move in, and said, "My old man told me, when judging a person, don't listen to what they say, but watch what they do."

"A Li came to the Far East on the same ship as me, but he enrolled more than half a month later than I did. Mei, do you know why?"

"It seems... he got into a fight with someone?"

Mei said uncertainly. At that time, she was still dealing with the internal and external troubles of ME Inc. going bankrupt and the bullying environment, so her perception of external information was quite limited.

"Mhm." Kiana, who had taken out her shorts and long socks, nodded. "He got into a fight with someone outside the school and almost got sent back to Shenzhou."

"The reason?"

Fu Li's persistence was evident to all. To fight someone while risking being sent back, there must have been some important reason.

"What reason could there be?" Kiana chuckled, her tone inexplicably gentle. "Afterward, I angrily ran over and asked him if he could stop causing trouble for me. He actually replied to me with a serious face, 'We made a promise when we were kids, "Knights (Kaslana)" can't stand by and watch the innocent suffer!'"

"I don't remember any of that at all, and I always felt like he found the wrong person." The white-haired girl sat on the bed, taking off Fu Li's shoes and socks from her thighs. "Afterward, I investigated the whole situation. In short, that girl named Asakura Miyuki had been suffering from long-term bullying without the courage to resist, which made those scumbags treat her worse and worse. That day, they were even going to drag her into an alley to do... to do those disgusting things!"

Kiana gritted her teeth. "Fortunately, at the critical moment, A Li, that idiot, heard the cries for help from deep within the alley. He picked up a steel bar from the ground and charged in!"

Chapter 41: "There's No Place for You in This Home Anymore!"

As Kiana recounted the story, Mei's initially excited gaze gradually grew somber.

Miss Raiden, who had also experienced bullying, glanced in the direction of Fu Li outside the room and softly asked, "What happened next?"

"Next? Those thugs who lost face still wanted to cause trouble for A Li, but I took care of them all in one go. And that girl named Asakura Miyuki seemed to have shown great talent during her psychological treatment and has now joined St. Freya Valkyrie Academy in the Far East."

Kiana said with a smile, "Clean and neat."

"That's good." Mei unconsciously smiled as well. "Does Fu Li know about this?"

"He doesn't." Kiana shook her head. "That simpleton only provided all the punching except for the aftermath. The psychological treatment was because her family was wealthy, and the hooligans' revenge was handled by yours truly. He didn't even know why the girl was dragged into the alley in the end."

That's how a hero saves the damsel. Fu Li only needed to charge in and save her. Kiana and the others had much more to consider.