After tossing the private items that had been slipped into her shopping bag into the trash, Raiden Mei quickly returned to her current residence—a perfectly ordinary apartment.
Not long after, Gwen sauntered back to the apartment he rented.
When he opened the door, there was no one in the room. It had been cleaned spotlessly, though a sheet of paper covered in writing sat on the desk.
"Heh, looks like the little white-haired bug is still on guard..."
Muttering to himself, Gwen set down the tennis bag containing his weapons and picked up the paper on the desk.
Having spent several days in Changkong City—and even missed the birthday of Rita, who had treated him quite well—Gwen had not come away empty-handed.
While adapting to the local environment and casually clearing out minor Honkai incidents, Gwen had run into a little white-haired bug who was also running around dealing with those Honkai events. Yesterday, he had even brought the exhausted little white-haired bug home.
Raiden Mei: Did My Dad Really Break the Law?
Of course, the little white-haired bug had not been spoiled stupid by her leisurely life at St. Freya, and she would not casually follow a stranger home.
The reason she had followed Gwen back to his apartment yesterday was that a day of part-time work followed by nighttime fighting had utterly exhausted her. Only then had she followed Gwen, whom she had become familiar with through several chance nighttime meetings, back to his home.
Unlike Gwen, whose several bank cards held enough savings to let him live comfortably for the rest of his life, the little white-haired bug had come here alone. Though someone was helping her behind the scenes, she still needed to earn her daily expenses through part-time work.
Yes, Kiana the working warrior had officially made her debut.
Even after following Gwen home, the seemingly carefree Kiana had remained extremely cautious. She waited until Gwen started eating before she touched her food, and her modified dual pistols were always within arm's reach.
Before leaving, Kiana had thoroughly cleaned up and left behind a little money as thanks.
The paper in Gwen's hand bore Kiana's handwriting. Though she had clearly tried hard, it was still far from pretty.
Fortunately, while the handwriting was not very attractive and contained a few grammatical errors, Gwen still understood what Kiana meant. It was nothing more than thanking him for taking her in last night, saying that this was all the money she had and she was leaving it for him, and finally giving him a good guy card.
"Ha, that really is the little white-haired bug's style."
With a chuckle, Gwen put away the not-quite-a-letter. If it could still be preserved by then, showing it to the little white-haired bug in the future would be rather amusing.
After putting away Kiana's letter, Gwen drew the curtains, took out the Schicksal terminal and the summoner containing Prometheus's core data, and placed them on the table. Then he opened the laptop he had bought not long ago and began operating it.
Meanwhile, in the small apartment Raiden Mei rented—
As Raiden Mei sorted through the various daily necessities she had bought from the convenience store, she suddenly noticed something unfamiliar.
"This is..."
Looking at the earpiece in her hand, Raiden Mei could not help but look puzzled.
Raiden Mei was certain that she had not bought this earpiece. Moreover, it was not in the bag that the classmates she had encountered on the road had touched, so they should not have put it there.
Then...
There was only one answer...
The scenes from earlier flashed through her mind once more, until the image finally stopped at the moment that boy had put down his phone and taken out an earpiece.
"..."
Having confirmed where it came from, Raiden Mei pursed her lips. Scenes from movies she had watched before rapidly surfaced in her mind. Her gaze casually swept toward the window, and then she calmly continued tidying the things on the table before casually drawing the curtains shut.
As she absentmindedly sorted through her things, Raiden Mei repeatedly replayed her encounter with Gwen in her mind, trying to find more clues. Unfortunately, she found nothing. Only after wrapping herself in her blanket did she place the earpiece she had tucked into her pocket against her ear.
Contrary to what Raiden Mei expected, no voice immediately came through the earpiece. There was only disordered static, as though it were merely something someone had accidentally lost.
"..."
Raiden Mei felt both disappointed and fortunate.
It seemed there was no surveillance equipment in her room...
With that thought, Raiden Mei took a deep breath before speaking as calmly as she could.
"Hello?"
The earpiece was still filled with static, so Raiden Mei continued.
"Hello?
I am Raiden Mei."
The next moment, the static disappeared, replaced by a mechanical synthesized voice.
"Hello, Miss Raiden Mei."
"Hello, this is me."
Her heart gave an uncooperative thump. Raiden Mei tried hard to suppress the restless excitement brought on by her chuunibyou fantasies finally being fulfilled, then calmly said,
"May I ask who you are...?"
Thanks to everything she had experienced these past few months, the cold exterior she had once used merely to make rejecting others easier had practically become part of her instinct. Thus, even though her heart was racing, her voice did not tremble in the slightest.
"It's me. We only met this afternoon, Miss Mei. You have not forgotten me already, have you?"
This time, the voice in the earpiece was no longer mechanical. It was a male voice that sounded somewhat familiar to Raiden Mei.
"And my name is Gwen."
"Mr. Gwen, I am deeply grateful for your help this afternoon.
However, why did you go to such lengths to contact me?"
Trying to recall the scenes from the movies she had watched, Raiden Mei attempted to arrange her words so that she would seem as difficult to fool as possible.
"For this city, and for the tens of millions of people in it."
Gwen said calmly,
"Of course, along the way, I will also rescue your framed father, the former president of ME Corp., Raiden Ryoma."
"So my father is not a fraud?"
Raiden Mei instantly threw all her previous thoughts aside. Her mind was filled with delight, and her pretty face, already slightly flushed from being under the blanket, was now full of joy. Her skirt had even ridden up from her excited movements...
However, Gwen's next words were like a bucket of cold water poured over her head, instantly bringing the girl back to reality.
"Unfortunately, according to the intelligence I obtained, your father was indeed involved in illegal fundraising.
However, judging from his arrangements, he should ultimately have been able to repay the money.
If nothing had gone wrong, he should still be the president of ME Corp., and you should still be ME Corp.'s young lady, rather than the criminal's daughter who now gets scornful looks from everyone."
"..."
Raiden Mei could not respond for a while, and Gwen did not rush her. He simply listened quietly to her rapid breathing from the other end.
A harsh environment could wear a person down, but it could also force them to grow. Raiden Mei soon continued questioning him, though her voice was no longer as calm as before.
"Then, Mr. Gwen, does what you said about Changkong City also have something to do with the people who caused my father to be imprisoned and now control ME Corp.?"
"Smart!"
Gwen praised her, then continued,
"Their identities are rather complicated, so I may not be able to explain them clearly right away.
Simply put, they intend to use Changkong City as a testing ground for an experiment that is destined to kill more than 99.9 percent of the people in this city, creating a monster that is theoretically unbeatable.
Their purpose is to kill that monster, seize the essence within it, and complete another experiment."
"What?"
Even though Raiden Mei kept telling herself to stay calm, she could not help crying out.
Otto's Moves, Part One
Originally, Raiden Mei had only believed that her father's imprisonment was the result of losing a corporate war.
At most, it might have involved some political darkness.
However, the information she heard from Gwen made Raiden Mei instinctively think of scenes from horror movies, such as Resident Evil, of masterminds who treated human lives as worthless...
And just as Raiden Mei was left dizzy by Gwen's barrage of information, his next words nearly sank her completely.
"Furthermore, if nothing goes wrong, the final product of that experiment... will most likely be you, Miss Mei."
"Me?"
Raiden Mei's small mouth fell open as she found it hard to accept what Gwen had said.
"I can only say it is highly likely."
Working backward from the outcome, Gwen, whose mission plan had stated that he should try bluffing Raiden Mei, answered,
"After all, the most crucial element in this experiment is an item possessed by your father.
And that item was most likely placed on you."
"Something... placed on me?"
Still not recovered from Gwen's information bombardment, Raiden Mei murmured as she instinctively began thinking about what her father might have given her that could be the thing Gwen was talking about.
While Raiden Mei was being thoroughly bluffed by a transmigrator exploiting an information gap, somewhere in a rental room in Changkong City with truly terrible conditions, a little white-haired bug was hugging a cup of instant noodles and wolfing it down.
"Mmm... I'm finally full."
At last, after finishing her fourth cup of instant noodles, Kiana set down her utensils and let out a satisfied groan.
After spending an entire day busy working part-time to earn money, the amount of energy Kiana needed to replenish was naturally no small amount.
However, although her stomach was full, Kiana did not wear her usual blissful, satisfied expression after eating her fill as she looked at the instant noodle cups on the table. Instead, after staring at them for a while, she showed a trace of melancholy.
"Ah...
Sure enough, no matter how good instant noodles taste, they cannot compare to hot, freshly cooked food..."
The little white-haired bug flopped powerlessly onto the bed, unwilling to move like a dead fish. Recalling the food she had eaten at that handsome guy Gwen's place last night, she suddenly felt that the instant noodles she had once found so delicious no longer smelled appealing.
"Ah... when will school finally start?
I really miss Senior Mei's lunchboxes..."
Ever since Raiden Ryoma was imprisoned last year, Raiden Mei's situation at school had immediately worsened. She had gone from the Raiden Queen at the top of the academy to the "criminal's daughter" whom anyone could casually step on.
And given Japan's social atmosphere, in a situation like this, aside from a few exceptionally unusual people, most would only watch silently. Some would even have to join in the discussions to fit into the group, becoming accomplices.
Clearly, with Raiden Mei's formerly aloof image, she had no friends willing to stand up for her.
Thus, Raiden Mei's circumstances became increasingly dire.
It was under such circumstances that the little white-haired bug, who completely failed to understand such rotten traditional Japanese social customs, directly taught several particularly excessive students a lesson and became the first person to show Raiden Mei kindness amid adversity.
Otto's Moves, Part Two
And because the little white-haired bug was too lazy to cook—and had no expectations for her own cooking—her affection for Raiden Mei steadily grew under Raiden Mei's constant feeding.
If she had not felt embarrassed about troubling Raiden Mei, whose situation was already difficult, and if it had not been more convenient for eventually leaving to search for her stinky old dad elsewhere, Kiana would have directly asked to live at Raiden Mei's home.
However, during spring break, neither of them was attending school. Kiana was short on money and still needed to prepare travel expenses for the road ahead, so she could only rely on instant noodles.
Originally, Kiana, who had never eaten well growing up, could happily enjoy instant noodles. Yet the dinner she had eaten at Gwen's place last night had made the little white-haired bug's taste buds revolt against them.
The satisfaction brought by hot, freshly cooked food was not something a cold lunchbox could compare to, and it had affected the little white-haired bug, who had eaten instant noodles for nearly two weeks, far more strongly than the lunchboxes she could eat every day.
Thus, in the little white-haired bug's mental comparison, Gwen's cooking gradually surpassed Mei's lunchboxes. Coming back to herself, the little white-haired bug shook her head, flung that terrifying thought out of her mind, pulled the blanket beside her around herself, muttered, and closed her eyes.
"Mmm... not thinking about it, not thinking about it. Sleep, sleep..."
Meanwhile, at Schicksal headquarters on the other side of the world, Otto had finally finished his design work and freed up some time. He opened the technically unqualified mission plan Gwen had submitted.
"Hmm?"
Looking at the plan Gwen had written to bluff Raiden Mei, Otto's expression could not help turning strange.
If he remembered correctly, based on the information sent back by his spy in Anti-Entropy, one possible objective behind Cocolia's actions seemed to be inducing the birth of the Third Herrscher in Changkong City.
Originally, Otto had merely laughed it off, believing that Cocolia and the people behind her could not possibly be that foolish. He had not even considered informing his old friend in the Far East.
Now, looking at Gwen's highly familiar plan, Otto recalled that possibility once again.
"Hmm..."
Although he had previously laughed it off, this possibility, which had returned to Otto's mind through Gwen's plan, was not casually dismissed a second time.
After all, Otto had seen plenty of fools who arrogantly caused a major disaster and got themselves killed.
Though an unknown force seemed to be operating behind Cocolia, that did not prevent this minor figure, a small warlord by origin, from causing some great disaster...
At that thought, Otto's gaze became even more profound. His fingers rhythmically tapped the tabletop, producing crisp sounds.
After thinking for a moment, Otto did not immediately make any arrangements. Instead, he opened another top-secret file—
Before you continue