"Get up, Missy!" Kiana dragged and yanked Yu Luo out of bed. Yu Luo clung desperately to the headboard with both hands, struggling against Kiana's monstrous strength.
"No!"
"There's only one bed in this room. If you sleep in it, where is Missy supposed to sleep?!" Veins bulged on Kiana's forehead as she refused to back down. Yu Luo also exerted every ounce of strength he had, refusing to yield. "Sleep in the chair!"
"Why don't you sleep in the chair? Shouldn't a teacher look after his students?!"
"Then why can't you let me sleep in the bed? Shouldn't students respect their teacher?!"
The two remained deadlocked, neither willing to give in. In the end, Kiana angrily let go. Yu Luo thought she had given up her claim to the bed and contentedly closed his eyes.
"Move over!" Kiana suddenly kicked Yu Luo. The mattress sank as she climbed on, and Yu Luo helplessly opened his eyes. Looking at Kiana lying beside him with her back to him, he said helplessly, "Fine, fine, fine."
As he spoke, he squeezed inward and gave Kiana more than half the bed. Still unwilling to lose out verbally, he said, "Let me make this clear first. I'm not exactly well-behaved when I sleep. If I accidentally touch somewhere I shouldn't..."
"I'll break that paw!" Kiana's angry voice came from beside him. Yu Luo hurriedly changed his tune. "Do I look like that kind of beast? I'm a good person!"
Kiana ignored Yu Luo completely and closed her eyes on her own. Only her steady, rhythmic breathing could be heard. In that environment, Yu Luo's eyelids began to droop as well. He opened his mouth in a huge yawn. "Hah... good work tonight, Kiana." With that, he drifted off to sleep too.
After more than half a day of fleeing and fighting, they were both utterly exhausted in body and mind. The moment they relaxed, sleepiness flooded over them, and they wished they could sleep until the end of time.
Unfortunately, Yu Luo woke before he had gotten enough sleep. A burning sensation in his stomach had roused him. Only then did he remember that their last meal had been eight or nine hours ago. After escaping Senba Academy, they had gone straight to looking for somewhere to rest for the night and had not eaten anything at all.
"Grrr..." An undignified growl sounded near Yu Luo's ear. He felt Kiana's body, pressed tightly against his back, stiffen. Unable to help laughing, he asked, "Did hunger wake you up too?"
"I'll go find something to eat." Yu Luo sprang out of bed and stood by the window, speaking to Kiana, who was pretending to sleep on the bed.
"It's fine. We can wait until dawn. It's too dangerous at night." Seeing that Yu Luo knew she was awake, Kiana stopped pretending and spoke worriedly.
"I'm the teacher. I have to take care of my student." Yu Luo used the same reason he had used while fighting Kiana for the bed, smiling as he said, "Besides, I have the Quantum Transformation Divine Skill. I'll be fine."
"Be careful."
Yu Luo nodded. He held a silver Heroic Spirit Card between the fingertips of his right hand, drew it vertically through the air in front of himself, and said, "Henshin!"
A fierce silver light enveloped Yu Luo, forcing Kiana to close her eyes. Fortunately, the window was covered by curtains, so none of the light leaked outside. The silver flash vanished in an instant, revealing Yu Luo's figure.
He wore a black cowboy outfit, with a black cowboy hat atop his cheerful golden short hair. A revolver rested at his waist, and a faint smile lingered at the corner of his lips. The untamed spirit of a Western cowboy was displayed vividly on him.
"Take care of yourself. I'll be right back." Leaving those words behind, Yu Luo pulled open the curtains, pushed open the window, and leaped down from the second floor. His black cowboy clothes blended into the night, making him difficult to spot.
As Yu Luo searched the darkness for convenience stores and supermarkets, he checked Billy the Kid's attributes:
Class: Archer Name: Billy the Kid Strength: D Endurance: E Agility: B Mana: E Luck: B Inherent Skills: Independent Action A Riding C+ Possessed Skills: Marksmanship A++ Quick Draw A+ Mind's Eye (False) C Noble Phantasm: Bad Beat C+++ Anti-Unit Noble Phantasm Maximum Targets: 1 person
Yu Luo glanced over it and was surprised to discover that Billy the Kid's Noble Phantasm section differed from Sasaki Kojiro's. It did not say that it could not be used.
"Does that mean I can use his Noble Phantasm?" Yu Luo asked the system curiously. "Then why can't I use Kojiro's Noble Phantasm?"
The system made an eye-rolling expression and tossed out a simple answer. "A matter of strength."
"Huh? I know there's a difference in their strength according to the setting, but can you explain that more clearly? With customer service like yours, it'll be hard for me to spend again." Yu Luo pointed at the remaining Summoning Ticket, signaling for the system to mind its attitude toward its benefactor.
"Hah..." The system gave a huge yawn, but for the sake of Yu Luo's Summoning Ticket, it still explained in detail. "First, assuming equal card Bond, the higher the card's rarity, the stronger you become after transforming."
"So even though Kojiro is stronger than Billy the Kid in the setting, one is one-star and the other is three-star. That means my Billy the Kid transformation is stronger than my Kojiro transformation, right?" Yu Luo quickly understood.
"Looks like you aren't completely stupid." The system praised him. "However, low-rarity cards are easier to raise in Bond than high-rarity ones. At maximum Bond, you can transform without restrictions."
"High-rarity cards start higher, but low-rarity cards improve faster." Yu Luo pondered this.
"I have to say, your luck really is pretty good. The two Heroic Spirit Cards you've obtained so far are both fairly suitable for you. Sasaki Kojiro and Billy the Kid both have relatively low consumption among Heroic Spirits, and most of their Possessed Skills are passive." The system rarely praised Yu Luo. "If you had gotten other Heroic Spirits, with that little Transformation Energy at zero Bond, using a Possessed Skill even once would probably drain it all."
"Their Noble Phantasms are the same. Sasaki Kojiro's Noble Phantasm is relatively strong, and the little Transformation Energy raised by your current 3% simply cannot support it."
"Billy the Kid's Noble Phantasm, on the other hand, leans toward technique. His Inherent Skill Independent Action also reduces energy consumption, so you can barely use it."
"Well, using it once will probably exhaust your Transformation Energy anyway. And it's still one of the weaker Noble Phantasms among Heroic Spirits."
"Mm..." Yu Luo put on a Quincy face and said unhappily, "After saying all that, you're basically just beating around the bush to say I'm weak, aren't you?"
"Yes. Who told you to be this weak even after transforming?" the system instantly replied. "The way you look after transforming is like Kunxu Caicaizi."
"You're making a personal attack?!" Yu Luo responded indignantly.
"No, I'm praising your backbone." The system refused to admit it no matter what. "Kunxu Caicaizi has plenty of backbone when it comes to major matters of principle!"
As he bickered with the system as usual, Yu Luo finally found a supermarket. Why are there no supermarkets near a residential area?! Yu Luo complained inwardly, but his sharp eyes caught sight of a somewhat familiar girl lying face-down at the entrance of the supermarket.
Dark hair tied with a bow spilled across the girl's back. The night was too dark to tell whether it was black or deep purple. She wore a dress of the same color as her hair, and the fair calves exposed beneath it ruled out the possibility that she was a Zombie Girl.
Zombie Girls had gray skin. There was no way she could have the complexion of a living person. "There's actually a survivor?!" Yu Luo hurriedly ran to the girl's side, helped her up, and turned her over. When he saw her face, Yu Luo looked as though he had seen a ghost. He released her hands as if shocked by electricity, and the girl's head struck the concrete hard.
"It's her?!" Yu Luo recognized at once that the girl lying on the ground was Mei, who had nearly blasted him and Kiana into ashes with lightning that afternoon.
"Mmph..." The blow to Mei's head woke her instead. She covered the spot she had hit with her right hand, tears glimmering in the corners of her eyes. Yu Luo was so frightened that he hurriedly drew the revolver at his waist, ready to flee at any moment.
Yet after waking up, Mei did not look at him, nor did she fly into the rage he had imagined. Instead, she wore a sorrowful expression as she looked at the blood on her hands. "Even jumping from such a tall building wasn't enough to kill me?"
Yu Luo froze. He had never seen such profound sorrow, one filled with the deepest despair. Moreover, the girl before him felt completely different from the one he had seen that afternoon. If the girl from that afternoon had been a queen, then the girl before him was a well-bred young lady.
That difference gave Yu Luo the courage to speak to her. "Um..."
Only then did Mei notice that there was someone in the shadows not far away. She could not see his face, only the outline of his body. She rose to her feet with bent knees, dusted off her skirt, and bowed apologetically. "I'm sorry. I'll leave right away. Sorry for disturbing you."
"Uh..." Mei's behavior left Yu Luo somewhat dazed, and he blurted out, "If you have nowhere to go, do you want to come with us?"
The moment the words left his mouth, Yu Luo wanted to smash his stupid mouth. The image of that thundercloud surfaced in his mind again, and he shuddered, wishing he could take back what he had said.
"Someone dangerous like me will get you killed. I'll be fine by myself..." Mei rejected Yu Luo's offer. She turned alone in the darkness and staggered toward the unknown night.
Seeing Mei so lonely and desolate, with those despair-filled words still echoing in his ears, Yu Luo suddenly let his emotions get the better of him and lost his reason. In two or three strides, he caught up with Mei and forcefully grabbed her right hand in the darkness.
"You..." Mei turned back in alarm, but all she saw was a man's hand. Then darkness swallowed her vision, and she lost consciousness.
Yu Luo looked helplessly at Mei, whom he had cleanly knocked unconscious with a single chop to the neck. Covering his face with his left hand, he muttered in near collapse, "I'm just too good of a person!"
"No, you're just a terrible person!" The system took over Yu Luo's words to mock him. "Judging by how practiced that move was, you must be a habitual offender."
"I'm not!"
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