"Let's rest for a bit. It's already noon." Yu Luo was the first to suggest it. He had only just arrived in this world and had already gone through such a thrill ride. His whole body ached, and his stomach was completely empty. He needed to rest and fill his belly.
Kiana lowered her head, studying that strange phone of hers. "I'll replan our escape route. Hopefully, we can get out of here before nightfall."
"Grrr..." A strange sound came from Kiana's direction. Yu Luo held back his laughter and forced himself not to look at her expression.
"Teacher, go find something to eat. I remember the school supermarket is near the student dormitories."
To Yu Luo's surprise, Kiana did not blush awkwardly like girls in novels. Instead, she matter-of-factly told him to go. Her tone reminded Yu Luo of his roommates, lying in bed and asking him to bring them food.
"Sure enough, girls in reality and girls in imagination are two different species." Yu Luo sighed toward the sky. "I should've given up on the game called Life OL a long time ago."
"Quit yammering, Teacher." Kiana lowered her head and drew a rough map of Senba Academy on the floor as she urged him, "Go quickly and come back quickly. Be careful."
"Okay, Daddy's going now." Yu Luo let his old habit of bringing food to his roommates slip out. The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he was in trouble, so he immediately bolted from the classroom.
Kiana indignantly shoved her drawn pistols back into her waistband. "Hmph, lucky you ran fast!"
Yu Luo cautiously poked his head out from behind a pillar. In the distance, a Kendo Girl slowly wandered about. The instant she turned her head, Yu Luo quickly scurried forward like a rabbit and ran to the next blind spot.
Along the way, Yu Luo nervously avoided the Zombie Girls' line of sight. A journey of barely over a hundred meters took him more than ten minutes before he finally spotted the supermarket.
Yu Luo did not rush in immediately. Instead, he pressed himself against the supermarket wall, slightly poked out his head, and checked the situation inside.
Just as he expected, the supermarket's cashiers and clerks had already turned into Zombie Girls and were swaying as they wandered around. There were only three or four of them. For Kiana, they would be easy to deal with, but for Yu Luo, a shut-in with no weapons, fighting several Zombie Girls was simply asking too much.
The Sasaki Kojiro card's battery energy was already running low, with only 40% remaining. It could not support another battle like the earlier one. Besides, transforming made a huge commotion. The moment he used a Heroic Spirit transformation, he would draw all the surrounding Zombie Girls over. There would be no way to get food then.
"Looks like I'll need a perfect infiltration." Yu Luo muttered to himself. He carefully observed the Zombie Girls' movements inside the supermarket, waited for a moment when they passed one another, quietly opened the door, and silently slipped behind a shelf, avoiding their sight.
"Why are you so practiced at this?" The system had apparently picked up Yu Luo's habit of mocking people. "Don't tell me you trained by climbing over walls to pull all-nighters at internet cafés and hiding from security guards?"
"No White Album references!" Yu Luo first firmly banned the system from making White Album jokes, then refuted it. "Stop slandering me. I was a model student back in school. As an Assassin's Creed player, isn't this basic stuff?"
"So even though you smoked, drank, fought, and got perms, you were still a good student?"
While bickering with the system in his head, Yu Luo's hands never stopped moving. He gathered a large pile of snacks like chips, biscuits, and chocolate, along with several cans of drinks.
"Huh? What kind of drink is this? That's pretty wild." Yu Luo curiously picked up a particularly strange can. What made it strange was the two large words printed on it: [Imouto Juice]. There was also a trademark in the upper left corner bearing the words "ME Corp."
"I'll take one. I've never had Imouto Juice before." Driven by curiosity, Yu Luo decisively picked up the can.
"Tsk tsk, otaku really are disgusting." The system looked at Yu Luo with utter disdain.
"Looking down on otaku again?" Carrying a huge pile of food, Yu Luo was about to quietly leave and conclude his infiltration. However, he had underestimated how adorably dumb these Zombie Girls were. One Zombie Girl near the supermarket entrance somehow tripped her left foot over her right foot and spectacularly fell flat on her face.
Yu Luo and the adorably dumb Zombie Girl stared at each other. The other two Zombie Girls also looked over at the sound, making the scene incredibly awkward.
"Awroo!" The Zombie Girl who had fallen flat howled and pounced at Yu Luo. Yu Luo instinctively sidestepped and avoided her leap, but the [Imouto Juice] in his arms was not so fortunate. It flew straight out, smashed onto the floor over ten meters away, and spilled transparent, unidentified liquid everywhere.
Yu Luo looked as though he had suffered a devastating blow. Visible black fumes rose from his body as the snacks in his arms fell to the floor. He casually tore a mop handle free, gripped it tightly, and slowly approached the adorably dumb Zombie Girl step by step.
"You actually destroyed the [Imouto Juice] I wanted. Then you'll have to compensate me with yourself!" Yu Luo's voice was low and oppressive. His eyes, hidden behind his hair, seemed to emit a demonic red glow, and the three Zombie Girls actually backed away in fear.
"I have to admit, you're more of a zombie now." The system's jab echoed in Yu Luo's mind.
Yu Luo walked back toward the teaching building with a regretful expression, still thinking about the fallen can of [Imouto Juice].
"Sigh... There was only one bottle in the entire supermarket, and I didn't cherish it." Yu Luo sighed internally, only to receive the system's merciless laughter.
"Pfft, and you call yourself an Assassin's Creed player. You got discovered during such a simple infiltration."
"Who said I was discovered while infiltrating? Nothing is true, everything is permitted. Don't you get it?"
"What does that mean?"
"If I kill them all, then no one will know I infiltrated, right?"
"..." The system fell silent for a long while before solemnly saying, "As expected of you, Assassin's Creed player."
"You idiot teacher, why did you take so long?" The first thing Kiana said when she saw Yu Luo was a blunt scolding. Yu Luo felt touched, thinking she had been worried about him. Just as he was about to say something, Kiana grabbed the snacks in his arms, roughly tore open a bag, and dumped chips into her mouth by the handful.
"Mmf, I was starving to death!" Kiana complained through a mouthful of chips, and Yu Luo's newly born feeling of gratitude shattered completely.
Sure enough, he could not expect anything from an idiot. Yu Luo once again deeply understood this truth. At the same time, he grabbed a bar of chocolate and began eating to ease his hunger.
"Kiana, have you planned the route ahead?" Yu Luo asked while biting into his chocolate.
Kiana finished pouring the chips into her mouth, grabbed a bottle of drink, and took several huge gulps before answering, "We need to leave through the road behind the mountain. We'll have to pass the dormitory buildings." When she mentioned the dormitories, her expression visibly darkened.
Yu Luo immediately understood and cautiously asked, "There are a lot of people around the dorms, right?"
"Yeah." Kiana nodded with a frown. "The stretch from the dormitories to the back mountain is the hardest part. As long as we get through it, we can follow the road behind the mountain and leave Senba Academy directly."
"Get some good rest. We'll adapt when the time comes." Yu Luo comforted Kiana, then ignored her reaction, closed his eyes, and sank his mind into the system.
The Master information interface had changed somewhat. Two of the boxes that had previously been filled with gray question marks had lit up: Sasaki Kojiro and Billy the Kid. Sasaki Kojiro's box displayed 1%, while Billy the Kid's displayed 0%.
"What does this mean?" With the mindset of making use of after-sales service, Yu Luo directly asked the system.
The system was very impatient with this behavior. "Aren't you a Fate Order player? How do you not even know what Bond is?"
"Come on, I'm not a player from your NetEase server. How would I know?"
"Bond. You saw that energy gauge when you transformed, right?"
"That battery icon?" Yu Luo recalled his earlier transformation.
"Right. Your actions, battles, and releasing Noble Phantasms all consume energy. Once the energy bar reaches zero, you won't be able to use that card to transform again until it has fully recharged."
"Just as I guessed. It reeks of a domestic game system. So the card energy refills automatically too?"
"Congratulations, you've learned to answer before being called on. At the beginning, it takes a full day and night to recharge completely. The higher your Bond, the longer the energy lasts and the shorter the recharge time. At max Bond, those restrictions disappear." The system patiently explained for once.
Yu Luo firmly memorized all of this, then asked a question that would affect whether he could escape Senba Academy today. "Then if I have enough cards, can't I stay in combat indefinitely by transforming in rotation? You can't possibly be that kindhearted, can you?"
"Uh..." The system was choked speechless by Yu Luo's question, then said somewhat irritably, "That's right. You can only transform six times a day. Even if you haven't used up all your energy, ending the transformation yourself still counts."
"I see. Got it."
Before you continue