On How to Become Human

"Bang!"

In the final clash of their wooden swords, both swords shattered in two. Lin's hand, gripping the broken sword, trembled slightly, while the girl showed no signs of distress.

"... Let's end this." Lin retracted his fighting stance.

There's no point in continuing the fight.

"Hmm... Is it over already?" The girl hadn't even recovered from the afterglow of the battle. She shook her head in confusion. "Why don't I still feel like this is a wedding?"

"..."

"Let's have dinner together then."

Lin shook his head and dialed Mobius's number.

"I'm cooking for someone else today, so you'll have to take care of your own lunch this afternoon."

"Wait a minute, what should I eat?"

"Instant noodles, please."

Lin hung up the call. As he watched the girl enthusiastically trying out the fitness equipment, he couldn't help but think about why he didn't feel like getting married.

He and Kevin slept in the same bed.

Exercise is a must-do for him and Kevin.

When it comes to meals, both Kevin and Lin often choose to eat with each other.

"..."

Is this considered... friendship?

Chapter Forty: How to Become Human

"I have a question for you."

Lin put down his chopsticks and asked the girl who was wolfing down her food.

"It tastes great. Your cooking skills are better than most humans. I really enjoy it." The girl continued to devour the food while still narrating in an orderly manner. She chewed a few pieces of shredded meat and swallowed, then pointed to the food on the table and gave an awkward smile.

This was the first time Lin had ever seen a woman eat in such a... flamboyant and unrestrained manner.

Moreover, her praise was so direct that Lin didn't know how to respond.

"Why are you smiling so strangely?" Lin had wanted to ask her this question for a long time. Her smile was too deliberate. It felt like she was pulling the muscles in her face to make her skin form a smile-like expression, but from the outside, it looked like a delicate doll had been sculpted with an extremely bizarre expression.

"... Is that strange?"

Upon hearing Lin's words, the girl's smile vanished, and she reverted to her adorable, blank expression.

"So what is a normal smile? Can you demonstrate it for me?"

"..."

A normal smile...

Lin had seen many smiles, but Elysia's smiles were the most numerous. She was probably the person Lin had ever seen who smiled the most, and every smile made Lin feel that she might be hypocritical or pretentious.

But he himself couldn't laugh from the bottom of his heart.

Seeing that Lin did not respond, the girl tilted her head slightly at a 20-degree angle and said, "You and I are so alike."

Perhaps it was some kind of inexplicable fate. From the Lin Cong met the girl, he did feel an inexplicable connection between them. This connection made Lin feel little aversion towards her, and even though they didn't know each other's names, they quickly established a tacit understanding.

Do two similar souls really exist in this world?

"I also have a question I want to ask you." The girl seemed unwilling to let the atmosphere return to silence. She leaned on the table with one hand, her slender figure moving closer to Lin, her pretty, expressionless face pressed against his screen. "What do you think it takes to become human?"

"..."

Lin was stunned.

It's so quiet around me.

"Hmm... making a knife directly is too boring. How about trying to make it look like a lipstick? You can just twist the end and it will fire..."

"Dr. Vill-V."

"Ah, okay, okay, I know, I won't do anything reckless... but I think the lipstick..."

Vill-V was idly sketching designs. Just like her style, she had a deep love for the classics, and drawing on paper was one of the most interesting things she did at work.

Prometheus was watching her closely, preventing her from messing around with the design of the Divine Key and adding her own... understanding.

"Vill-V".

"Waaah—"

Lin Anjing appeared silently behind her, startling her so much that she almost dropped her pen. She leaned against the table, adjusting her top hat with a look of surprise and uncertainty.

"Lin? When did you arrive?"

"Lin arrived at the Spiral Workshop in one minute and fifty seconds," Prometheus reminded him.

"Um, then why didn't you say so?"

"You're engrossed in your lipstick Divine Key Project."

"Alright, Number One, next time someone comes, you must tell me." Vill-V adjusted her hat, coughed, and asked, "Is there something you need, Lin? If it's about finding a spouse, then it might be..."

"Do you still have the video from yesterday?"

Lin spread his hands and asked.

"Video? Oh, that video recording the matchmaking process, it's here, I haven't had a chance to watch it yet..."

"Give me."

Without hesitation, Lin Cong Vill-V's hand and turned to leave before Vill-V could react.

"Hey, wait a minute, why are you recording this? I want to watch it!"

"..." Lin paused for a few seconds, seemingly thinking about something, and then said coldly without turning his head, "Elysia and Sakura don't want others to see this video."

"Oh... even Elysia is so concerned about what happened yesterday?"

Lin didn't answer; he had already left before Vill-V could even ask a question.

"Clatter".

Lin raised his hand and then lowered it, as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself.

"What's wrong?"

The girl's voice sounded as if it were coming from behind a wall, even through the helmet.

But with two helmets in between, it sounds like more than just distortion.

Lin looked at the girl wearing the same helmet as him with complicated emotions. She looked up at him nonchalantly. It was the first time he had seen the viewport from this perspective.

"... Why are you wearing the same helmet as me?"

"If we're a couple, our styles should be similar, right?" the girl explained her reasoning. "Besides, since we can't laugh, it would be better to cover our expressions with helmets and let others imagine what kind of expressions we should have."

"I wear a helmet only because... no, you're right."

Lin initially thought he was only wearing the helmet for combat, but upon closer reflection, he realized that it was partly to conceal his appearance, so the girl wasn't entirely wrong.

Her way of thinking is indeed similar to mine.

"What should we do next?" the girl asked Lin.

"...You probably aren't familiar with headquarters yet, so let me show you around and introduce you to the people I know," Lin quickly offered his answer.

The girl nodded and followed Lin with small steps. The two people wearing identical helmets walked towards Mobius's laboratory.

For some reason, the girl, who had been relatively quiet the day before, seemed restless today. She asked Lin, somewhat reserved but also curious, "Aren't you going to ask me where I got this helmet?"

"The Research and Development Department got it, right?" Lin said indifferently. "It's not some secret technology."

The girl remained silent for three seconds before nodding. "Yes, that's right."

Where are your clothes from before?

"..."

Did you lose it by accident?

"Yes, that's right."

Do you know where your room is?

"I..."

"Let's stay together for now."

"Um."

Lin spoke more, while the girl responded stiffly.

"Didn't you ask me how to become human? You must have meant how to become a normal person, right? We don't belong to the category of 'normal people'." The helmeted man's voice was devoid of emotion. "I believe that to become human, one must first understand human emotions."

"Feelings..." The girl seemed to remember something, and she murmured the word.

"The most complex aspect of human beings lies in the emotions between them: love, hate, joy, sorrow, respect, jealousy... It is impossible to generalize what emotions are, but it is often emotions that influence human beings."

"Living things are firewood, emotions are matches, and the bright flames that ignite them are what make us human."

Special Feature: Love and Girls Part 1

"I've made up my mind, I'm going to build a harem."

The boy, who had been sleeping with his hood up, suddenly stood up and declared to the teacher lecturing on the podium with great bravado.

The previously quiet classroom was now filled with awe and respect under his domineering presence and shameless, righteous expression.

"Um... Lin? Is there something you need?" The teacher wiped the sweat from his brow, inwardly cursing this guy who always managed to do something inexplicably outrageous.

Lin, known as the troublemaker, once publicly beat up the PE teacher at the entrance ceremony, and then hung him on the door of the equipment room again during PE class after the PE teacher was discharged from the hospital. Afterwards, it was found that the PE teacher had sexually harassed female students multiple times, and the reason he was beaten up by Lin was because he mistook Lin for a girl...

For more than two years after enrolling, he consistently caused trouble, one minor incident every two days and one major incident every three days. He would swear at teachers he disliked and, if they resisted, he would hurl even more abstract profanities at them. If the food in the cafeteria was bad and expensive, he would force the cook to eat it. He would shove students who smoked on the playground into the ground and students who smoked in the toilets...

Other examples include attacking the dean of students' backside with a homemade blowgun that had insulted him, using laboratory chemicals to create a small bomb that blew up the school's underground pipes, and posting rumors about the vice principal online and then blackmailing him when he asked to delete them...

Normally, expelling a student would be one thing, but the troublesome thing is that this guy not only has connections with the principal, but also gets perfect scores in every subject and has consistently ranked first in the country. He had already completed the high school curriculum before even enrolling. Geniuses like him usually skip grades to pursue further studies, just like their principal. It's truly rare to see someone like him stay in high school and bring glory to the school.

Simply put, he has both tarnished the school's reputation and damaged its image.

In the past month, he has finally taken a break. Some people have witnessed him frequently visiting the local sanatorium. He is not as energetic and nervous as before, and often sleeps in class. It seems that he is unwell and has finally calmed down.

But today, it seems he's... started again.

Kevin, sitting next to him, whispered a reminder: "Hey, Lin, what are you doing! We're still in class!"

"Class? Hmph, do you think some dry, boring knowledge and tedious questions are more important than my life's big event?" Lin curled his lip in disdain, causing the teacher on the podium to twitch his face. "Teacher, please move aside, I have something to announce."

Before the teacher could say anything, Lin strode forward to the podium, opened his arms, and shouted, "I just made a big decision! Don't you think I'm... perfect?"

"..."

The students in the audience all had the same expression of twitching.

Perfect? If God created the word "perfect," then you must have been created by Him according to the opposite of perfect!

"Think about it carefully. How come a perfect man like me has never experienced a single relationship? Isn't that strange? In terms of appearance, I'm already at the top of the world, right? But why are guys who are more than half as bad as me able to roam around with women, while I still haven't had a single girl confess to me?"

He stroked his chin and said in bewilderment, "This is really strange."

"If even they can do it, why can't I? Someone like me would be perfect for having a harem, right? There would definitely be many girls who would love me to death." He laughed cheerfully, "From now on, I will accept every girl who confesses to me, first come, first served."

"Come on! I know many of you must have a crush on me! Now is the time for you to openly express your love!"

"..."

Kevin covered his face, too afraid to look at the reactions of his classmates and teachers.

"Huh? Is nobody here?" After a long while, there was still no silence. Lin put down his hand and thought in confusion, "Wait a minute... Um, the student in the first row with glasses, yes, you, I'm asking you, am I very excellent?"

The bespectacled student who was called on turned pale. His lips trembled as he silently looked to the teacher beside him for help, but the teacher could only turn away with a heavy heart.