Tokisaki Kurumi

She had glossy black hair tied into twin ponytails, with a side part on the left and bangs covering her left eye. Her large, bright red right eye was beautiful.

Her delicate face wasn't the kind of trendy, surgically altered, pointy-chinned oval face you saw on internet celebrities. Instead, it was healthy and softly rounded. If that's hard to picture, think of Joey Wong: slender where she should be, full where she should be. At a glance, you could tell her face was naturally perfect and healthy, without surgery or Photoshop.

The girls' uniform of Tianwang High School outlined the girl's perfect figure, one far fuller than you'd expect for someone her age. It was hard not to wonder whether she really was only sixteen.

As the eldest daughter of the Tokisaki Conglomerate, Tokisaki Kurumi had received the finest education from a young age. She was well-rounded in both character and intellect, and her manners and bearing were beyond reproach.

The girl stood before Su Yun, wearing a polite, composed smile. She radiated warmth and stood with her hands clasped in front of her, carrying herself with the poise of a refined young lady.

In terms of appearance, Tokisaki Kurumi was practically flawless. She was the ideal wife in countless men's dreams: wealthy, beautiful, well-mannered, and graceful. She was the kind of girl who made you want to blurt out, "Rich lady, give me a hug! I'm hungry!"

With even a little skill and an understanding of a girl's feelings, a man could pull off the same trick as the Tiger of the Serious Crimes Unit and live off a woman, too.

Before he transmigrated, Su Yun had been exactly that sort. He'd said "Kurumi is my wife" online more than once.

In fact, Su Yun's engagement to Tokisaki Kurumi had come about because, before transmigrating, he'd been browsing videos on Bilibili and come across a clip of her. He'd casually posted, "Kurumi is my wife. I won't accept any objections."

Well, every otaku had plenty of fictional wives. It was just banter, the result of eating too many peaches. Nobody took it seriously.

But the World Consciousness didn't understand any of that!

After Su Yun had inexplicably accepted the contract in his sleep and been pulled into this crossover world, the World Consciousness had used a vast amount of Fantasy Power to forcibly alter reality as part of his reward.

Along with his comfortable life, it had given Su Yun a future wife: Tokisaki Kurumi!

The new reality was that Su Yun's parents and Kurumi's parents had been close friends. So, when Su Yun and Kurumi were still playing in the dirt, their parents had arranged their engagement.

Although people in modern society paid lip service to freedom of marriage and abandoning old-fashioned customs, plenty of those customs had survived. It wasn't all that strange for two children to be engaged without their consent.

At any rate, the Tokisaki Family had accepted this setup. And despite the standard orphan-protagonist backstory of "Su Yun's parents are both dead," they'd never considered calling off the engagement.

Su Yun had been utterly speechless when he first learned about it. Around that time, the World Consciousness had stuffed his mind with memories of the calamities caused by the strange phenomena around the world, without understanding human nature at all. He'd been in an extremely unstable state of mind.

When the Tokisaki Family invited him over for dinner, Su Yun had felt nothing but irritation. He thought it was a waste of time.

It was just annoying.

The accumulation of such intense negative emotions, combined with his unstable mental state, meant Su Yun felt no particular connection to the family.

Still, the background the World Consciousness had given him, along with his otaku nature from before he transmigrated, made him curious to meet the real Tokisaki Kurumi.

But how should he put it...

He hadn't felt excited, nervous, or delighted. He'd simply thought, "Oh, so this is Tokisaki Kurumi," and nothing more.

Kurumi was beautiful and as charming as she was in the anime, but at the time, Su Yun had been in no mood to appreciate her beauty.

Instead, he'd noticed confusion, bewilderment, unfamiliarity, and curiosity in the Tokisaki Family.

A setup was just a setup. Feelings couldn't be conjured out of thin air. Even though the Tokisaki Family had accepted the arrangement, it was only a setup forced upon them by a warped reality.

With no feelings between them to begin with, things were bound to be awkward.

And since he'd be busy dealing with the Mystery Calamity in the future, he had no desire to try to maintain their relationship. He'd simply taken the opportunity to ask to end the engagement.

After their initial surprise, the Tokisaki Family had calmly accepted his request. They officially ended the engagement. After all, a fabricated setup could never replace an emotional foundation.

The World Consciousness had given Su Yun those things out of kindness and gratitude, but it still didn't understand people. So they were as fragile as dreamlike bubbles, bursting with a single touch.

Meanwhile, Tokisaki Kurumi's eyes shifted slightly as she heard Su Yun's polite question. She gave a small, courteous nod. "I've already eaten, but thank you for asking, Su Yun. You're as kind as ever."

"You're too kind. I wouldn't call that kindness."

"Hee-hee. Well, Artoria isn't here today. Would you mind taking a walk with me?"

"If you don't mind rumors that the young lady of the Tokisaki Family is seeing a boy and they might be dating, then I don't mind."

Kurumi covered her mouth and laughed softly. "My, my. Do you think those rumors would bother you, Su Yun? Or are you afraid they might cause a misunderstanding with Artoria?"

Su Yun spread his hands. "I told you, I don't really mind. But you don't seem as magnanimous about our broken engagement as you let on, Kurumi. Looks like you're still upset."

His words were barbed, but Kurumi didn't seem to mind. She smiled, charming and sweet, and lightly brushed back the hair beside her ear. "Well, it was my first time, after all. I'd already prepared myself to spend the rest of my life with a boy I'd never met. Then, the first time he came to my house, he ended the engagement right away."

"As a girl, it's only natural to be a little angry about that, and to act a little selfishly by having an unpleasant conversation with that awful boy, isn't it?"

Su Yun glanced at Tokisaki Kurumi. "As expected of the young lady of the Tokisaki Conglomerate. You can say something so blunt without blushing or losing your smile. I have to admit, I really underestimated you. You're much more impressive than I thought."

Kurumi raised her right hand and held her index finger to her lips. "My, my~ Is our charming Noble Prince of Flame regretting that he ended things with me?"

Su Yun smiled without a hint of concern. Even his mischievous, narrowed-eye grin grew more pronounced. "No, I've never regretted it. An engagement without any emotional foundation would only cause trouble. Nothing else would come of it. My time is precious, and wasting it on 'little things' like that would be a real shame."

At last, Kurumi's expression shifted. Her smile stiffened for a moment, then she put on an indifferent air and smiled again. "Oh~ So, to you, Su Yun, being engaged to me and building and maintaining a relationship with me are just little things that waste your time! I have to say, you really are a heartless man."

Su Yun's smile didn't change. He nodded. "When it comes to maintaining relationships, I really am heartless. I'm sorry that I'm like this now, and that I've upset you. But there's nothing I can do. I don't want to be this way, either, so I hope you'll understand."

Kurumi looked deeply at Su Yun. Then, still smiling, she nodded politely. "I understand. Some things can't be forced. I was dwelling on it too much, Su Yun."

Their conversation had been impeccably polite from beginning to end, and yet they were completely at odds. Still, they gave the impression of being very close. There'd been nothing false or insincere in their conversation. Even their most "cutting" remarks had been honest, the mark of something "real." It was an extreme contradiction.

Then Tokisaki Kurumi changed the subject.

"Su Yun, what do you think of the Light Screen footage that appeared over the past two days? I mean, the Artoria in the footage. Do you think she's the same person as the one here?"

Su Yun feigned ignorance. "Why do you ask? Do you think that King Arthur is Lia?"

Kurumi tilted her head slightly. "How should I put it? Their personalities are quite different, but the King Arthur in the Light Screen footage felt like Artoria after she'd reached a perfect evolution and grown up."

She paused, then continued, "But that person is King Arthur, an ancient figure from more than sixteen hundred years ago, while Artoria is a modern girl. And the King Arthur in the footage was clearly a Heroic Spirit, so there's no way Artoria could be her reincarnation."

"Honestly, it's all a bit confusing. I've even started to wonder whether the real world is fake, too."

(PS: King Arthur is generally believed to have lived around the fourth or fifth century AD. In this book, he lived in the fourth century.)

Su Yun listened quietly to Kurumi, then smiled. "You don't need to think too much about it. If the Light Screen is going to reveal the truth, it'll come out sooner or later. Besides, more than the truth itself, you're interested in the supernatural powers shown in the footage, aren't you?"

"You envy that King Arthur, that Knight King who looks exactly like Lia. Her supernatural power makes you yearn for it, doesn't it?"

Kurumi was silent for a moment, then smiled brightly. "You really are perceptive, Su Yun. I guess I can't hide my thoughts from you. But isn't it only natural for ordinary people to yearn for and admire such powerful supernatural abilities?"

"Even though I'm the young lady of the Tokisaki Conglomerate, I'm still just an ordinary person. When it comes to the supernatural and the Mystery Calamity currently plaguing the whole world, I'm no different from anyone else."

"Su Yun, don't you yearn for the supernatural?"

Su Yun didn't answer. Instead, he said meaningfully, "It's true that yearning for the supernatural is human nature, and the instinct of living things to seek strength. It's a good thing to feel that kind of desire."

"So, Kurumi, hold on to that desire! Maybe one day, you'll have a chance to gain supernatural powers, too."

Kurumi raised an eyebrow, then smiled again. "If that's a blessing, then I accept it, Su Yun. I'll look forward to that day, too! If I really do gain supernatural powers, the first thing I'll do is tie you up, Su Yun, and tell you that I'm every bit as charming as Artoria!"

By the end, her smile had turned mischievous, with a hint of devilish playfulness.

"Wow, that's pretty domineering! I'll look forward to that day."

Kurumi gave him a flirtatious smile, then bowed slightly and took her leave with a polite farewell. From beginning to end, she'd maintained all the manners and refinement befitting the young lady of a great family.

In Su Yun's eyes, the cloud indicating Tokisaki Kurumi's favorability had changed from yellow to green.

That meant Kurumi's favorability was now high enough for her to become one of his Operator tools, just like Artoria.

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