She chuckled and shrugged. Then, as though something had occurred to her, she scratched her cheek and spoke apologetically.
"Sorry... I knew it would be dangerous, but I brought Shido along anyway."
"You really don't need to worry about it, Lingmeng. Even if you hadn't brought him, knowing this idiot, he would've come running over himself, right?
After all, we've been brother and sister for several years now. He's not some coward who would turn tail and run over something like this.
Besides, Shido's job is to save Spirits. If he stayed far away and only let the Spirits he was supposed to protect go into battle, that's when I'd look down on him."
"Well, you have a point."
Actually, Lingmeng hadn't originally intended to bring Shido along.
After all, even if he was the male protagonist, his combat ability was still worrying.
It would be quite something if she momentarily let her guard down and failed to keep an eye on him, only for a DEM Wizard to shoot him dead.
But once she confirmed that Miku would be coming too, that thought disappeared.
Even if rescuing the Spirits was their top priority now, winning Miku over was something they couldn't neglect either.
It was also necessary to let Shido interact with her more during the rescue and improve her opinion of him.
With that thought in mind, Kotori connected to Shido's earpiece a moment later.
"Don't you hold Lingmeng and the others back, you paramecium."
"Kotori, are you back to normal? That's great!"
Shido sounded delighted.
Kotori replied, "Yeah, I finally recovered," then continued in an embarrassed tone.
"Sorry, um... I didn't mean it."
"Huh...? Mean what?"
"That, you know. I don't remember it, but looking at the Fraxinus surveillance footage, apparently I said things like 'Go die!'