Neither human inside nor out, fur real

As everyone stared as though they had seen a ghost, the energy round shredded the bullet fired by the wax Duncan and kept flying, heading straight for him.

Realizing things were going wrong, the wax Duncan hurriedly activated his skill and rolled aside at incredible speed.

The energy round slammed into the wall and exploded with a boom.

A huge breach was blasted straight through the corridor wall, the reinforced concrete within shattering as easily as dried, brittle leaves.

"I still haven't got the power output under control."

Himeko assessed the damage and gained a rough idea of the power of the Banner Spear in her hand.

The wax Duncan scrambled, trying to get up off the floor and escape, but Himeko had already appeared beside him.

As it turned out, the principle that a longer weapon meant better odds of winning was true.

Himeko raised her spear high, like Runtu stabbing a cha. The wax Duncan tried with all his might to twist his body and slip between Himeko's legs. But Himeko had already pinned him to the floor, leaving him unable to move.

Another energy round shot out of the spearhead already embedded in his body.

This time, Himeko deliberately controlled its power, merely blasting the wax Duncan into pieces without doing much damage to the floor.

Nor was Himeko's attention focused entirely on the wax Duncan. The wax Inukai could not escape her grasp either.

A drone fitted with a saw blade flew out at incredible speed, slicing the wax Xuan Yang's legs and all four of the Nine-Tailed Fox's limbs clean off at their bases.

"That took care of it?" Taco poked his head out. "That's just ridiculous."

"You can accept the reasoning behind Himeko's three wins, so why can't you understand something as basic as a qiang firing bullets?"

"How does that thing look anything like a gun? A spear and a gun are completely different things! And why can I understand Huaxia homophones? You're clearly speaking English!"

"That's how the Synesthesia Beacon works."

Explaining things clearly to these cosmic country bumpkins was a real hassle.

Fortunately, Taco wasn't someone who insisted on getting to the bottom of everything he didn't understand. In the blink of an eye, he had tossed his earlier questions aside and run up beside Himeko to examine the weapon in her hand.

The red shaft was adorned with gold decorations, and its butt cap was gold as well.

Rather than a traditional blood guard or spear tassel, an ever-turning armillary sphere connected the spearhead to the shaft.

The spear tip split down the middle, with the energy-round emitter between its two sharp edges.

It hadn't seemed like much before he looked closely, but after examining it, he realized that the spear in Himeko's hand seemed far from simple.

"That ball with all those rings around it clearly isn't attached to anything. How does it not fall out? If it fell out during a fight, you'd have to go pick it up."

Taco sounded puzzled.

"It won't fall out. It's part of the spear."

Himeko shook the chunks of wax off her spear, picked up the wax Duncan's head, and placed it together with the footless wax Inukai and the Nine-Tailed Fox.

"Can we have a proper conversation now?"

Wax figures weren't conventional life-forms. Even reduced to a head, they could still speak normally.

Duncan kept his mouth shut, instead staring fixedly at Himechi Cat.

"What are you looking at me for?" Himechi Cat was a little puzzled.

As another life-form projected by the Wax Museum, even after being remade by Himeko's wish power, she could still count as something of a compatriot to these wax figures.

Himeko stepped aside for Himechi Cat. "I think you might be better suited to asking for the details than I am."

Himechi Cat nodded and approached the three wax figures.

"My boss asked you a question! Answer her, or I'll tear your mouths apart!"

"That's out of character."

Himeko certainly didn't think she would say something like that.

"Traitor."

"Spy."

"Squeak, squeak, squeak." The Nine-Tailed Fox squealed noisily.

"?"

Himechi Cat wasn't having that.

"I'm staying true to myself. Talk. What exactly happened in the Wax Museum? Why have you gotten stronger? What exactly is hidden in the Wax Museum?"

Himechi Cat stared at the other wax figures, but all she got in response was more personal abuse.

No, feline abuse.

"Lackey."

"Henchman."

"Lapdog," the Nine-Tailed Fox added.

"So you can speak human language!"

Himechi Cat spent ages wrangling with the three wax figures, but neither threats nor bribes accomplished anything. She didn't get a single piece of useful information and instead got thoroughly insulted, inside and out.

"Neither human inside nor out, fur real."

Himechi Cat regretfully bowed out.

Interrogating them was just wasting time. This couldn't go on. After a moment's consideration, Himeko decided to change targets.

"That Inukai fellow. I remember he arrived at the Wax Museum before we left, but he still hasn't left even now. Maybe he knows something we don't."

"And the one with the gun. I saw him outside the infirmary earlier. He ran in this direction in the end, too. Counting the time, it's been two hours."

Their unwillingness to leave such a dangerous place could only mean they had more information.

"Let's go find them."

Naturally, as Himeko prepared to leave, she didn't forget the three wax figures.

Himeko melted the three wax figures with fire, then gathered them together once they had fully liquefied, merging them completely.

Under Himeko's skillful hands, the monsters projected from different people merged into a portable little bucket with its own handle.

To keep their racket from bothering her, Himeko also removed their mouths, leaving them with no choice but to stay quiet.

It had to be mentioned that Himeko's craftsmanship was truly exquisite. Her artistic attainments were considerable, and her powers of observation and creativity were both extraordinary. After all her molding, the bucket formed from the three wax figures looked just like a real bucket.

Placed in a storage room or bathroom, anyone would think it was merely a bucket, not some wax monster.

Himeko didn't need a bucket to hold anything. She simply thought bringing these three fellows along might prove useful.

She had no way to kill them for good, but if she left them where they were, Himeko also worried that the Wax Museum might tamper with them and cause her more trouble.

In that case, she might as well turn them into something suitable and carry them along.

[Himeko... this is getting a little creepy.]

[? What's creepy about it? That bucket is so bucket-like!]

[Don't forget, that bucket used to be three intelligent beings. Now they've turned into a bucket, and it's even a self-aware bucket.]

[Imagine someone having their eyes stabbed blind, their ears stabbed deaf, and their tongue cut out. They can't feel anything or move, but their mind stays awake forever.]

[No wonder Himeko looked down on Snake Man's art earlier. Turns out she's the real heavyweight.]

[Whatever you say, Himeko is absolutely mommy-tier!]

Carrying the wax figures, now only as tall as her lower leg, Himeko began searching the Wax Museum for Duncan and Inukai.

"Where could they be?"

Soon, beside a small door in the Wax Museum, Himeko spotted the two of them slumped on the floor, recovering their strength.