Everyday Uses for a Brick-Hard Baguette
Sigelica: (╬ಠ益ಠ)
"Are you crazy?"
She grabbed Zhou Yu by the arm and pulled him back.
"Those are Fractsidus Stalking Spiders! They're incredibly fast, and their limbs can cut through standard alloy plating!"
"Oh."
Zhou Yu yawned.
"So?"
"So we should retreat immediately, or I should hold them off head-on while you take Dania to find cover!" Sigelica assumed a fighting stance, resonance energy humming through her armguards.
Without even looking at her, Zhou Yu turned to Dania behind him. "Stand behind me and don't move. Whatever you do, don't tilt the box."
Dania: (･_･;?
She didn't understand why he was worried about the angle of the box at a time like this, but she obediently stepped back and held it as steady as she could.
The next second, Zhou Yu moved.
No stance, no energy.
He casually stepped forward and to the left, planted his toe on the raised edge of a sewer grate, and stomped down, using it as a lever.
Creak, clang!
The heavy, rust-covered iron grate flipped clean out of the ground and slapped into the air, trailing the stench of old sewage.
The Stalking Spider in front clearly hadn't expected that.
Its limbs were still arcing through the air when its lower jaw had a solid, intimate encounter with the flying grate.
Crack!
The metal spider let out a wail of short-circuiting electronics. Its head was caught fast in the grate, its limbs flailing in the air.
Sigelica: (°Д°)?!
"What did he flip up?" The first words out of her mouth had nothing to do with tactics. "A manhole cover? Did he hit it with a manhole cover?"
"A sewer grate," Dania corrected quietly from behind her. "Strictly speaking, it isn't a manhole cover."
"Shut up!"
Zhou Yu ignored them.
Without even looking at the trapped monster, he used the momentum of his stomp to spin around. At some point, his right hand had snatched up the baguette he'd used to knock Dania on the head earlier.
That baguette, the one as hard as a brick.
He walked up to the still-struggling Stalking Spider and raised his weapon high.
Thud!
A dull knock rang out.
The baguette landed on the Stalking Spider's back armor, making the monster shudder all over.
Thud!
On the second blow, its electronic eyes began flickering.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Zhou Yu swung the baguette again and again, with a peculiar sense of rhythm.
There were no special effects, just plain, straightforward physical attacks.
"Zhou Yu." Sigelica's voice was dry.
"Yeah?"
"I studied combat theory at Flamebearers' Academy for years."
"Yeah?"
"Tell me, what page of the textbook says you can fight monsters with bread?"
"It doesn't." Zhou Yu didn't even turn around. "So your academy needs to add a class."
Crack!
The final blow shattered the Stalking Spider's energy core. Several limbs drooped limply, and it was completely wrecked.
Zhou Yu slung the baguette over his shoulder and whistled.
Zhou Yu: ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌
The other Stalking Spiders on the street exchanged glances, turned tail, and fled, vanishing into the shadows of an alley in a few bounds.
The whole thing took less than thirty seconds.
Dania poked her head out from behind Zhou Yu and looked around. Once she'd confirmed the monsters had all run away, she looked down and checked the cake box in her arms.
"Good, it didn't tilt," she reported to Zhou Yu earnestly.
"Very good. Full marks on the cake-protection KPI."
"They ran away?" Sigelica's voice rose three pitches. "Fractsidus reconnaissance weapons were scared off by a loaf of bread?"
"This is a baguette," Zhou Yu corrected her. "It's fundamentally different from bread."
"What's the difference?!"
"A baguette can be reused. Bread falls apart after one hit."
Sigelica felt that if she kept talking, she'd be the first to develop post-traumatic stress.
The chaos in the street gradually subsided, and people began peeking out from their hiding places.
Zhou Yu ignored their gazes, walked over and stomped the overturned grate back into place, then went to the street corner and set the roasted sweet potato seller's overturned metal barrel upright.
"Sir, are you all right? The barrel isn't broken. You can keep roasting with it."
The old sweet potato seller: (lll-Д-)
He emerged from the alley and looked at Zhou Yu, still shaken, then at the heap of scrap metal on the ground.
"Th-thank you, young man!"
The old man wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and shakily pulled three roasted sweet potatoes from the metal barrel, their golden-brown skins glistening with oil. He wrapped them in wax paper and pressed them into Zhou Yu's hands.
"Take them! I insist! You saved the whole street!"
"Sir, you really don't have to..."
"Take them!"
Unable to refuse, Zhou Yu accepted them.
He turned and walked back to the two girls, giving each of them a piping-hot sweet potato.
Sigelica still wore the same dazed expression.
Sigelica: (-_-#)
"What kind of move was that just now?" she finally asked after holding it in for a long time. "I've never seen it in any textbook."
"Oh, that." Zhou Yu handed out the sweet potatoes as he spoke. "Where I'm from, we call it 'using terrain to gain an advantage in an asymmetric strike.'"
"Speak plainly."
"Before a fight, check the ground for bricks and manhole covers."
Sigelica's temples throbbed. She looked down at the roasted sweet potato in her hand, then at Dania beside her, who had already shut down completely in bliss.
Dania held the cake box in one hand and cradled the piping-hot sweet potato in the other. A rich, sweet aroma lingered around her nose, mingling with the faint scent of cream from the box.
She lowered her head and took a small bite, hissing softly at the heat, but the sweet, soft flavor melted on her tongue and warmed her all the way to her heart.
Dania: (o´▽`o)
Her eyes sparkled, and even the tearstains at their corners seemed to shine.
"Zhou Yu," Dania suddenly said, her voice muffled.
"Hmm?"
"My left hand is so heavy, and my right hand is so hot."
She meant the cake box and the sweet potato.
"But... I'm so happy."
Zhou Yu glanced at her but said nothing, merely dusting off his hands.
"All right, the unexpected situation's dealt with. Now for the important business."
Sigelica caught her breath. "What important business? Going back to camp to report the enemy attack?"
"Report what? The front line hasn't fallen."
Zhou Yu pointed at the gradually darkening sky, where a few early stars had already popped out, unable to wait.
"Let's go."
"Where?"
Zhou Yu smiled and looked past the cold metal buildings of the Lahai-Roi Defense Line toward the outline of a tranquil ridge in the distance.
"Somewhere we can see the stars, to celebrate a birthday."