Whose Lame Idea Was This?

The laser sword met Shu's palm as if encountering an absolutely impenetrable barrier.

But Himeko, pushing against Shu's suppression, continued advancing. The laser sword between them grew shorter and shorter until Shu's palm touched the hilt.

Then, Himeko once again used the secondary thrust to rapidly withdraw from Shu's side, leaving Shu standing there alone, holding the laser sword hilt.

Shu looked with surprise at Himeko, who had pulled away, then glanced at the other Titan mechs turning tail and running. A bad premonition suddenly arose in his heart.

"Beep—"

A faint sound suddenly came from the laser sword hilt in his hand. Shu looked down to see an ominous red light flashing on it.

This thing can't possibly double as a bomb, can it...

Just as the thought crossed Shu's mind, the laser sword hilt cracked open.

Dense white smoke spewed out from the cracks, instantly filling the small sphere Shu had created around himself.

"Cough cough—"

The spherical barrier only lasted a moment before dissipating, allowing the white smoke to spread further.

Shu waved his hands, covered in thick white powder, coughing as he walked out of the smoke.

He had prepared for an explosion but hadn't reacted in time to it being a smoke bomb. Caught off guard, he was sprayed head to toe with the powder.

The fiery red Titan mech stopped in the distance. Himeko's voice came through the mech's external speakers.

"How about that, Shu?" There was a hint of gloating in Himeko's voice. Beside her, two Titan mechs had started clapping excitedly.

Seeing two powerful Titan mechs performing such a girlish gesture was bizarre no matter how you looked at it.

"Whose lame idea was this?" Shu asked, holding the thigh-thick sword hilt, his expression strange as he looked at Himeko and the mechs behind her.

Instantly, the four Titan mechs returned to standby mode, completely motionless.

"This was a gift they specially prepared for you over a long time," Himeko mercilessly sold out her four "beloved disciples."

Shu gave a dry laugh. He felt it was out of exasperation, but the four people in the Titan mech cockpits behind Himeko trembled with fear.

"What do we do? Did we go too far?" A female pilot nervously opened the Titan-exclusive channel.

"I told you we should have switched the smoke to confetti and streamers!" a male pilot said nervously.

"Weren't we worried the confetti wouldn't spray out properly!"

"Just say you were lazy! You could modify a laser sword into a smoke bomb, what's wrong with turning it into a confetti launcher?"

Alright, seems the culprit has been found...

Shu's eyelids drooped. While patting the dust off himself, he squinted at the third mech from the left.

So that's why they insisted on fighting... It was all for this.

Shu suspected Otto might have been behind this.

Otto, asleep, suddenly opened his eyes in confusion. After a moment of puzzlement, he mumbled something and rolled over, falling back asleep.

"Fine... You got me." Making things difficult later is a must. Any future signing events, that guy would be left for last.

Himeko's squad had mainly wanted to practice the Triangular Kill Formation. The planned training (read: showing off) ended so abruptly. After exchanging a few more words with Shu, Himeko led her team away from basement level 11.

They were about to depart to eliminate the Knight-class Honkai Beast and didn't have much time to linger.

"How did it feel?" In the Titan mech launch bay, Himeko, holding her helmet, suddenly turned and asked the others behind her.

"Uh..." After glancing at each other, the female pilot who had first opened the internal channel spoke up.

"Captain Shu is actually a very tolerant and good person..."

"Yeah, yeah, I thought Captain Shu would definitely ask who did it with a cold face!" another male pilot said, clutching his chest, still somewhat shaken.

"I didn't expect Captain Shu to still walk out with such grace even after being ambushed~" another female pilot said, clasping her hands, hearts practically forming in her eyes.

Himeko's eye twitched. She recalled Shu's somewhat timid appearance back in Nagazora City.

All she could say was that Shu's persona in these people's eyes was holding up pretty well…

"We're teammates with Shu. One day, we'll fight side-by-side," Himeko sighed and said with a smile. "Don't think of him as someone unreachable. Like us, he was once an ordinary person too."

The others looked at each other again, then nodded seriously.

Meanwhile, Shu was still grimacing as he patted the dust off himself.

Mei and Bronya were helping him brush off the white powder, while Kiana stood nearby with one hand behind her back, saying seriously:

"Let me show you the correct way to use novels." Kiana kept a straight face, but the smile tugging at her lips couldn't be suppressed.

Shu: "…"

"Cool, but not completely cool," Bronya added insult to injury, holding back laughter.

"That's enough..." Shu said speechlessly. The white powder was mostly gone. The group was now heading towards the fourth floor.

They hadn't eaten breakfast yet.

People were already heading to the cafeteria at this time; he needed to get the dust off before then.

If worse came to worst, he'd have to use his [Wish].

"Heehee..." Kiana laughed, dropped her pose, and joined the dust-patting effort.

"Right, where's our first stop?" Kiana asked while vigorously patting Shu's back.

Shu was momentarily speechless from the force of the pats.

Kiana, do you really not know your own strength? Especially since you've already enhanced your body using the Key of Evolution.

That thing doesn't work on me!

It wasn't that the Key of Evolution was useless, but rather its effect on Shu was minimal.

It could strengthen Shu's body, but once usage stopped, his physical fitness would slowly decline back to its original state.

Shu's body seemed fixed in its most primitive condition.

His body's self-healing also worked towards this state. Otto said Shu's body seemed to identify the changes caused by the Key of Evolution as a kind of illness and slowly "repaired" them.

"So does that mean, apart from the side effects of regression, I probably won't get sick myself?" That was Shu's first thought at the time.

"Unfortunately, you will. You'll just recover very quickly," Otto had said after extracting a virus strain from Shu's body.

"Tch..." Shu expressed disdain for his own body.

"Our first stop..." Mei paused, thought for a moment, and then mentioned a place name.

"I think it's West Siberia?"