Chapter 55: Lion-like Man

"Ellen, what are you doing?"

Noticing that Ellen—who normally used her downtime to rest—was now glued to her phone, Rina floated over with visible disbelief and curiosity.

Hearing Rina's voice, Ellen quickly tucked her phone away, flustered. "N-nothing. Just chatting with a friend. He was asking why I didn't come to school today."

From Ellen's flustered tone and awkward movements, Rina instantly picked up on something. Narrowing her eyes with a knowing smile, she said, "Oh? I didn't expect you to have friends at school who care that much. With your personality, I figured it'd be hard for you to get along with anyone."

She wasn't making baseless assumptions. As the head maid, Rina always kept an eye on Ellen's school life.

Every time Ellen skipped class; The teachers would call Rina first. She was used to it by now, but still gave Ellen a stern talking-to every time.

Skipping class was not to be tolerated.

That said, there wasn't much Rina could do. A few verbal scoldings were all she could offer. Whether Ellen listened or not... was another matter entirely.

"That's a bit rude, don't you think? I do have friends at school, okay? And we've been through life-or-death together!" Ellen stowed her weapon across her back, and when she mentioned Zhong Yan, her tone subtly softened—missing the usual chill.

That so-called life-or-death bond?

It referred to the time they skipped class together.

Anyone willing to ditch school with her on a whim was, in her eyes, absolutely trustworthy. Calling that a life-or-death bond didn't feel like an exaggeration.

Rina blinked, then her eyes lit up in realization. Her smile turned just a touch too friendly. "Oh? Don't tell me it's that boy you skipped class with? I checked with your teacher, and it was a boy, right?"

Rina didn't particularly care about Zhong Yan, a boy she'd never met. But the fact that he was Ellen's only real friend at school meant she had to take a closer look.

And based on what she'd heard, Zhong Yan had a good academic record and a solid reputation.

According to school files, his background was particularly tragic—an orphan.

His parents had reportedly died during the Hollow Zero disaster. Since then, he'd grown up alone in the newly built New Eridu, scraping by and eventually managing to get into school. That in itself was commendable.

Of course, all of this was fabricated by Zhong Yan.

His parents, his backstory—none of it could be verified in this world. As long as his explanation was believable, it would be accepted.

At first, Rina had investigated him out of concern for Ellen's safety. But the more she learned, the more she realized that Zhong Yan wasn't a threat—in fact, he was exactly the kind of friend Ellen needed.

So, Rina stopped her background checks and even planned to visit him one day to personally thank him for watching over Ellen.

"My, my... Ellen is a girl, after all. It's totally fine—I support you two~! Young love between a boy and a girl is just so precious. If only I were a little younger..."

Back to the present—realizing her thoughts had been exposed so easily, Ellen's cheeks immediately turned pink.

Embarrassed, she quickly came up with an excuse to flee the scene. "Uh... I'm gonna go check with the boss about our next move! Let's not talk about this anymore!"

As Ellen hurried off, Rina didn't say a word. She simply smiled gently, like a mother watching her daughter get ready to walk down the aisle.

"So happy for you, Ellen-chan."

...

[Ellen: I'll come to school tomorrow. I'll bring you candy.]

[Ellen: Gotta go for now. Got work to do.]

In the classroom, reading her message, Zhong Yan could only let out a helpless smile.

As expected of a combat maid—she's always swamped.

Still, wasn't Victoria Housekeeping a bit too busy lately?

Back when they were dealing with the Red Fang Gang, he had missed school for several days—and during that same stretch, Ellen had also been absent.

Normally, Victoria didn't have full-day missions. They usually timed their jobs carefully.

Which meant Ellen's repeated absences were starting to look suspicious.

The only reasonable explanation was that something big was happening over there—and she was too tied up to come to school.

A mission so troublesome that it has the whole Victoria Housekeeping squad tied down… don't tell me the Ballet Twins Tower plotline is triggering early? Zhong Yan furrowed his brows in thought.

In the game storyline, the one event that seriously stressed out the entire Victoria Housekeeping team was the Ballet Twins Tower rescue mission for Rain.

But according to the normal timeline, that plotline shouldn't appear for a few more months.

Unless my presence has caused a butterfly effect that accelerated the world's progression...

Lost in thought, Zhong Yan didn't even notice when school let out.

It wasn't until the final bell rang that he snapped back to reality, slung his bag over his shoulder, and took off at his usual breakneck speed toward the subway station.

At the same time, he considered something else: If Ellen's going to keep missing school like this, maybe I should just send a shadow clone to attend in my place.

After all, he spent most of his day sleeping at home anyway. No one would even realize there were two of him running around.

...

As usual, Zhong Yan arrived at the Ninth Street Station via metro. With nothing special on his schedule today, he headed straight home.

But not far from his front door, he spotted someone... unusual.

It was a man who looked no older than thirty, sporting a plain buzz cut.

From a distance, he resembled a sleeping lion—an intense presence hard to describe.

Yet this lion-like man was currently crouched in a back alley, feeding a pack of stray cats with a store-bought sausage.

The little cats were well-behaved, meowing adorably as they nibbled. The scene was, in a word, heart-melting.

Zhong Yan found himself stopping, watching longer than he expected. Just then, the man looked up—clearly aware he was being observed.

Zhong Yan was greeted by a face so handsome it looked like it had been airbrushed in a modeling app.