"72: Luo Shu, Eating Meat and Watching the Show"

In a private room of a yakiniku restaurant in Beika Town, the members of SDS were enjoying a meal—on the organization's dime.

"Wait a sec, Mizuki-senpai, Luo Shu's not even of legal drinking age yet!!"

Seeing Mizuki Nakahara, acting like a drunken mess, pushing drinks on Luo Shu, Chisato Nishikigi immediately reached over and hooked an arm around Mizuki's neck.

"What you're doing is just causing trouble!"

"What's the big deal~?" the drunken Mizuki waved her hands carelessly, completely unbothered. "As long as we don't blab, it's not like anyone can catch us, right?"

"Besides, if a man can't drink, his boss will look down on him in the workplace. I'm just helping Luo Shu get ready for the real world."

"It's exactly because of seniors like you that toxic workplace culture even exists in the first place!"

Still hanging onto Mizuki's neck, Chisato quickly grabbed a ball of grilled meat with her chopsticks and shoved it into Mizuki's mouth.

"Hot! Hot! Hot!!"

Ignoring Mizuki's yelps, Mika, seated on Luo Shu's other side, calmly sipped her sake and asked, "You really spaced out earlier. Were you still thinking about what happened?"

Luo Shu turned and gave an apologetic smile. "No, I was actually thinking about Sharon."

More than just thinking—his main consciousness had still been inside the Astronomy Club's extradimensional space, exchanging classified intel with Sharon in person.

Speaking of which, that whole trick of projecting consciousness into another space while his real body stayed put—that was something Luo Shu had only just learned.

The medium, of course, was the Demonic Contract still bound to him.

The basic principle was to use the system to generate a phantasmal doll in the Astronomy Club's domain. Then, using a demon incantation through the contract, he could transfer a portion of his consciousness to that doll—thus allowing real-time dual communication.

The downside was that it consumed a massive amount of mental energy and often led to serious absentmindedness.

But thanks to this sneaky little trick, Luo Shu was able to both attend the SDS gathering and hold a secret meeting with Sharon.

Now that Sharon had been mentioned, Mika's thoughts instantly drifted in that direction too.

"That 'pure' Sharon, huh?" Mika said with a curious expression. "It's kind of crazy that such a powerful monster ended up getting driven off by you."

He had already heard about Sharon's combat performance after he had been kicked out of the command room—and naturally, the one who told him was Chisato.

"Firing an assault rifle to detonate a mortar shell mid-air—that kind of move is so insane it makes you wonder if Sharon has some kind of gun-enhancing ability."

Mika stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I mean, yeah, technically, if you hit the shell's detonator it would explode, but pulling that off with a gun while the shell's flying through the air? And piercing the metal casing too? Even with a gun-boosting ability, that's pretty far-fetched."

"Plus, according to field investigators, the deformed bullets left behind had some really strange wear patterns."

At that moment, Inoue Takina, who was seated nearby with a laptop on her lap, chimed in with her usual calm demeanor. "The bullet heads showed abnormal abrasions," she reported.

Chisato looked shocked. "Wait, Takina, where the heck did that laptop come from?"

Takina looked up at her and replied seriously, "I brought it from the truck. The truck the Chief drove off in."

Chisato slapped her own forehead in frustration and cradled her head with both hands. "Ugh!! That's not what I was asking! I meant—why the hell are you using your work laptop while we're eating grilled meat and yakitori!?"

Takina, undeterred, answered plainly, "I was really curious how Sharon pulled it off, so I asked the on-site investigators for data. That way, we can plan countermeasures for the future."

"Oh? Oh? Let me see, let me see…"

Mizuki got up from her seat, staggered over to Takina, and squinted at the surveillance footage on her screen. Watching Sharon's agile movements as she dodged bullets with near-perfect precision, Mizuki muttered in a slurred voice, "How about using one of those anti-explosive net guns? You know, the kind that goes biu! and shoots a capture net. The cops use them to catch dangerous suspects. Though we'd probably have to reinforce the net…"

"Well, aside from that, I don't really see any other way. If we can't use a tool to limit Sharon's movement, regular guns are pretty much useless. And if she has a gun in her hand, the rest of us are done for—except maybe Chisato."

Hearing that, Mika frowned and offered a reminder. "But those nets have a really slow firing speed. With Sharon's reflexes, she could easily avoid the whole net. So unless we have a whole squad trained just to fire those things, one mistake and we're looking at massive casualties."

"That's not even the only issue," Takina added, now fully serious. "The only reason we even forced Sharon into a gunfight this time was because the Chief used confidential suppression tech that prevented her from activating her strongest Abyssal Artifact."

"Considering Sharon usually engages in close combat to neutralize enemies, isn't it possible that…"

Her tone turned heavy.

"…she considers her marksmanship her weak point?"

"That's what she calls weak?" Mizuki snapped, now eight-tenths sober, pointing at the screen where Sharon was dodging bullets at almost point-blank range.

Mika crossed her arms with a helpless sigh. "If this is her at 'weak,' then when she's allowed to use her Abyssal Artifacts again, and you're facing that kind of close-combat magic… Even if we use nets or restraints, there's a good chance we still wouldn't be able to land a solid hit."

As Mika, Mizuki, and Takina continued their heated discussion, Luo Shu quietly turned to Chisato—who was still stuffing his bowl with Kobe beef.

"Isn't it kinda wrong to dump all the Kobe beef into my bowl?" he asked timidly.

Chisato, smiling like she was mad but actually in a great mood, replied, "Don't worry about those three workaholics. As long as you're full, it's all good."

"Oh, right! We've got five teriyaki skewers coming later. You eat three, I'll eat two, okay? Also, let's split the remaining beef and yakitori between just us. Let's not leave anything for those three."

The moment she said "teriyaki skewers," Luo Shu's eyes lit up—he loved those.

"Teriyaki skewers, huh? Well, if you're saying so, Chisato… alright then!"

A while later, Luo Shu and Chisato leaned in close, eating skewer after skewer of teriyaki chicken, while watching Mika, Mizuki, and Takina argue passionately about how to defeat a powerful opponent like Sharon.

Considering that Sharon had actually been him at the time, Luo Shu munched on his skewer with a particularly delighted expression on his face.