[★ Feat Achieved! Received a nickname from Raiden Mei!]
[You gained x1 Random Silver Ticket!]
When I eventually hung up the call, I immediately headed into the shower to prepare for school. I hadn't expected my first call to be from Mei, much less one related to her nightmare. Especially at the end there, receiving a nickname from her was just another rare and exciting experience. Getting a ticket out of it was basically a bonus at this point.
Returning to the topic of the nightmare, after hearing everything from her, I was more than certain the vision had shown her a brief glimpse into the canon timeline.
Setting aside how something like that could even happen, I was more curious if this whole situation, including her father being framed, was actually a deliberate plot orchestrated by someone who knew what she was.
I had a feeling it was Anti-Entropy. To be exact, the acting leader who took over after Welt supposedly died: Cocolia.
If this had been the doing of a certain clown, Otto would've simply kidnapped Mei and forcefully awakened the dormant Herrscher persona inside her by injecting Honkai energy directly into her body. Just like what he would do to Kiana in the future.
After all, most of the widespread news articles on the internet about Raiden Ryoma and his embezzled funds were based on "leaked" snippets traced back to Cocolia. The way she exaggerated the whole thing, it was as if she had a massive hate-boner for Mei's father.
I didn't know her exact plan. However, I was sure Cocolia must be biting her lip in frustration back at her orphanage if she could see how little Mei had actually been affected by it today.
After a good hot shower and brushing my teeth, I went back into my room and stood in front of the digital mirror with a wet towel wrapped tightly around my waist. Instead of pulling my academy uniform from the closet, I just grabbed a normal white T-shirt and some shorts.
Before going to bed last night, I had actually come up with a genius idea to train my ability out in the open without attracting attention.
After throwing the casual clothes on, I looked into the open closet and fully memorized every possible crease and detail of the academy's uniform. I had realized a neat trick I could abuse after familiarizing myself with Mist Flame.
You see, the only time the ability drained my stamina was only when I cast it for the first time. Keeping it active however, relied entirely on focus. That meant the illusion wouldn't disappear as long as I didn't get caught lacking.
After making sure I hadn't missed a single detail, I turned back to look at my reflection in the digital mirror.
Suddenly, my entire body was swallowed by purplish flames that clung tightly to my figure. When the mist-like fire faded, I was completely fine, but the mirror now showed me wearing my crisp academy uniform over my actual clothes.
My face immediately dropped back to its default stoic expression when I temporarily let go of Adept Spycraft, shifting all my focus to maintaining the uniform.
I tried moving my limbs one at a time, did some light stretching, and finally started jogging in a circle around my room. From that little experiment, I learned that sustaining the illusion depended entirely on its complexity.
If it was just projecting fabric over my body, I could keep it up as long as I wanted while using only a third of my focus. This meant I could also use my skill to maintain my fake smiles and live my day-to-day life without running into any issues.
For a moment, I thought I might earn another new nickname from Mei if she ever saw my perpetual deadpan face. But thankfully, that future would never come to pass, as my reflection once again showed a perfectly normal, practiced smile.
After a short bus trip, I walked a few more steps before reaching the academy's entrance gates, where countless luxury cars were lined up along the sidewalk. Anyone walking by would probably think this was some kind of red-carpet event for the ultra-rich, rather than a place of education.
Ding!
I didn't even need to check the message to know who it was from. Right on cue, I looked up and saw a familiar black sedan pulling into view. It stopped near me, the passenger door popped open, and Mei stepped out.
Her face immediately brightened when her eyes met mine. As she walked toward me, I noticed a few students who had been considering approaching me instantly change their minds and hurry inside the academy instead.
"Good morning, Haru-kun."
"Good morning, Mei. You arrived right on time. A little later, and I would've been surrounded by a flock of hyenas," I joked. She giggled, falling into step beside me as we headed into the building.
Maybe it was because of our early-morning call, but Mei appeared much more comfortable around me now. She had even changed how she addressed me, shifting from Haru-san to Haru-kun. Naturally, I had to adapt as well — instead of Raiden-san, I decided to go big and just call her Mei.
If she had reacted poorly even in the slightest, I would've rolled back and stayed humble. But fortunately, she didn't seem particularly bothered by it.
Since we were just walking quietly toward our classroom, I decided to bite the bullet and roll the ticket I had gotten this morning
[Rolling the Random Silver Ticket.]
[Phone A Friend]
|Uncommon Item|
A simple one-use landline phone. When you dial the phone while picturing the face of someone whose name you know in the current universe you are in, they will receive a copy of this phone to answer your call with. The call can last at most 1 hour, after which the phone will be erased from all existence.
I wasn't sure what kind of situation would require me to use something like this. In a world where spaceships and flying cars were considered normal, I couldn't imagine a day where global communications would suddenly be crippled out of nowhere.
Unless the Honkai won, and civilization was wiped from the face of the Earth like in the Previous Era.
On second thought, maybe the item wasn't so bad for a one-use gimmick that lasted an entire hour. If I ever got kidnapped by Otto somehow, I could at least call for help.
The first half of classes went fine. Even though she was clearly being ostracized by the rest of the room, Mei didn't seem particularly affected by it. Or at least, that was the impression she wanted to give.
After all, I did notice her glancing back at me while I was pretending to nap on my desk. It was brief, followed immediately by a quiet sigh of relief.
It was obvious the nightmare had rattled her deeply. Only by checking to make sure I was still there could her heart finally calm down.
Of course, I wasn't actually napping. If I fell asleep, my uniform would disappear into mist, revealing the plain T-shirt and shorts I was actually wearing, or worse, prompting people questioning about my physique, which had been sculpted to superhuman perfection by God, or in this case, the medical robots from the Halo universe.
As the clock quickly ticked toward lunch, I foolishly thought the peace and quiet would last until the end of the day.
"...Huh? What... what is happening? H-Haru-kun!"
Hearing the raw panic in her voice, I snapped my head up and immediately knew something was horribly wrong. Countless small purplish arcs of lightning surrounded her, crackling wildly as if trying to protect her.
Or acting as a premonition that something terrible was about to break out.
I quickly assessed the situation. The students and the teacher had gone dead silent, completely paralyzed by whatever was happening to Mei.
"How do you feel? Does anything hurt?" I tried to calm her down, asking if she felt anything strange going on with her body.
"I-I don't know. Maybe a little warmer than usual? Especially around my chest. What do I do? Isn't this just like—"
Mei couldn't finish her sentence. Or rather, her mouth was forcefully clamped shut when her body began to glow with a violent, ethereal purple hue. It quickly grew brighter, and brighter. Until eventually...
The light exploded outward, with her body at the epicenter.
"Mei!"
I instinctively shielded my face with one arm, my other hand reaching out to her as the blinding light forced my eyes shut.
That was the last thing I saw before a massive shockwave blew me backward, slamming me so hard into the concrete wall that everything went black.