“Hey, drunkard, wake up.
Hurry up and tell me, what is your situation right now?”
After a round of heavy drinking, the dynamic between the two had grown significantly closer.
Kazuki did not show a single shred of tender chivalry.
He simply reached out and pinched Student Himeko’s nose shut, effectively forcing her to wake up by cutting off her oxygen supply.
As soon as her eyes fluttered open, she gasped for air, her mouth wide open as she took in greedy breaths.
“Wake up.
You have descended into the reality universe now.
Quickly tell me, how does it feel?” Kazuki asked.
He crossed his arms over his chest, looking down at her with a thoroughly serious expression.
Student Himeko buried her head low.
Her shoulders trembled slightly as she held up a single, shaky finger, completely unable to utter a coherent word.
“Can you manifest for an hour?” Kazuki looked at her raised finger and asked tentatively.
Student Himeko shook her head, her crimson hair a messy halo around her face.
“A day?
It cannot just be one minute, right?”
Student Himeko’s finger swayed back and forth lazily.
After a long, agonizing silence, she finally squeezed a few slurred words through her teeth.
“It is…
wait for me a moment…”
As it turned out, in that short moment when Kazuki looked down again, he saw Student Himeko’s head tilt heavily to the side.
She had fallen right back asleep, her breathing deep and even.
Looking at this ridiculous scene, the expression on his face was entirely indescribable.
But then he thought about his own miserable state after vomiting earlier, which had not been much better, and he instantly felt a wave of relief wash over him.
Forget it.
There was absolutely no point in arguing with a drunkard.
Kazuki casually returned Student Himeko to the card space.
He turned around, rolled his shoulders, and smoothly took on the persona of the logistics staff member, preparing to take a leisurely stroll around the transport ship.
Naturally, he directly blocked their shared vision.
He was not some rigid saint.
When it was time to play a role and get things done, he did not hold back in the slightest, knowing he could just delete the sensory feed later.
Meanwhile, deep inside the Herta Space Station.
Stelle had already woken up from her deep slumber.
After adding Dan Heng’s contact information to her phone, she was led by him on a brief tour of the station’s layout.
While wandering around the massive corridors, Stelle found Himeko standing in the Master Control Zone.
Just as she approached the elegant navigator and exchanged a few polite words, a jointed Herta puppet walked over, its mechanical joints whirring softly.
Stelle’s brain froze for a fraction of a second, but she still managed to recognize the distinct appearance of the puppet standing before her.
Without a second word, she reached out her hand, palm up, right in front of the Herta puppet’s face.
“I defeated the Doomsday Beast.
Give me my reward.”
Herta, who had just cleared her throat and was preparing to introduce herself with proper grandeur, felt her expression darken on the spot.
Himeko quickly stepped in, offering a gentle smile to smooth things over.
“Herta, you are back.” She then turned her attention to the gray-haired girl.
“Stelle, this is the true owner of the Herta Space Station, Genius Society Member Number 83, Herta.”
Herta immediately planted one hand on her hip.
She tilted her little chin up to glare at Himeko, her face twisted in absolute displeasure.
“If you are going to introduce me, do it properly.
Why even mention the Genius Society?
I have so many extraordinary, universe-shattering achievements.
Which one of them does not sound infinitely better than Number 83?”
After delivering her complaint, she turned her head to look Stelle up and down, her artificial eyes sparkling with intense curiosity.
“She is a walking Stellaron now?
This is truly fascinating.”
The two of them chatted back and forth for a few sentences, but Stelle quickly realized a grim truth.
She did not receive a single credit of reward.
For the first time in her short life, she experienced the burning, hollow anger of being completely taken advantage of.
That goddamn liar.
To actually swindle a newborn who had not even been awake for an hour.
What an absolute beast.
Far away on the cold metal decks of the transport ship, Kazuki let out a loud sneeze.
He rubbed his nose, muttering under his breath about who the hell was bad-mouthing him behind his back.
Back on the station, there were two distinct choices laid out before Stelle.
One was to follow the Astral Express and become a trailblazer charting the stars.
The other was to stay at the Herta Space Station and become a dedicated researcher.
Besides that life-altering decision, Herta also made a very specific request.
She wanted to properly study Stelle’s unique body.
Stelle rolled her golden eyes.
She did not agree immediately, her tone flat and uncompromising.
“I need to consider it.
But as long as the money is enough, it is not impossible for me to cooperate with your research.”
Herta raised a delicate eyebrow, feeling that this straightforward greed was highly amusing.
It was not her personal money anyway, so she agreed with a casual wave of her hand.
After a short while, the conversation between Himeko and Herta reached its natural conclusion.
Herta waved her little hand again, her voice suddenly laced with indignant fury.
“Alright, I need to go find that guy who dared to impersonate me.”
Himeko covered her mouth, a soft, elegant laugh escaping her lips.
“Oh?
Is it that young man with white hair?
I ran into him in the Support Zone earlier.
He seemed quite polite.”
“Polite, my foot.” Herta stomped her mechanical foot against the floor panels in pure anger.
“That guy is absolutely audacious.
He has no respect for my image.”
She paused, looking back at the navigator.
“Oh, right, Himeko, you should also come to my office.
There are some things I want to show you.”
After speaking, Herta’s consciousness abruptly logged off from the puppet.
The mechanical doll slumped slightly, its eyes dimming.
Himeko offered a warm greeting to Stelle before turning and walking away toward the elevator.
Within two seconds, Herta’s contact information appeared on Stelle’s phone, accompanied by a brief message demanding she visit Herta’s office whenever she had free time.
But Stelle was not in a hurry at all.
She slowly circled the unconscious Herta puppet, looking left and right, poking its joints, asking silent questions to herself, and fussing about for a long time before she finally wandered off in the direction of the Lead Researcher.
By now, Asta had completely won over the station’s staff.
Thanks to her calm, decisive command in the face of the Antimatter Legion’s invasion, the researchers who used to dismiss her as just a wealthy mascot now looked at her with genuine admiration.
Wherever she walked, she received respectful nods and grateful smiles.
But only Asta knew that her mind was a complete, tangled mess.
Madam Herta had just issued a strict order for her to broadcast a wanted notice across the entire Herta Space Station.
The target was to catch the white-haired young man who had been swindling people while wearing the face of a Herta puppet.
She had followed the instructions perfectly.
But after pressing the publish button on the terminal, her heart felt like it was harboring two opposing forces.
One half desperately hoped that Madam Herta could successfully catch him and stop him from running amok using the genius’s name.
The other half could not stop praying that he would successfully escape, avoiding the terrible fate of being sliced up for anomalous research.
‘Were the things he said to me before really just an act?’
Asta unconsciously rubbed the smooth edge of her phone with her thumb.
Her mind kept replaying the harsh, demanding words he had typed to her across the screen not long ago.
If he had not forced her to push herself to the absolute limit, she would probably still be trapped under the label of a useless rich girl in the eyes of her peers, never able to take that crucial step into true leadership.
Fortunately, Madam Herta was entirely consumed by her own anger and the thrill of the hunt.
She had not pressed Asta on whether she was personally involved with this imposter.
Otherwise, Asta was genuinely afraid that her composure would shatter and she would spill everything on the spot.
Should she delete his contact information?
If Madam Herta traced the station’s communication records, what would she do?
And what would actually happen to him once he was caught?
Countless anxious thoughts swirled in her mind.
The more she thought about the situation, the messier her breathing became.
Just as she was letting her imagination run wild while staring blankly at her phone screen, her brain almost tied in physical knots, a flat voice suddenly came from directly behind her.
“I want to talk to you.”
Stelle was standing completely silent and still behind her.
Asta’s shoulders gave a sudden, violent jolt from the fright.
She quickly suppressed her messy thoughts, adjusted the professional expression on her face, turned around, and revealed a perfectly polite smile.
“Oh, it is you.
The Herta Space Station was able to hold on this time entirely thanks to your help.
What is wrong?
Did you encounter any trouble?”
The two of them did not chat for very long before Stelle had perfectly figured out the current situation of the station and Asta’s exact position of authority.
Satisfied with the information, the gray-haired girl nodded once and wandered off down the corridor.
Conversely, Asta had managed to completely sort out the chaotic thoughts she had been mulling over during their brief conversation.
She took a deep, steadying breath, opened the secure chat box named [Kazuki], and typed a few quick words to send.
[Where are you now?]
On the other side of the void, Kazuki was strolling down the metallic hallways of the transport ship when the phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated.
He took it out, glanced at the glowing screen, and quickly typed back a casual reply.
[Left.
This Herta Space Station does not welcome me, so I am going to wander around somewhere else.]
Not two seconds after his message was sent, an image file popped onto the screen from Asta’s side.
[Image Attached]
[You are actually not Madam Herta, and you aren’t even a woman.]
Kazuki opened the picture and took a close look.
It was indeed a surveillance still from earlier, capturing the exact moment he was helping to move heavy supplies in the Support Zone safety area while appearing in his original form.
The camera angle was actually quite flattering, making his white hair and sharp features look rather handsome under the emergency lights.
He clicked his tongue against his teeth, knowing exactly what was going on.
As expected of a Genius Society member.
Herta had probably investigated every single camera feed, likely even discovering the fact that he was wandering around earlier while wearing the appearance of Student Himeko.
However, let Herta search all she wanted.
This transport ship was already locked onto its return journey, and he was about to arrive at Azure Star.
By the time he stepped off this vessel, he would be stepping into a massive world where fish could leap freely in the sea and birds could soar endlessly in the sky.
He would finally be free.
[Elysian’s Note:
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