It had been exactly an hour since Kazuki finished his negotiations at the front desk.
[Student Himeko] sat on the edge of the hotel bed, her lower legs dangling and swaying in a lazy rhythm.
She cast a sidelong glance up at him.
“Didn’t you make a huge fuss about needing to run away as soon as possible?
How are you still nailed to this room?”
“You think I don’t want to run?” Kazuki slumped deep into the armchair, crossing one leg high over the other.
His back molars ground together with an audible creak.
“It is all Herta’s fault.
She plays absolutely no fair.”
A long string of push notifications lit up his phone, dominating the screen.
[Warm Reminder: It has been detected that you have entered the controlled area of Azure Star.]
[Global Announcement: Ms.
Herta has applied a full airspace blockade of Azure Star.
Emergency transit requests can be submitted via official appeal.]
[Special Notice from Ms.
Herta: A little thief stole something very important to me and is now hiding on Azure Star.
I will now initiate a planet-wide life scan to ferret out this thief.
If there is any offense caused, please bear with me.]
These notifications were mandatory for every single device on Azure Star.
Whether you were a native-born local or a passing visitor from another system, not a single person was spared the alert.
Kazuki tossed his phone onto the bed.
[Student Himeko] picked it up, swiped through the glowing text, and stared at the screen.
Her mouth twitched for a long while before she managed to squeeze out a single word.
“Impressive.”
“I just do not get it.” Kazuki grew angrier the more he spoke, his voice rising by half an octave.
“She does not hunt the Stellaron Hunters.
She does not retaliate against the Antimatter Legion.
Yet she is hunting me, a mere spectator?
Who did I even offend?”
“You are huffing,” [Student Himeko] pointed out.
“I am not huffing,” Kazuki shot back.
The more he thought about the sheer scale of the operation, the more furious he became, until his anger simply looped back around into a dry, disbelieving laugh.
He was truly out of options.
To catch him, Herta had simply repurposed the entire Herta Space Station into a dedicated satellite for Azure Star.
She was actively scanning the genetic information of every living being on the planet, sifting through billions of lifeforms bit by bit, absolutely determined to pin down his exact coordinates.
Such a massive, resource-heavy project, all for the sake of one single target.
Him.
If this were following a standard script, he would have already slipped off Azure Star smoothly by now and started his grand adventure.
But Herta did not play by the rules.
She personally stepped in to crush his escape route before he could even take his first real step.
[Student Himeko] leaned back, collapsing into the soft mattress with a heavy yawn.
“So?
Why call me out again?
I am just an ordinary person.
According to the rules of your system, two hours of manifestation can be generated in one day.
If we make too much of a fuss, the duration just gets deducted.”
Just as Kazuki opened his mouth to reply, the back of his neck suddenly went completely numb.
It felt exactly like a high-voltage electric shock passing through his spine, but the strange sensation vanished just as quickly as it arrived.
He sat up straight abruptly, his voice tinged with genuine shock.
“Did you feel that just now?”
When he turned his head, he choked on his own breath.
[Student Himeko]’s long, fiery red hair was standing straight on end, completely puffed out like a lion that had just been electrocuted.
Kazuki pointed at her and laughed so hard he slapped the armrest of his chair.
“That look of yours!
It is absolutely priceless!”
[Student Himeko] wore a dark, murderous expression.
She frantically tried to smooth down her frizzy hair, retorting with a sharp edge to her voice.
“Still laughing?
You better prepare to surrender.” She paused, raising a single eyebrow as her tone shifted into a challenge.
“Otherwise, why do you not try resisting?”
“Pour the water out of your brain before you speak.” Kazuki’s laughter got stuck in his throat, his expression flattening into a deadpan stare.
“Resist?
What exactly am I supposed to resist?
I do not have any deep blood feud with Herta, and I was just complaining a bit earlier.
This is not one of those brainless power fantasies.
I am not the invincible hero, and she is not a stupid villain.
Exchanging benefits and negotiating is the normal procedure, okay?”
After listening to his pragmatic speech, [Student Himeko] rolled over on the bed and waved her hand listlessly.
“Fine, fine, then it is nothing.
Send me back.
I am still dizzy from the scan and need to take another nap.”
Kazuki waved at her helplessly.
In the next second, [Student Himeko] dissolved into a soft white light and completely disappeared from the room, returning to the system.
Left alone, he leaned against the window, waiting to see exactly what kind of tricks Herta would pull next.
Time ticked by slowly.
Down below, the entire hotel started enforcing a strict exit-only policy.
The bustling voices on the street outside began to fade away, dropping in volume bit by bit.
At first, Kazuki did not pay much attention to the shift.
But soon, he realized that the pedestrians passing by on the street no longer even glanced at the hotel.
They walked around the perimeter as if the building were just an empty lot, their eyes sliding right past the architecture.
A little later, even the friendly receptionist he had chatted with packed up her things and left the premises.
The ambient sounds of the city outside became so faint they were almost inaudible.
It felt as if an invisible, absolute soundproof film had wrapped the entire hotel tightly, refusing to let even a whisper of wind pass through the glass.
“What kind of black technology is this?” Kazuki muttered to himself.
He had only been in this universe for less than a day, yet this stealthy, high-level isolation operation was genuinely creeping him out.
Finally, the last drop of noise vanished.
It had gone completely, suffocatingly silent.
Crack.
A crisp, shattering sound rang out through the sky.
The space directly above the hotel suddenly tore open.
Within the purple-black spatial rift of the Fragmentum, a smooth, massive mirror slowly emerged, its edges shimmering with a fine, icy blue light.
Immediately after, it actually started raining Herta.
That was the only way to describe it.
It was literally raining Herta.
From the surface of that mirror, countless Herta puppets poured down like a swarm of descending locusts.
They came in all sorts of styles and postures, babbling in some beyond understanding, synchronized tune.
Every single one of them landed neatly within the hotel’s perimeter wall, perfectly calculating their trajectories so not a single puppet crossed the property line.
Once they touched the ground, the puppets immediately surrounded the hotel.
They stood in a massive circle, holding hands like children playing a game, and chanted in unison at the absolute top of their mechanical lungs.
“Ms.
Herta is peerless in the universe!”
“Ms.
Herta is extraordinarily intelligent!”
“Ms.
Herta is stunningly beautiful!”
The sheer volume of the chanting made the hotel windows buzz and rattle in their frames.
The scene was as absurd and surreal as it could possibly be.
After finishing their mandated slogan, another group of puppets reached into their pockets and pulled out gongs and drums.
They started clanging and banging, playing a chaotic, deafening welcome march fit for a visiting emperor.
“Ms.
Herta is peerless in the universe!
Ms.
Herta is extraordinarily intelligent!
Ms.
Herta is stunningly beautiful!”
Kazuki leaned against the window pane, utterly dumbfounded.
His brain stalled out.
‘What is Herta doing?
Putting on some massive idol support event?’That mirror hovering in the sky was a manifestation of her true authority.
How did it appear here so fast?
Could it be that she actually came in person?’That is really giving me face,’Kazuki thought, rubbing his temples.’What else is there to say.
I hand it to you, Herta.’
He held his forehead, looking thoroughly bewildered by the spectacle.
Sure enough, in the next second, Herta herself emerged from the shimmering surface of the mirror.
She sat gracefully on a floating scepter, a pointed witch’s hat perched perfectly on her head.
The shadow cast by the wide brim covered the upper half of her cheeks, while the faint purple light leaking from the Fragmentum rift behind her made her entire figure look bright, luminous, and dangerously powerful.
She just hovered there in mid-air, looking down at Kazuki through the hotel window with cold, calculating amusement.
With a display of dominance like this, anyone watching would have to ask who the real protagonist of this story was.
Not long after, the grand entrance concluded.
Herta stepped down in her uneven boots, her scepter quietly hovering at her side.
She walked down the empty hotel corridor and raised a delicate hand, lightly knocking on Kazuki’s door.
“Hmph.
Not just any random person off the street can knock on my door,” Kazuki’s voice drifted slowly from inside the room, carrying a tone of practiced arrogance.
“Quite a temper.” Herta raised an eyebrow, wearing a deeply amused smile.
She raised her hand again, fully prepared to simply dismantle the door at a molecular level, when another sentence drifted out from the room.
“Only those who meet the following conditions can enter.” Kazuki’s voice paused for dramatic effect.
“Human.
Female.
Young.
Beautiful.
Cute.”
As soon as the last syllable left his mouth, a soft click echoed through the hallway.
The heavy door unlocked and swung open all by itself.
Herta lowered her hand, the amused smile on her lips widening just a fraction.
Alright.
He was quite sensible.
Feeling the dangerous tension in the air dissipate into Herta’s pleasant mood, Kazuki sat back in his chair, fully willing to give his own survival instincts a perfect score for this flawless operation.
Human, female, young, beautiful, cute.
[Elysian’s Note:
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