Inside the ruined, metallic confines of the Seclusion Zone, a voice suddenly detonated inside Kazuki’s mind.
It was the Emanator of Beauty, Herta, her tone sharp enough to cut glass.
“Now!
Immediately!
Right this second!
Cancel your impersonation of me!”
Kazuki did not waste a single breath asking for an explanation.
Without a shred of hesitation, he severed the connection and dropped the transformation.
The radiant, overwhelming power vanished instantly.
Gravity violently reclaimed him.
Kazuki, who had been floating gracefully in mid-air just a moment prior, plummeted straight down.
His boots hit the floorboards unevenly.
He stumbled twice, wildly waving his arms to catch his balance, but ultimately failed, landing hard on his backside with a heavy thud.
Stripped of the Emanator’s divine protection and reduced back to his ordinary human physique, the sheer kinetic impact of the fall sent a sharp jolt up his spine.
He winced, rubbing his bruised tailbone.
He slowly clenched his fists and then relaxed them.
A hollow, aching emptiness bloomed in his chest, followed quickly by a suffocating wave of disappointment.
It was the very first time he had ever possessed such terrifying, world-bending strength, and he had genuinely developed a taste for the absolute authority it brought.
Being violently shoved back into his original, fragile mortal shell created a psychological whiplash that felt utterly wretched.
A sharp, rhythmic clicking echoed through the corridor.
The crisp sound of long boots striking the metal floorboards approached from the shadows of the wreckage.
Kazuki shifted his gaze upward.
Herta stood over him, looking down from a position of absolute superiority.
Strangely, her eyes were completely shut tight.
Refusing to let the genius of the Space Station see him wallowing on the floor like a discarded ragdoll, Kazuki hurriedly scrambled to his feet.
He aggressively patted the dust off his trousers and flashed a strained, awkward grin.
“Hahaha, Herta, did you see that?
I’m pretty incredible, right?” To sell the illusion, he flexed his arm, proudly displaying a deeply pathetic, trembling bicep.
Despite the complete lack of muscle mass, his face radiated pure smugness, a bizarre sense of pride swelling in his chest.
Herta did not humor him.
She simply stood there in total silence, her eyes still firmly closed, facing his direction for several agonizing seconds.
A subtle shift rippled across her porcelain features.
She drew in a slow, measured breath.
“Your hair,” she stated flatly.
“There is a single strand that matches my exact hair color.”
Kazuki choked on his own laughter.
He froze, then frantically slapped both hands over the crown of his head, desperately trying to conceal the tiny, offending tip of white hair.
“No way.
Do you really have to observe things that closely?
And wait a minute, aren’t your eyes closed right now?
How can you even see this?”
Herta completely ignored his frantic complaining.
Her tone remained as clinical and detached as a medical readout.
“Even with my eyes shut, my perceptive faculties are vastly more sensitive than the majority of advanced electron microscopes in this galaxy.”
Kazuki let out a long exhale, dropping his hands.
“What an absolute freak.”
Herta took another deep breath, refusing to take the bait.
She simply turned on her heel and ordered him to follow her.
She did not spare a single glance for the catastrophic mess left behind in the Seclusion Zone.
The shattered bulkheads and scorched machinery were entirely beneath her notice.
She did, however, smoothly transmit a priority message to Asta, casually noting that the immediate threat had been neutralized.
She appended a strict directive that all surviving staff members, including the mindless maintenance robots, were to undergo a deep-tissue medical examination, followed by a mandatory three-day leave distributed in batches.
After handling the complex corridors for quite some time, Herta finally guided Kazuki into a secure, fully intact observation cabin.
Only after the heavy blast doors sealed shut behind them did she finally open her eyes.
She stared directly at Kazuki, raised a hand, and performed a sweeping motion through the air, casually wiping away the lingering, invisible-to-the-naked-eye residual glow of the Path of Beauty that still clung to his clothes.
The interrogation officially commenced.
Herta took a seat behind a sleek metallic desk, summoning a holographic recording pad into her hands.
She fixed Kazuki with a piercing stare.
“Race.”
“Human.”
Herta raised her eyes, slowly scanning Kazuki’s face from across the desk.
Her fingers danced across the glowing interface, appending a single note to the entry: (Tentative).
Kazuki watched the projected subtitles mirror her inputs on the wall panel beside him.
His jaw tightened, a deep sense of exasperation washing over him.
The interrogation pressed on.
“Gender.”
“Male.”
Herta raised her eyes a second time.
Her deadpan gaze clearly broadcasted the words ‘Are you entirely sure about that?’ With the exact same clinical precision as before, she tapped the screen, noting another (Tentative) right next to his gender.
This time, Kazuki’s patience snapped.
“You can question my biological classification all you want, but you absolutely do not get to question my gender!”
He slammed his hands down on the desk and shot to his feet.
He glared directly into Herta’s unblinking eyes, his neck stiffening with indignation.
“I really am a man!
What, do you want me to drop my pants right here and prove it to you?”
“Proceed.”
Kazuki froze, the anger instantly draining from his face.
He took a staggering half-step backward.
“What!”
“I said, proceed,” Herta repeated, her expression remaining entirely serious and devoid of any humor.
“You absolute pervert!” Kazuki instinctively clamped both hands over his waistband, guarding it like a fortress.
Herta’s expression darkened instantly.
“If you are going to take them off, do it quickly and stop wasting my time.
I have lived through countless Amber Eras.
What anatomical structure do you falsely believe I haven’t seen?
Do you honestly think a biological technicality would make me shy?”
Kazuki gripped his belt even tighter, his voice dropping to a petulant, mosquito-like hum.
“Lived through countless Amber Eras…
that makes you ancient.
You’re practically a prehistoric ancestor.”
The moment the words left his lips, a small, terrifyingly fast fist blurred across the desk and smashed directly into his face.
Kazuki stumbled back, clutching his nose.
“Why did you hit me!”
“That was a standard resistance-to-impact test,” Herta replied coldly.
“Honesty is supposed to be a virtue!”
“I hypothesize that you have been soaking in the Path of Beauty for far too long.
It has rotted your survival instincts.”
“Ouch, okay, I was wrong!
I admit I was wrong!
My instincts are fully recovered!”
By the time the grueling battery of basic physical and psychological tests finally concluded, Kazuki’s pants had, thankfully, remained securely fastened around his waist.
Herta sat back, her delicate brows knitting together as she reviewed the final diagnostic report glowing in her hands.
“Zero Path energy detected.”
She swiped to the next page.
“Physical fitness is thoroughly ordinary.
If we were measuring by the standards of the Azure Star, you would actively fall into the unhealthy category.”
Swipe.
“Muscular strength is pitifully weak.
Neurological reaction speed is extremely slow…”
Kazuki stood off to the side, shifting his weight uncomfortably and scratching the back of his head.
He had always considered his body to be perfectly healthy back on Earth.
Hearing his physical existence systematically dismantled and labeled as pathetic by Herta was a deeply humbling experience.
Suddenly, Herta’s voice spiked an entire octave, shattering her usual monotone composure.
“Mental strength…
Max!?”
She stared at the glowing line of text, utterly baffled, before casually tossing the recording pad onto the desk.
The young man standing in front of her defied every known metric of scientific logic.
He did not even align with the most fundamental laws of the conservation of energy.
How could an entirely ordinary, physically deficient human possess a mental fortitude that shattered the upper limits of her testing apparatus?
What kind of cosmic, interstellar joke was this?
She looked up at Kazuki, her tone dropping into a deadly serious register.
“Answer me immediately, do not hesitate.
What is the single thing you want to do most in your mind right at this exact moment?”
Kazuki did not even blink.
“Sing and dance.”
A visible blue vein throbbed against Herta’s temple.
She forced the words through her teeth.
“And what is your secondary reaction?”
“Eat a massive meal.”
Herta slowly raised a hand and slapped her own forehead.
“There is absolutely no saving you.
You only deserve to sit at the exact same table as Stelle.”
Kazuki rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a strange mix of embarrassment and pride.
He honestly felt she was overestimating him.
Stelle was a genuine, terrifying genius.
In the original timeline, she was the anomaly who managed to successfully reverse-engineer the isolated wave algorithm, earning rare, genuine praise from Herta herself.
Being compared to her was practically an honor.
[Elysian’s Note:
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