Just as Asta had witnessed, Herta and Little Herta were currently engaged in a lengthy space-warp chase throughout the space station.
As a result, the space station’s online forums had exploded.
[Guys, it’s Madam Herta herself! This is my first time seeing Madam Herta in person on the space station. (image.jpg)]
[That Herta Puppet has some nerve. She actually dared to call Madam Herta an old witch. By the way, how old is Madam Herta?]
[So even geniuses have trouble disciplining children? I hope Madam Herta doesn’t dismantle that Herta Puppet after catching her. It reminds me of my younger sister being chased around and smacked by Mother back home.]
[(Help Request) A Company ship carrying urgently needed supplies was stolen. If I follow official procedures, how much compensation can I claim from the space station?]
Of course, neither Little Herta nor Herta knew about the discussions on the space station’s network.
Even if they did, neither of them would have cared.
What concerned them more right now was:
How to catch the other—or escape from her.
Although Herta’s Imaginary Space warp technology was more advanced and faster, Little Herta, an Intellitron who could continuously upgrade her specifications, now clearly surpassed Human Herta in reaction speed and agility.
This resulted in a vicious cycle: Little Herta couldn’t shake off Herta, but Herta couldn’t catch Little Herta either.
“Upgrade my specs, upgrade my specs, upgrade my specs! Upgrade my specs!”
Little Herta emerged from a quantum warp inside the spare-parts storeroom.
As she contemplated her next move, she downed two packs of Trick Snacks in quick succession.
She then threw herself into a desperate roll.
Herta appeared out of thin air, her key-shaped Staff smashing down where Little Herta had just been.
Waves of energy surged outward, and gravity throughout the entire storeroom vanished in an instant.
Everything, including Little Herta, began floating.
Herta seized the opportunity to swing her Staff at her.
“Waaah! Floating cannons are one thing, but how can you even nullify gravity?”
Little Herta grabbed a familiar-looking toilet floating nearby and used it as leverage to dodge Herta’s Staff in zero gravity.
“There’s plenty more I can do!”
Herta raised her hand, summoning countless bands of light that shot toward Little Herta.
Before the bands of light could touch her, Little Herta activated the quantum warp device on her wrist.
Strangely enough, the toilet she was holding vanished along with her.
Seeing Little Herta disappear, Herta instinctively tracked the coordinates of her next appearance, only to discover they were—
“Behind me?”
“Eat my space-teleporting toilet!”
The moment she heard the voice, Herta spun around and held her Staff horizontally, constructing a hexagonal honeycomb shield that completely enveloped her.
“What?!”
An irresistible suction force suddenly erupted.
The shield, together with Herta herself, was sucked into the toilet.
With Herta gone, gravity returned to the room.
Little Herta landed lightly and set the toilet aside.
“So I didn’t mistake it after all.”
Little Herta patted the toilet.
Although she didn’t need to breathe, she still let out a long sigh of relief.
This was precisely the ‘teleporting toilet,’ one of the few objects in the game that allowed the Trailblazer to sit down.
Thanks to it teleporting Herta away, she could finally catch her breath.
But Little Herta also knew that was all she could do—catch her breath.
With Herta’s warp technology being even faster than her own, Herta would soon return.
And a trick used once would never work a second time on a genius like Herta.
If only there were something that could hold Herta back.
Even one minute would be enough for Little Herta to teleport to the spaceport platform, steal a ship, escape the space station, and warp away.
But what could possibly hold back an Emanator?
It wasn’t as though she could find another Emanator to help…
“Hm? I’ve got it!”
She had previously detected two extremely massive quantum tidal singularities within the space station.
She suspected one had been caused by the Stellaron in reality.
As for the other, located on the lowest level of Herta Space Station, she theorized that it was the as-yet-unborn Starcrusher Swarm King that Ruan Mei had sealed inside an incubation pod!
Although it could only survive for fifty-six seconds, it possessed genuine Propagation Emanator-level combat power!
Elsewhere, after a dizzying bout of spinning, Herta found herself on the spaceport platform, spat out by a toilet identical to the one that had sucked her in.
“…”
This couldn’t continue.
After steadying herself, Herta didn’t immediately warp away to resume chasing Little Herta.
Instead, she raised a hand, and four mirrors appeared out of thin air beside her.
Each floated in midair and had a shattered red energy void slightly above and to the right of its center.
“Go. Surround the entire space station.”
The second mirror replied, “O-Okay.”
The third mirror replied, “Gladly, Madam Herta.”
The fourth mirror replied, “Yes, Madam Herta!”
The four mirrors responded in succession before vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Throughout the chase, Herta had watched the little brat continuously upgrade her specifications.
At first, she could barely dodge, but later, even after Herta employed all manner of methods, she still managed to flee with plenty of energy to spare.
At this rate, the only method Herta had left to threaten her was to anchor the quantum energy within an area, preventing her from warping away.
However, the moment Herta appeared and began constructing the field, the brat’s visor would immediately detect it.
She would then flee faster than a rat and refuse to go anywhere near the area where quantum energy had been anchored.
Herta knew she couldn’t continue playing this game of cat and mouse.
So she stopped playing.
She released the four mirrors and ordered them to spend some time constructing a quantum anchoring field that could anchor the entire space the moment it was activated, trapping Little Herta inside.
“Now I only need to keep an eye on that brat until the field is complete.”
After sending away the four mirrors, Herta immediately scanned for Little Herta’s current location.
All she needed to do now was keep the brat occupied and prevent her from warping beyond the space station’s boundaries.
“Hm? She went to Ruan Mei’s place?”
Herta quickly located Little Herta’s coordinates and arrived in the three-level section of the space station she had given Ruan Mei—the Seclusion Zone.
‘You’d better not cause me any trouble!’
After locating Little Herta, Herta immediately vanished.
The next moment, she appeared directly behind Little Herta, who was rummaging through something at a control terminal in the Seclusion Zone.
With a swing of her key-shaped Staff, bands of imaginary light swept toward her.
“Whoosh—”
Little Herta had anticipated this.
She rolled and leaped through a gap between the bands of light, then made a face at Herta.
“Can’t catch me, o~ld~wi~tch! Bleh, bleh, bleh~”
After speaking, Little Herta even smacked her own bottom at Herta before vanishing in a quantum warp.
‘Hmph.
Enjoy yourself while you still can.’
Herta glanced at the control terminal, which looked as though it had just been opened, then followed Little Herta’s coordinates and teleported after her.
★ ★ ★
T/N: If you spot mistranslation, do tell me!