“I don’t need to lift a finger myself to catch you.”
After Little Herta spoke, Herta made the leading Herta Puppet step half a pace forward and said:
“And you actually dared to mess with the things in my laboratory!”
Aside from the unfamiliar mechanical bracelet on Little Herta’s right wrist and the tactical goggles on her head, Herta noticed all sorts of miscellaneous gadgets hanging from her body.
Herta recognized every last one.
They were things she had left in the spaceship’s laboratory or stored in its collection room.
“I messed with them. What are you going to do about it? Come catch me if you can~”
Facing the Puppet controlled by Herta below, Little Herta showed no sign of nervousness.
Instead, she arrogantly crooked a finger at her.
“You still dare to taunt me?”
The Puppet controlled by Herta scowled, then waved an arm.
“Get her!”
At once, all the Herta Puppets surrounding the spaceship sprang into action and charged toward Little Herta, who stood at the hatch.
“Hmph~”
Little Herta gave a soft snort and confidently pulled the tactical goggles down over her eyes.
She waited until the first Herta Puppet reached her before suddenly moving.
She sidestepped its lunge, lightly pushed off the ground, and leaped out of the hatch by stepping on the second Herta Puppet’s face.
Landing amid the Herta Puppets, she twisted and darted around, weaving through them like a slippery eel.
The once orderly Herta Puppets immediately became as chaotic as a school of sardines with a catfish thrown into their midst.
“Hahaha! You can’t catch me~”
“Too slow, too slow~”
After five configuration upgrades, her speed, strength, computational power, and reaction speed were all 2.5 times those of these Herta Puppets!
‘Trying to catch me is nothing but a pipe dream!’
“Miss Asta, do Intellitrons go through rebellious phases too?” Arlan asked Asta beside him.
He had been genuinely shocked when he first saw Little Herta challenging Herta herself.
Now, as he watched Little Herta move unhindered through the crowd of Puppets, he couldn’t help wondering whether Intellitrons went through rebellious phases just like humans.
“Generally speaking, no. But if it’s a Puppet made by Madam Herta…”
Then it was hard to say.
As far as she knew, there were always a few eccentrics among the Herta Puppets made by Madam Herta.
Last time, for example, she had seen two Herta Puppets arguing over whether Madam Herta’s intelligence should rank ahead of her beauty or her beauty ahead of her intelligence.
There had also been another Herta Puppet fawning over the two of them.
In Asta’s view, it wasn’t strange for one or two to be rebellious by comparison.
Besides, she believed that with Madam Herta’s wisdom, these little Puppets couldn’t cause much trouble.
Barring any surprises, Madam Herta should be about to catch this little one.
Just as Asta became certain of that, Little Herta suddenly felt something trip her as she weaved among the Herta Puppets.
Turning her head, she saw a Herta Puppet standing with its arms crossed and staring at her with an infuriating expression.
It seemed to be saying, ‘You’re still too inexperienced.’
It was the Puppet controlled by Herta herself.
Since the Puppets couldn’t match Little Herta’s performance, Herta had calculated her landing point in advance and simply extended a leg there, waiting for Little Herta to run into it.
Little Herta immediately lost her balance, then heard something whistling toward her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a hammer hurtling toward her.
Another Herta Puppet had been waiting for this moment and swung it straight at her face.
“Using a hammer is cheating!”
As the hammer closed in, Little Herta hurriedly raised a hand and activated a piece of equipment she had taken from Herta’s laboratory.
A blue protective shield appeared in front of her.
“Bang!”
The collision produced a deafening crash.
Little Herta wasn’t injured, but the backlash sent her flying.
The moment she landed, a crowd of Puppets swarmed her and pinned her to the ground.
“Go on, jump. Why don’t you keep taunting me?”
Herta controlled a Herta Puppet and walked over to Little Herta, who was buried beneath the other Herta Puppets with only her head exposed.
She removed Little Herta’s tactical goggles and looked down at her.
“Hmph! If I hadn’t been trying not to hurt these big-sister Puppets, do you think you would’ve had any chance of touching me?”
Facing Herta, Little Herta snorted without the slightest hint of fear.
If they had truly fought, she could have dismantled these Herta Puppets in minutes with her performance.
But she wouldn’t do that.
After being helped by Herta Puppet 0007, she sincerely believed that every Herta Puppet was an independent sentient individual.
“Still acting cocky, huh?”
Herta toyed with the blue tactical goggles in her hand.
After briefly examining them, she asked Little Herta, who was currently cosplaying as Sun Wukong beneath the mountain:
“Tell me, where did you get this? There shouldn’t be anything like it on my spaceship.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, these tactical goggles possessed remote coordinate positioning, radar detection, and quantum tide detection functions.
The design was crude.
It wasn’t something she had made, nor should it have ended up in this little one’s hands.
“Hehe~ Do you really want to know?”
“Hm?”
Hearing Little Herta’s question, Herta frowned and cautiously stepped half a pace back.
She realized something was wrong.
“Quantum tide detection… Don’t tell me you—”
A flash of inspiration crossed Herta’s mind as she remembered an unfinished experiment in the spaceship’s laboratory!
Before Herta could finish speaking, blue quantum light flashed around the pinned Little Herta.
She instantly vanished from beneath the mountain of Herta Puppets, and her voice came from behind Herta.
“Correct—but no prize!”
Through a quantum jump, Little Herta appeared back-to-back with the Puppet controlled by Herta.
Herta tried to turn around, but the next moment, her hand suddenly felt empty.
The blue tactical goggles were gone, and Little Herta was no longer behind her.
By then, Little Herta had appeared outside the Herta Puppets’ encirclement, holding the tactical goggles Herta had taken from her.
“I’m done playing with you, you old witch~ Bleh~”
After pulling a face at the Herta Puppets, Little Herta put the tactical goggles back on and turned toward Asta and Arlan, who had been watching.
She pressed the mechanical bracelet on her wrist.
Blue light flashed around her, and she instantly appeared in front of Asta in the distance.
“Hi, Big Sis Asta~”
Little Herta held out a hand to her.
“Huh?… Hello?”
Startled by Little Herta, Asta stared at the proffered hand.
After a moment’s hesitation, she reached out and took it.
The instant Asta grasped Little Herta’s hand, Little Herta pressed the bracelet again right in front of her.
“Miss Asta!”
Asta heard Arlan shout.
Her vision blurred, and then…
“Is this the Master Control Zone?”
Asta found herself standing before a vending machine in the Master Control Zone, while Little Herta stood on tiptoe, peering all over the machine.
‘Was I kidnapped by Madam Herta’s rebellious Herta Puppet?’
“Big Sis Asta, I want this!”
While Asta was still confused, Little Herta found what she wanted and pointed at the Trick Snack in the vending machine.
“…”
‘Did she kidnap me just so I’d buy her a snack?’
Asta didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but considering how adorable Little Herta was—and that she had called her big sis…
“All right, all right. Big Sis will buy it for you.”
Asta smiled happily and took out her black card.
She had long wanted to experience being called big sis by a Herta Puppet.
★ ★ ★
T/N: If you spot mistranslation, do tell me!