After the Queen’s comment surfaced, the whole audience went still—and the corner of Xiyue’s mouth gave a little twitch.
She’d known that any time you ran Wendy’s arc, you could never quite get away from one thing.
Combat power.
She just hadn’t expected the Queen to be the one to bring it up, though given the Queen’s personality it made sense.
In the Queen’s eyes, she was the strongest, and any fellow Herrscher who couldn’t conquer her by raw force was trash.
The trouble was, this question was genuinely hard to answer—because if you really insisted on talking combat power, the Queen herself wasn’t much to write home about down the line.
Of course, that couldn’t be revealed.
Better to wait until the Queen watched herself get cleaved by Himeko’s greatsword; that would be the fun part.
As for the question itself, even if Xiyue wouldn’t field it, someone else would.
And that someone was Kiana.
No Exams Thanks: What do you mean, weak?
Wendy fought all three of them on her own and held even—isn’t that good enough?
Chlorinated Kiana: From the vantage of vermin, maybe.
One Herrscher against three human B-rank Valkyries, and you call that strong?
Do you even have a brain?
No Exams Thanks: Oh, so Kiana and the others are just ordinary Valkyries, huh?
Acting like you’re so impressive—got the guts to come out and duel me one-on-one?
All you ever do is yap-yap-yap about everyone else being weak; take a look at yourself first.
The Queen wasn’t built for bickering, and with that foul temper of hers, what she wanted right now was to drag this bug out for a one-on-one.
But she… For the first time, she felt how miserable it was to share a single body with someone else.
Kiana didn’t let up, though.
Seeing the Queen stay quiet, she assumed she’d lost her nerve, and crowed gleefully.
No Exams Thanks: Hmph, can’t talk back now, can you.
I knew it—no strength and still trash-talking everyone else.
Shameful!
Chlorinated Kiana: 6
Seeing Tuna’s comment, the Queen learned for the first time exactly what a brain hemorrhage felt like.
She wanted nothing more than to tear this bug apart, and she was utterly powerless to do it—all she could manage was to give Kiana a headache.
“Ow, ow, ow.”
Having fired off her comment, Kiana clutched her little head in both hands again.
After a moment, the pain faded.
She looked up at Theresa beside her—and discovered Theresa watching her with a strange expression.
It made her squirm.
“Principal, why are you looking at me like that?”
“Kiana, do you know who that ‘Chlorinated Kiana’ is?”
At that, Kiana tilted her little head, eyes full of confusion.
“Huh?
Nope, no idea.”
“It’s just—I really can’t stand the way this person talks.
So inexplicably arrogant, like one of those chuunibyou characters out of a novel, always with ‘vermin’ this and ‘trash’ that on the tip of her tongue.”
“Principal, do you know her?”
Hearing Tuna’s words, Theresa fell silent.
From Chlorinated Kiana’s comments a suspicion had taken shape in her heart, though she wasn’t sure.
But if it really was true, and you connected it to Kiana’s headaches… well, that would be interesting.
Only Tuna could handle her.
Theresa shook her head, and seeing that, Kiana looked a little lost.
But her focus went straight back to the story; she was looking forward to what came next, eager to watch herself go tearing through everything with Mei and Bronya.
Watching the two of them go at it, Xiyue could only think: that’s our paramecium, all right.
The poor Queen, faced with a Tuna like this, had no recourse—other than typing out a “6.”
Elysia, too, found it strange.
She had lived through the descent of the Fourth Herrscher—except the Fourth Herrscher she had witnessed and the Fourth Herrscher in this “game” were honestly worlds apart.
Remembering the brutal price MOTH had paid to kill the Fourth Herrscher, Elysia’s eyes dimmed a little.
And she wondered: had the Herrschers of later ages grown weaker?
Or was this one girl named Wendy simply the exception?
As for the person in question, Wendy—hearing the Queen call her weak drew no reaction at all.
To be precise, she didn’t care.
The only thing she cared about right now was Bronya and the other two.
In the game, Bronya had shot her, but she knew it wasn’t Bronya’s fault—it was the fault of that woman’s voice controlling Bronya.
“Bronya-nee-san never once lied to me.”
“If anything, it was me—I attacked Bronya-nee-san before I’d even gotten the full story.”
“I…”
The more Wendy thought, the more she blamed herself.
She hugged herself tighter, buried her face between her knees, and didn’t dare look at the screen.
That’s just how the too-gentle ones are.
Back in the story, in-game Kiana traded a few barbs with Wendy, and just as the three Herrschers were about to fight her, that cold female voice rang out again.
“A pity—I no longer have the patience for this.”
“All tactical mecha: disengage stealth.
Target, the Fourth Herrscher!”
In the blink of an eye, an enormous one-eyed mecha appeared beside Wendy and hemmed her in, and then three Titan mecha loosed a flash of lightning at her.
Wendy let out a scream and crumpled, fainting on the ground.
Mei, watching the scene, said in shock.
“How is that possible?
They took down a Herrscher in one move.”
And now the chat lit up all over again.
Kitty Snuggles: Huh?
Why—Wendy could trade blows with Kiana and the others for ages, and those three mecha dropped her in a single hit?
Chlorinated Kiana: Hmph.
Far too weak.
Hardly worthy of the name “Herrscher.”
Wants to Buy an Island: If Anti-Entropy mecha were really that powerful, they wouldn’t be getting chased down by Schicksal.
No—something’s off here!
Raven, who had dealt with both Schicksal and Anti-Entropy for years, knew Anti-Entropy’s true strength well.
Their tech was formidable, sure, but not “one-shot a Herrscher” formidable.
That was impossible.
Unless…
Miss Pink Elf♪: It isn’t that the Herrscher of Wind is weak—it’s that this Miss Wendy hasn’t fully awakened as a Herrscher.
Her human personality has kept the upper hand over her Herrscher personality this whole time.
In other words, Miss Wendy hasn’t fully fallen to darkness; the Gem has merely amplified the shadows already in her heart, so she hasn’t grasped a Herrscher’s complete Authority.
She had, after all, seen the tornado of a true Herrscher of Wind with her own eyes—wind enough to lift the sands of a whole desert into the sky.
Not the small-scale little tornado this Miss Wendy was putting out.
World’s Cutest: That’s right.
Wendy has always been Wendy.
That gentle heart of hers never changed from the very start.
Back to the story: Cocolia took Wendy away, then turned her gaze toward Mei, and that mocking voice rang out once more.
“Oh, right—I’d almost forgotten.
There’s another Herrscher here.”
“Bronya, my daughter.
Highest-authority command: capture the Third Herrscher.”
“As you command, Mother-sama.”
Hearing Cocolia, Xiyue sighed inwardly.
Cocolia’s judgment really is garbage.
Everyone present is a Herrscher—how are there only two?
And on top of that, she hauls off a Herrscher of Thunder and leaves the strongest one, the Herrscher of the Void, alone.
Then, under Dark Bronya’s firepower, Mei was downed in an instant as well.
Schicksal’s reinforcements arrived, and only Kiana was pulled to safety.
Mei and Wendy were both carried off by Anti-Entropy, and Kiana could only return to St.
Freya Academy in bitter regret, where—with Theresa and Himeko’s help—she set about planning Mei’s rescue.
End of Chapter Three.
And the audience, seeing all of this, blew up yet again.
Kitty Snuggles: Boss Yuexi, didn’t you say this was a super wholesome, sweet little story?
What in the world is going on?!
(slams the table hard)