She had absolutely no idea what was going on in the mind of this Saintess of the Holy Royal Court.
The corner of her eye twitched.
Su Yuzu watched Lyudmila's Favorability go up and down, while the Q-version chibi of Lyudmila looked as if it wanted to get close to her yet was afraid of her. Vaguely, the girl's Favorability seemed to be trending towards the repetitive flip-flopping of yesterday.
Su Yuzu could only say... fortunately, unlike some reskinned pay-to-win mobile games where the devs wished players would pay for every single inventory slot, this was different.
At least the data slots in the information column of this eroge were infinite.
Otherwise... Su Yuzu estimated she would soon need to rent a warehouse specifically to store the Favorability increase rewards from Lyudmila.
In fact... Su Yuzu looked at Lyudmila curled up on the bed, her hands clutching the edge of the quilt, revealing only a row of neat fingertips.
Su Yuzu could already imagine the scene: if there really were such a warehouse, and Lyudmila accidentally discovered and entered it, she would end up weak in the knees, collapsing helplessly onto the floor, her waist arched down.
When the Little Rabbit finished her crepes and went to the bathroom to wash her hands, Su Yuzu took the opportunity to tap [Develop] on the Little Rabbit in the [Operator Development] interface.
"Eek!!!" A considerably cute voice suddenly came from the direction of the bathroom.
Lyudmila, appearing to have divined something, shrank her shoulders in response.
"Student Saotome?" Unohana Chiyo, feeling puzzled, stood up and looked toward the bathroom door.
"N... nothing..." The Little Rabbit answered with a tragic, weak voice.
About ten minutes later, the girl came out of the bathroom slowly, her eyes seemingly condensed with mist.
Seeing the Little Rabbit's miserable appearance, Lyudmila felt even more nervous inside.
As expected—
Just as Student Saotome had said.
Ever since that so-called Lady Fate began to favor her, she would arrive on schedule every day, like clockwork.
Would that kind of 'sorrowful' fate... eventually fall upon her own head?
Although Lyudmila looked demure and composed... her smile became increasingly forced.
That unease became even more panicked after Ms. Unohana Chiyo stood up and entered the bathroom, her facial expression seeming to become a few degrees brighter and more radiant upon return.
Shrinking into the quilt, Lyudmila looked in the direction of the bathroom as if she were looking at some scourge or fierce beast.
But as luck would have it... probably because the apple Su Yuzu peeled for her earlier was too large and too juicy.
Lyudmila vaguely felt... that she seemed to have the urge as well.
'Is this also within her calculations?'
'Is this the game she is playing with me today?'
Her small hands gripped the quilt tightly. Underneath the quilt, the girl's knees were squeezed almost completely together, her muscles tensed.
In her view, that evil 'Lady Fate' seemed to be standing at the bathroom door, grinning hideously at her.
Moreover... as Lyudmila's gaze became increasingly trance-like and unfocused.
Vaguely... she seemed to see that terrible 'Lady Fate', and her face even turned into the appearance of Su Yuzu.
[Ding—]
[Panic Posture: Lyudmila's Favorability has decreased.]
[Twist: Lyudmila Favorability +1.]
[Obtained Favorability Increase Reward: Eighth Dimension.]
Su Yuzu's eye twitched in response.
She looked at Lyudmila, who was biting her lip and faintly revealing a pitiful appearance, listened to the mechanical woman's voice occasionally bursting out by her ear, and watched the strange items refreshing one by one in her data column.
Her entire person, along with Lyudmila, fell into a strange state.
Su Yuzu began to question her life.
She looked at the girl's pitiful appearance and decided to 'let her off' for today.
Su Yuzu completely did not anticipate—
Just what kind of devastating 'blow' her occasional kindness would deal to Lyudmila.
Lyudmila gazed in the direction of the bathroom, biting her lip harder and harder.
The Saintess had even mentally filled in the rules of today's game in her heart.
The keyword was "Bathroom".
What a terrible devil.
To actually... to actually play such a cruel joke on a girl.
But... her knees pressed together tighter and tighter.
Lyudmila's small head was about to curl into the quilt; she had no right to choose.
Continuing to learn the details of last night's Aberrant attack event from Ms. Unohana Chiyo.
It was somewhat outside of Su Yuzu's expectations.
The target of that Aberrant girl last night was surprisingly not the Saintess of the "Holy Royal Court", Lyudmila.
Instead, it was this Little Rabbit beside her who looked harmless to humans and animals.
"Ehe!" This was the foolish rabbit letting out a silly laugh toward Su Yuzu when she heard Unohana Chiyo mention her.
The broken black gear left by that Aberrant at the attack site had been sent to the laboratory for testing.
Black gear?
Su Yuzu frowned.
In private, Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi had once pulled open her collar, revealing the crimson line on the girl's chest that extended from the intersection of her collarbones all the way down to her lower abdomen. Even after returning from the Aberrant state, it had not disappeared; she had told Su Yuzu.
When she fell into the Edge of Aberration... she watched helplessly as a rapidly spinning black gear spiraled into her body from her chest.
Watching the ahoge on that foolish rabbit's head swaying back and forth, Su Yuzu broke out in a cold sweat down her back.
The purpose of that Aberrant was to convert the Little Rabbit into an Aberrant.
In Su Yuzu's heart, a vague and inexplicable premonition had risen.
She recalled the fanatical posture of that "Eye of Insight" cultist man who had been converted into a Chimera Amalgam before his death.
She had a feeling—
That Aberrant... the real target might be herself.
"Nanako has already pulled an all-nighter~"
"I believe the laboratory will make a breakthrough from that gear fragment."
"By the way..." As if suddenly remembering something, Unohana Chiyo added, "That Aberrant girl was actually very wrong."
"Clearly just a Second Sequence Aberrant, but her consciousness was very clear."
Unlike ordinary lower-sequence Aberrants who would be more or less crazy, that Aberrant... her thinking was terribly clear.
From launching the violent attack on Saotome Yukina to leaving the attack site, the whole process didn't even take a minute.
Before Director Saionji Sagara could arrive at the scene, she immediately and cleanly chose to evacuate.
The weirdest thing was... after she finished launching the attack.
The Aberrant's erosion domain and Catastrophe aura disappeared completely from within the academy, as if they had evaporated from the world.
Teachers and students of the Assault Department even searched more than half of the Guanzheng District.
None of them captured any obvious Aberrant aura.
Unohana Chiyo took out her mobile phone and projected the surveillance information from outside the Healing-type girls' dormitory building.
Because of the erosion domain, the surveillance robots of Keigunen Private Academy only captured an extremely blurry shadow within the dark red erosion domain that tore through the night.
But... it was exactly this blurry shadow that made Su Yuzu suddenly look stern.
That slender figure and silhouette, just this morning not long ago, had given her an impression that was nearly 'striking'.
Su Yuzu felt as if her breathing was about to stop.
She suddenly realized—
In the world view of an eroge, a sufficiently glamorous girl might not necessarily be an Operator; she could also be a villain responsible for providing various CGs.
Just like Kujou Katora's sister.
The former Tiger of the Empire, The Empire's First Archer, Kujou Iruka.
Unohana Chiyo saw that the girl's expression was wrong, but before she could ask, the piercing Aberrant invasion alarm sounded from the center of Keigunen Private Academy.
Su Yuzu and Unohana Chiyo looked at each other.
That was... the direction of the laboratory.
________________________________________
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