I decided to let Ribbon have some freedom for a while.
"You're not going to tell me to do something?"
"I'll call you when I find Fresh Girl," I said.
"Promise, okay? Rikku-kun."
As I left the hideout apartment, Ribbon gave me a light kiss and slipped back into the room. Her face was bright red. She was clearly trying to lower my guard — pretending to be obedient while fully planning to betray me at any moment.
──The training is proceeding successfully.
No way.
──I am detecting the heartbeat of a girl in love.
There's no such thing as a girl who falls in love after being raped.
──Riku-sama, being dense doesn't make you popular.
Shut up. Be quiet.
Either way, dragging Ribbon around while searching for Fresh Girl's identity wasn't realistic. Devil Gal was essentially an acquaintance. There were settings that made it possible to claim they were different people — eye color changing after transformation, fingerprints disappearing, voice recordings having static — but if two beautiful girls with almost identical faces were seen acting like a couple, what would happen? The kind-hearted heroine of justice might start investigating to make sure the pitiful enemy girl was happy.
The first thing I learned from watching the anime was her personality.
Niino Mina, the protagonist, threw herself into incidents more proactively than I expected. Since the concept of justice in her world was based on making children eat vegetables, she had zero hesitation about forcing things on people.
"It's such a waste to hate something like that!"
That was her catchphrase.
In a normal battle between good and evil, you'd need some sense of balance like "Is this really justice?", but because there was no downside to eating vegetables (thanks to sponsor convenience), it created a relentlessly positive and philanthropic character.
That's why an evil organization would be in serious danger if she found them.
She would probably charge in without any hesitation. And she wasn't weak. Even without her giant final form, Fresh Girl's winning pattern was to come up with new powers based on various vegetables and turn the tables. The setting that revealing her identity would cause her to lose her power was used to create tension and make viewers anxious with her innocent, reckless, and impulsive actions.
The fact that her identity wasn't revealed until the final episode was just a lucky outcome.
That was the kind of hero she was.
"So you reached the same conclusion as me, No. 072."
"!?"
I could see the rooftop of the building with the hamburger shop. I climbed the nearby radio tower using my modified human physical abilities and found Jun-san already waiting there. She was wearing black, mechanical-looking armor, with her mask half-open so I could see her face.
"Um…"
"Tenkou Shinsou."
Jun said.
"Huh?"
Was that the name of the armor?
"You can call me Enhance."
It was her codename to hide her identity.
"…Ah, yes. Enhance-sama."
Was that the right way to address her?
As a combatant?
"Mm."
She nodded in satisfaction.
"No. 072. You're investigating Fresh Girl's true identity, aren't you? We at S.H.O.T.E.N. have already confirmed that she uses that rooftop like a perch. You've gotten quite used to your new body in just two days. Very impressive."
"Thank you."
"I thought you might be the type who wouldn't fit into an evil organization, but you're thinking and acting quite well. She is strong, but if we expose her identity, she'll lose her power. That makes her the perfect target to declare war on H.E.R.O.S."
"Expose her identity and then challenge her to a fight?"
"Ah, I hadn't told you our goal yet."
"..."
I nodded.
I thought she should have mentioned that first, but I stayed quiet. For people who came from another dimension, it might have been so obvious that they didn't feel the need to explain it again.
"Our first goal is to capture the heroes from our worlds and stabilize their existence in this one. After that, we will use the heroes' power to conquer the world."
"…I see."
So they really were aiming for world domination.
"You're not surprised?"
She seemed to expect a bigger reaction.
"No, well… On the day I woke up after being modified, Fresh Girl found me and we fought. The AI you installed in my head called Devil Gal as backup. I overheard their conversation, so I roughly understood the situation."
I made an excuse.
I couldn't exactly say that world conquest sounded ridiculously unrealistic. She had probably been given that goal as part of her setting. Still, I didn't think there were many heroes who could be defeated with just mecha and modification technology.
"I see. Devil Gal wants to return to her original world, so her goal is the opposite of ours, but she understood the mechanism. You deduced and understood from there. You're using your intelligence quite effectively."
She kept praising me.
She seemed to have modified people without much regard for their will, so maybe previous modified humans hadn't moved as expected. This was probably her evaluation that I was surprisingly obedient and useful. Still far from being treated like a lover.
"So the plan is to expose Fresh Girl's identity, who belongs to H.E.R.O.S. along with heroes from Enhance-sama's world, and use that to draw them out."
That was the summary, right?
S.H.O.T.E.N. only operated in the New Koiwa area and hadn't caused major damage on the surface, so they weren't a high-priority target for H.E.R.O.S., the mutual aid organization of materialized heroes. But if they acted carelessly, they could easily be defeated.
There must be a proper strategy.
"No, we don't know where 'it' is."
Jun muttered.
"It…? What's its name…"
"It has no name. It is simply 'it'. No. 072, you probably think world conquest is impossible for us, but our chance of victory lies in the extremely low recognition of the works we came from."
"Low recognition usually means they're considered weak," I said, stating the common view.
"Yes, we are weak."
Jun admitted it outright.
"However, conquest is not determined by strength alone."
Her ambition was burning brightly.
Strong determination. And that huge ass.
Even through the Tenkou Shinsou armor that hid most of her body, my dick reacted to it. Even though I was probably just a disposable modified human, I still liked her. A painful feeling welled up inside me.