No more, no less; after killing ten of the most lively Walking Husks, Su Yuzu retreated to the rear and began to slack off.
Players, you see~ They are always like this. It is common practice to run away immediately after completing a mission. In the game, one might initially be moved to tears by the tragic heroism of the Night Outpost. But after grinding it a few times, one learns the speedrun route that skips the outpost supplies entirely.
Of course—reality is different from the game. The fundamental reason Su Yuzu could nestle in the rear and slack off was that they had the defender's advantage. Barring any accidents, that group of Walking Husks had absolutely no chance of breaching this fortress's defense line.
On the platform, Su Yuzu looked at Sylvia, who was biting a chocolate Pocky stick with a silly expression while looking back at her.
"What is it?" Su Yuzu took her hat back from Sylvia's hand.
Crack—
The girl subconsciously bit off the chocolate Pocky stick in her mouth, then clamped onto it again. The young girl before her was excessively dashing. Those beautiful crimson eyes seemed as if they could speak. As Soga Yuzu walked over like this, Sylvia could even smell the faint citrus fragrance on the girl.
It wasn't perfume. It was more like a complex scent mixed from body wash, shampoo, and the girl's own natural body fragrance.
Sylvia had heard that a good perfume should have top notes, middle notes, and base notes. As a researcher and an 'iron-straight woman,' Sylvia once found it hard to understand such things. But now... smelling that fragrance wafting to her nose, Sylvia suddenly felt she could understand.
If there were a ranking for perfumes, the one named "Soga Yuzu" would definitely be at the top of the list.
"No... nothing." Sylvia retracted her gaze from Su Yuzu.
'Miss Profiteer' crunched and crunched, biting the biscuit stick to pieces. "It's just that I haven't seen so many Walking Husks in a long time."
Su Yuzu lowered her gaze to look at the corpses gradually piling up beneath the city wall. She knew that this group of Walking Husks had come for her. Her joining Kujou Katora's convoy had not brought safety to Kujou Katora. Instead... it brought more danger.
However—Su Yuzu also recalled another matter. Details regarding the interception of the World Boss. Among them was a very important side quest called "The Girl with the Broken Song".
After completing that mission, the player would obtain a damaged music box. A... special 'Holy Relic'. Using that music box in the decisive battle against Kujou Iruka could significantly reduce Kujou Iruka's power.
And the location where that music box was obtained... was precisely a new grave by the side of Lake Kasumigaura.
"Those Walking Husks aren't quite right." Sylvia looked at the Walking Husks surging out of the forest, their numbers dwindling.
"How so?" Su Yuzu followed the girl's line of sight.
Sylvia's gaze brushed past Su Yuzu's face. Had anyone ever told the young girl before her that she shouldn't get so close to others? She was so dazzling... it made people feel as if she were glowing.
"There are women among those Walking Husks. And young women at that."
Although those Walking Husks leaping like jumping spiders were rugged and skeletal, with Sylvia's keen, profiteer-like eyes, she could still quickly capture the anomalies in their skeletal frames.
Su Yuzu understood Sylvia's meaning. Under normal circumstances, young women should not be converted into Walking Husks. They should have become Aberrants.
But... Su Yuzu also understood the true source of those Walking Husks. She stared at the forest.
In the forest... a pair of dark golden vertical pupils flashed rapidly and vanished from Su Yuzu's field of vision.
Those Walking Husks... were Zero's 'sisters'.
Zero had once said that after her, that laboratory had conducted a series of experiments. But... Zero's existence was like a coincidental gift from the heavens. Zero's human factors and the power of the Abyss had reached a perfect balance.
As for her sisters, most were consumed by the human factors within their bodies, ultimately failing to convert into Aberrants. Drained of the last bit of vitality by the Catastrophe aura of the Abyss, they turned into skeletons whose lives had long since withered.
This was indeed not the place where Zero was created. There was another laboratory, another dungeon hidden elsewhere by the lake.
*
Even though they encountered an attack by Walking Husks at night, the next day's travel plan remained unaffected. They had already been delayed by a day. Perhaps those Walking Husks were pawns sent by that laboratory to slow their pace.
By the time they rushed to that laboratory, they would likely only see an empty house. All the researchers would have already evacuated.
However... Hayabusa still knocked on Su Yuzu's door. She looked at the young girl before her, who revealed a sleepy-eyed appearance. The lines of the girl's body, clad in a sheer nightgown, appeared hazy and graceful in the morning's dim light.
Hayabusa guaranteed it: If Lady Kujou saw her standing in front of Miss Yuzu looking like this... she probably shouldn't even think about next year's salary.
Hayabusa had come to persuade Miss Yuzu to stay in this experimental park. The fortress here was sturdy enough. Even in the event of a large-scale Catastrophe invasion, it could resist for a considerable time. Miss Yuzu could completely wait here for them to complete the mission and come back to pick her up.
Or... wait for them to die.
She had witnessed Miss Yuzu's strength last night. She knew that with Miss Yuzu's assistance, the journey ahead would certainly be much smoother. But she also knew... Miss Yuzu and her group were ultimately different.
Miss Yuzu was the ray of light at dawn, while her group were merely evil spirits in hell. She herself... including Lady Kujou, had long been prepared for death. But Miss Yuzu was different. Her future was bright.
"Miss Yuzu has already seen the rotten... filthy appearance of those Walking Husks, right?"
"In the journey ahead, we will no longer have a place to rest. There will be no hot water and no soft single beds. Once splattered by that rotten blood, you will have to spend ten or twenty days carrying that stench that is hard to wash away. Perhaps... you will be accompanied by that stench until death."
Faced with Miss Hayabusa's persuasion, Su Yuzu merely lifted her left leg. The lines of the girl's thigh were fair, appearing even crystalline in the morning sunlight.
Gulp—
Hayabusa subconsciously swallowed her saliva. Her gaze, lingering on the girl's thigh, fled in panic, looking towards the stairwell. She was terrified her boss would suddenly appear and solemnly declare, 'Your salary for the month after next is gone.'
"Look—" Su Yuzu showed Miss Hayabusa the silver chain tied to her left ankle.
"This is a Holy Relic, 'Immaculate Pure Land'. Its passive effect is to expel filth from the holder's body."
Miss Hayabusa looked at the girl wearing a nightgown, smiling and tilting her cute foot for her to see, and suddenly felt a headache coming on. A Holy Relic... That wasn't something a wage earner of her class could consider.
"Miss Hayabusa, you don't need to admonish me... Before setting out, I had already made all preparations," Su Yuzu said very earnestly, her speaking speed slow. Hayabusa could feel the girl's resolute determination.
"Alright..." She nodded helplessly. She officially declared the twenty-third attempt to persuade Miss Yuzu to stay in a safe place a failure.
"By the way—" Instead, Su Yuzu tilted her head, looking at Miss Hayabusa before her.
"Hmm?"
"Does Miss Hayabusa know about Senior Kujou's past? Did Senior Kujou have anything she liked? For example, singing~ or drawing, things like that."
Hayabusa's expression froze for a moment.
"Singing? I seem to have heard that Lady Kujou used to sing very well. At that time, some even said Lady Kujou would become a sound-type Esper. What's wrong? Miss Yuzu."
Hayabusa watched as the young girl before her gently bit her lip.
"No... nothing."
"The Girl with the Broken Song"... Su Yuzu seemed to see the past of that side quest. A woman in a black suit stood solemnly by the side of Lake Kasumigaura. Her expression was solemn, as if she were presiding over a funeral.
Behind her were orderly rows of burly men. Those usually iron-blooded men looked as if they were on the verge of tears, holding white roses in their hands. They were attending a burial.
That scene became increasingly clear in front of Su Yuzu. Finally... the woman wearing the crisp black suit emerged from the image, and that face overlapped with Hayabusa's face before her.
That was Kujou Katora's funeral.
The damaged music box was not some Holy Relic designed to target Kujou Iruka. It was the grief and repentance of an older sister who accidentally fell into the Abyss towards her younger sister.
"There is no need for Miss Hayabusa to persuade me."
"I said it before... I have a reason I must move forward."
Now, there was one more reason.
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