Post-Mortem

The world is a garden with diverging paths, where conspiracies and endless time are intertwined. Before making a choice at the fork in the road, no one can see the scenery ahead.

Only after stepping onto the path they've chosen does time become fixed. And you'll never have the chance to know if the choice you made was right or wrong, or if your choice is someone else's trap.

"You seem very happy?" Looking at Himeko, who was sitting on the sofa with a smile, teasing the cat, Ren's expression was a little dark. Did this woman find his misfortune amusing?

"How could I be~ I'm clearly smiling because I've seen my students again after a long time. If you don't believe me, look into my eyes. It's sincere, you know~" Perhaps Ren's harmless appearance gave Himeko some courage.

Even though her injuries hadn't healed yet, she had already learned to tease a pure, young boy. She leaned closer to Ren, her large, watery eyes looking at him. Ren could even feel her breath on his face.

Expressionlessly raising his hand and pressing it against Himeko's face, forcefully pushing her back onto the sofa, Ren didn't give her any leeway. "You better be aware of your position as a puppet. Maintain some distance, and honestly do what you're supposed to do. You've already experienced the punishment of Dominance. I don't want to repeat it."

"Tch." Clicking her tongue in a bored manner, Himeko, though she acted like she didn't care, couldn't help but reveal a hint of fear upon recalling the soul-piercing pain she had experienced before, and she obediently kept her distance.

After last night's series of events, both the [Himeko] and [Kalpas] puppets, the two bodies with the highest combat power, had suffered serious injuries. It would probably take a long time for them to recover their fighting strength.

Currently, Himeko was using her original body, with bandages wrapped almost all over her body, looking like a mummy. However, it was only a comforting effect. The damage caused by the Dominance threads was to the soul. Even though Ren had tried his best to help her recover, healing wouldn't be so easy.

The quiet Himeko held Taxue in her arms, gently stroking its fur and teasing its cat ears. The two of them remained silent. After a few minutes, unable to endure the silence, she raised her head and looked at Ren, who was frowning at the desk, and asked with some confusion, "What's wrong? If it's just about not getting the Humanoid Machine, is there any need to be this tense?"

Hearing her voice, Ren glanced at her and handed her the document he was reading, "I thought you would be a little smarter."

"Hey, I used to be a top student at a prestigious university, you know? Are you trying to insult me?" Himeko casually took the document from Ren, propping it on the cat's head as she read it slowly. But after just reading part of it, her brow furrowed. The more she read, the worse her expression became.

"Is this thing real?" With an incredulous look on her face, Himeko ignored the cat and kept flipping through the documents, confirming that she wasn't mistaken.

"What do you think?" Ren asked back.

"No matter how I look at it, using the entire population of the city as test subjects is too crazy. No one with a sane mind would make such a choice." Himeko shook her head repeatedly.

She wasn't disbelieving the document's authenticity, but she fundamentally believed that such a thing was impossible. "If something happened to millions of people, it would definitely be noticed immediately. Neither Schicksal nor Shenzhou would allow something like this to happen."

"…"

Ren's silence made Himeko's heart sink. This guy was a Herrscher who wasn't good at lying. And now, not even offering any rebuttals to her doubts, it was likely that the contents of the document were true. And that meant that the organization called World Serpent was really planning to use the entire ARC City as a testing ground.

"By the way, your good students are also about to run into some trouble." Taking the document back, Ren swiped his hand. The space passage connecting to the Dominance Theater opened. After throwing the document in, he continued, "Have you ever wondered why I gave up on the Humanoid Machine last night?"

"Could it be because you couldn't win? Even your puppet was killed by Kiana…"

"Ahem." Ren's face flushed slightly, and he quickly cleared his throat, interrupting her. "That was just an accident. Even if she hadn't shown up, it wouldn't be that easy to get the Humanoid Machine. That thing is bait that World Serpent released. It's not easy to eat it."

"But you crashed and burned."

"I told you that thing was bait. You can't touch it carelessly."

Himeko glanced at Ren, moving Taxue's paw back and forth. "But you crashed and burned."

"Meow~"

"Look, even Taxue said so. Won't you admit that you crashed and burned?" The cat's cooperation made Himeko happy. Of course, Taxue just looked at her blankly, 'What does this have to do with me? I'm just a little kitty that doesn't understand human language.'

"Okay~ fine, so I crashed and burned." Sighing somewhat wearily, Ren decided not to argue with Himeko. "That thing had a virus file planted in it by Gray Serpent. If your students are smart enough, they shouldn't try to crack it themselves. Otherwise, they might already be in a complete mess."

Hearing Ren's words, a worried look appeared on Himeko's face. Although she had confidence in her students, based on Ren's document, World Serpent was a completely insane organization. It was hard to imagine what they would do with the Humanoid Machine, and what their objectives were also unknown.

Unfortunately, worrying was useless. Himeko was currently restricted to the Herrscher of Dominance, and she was unable to help even if she wanted to.

"Oh right, since you used the Gem of Haste's power last night, you should have obtained the item, right?" After last night's multi-tasking, Ren was a bit weary, and didn't pay much attention to Himeko's side. He only issued the order to retrieve Gray Serpent's prosthetic eye, but didn't know if she was successful.

"Tch, you send an A-rank to fight an S-rank Valkyrie from Schicksal. Even a puppet should have some human rights, you know?" Himeko grumbled, drawing back from her worry about her students. But her tone quickly changed, a mocking expression appearing on her face, "But that arrogant fellow probably never expected to be defeated by an A-rank subordinate, would they?"

Taking out a grey mechanical orb from her pocket, this was the prosthetic eye that Gray Serpent used to control the Humanoid Machine. After killing Gray Serpent, Rita had taken the prosthetic eye, but that thing was only equivalent to a key.

The real information was kept in Gray Serpent's base, and unless it was sorted, it couldn't be read effectively. That's why she had set up a trap to have Theresa and the others search for the Humanoid Machine, while she only needed to wait for her prey.

However, she had indeed waited for a rabbit, but the rabbit had come with Ren, the vulture, as well.

"So, you killed her?"

"You're overthinking it. No matter how badly they crashed, they're still S-rank. A skinny camel is still bigger than a horse. Besides, some guy who also crashed was waiting for me to rescue him."

So mean.