"Silas, let's go on that one first!" Elysia pointed to the roller coaster not far away.
"Mm, sure." Silas nodded. Since he had already "agreed" to spend the whole day with Elysia, he might as well let her decide everything they did.
While they were waiting in line, Elysia said softly, "Actually, I've always wanted to spend a whole day with you, just the two of us. But… I never got the chance."
Silas thought about it—it did seem to be true.
"I remember you took a vacation with Lilith before, right?" Elysia asked again. "What did you two do back then?"
Silas thought for a moment. "Which vacation are you talking about?"
Elysia: "…"
Wonderful. As expected of Lilith—she's never let me down.
Seeing Elysia's little 'this princess is unhappy' face, Silas felt a laugh coming on. "Well, most of the time, we went on the Ferris wheel. She said the Ferris wheel at sunset is the most romantic."
"Mm… that's exactly what I thought too." Elysia nodded in agreement.
"The first time we went to an amusement park together, she actually had me treat it as practice for courting you," Silas said with a wry smile. "She even prepared a scoring sheet to grade my performance."
"And? How many points did you get?" Elysia could roughly imagine the situation. Maybe, at first, Lilith really didn't like Silas that way, so she kept pushing him to go after her instead. But later, when Lilith started to like him herself, she just… took matters into her own hands.
Besides—since meeting Lilith, Silas hadn't actually pursued her at all!
Ugh… so frustrating!
"Zero," Silas said, tugging at the corner of his mouth before telling her what happened back then.
He still remembered Lilith's utterly dumbfounded face. "You… how on earth did you manage that? I'm standing here—such a beautiful girl—and you're just standing there too, not doing or saying anything?"
He had looked at her with genuine confusion. "Was I supposed to say something?"
Lilith had explained patiently, "Look, the sun's blazing hot right now—shouldn't you at least get me an umbrella or buy me a drink?"
"But I didn't bring an umbrella. And they only sell cold drinks here. Drinking something cold in this heat isn't good for your health…"
"…No wonder you're single!"
"That's where you're wrong," Silas countered seriously. "At the end of the day, I'm still your superior. How could you expect your superior to hold an umbrella for you or buy you a drink? And you're even cursing your superior with such a malicious curse?"
Lilith: "…"
She looked like she was about to have an aneurysm.
Elysia couldn't help bursting into laughter. She could totally imagine how close Lilith had been to losing her mind back then. Honestly, if it had been her, she would have too.
So Silas back then was even more of a blockhead than Kevin?
"Well, I'd never pursued a girl before," Silas admitted with a bitter smile. "Later, Lilith really did teach me quite a lot—like cooking, matching clothes, what to bring when going out…" At least now he knew how to read the mood. Kevin, on the other hand, still hadn't changed one bit.
Elysia: "…"
Thinking of that scene again suddenly left her feeling a little heavy-hearted.
She decided to change the subject. "I remember you went to every team-building event Kevin organized, right? Even though Kevin had already started his whole 'cool and aloof' routine back then, he used to be a sunny, cheerful guy. His team-building events couldn't have been that bad, could they?"
"Mm… We all sat around a table eating noodles." Silas thought for a moment. "After I finished eating, I just left. He didn't say much either. If I had to describe it, I'd say… everyone quietly ate their noodles, with the occasional sentence here or there."
He still remembered how, on the way there, he ran into Eden, who had greeted him a little too warmly and tried to discuss strategies for fighting the Honkai with him. Back then, Eden had just joined Fire Moth and wasn't familiar with much. But when they actually arrived and found the whole group silently eating noodles, even Eden had a hard time keeping a straight face.
Silas had already given Eden a heads-up: "You'd better not have any expectations for this team-building event."
But Eden thought, Kevin is still a prominent figure in Fire Moth—no matter how bad it is, a team-building he organizes can't be that bad, right?
After attending a few times, though, Eden flat-out refused to ever come again.
"Eating… noodles?" Elysia was laughing so hard she could barely straighten up. The image of a group of MANTIS sitting together eating noodles—and Silas just leaving right after finishing—was simply too much.
Silas had originally been thinking about how the Thirteen Fallen Angels had their own get-togethers after each mission. Of course, he never organized them—his only job was to show up and eat.
Most of the time, Lilith was the one in charge. If she was busy, then Astaroth or Rofocale would take over. The overall atmosphere was… decent, he supposed.
Astaroth would always sit quietly in a corner reading a book.
Naamah and Beelzebub—two people who couldn't get drunk no matter how much they drank—would be slamming down drinks and playing drinking games.
Rofocale would chat about "girls' topics" with Mastema, with Lilith occasionally joining in; most of the time, though, Lilith sat beside Silas, chatting about mission details while also teasing him.
Asmodeus would be teaching Sariel how to read and basic table manners.
Belphegor and Adramelech would get into their usual daily debates about things Silas couldn't begin to understand.
Baal and Abaddon would just sit there having staring contests or arm-wrestling, with the loser having to call the winner "dad" for a whole week.
Thinking back on it… life back then was actually pretty nice.
When Elysia finally finished laughing and saw the look on Silas's face, she guessed he was probably thinking about the Thirteen Flame-Chasers' gatherings. Those gatherings had always been a popular topic within Fire Moth—some said they were for discussing and reviewing anti-Honkai battle strategies, others claimed they were for conducting evil rituals, and some thought they were just ordinary meetups.
But Elysia wasn't going to ask. She had no self-destructive tendencies. If Lilith was present, then whatever happened there was definitely something she didn't want to hear about.
"You know, I really wanted to organize a team-building for all Fourteen Flame-Chasers," Elysia said with a hint of regret. "But back then, if I were there, you absolutely wouldn't have come, right?"
"Correct." Silas nodded.
Elysia puffed up her cheeks. "Couldn't you at least be a little more tactful? I'm going to cry, you know!"
Silas narrowed his eyes at her, then gave a mischievous smile. "If you cry, do you want a tissue? This time I brought some with me. Pretty well-prepared, right?"
Elysia: "…"
That look—he definitely did that on purpose!
She decided to ignore him. Hmph!
"Ah, it's our turn… Hello, we're together." Silas showed their tickets to the staff. Elysia, though turning her head away from him in mock annoyance, still very honestly reached over to hold his hand.
Silas: "…"
How to put it… Elysia was much more forward than before, but that only made him feel more guilty.
It was getting harder and harder to imagine what his daily life would be like after Lilith officially joined Fire Moth.
Forget it, forget it—just let it go. Future problems can be left for future Silas to deal with.
Quietly following behind them were Kosma and Dystopia: "…"
Hiss—what is going on here?
Kosma frowned, thinking to himself:
(Yesterday, Silas told me he kissed Lilith… no, wait—back then I was too flustered, but thinking carefully, Silas isn't the type to take the initiative. So, it must've been Lilith who made the move. Still… with him and Elysia acting like this now, isn't it a bit…? Well, it's Elysia, so maybe she came up with some scheme…)
Dystopia, however, was thinking something completely different:
Could it be that Silas actually confessed to Elysia before, and Elysia ran away out of embarrassment? Hiss… if that's the case, then little Pardofelis must be heartbroken. No way—I have to find a way to help little Pardo win Silas back! Before that…
"We should ride the roller coaster again, Kosma!"
Kosma: "!"
No, please, no!!!
But Kosma's objections were useless—Dystopia dragged him over to have their tickets scanned again for another ride.
Neither of them noticed… there were two more people following behind them.
A few minutes earlier.
Kevin and Su had just gotten off the Ferris wheel. Kevin was jotting notes in his notebook, muttering to himself:
"As I thought, I'm still not very good at these theoretical operations. I'll have to call Silas over to do some on-site scouting with me later… Hm?"
Kevin spotted a pink-haired girl pulling along a boy who looked visibly helpless, and right after that, a blonde girl ran past with a boy wearing a look of utter exasperation.
Kevin: "???"
The first pair is Elysia and Silas, right? Could it be that after thinking it over all night, Elysia has decided to go all in and just… force the issue?
No way—he couldn't just sit back and let that happen! With Lilith not here, he had to keep an eye on Silas for her!
"Su, we're following them!" Kevin didn't hesitate—he took off running.
Su, just coming out of his own daze, saw Dystopia dragging Kosma away and thought Kevin's attention had finally shifted from Silas's love life to Kosma's love life.
He quietly sighed in relief—at least there were no issues with Kosma's pairing, so there was no danger of Kevin waking up one day as Kevina.
So he immediately followed after Kevin.
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