Though the two of them, currently locked in a face-off and steeped in extreme awkwardness, dared not make a sound,
Bronya, with her high IQ, naturally had plenty of ways to communicate without uttering a word!
But considering she had to make even the dummy Kiana understand, Bronya had to opt for a rather simple and blunt method.
Gently, quietly, she pulled out her Homu-themed smartphone, which had long been set to silent mode. For a moment, Bronya stared distractedly at the adorable photo of Seele she had set as her wallpaper.
Silently offering a reverent prayer—'Praise Seele'—in her heart, she then leisurely opened a new blank memo, using a Homu-themed letter as the background.
With lightning-fast typing speed, she tapped out what she wanted to say, displaying the words on her phone screen.
All the while, Bronya's expression remained unchanged, yet for some reason, Kiana suddenly sensed a devilish, sinister grin lurking beneath her calm façade.
It even gave Kiana a sudden, very bad premonition!
And when Bronya calmly held up her phone to show Kiana the typed message...
Kiana finally understood exactly what her bad feeling had been warning her about!
Because there on Bronya's memo app was written the following:
"Idiot Kiana, all those lewd things you said to Seele earlier have been recorded by Bronya and uploaded to my private cloud for backup."
"Surely Idiot Kiana wouldn't want Mei to find out you've been sneaking behind her back, saying such indecent things to Seele, right?"
After reading Bronya's message, Kiana's eyes widened in shock, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
You... what kind of conniving duck are you?!
Cut it out—stop messing around—right now!
Kiana nearly lunged forward on the spot, itching to snatch Bronya's Homu phone and physically destroy the evidence Bronya had secretly recorded.
But Mei was sitting right there by Seele's bedside!
If Kiana really started a scuffle with Bronya under this cramped bed, unless Mei was deaf and blind, any normal person would realize someone was hiding under Lunelle's hospital bed, right?
Besides, Bronya had stressed that the evidence was already uploaded to her private cloud.
Which meant even if Kiana destroyed Bronya's Homu phone on the spot, it wouldn't solve the root problem.
Unless Kiana had the means to silence Bronya for good!
But at this stage, Kiana wasn't even a Valkyrie yet. Relying solely on herself to defeat Bronya—who still held the top spot among the three main fighters—was more than a little unrealistic, to say the least.
After all, Armored Bunny was still pretty strong in the early stages of the story!
So now, since she couldn't win a fight and lacked the ability to silence Bronya physically, the only choice left for Kiana was clearly: "Get Bronya to willingly keep her secret."
Because even a dummy like Kiana's shifting emotions were easy to read just from her expression, Bronya quickly saw that the mere dummy Kiana was already firmly under her thumb.
At that moment, a smug grin of 'mission accomplished' flickered silently in Bronya's mind.
'Just a dummy like Kiana—so easy for Bronya to handle.'
Actually, if Kiana could calm down and think it through, she'd probably realize that Bronya showing up under Lunelle's bed ahead of time couldn't possibly be without its own shady reasons.
But with so many unexpected things happening to Kiana in such a short time, her not-so-bright brain was struggling to keep up.
That gave Bronya the chance to strike first and get the upper hand, leaving the poor bug completely cornered.
And just as Bronya had guessed, Kiana was now genuinely worried that her impulsive, indecent comments toward the utterly adorable Seele might reach Mei's ears.
After all, back when Kiana was completely captivated by Seele's beauty, she hadn't felt anything particularly strange.
But now, looking back on what she'd said at the time, even Kiana herself could hardly believe she'd been so infatuated with Seele's charm that she'd blurted out all those embarrassing, lewd things!
'I mean... I might have just a tiny bit of a craving for beautiful girls' charms, but... but normally, I only secretly admire Mei and Seele in my heart. I'd never dare say such things out loud!'
And Kiana could roughly imagine that if this got out, she'd be socially ruined!
Especially if it were exposed in front of Seele and Mei, the two girls she had her eyes on...
'Argh!!!! Why did I say such perverted, indecent things, and of all people, why did that brat Bronya have to record it?!'
To be honest, even when facing Mei, whom she considered her number one, Kiana had never lost her composure so badly just from admiring her charms.
But with Seele, this wasn't the first time Kiana had been so overwhelmed by Seele's cuteness that she couldn't resist wanting to do something to her!
And just moments ago, Kiana had actually gone ahead and acted on it—unprecedented!
Reflecting on her overly bold behavior, Kiana now felt utterly bewildered and confused.
She'd even carelessly given away her first kiss to Lunelle, yet in her current state of mental chaos, she hadn't even fully registered it...
Kiana was starting to wonder if there was another, extremely perverted version of herself inside her head, one obsessed with Seele's charms.
But it must be said, someone like Kiana—an officially certified lucky charm with incredible fortune—might just have stumbled upon the truth with this sudden hunch.
Even if it sounded like Kiana was just making up a clumsy excuse for her perverted behavior, what if that seemingly flimsy excuse...actually held some truth to it?
Seeing the dummy Kiana had practically broken herself, Bronya leisurely began typing out some possibly exploitable, unequal terms aimed squarely at the bug.
After all, strike while the enemy is already down!
Among them was a clause forbidding any disclosure that Bronya had been in Seele's hospital room.
Of course, Bronya would have loved to seize this chance to demand that dummy Kiana keep a certain distance from her precious little sister Seele and such...
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.