Looking back on his work and daily life since transmigrating, Li Lin felt he'd done a decent job.
When it came time to pick his destination, he'd managed—out of all the Terras available—to select Arknights' Terra with impressive accuracy. He'd dodged the draft, avoided whatever "apostles" were supposed to be summoning people, and somehow arrived alive, memories intact, in a prosperous mobile city: Lungmen.
He worked hard to make a life here. Thanks to a bit of "foreknowledge"—mostly just good luck—he rented a place, leveraged assorted little tricks and bits of knowledge, took a few bold risks, and scraped together enough money to get by.
Best of all, he'd successfully latched onto a famous organization—famous, at least, among players: Penguin Logistics.
He clung to that leg and refused to let go. He wasn't breaking any laws, he got to chat with beautiful girls, and overall everything was going smoothly.
And yet, there was one thing Li Lin was deeply unhappy about.
Or rather—he was starting to notice something terrifying.
"All right, Exusiai—look. I've been here for a while now, and there's something I've been thinking about."
Across from him sat his roommate, wearing nothing but a tank top and hot pants, sprawled on a lounger. She licked a popsicle and blinked up at him, watching with open curiosity. Li Lin chose his words carefully before voicing his conclusion.
"I keep wondering… no, it's not 'keep' anymore. For the last few days, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I'm starting to suspect I'm the only one who still has any libido at all—and everyone else has lost it."
"…Huh? Is that so? Why are you suddenly telling me this?"
"Because you're the closest person to me. And honestly, I'm curious. More accurately—this thought has been bottling up, and I can't hold it in anymore."
Exusiai—a pale red–haired girl who clearly didn't find any of this strange—took a bite of her popsicle. Li Lin let out a long sigh.
Before he'd transmigrated, people used to joke that hardly anyone on Terra had any sex drive. But a joke was still a joke. When he first arrived, Li Lin still appreciated beautiful girls—he even went out of his way to talk to them, to ingratiate himself a little.
After all, he already knew their personalities and preferences. It wasn't like rolling a blind "goddess gacha." If you treated someone well, they genuinely treated you well in return. Compared to his old life, that was a massive upgrade.
But over time—over these past two months—Li Lin began to realize something was… off.
It wasn't that people had no sense of boundaries between men and women, or that shame had vanished entirely. It was more that, when it came to that side of things, Terrans seemed to be… lacking.
What frightened him most was the moment he realized he'd been partially assimilated.
Two full months on Terra. He'd established himself, found normal work and a normal routine, and even developed fairly close relationships with plenty of beautiful girls—yet somehow, not once had he seriously thought about dating, or doing any of the things adults usually do.
There was no more horrifying discovery than that.
"This is too weird. Lemuel—how long have we known each other?"
"Hmm… two months?"
"Right. We've been living together for two months. A man and a woman, sharing a place, constantly in each other's space. This apartment is thirty square meters—there's barely such a thing as privacy…"
He fixed his gaze on her.
"So tell me—has anything happened between us?"
"That only proves we're close," she said. "And that we've been… careful."
Exusiai wore a smile so pure it could have belonged to a child.
Adorable from every angle. Still not the point.
"Close? You didn't even know my name until two weeks ago. And I don't think 'careful' includes tossing our underwear together into the downstairs washing machine. To be honest, I'm repressed every single day… but that's not the key issue."
With Exusiai still smiling at him, Li Lin laid out his real interrogation, dead serious.
"Here's the point: in the past month, around this shared apartment, have you seen anything… indecent? I mean between men and women. You know what I mean. Right around where we live—heck, it doesn't even have to be happening in real life. An ad would count. Have you seen anything?"
"Huh? No," she said. "I actually think it's pretty nice. Everyone's great—warm, and never boring."
"And that," Li Lin said, "is exactly the problem, Miss Exusiai."
"What problem?"
"This is the border between the slums and the city proper!"
He gestured toward the view outside their cramped rental.
Endless tightly packed buildings and steel structures stretched out like a hive, densely housing Lungmen's largest population.
People living here—if they didn't have a record, they at least had tattoos or markings. Lungmen's shadow spread through these streets; even someone as honest as Li Lin tended to keep his head down and avoid looking too closely into certain dark corners.
"This is a high-risk crime zone! Gangs, the infected, marginalized groups, people one step away from crime—everywhere you look. You could have some bizarre large-scale sacrificial incident happen here and it wouldn't even be surprising! But aside from the gangs that come knocking—have you seen any star-crossed lovers, or… well. You know. That sort of profession. Have you seen it?"
"Um… no?"
"That's the problem."
Li Lin sank back into his chair and spoke with heavy earnestness.
"This is an anomaly, Exusiai. A very serious anomaly."
"Where's the anomaly?"
"Everywhere! The fact that we're even talking about this is abnormal—do you understand? Under normal circumstances between a man and a woman, you'd be screaming right now, or thinking I'm a creep, reporting me to get me arrested, or just staying far away from me. That's what would be normal. But here we are having this conversation, and that alone is wrong."
"Mm… Li Lin, do you want me to do that? Report you and all that?"
"Of course not!"
"Then I didn't."
"I—yes, I want that, but it shouldn't be like this!"
"?"
"…I'm going to go talk to Texas."
Exusiai stared at him with wide, innocent eyes. Li Lin rubbed his brow, stood, and grabbed his coat.
"She's from Siracusa—she should understand this better. Maybe it's a problem with perception. Yours, or the area around Lungmen, or the whole world… but something is definitely not right."
"Have a safe trip~ Can you bring me dessert on the way back?"
"Melon mini-cakes or maple cookies—what do you want?"
"Apple pie!"
"Then crown egg tarts. I like those. If you hear someone knocking, set the booby traps and put them in place. I won't knock."
"Bye-bye~"
Li Lin waved and left, closing the door behind him.
Still holding her popsicle between her teeth, Exusiai casually opened her communicator and pressed the most familiar button.
Not long after, over the steady hum of the fan, a cool, detached female voice came through.
"…Who."
"Texas?"
"…Yeah."
"Li Lin's coming to see you. And lately he seems kind of… repressed?"
"...Huh?"
Even through the communicator, the cool voice was unmistakably confused.
-------
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