"Little Chen—upper left, near the fence. Hit it hard."
"Got it, Teacher Bai Ling!"
"Perlica—an angel's closing in. Intercept."
"No problem."
With Bai Ling directing, their advance met virtually no resistance. Even when Riftbreakers and angels tried to block them, the group suffered no losses.
It wasn't until the massive building finally came into view that everyone had the spare bandwidth to slow down and catch their breath.
Ever since Bai Ling joined up with the two little lambs in tow, command of the squad had… subtly shifted.
Nearly every instruction he gave was correct. No misreads. No wasted moves.
At that, Perlica couldn't help feeling as though she was seeing someone else's shadow in him—
Someone who almost never made mistakes. Someone who almost never ran into "problems."
The small robot followed behind the group with little presence, but it never stopped observing Bai Ling.
Because of the Erosion, parts of the Originium Research Institute had already lost power.
During the brief rest window, Bai Ling did what he'd been doing all along—quietly circling, scanning the surroundings.
The area near the institute wasn't badly damaged. There was a lot of Erosion, yes, but after their recent cleanup it had eased considerably. Most facilities were down simply because circuits had been ruined, leaving them unusable.
Step by step, Bai Ling drifted toward a sealed iron door.
The Originium Research Institute had no windows—only that main door, still locked tight.
Then, the next moment—
"…Click."
Something slid.
The floor twisted sharply. The door flipped, and the mechanism swallowed Bai Ling whole.
By the time the others reacted, Bai Ling had already vanished for a while.
"…Huh… what is this?"
Inside a room lit only by a faint glow, Bai Ling stared around in confusion.
He'd apparently triggered some sort of mechanism. Even with the building's unstable power, it still activated—sending him into this bizarre place.
There was no sense of danger, so Bai Ling chose to explore deeper.
The institute seemed half-abandoned. Many internal facilities had aged, degraded, or outright broken.
He swept his gaze over the monitors that were still running. Their displays were nothing but diagnostic readouts and indicators—proof that, at best, someone came by occasionally for minimal maintenance. Barely.
But after only a few steps, Bai Ling ran into a very annoying problem.
Even inside the building, Erosion was present.
He could see the erosion core—
But he had no way to destroy it himself.
Just then, a pink "blob" drifted out from behind him, shot forward with perfect precision, and struck the exact point of the erosion core—instantly dispersing the phenomenon.
"…How did you get in here?"
How to describe the newcomer's look?
Distinctive. Very distinctive.
A very particular little dragon girl…
A flawless, slender waist fully exposed. Pink horns rising from her head. A pink-tipped tail behind her. White, tight-fitting pants…
"I triggered some kind of mechanism. Got sent in."
"…Honestly… how many holes did those people leave behind…?"
With a helpless sigh, the dragon girl made it clear she was unhappy about this situation too.
And the moment she appeared, another pop-up appeared before Bai Ling's eyes:
[Draco — Summonable]
He set that information aside for now. The dragon girl spoke again.
"Come with me. This isn't a good place to talk."
"Alright."
He followed her.
But still—
Bai Ling had to admit it: this dragon girl was… dangerously captivating.
That swaying tail was far too effective at drawing the eye, and if you let your gaze travel just a little higher—
These past few days, living with the two little lambs, he'd already had a few small "incidents" that couldn't quite be described aloud… and yet were strangely, wonderfully memorable.
He'd thought his resistance had improved.
But a brand-new kind of impact was genuinely hard to withstand.
He was only human.
The dragon girl seemed to sense the gaze behind her and reacted slightly—but she didn't comment.
She simply kept leading, clearly intent on getting him out as quickly as possible.
They passed through another lift door. The dragon girl finally began to speak:
"If we go out from here, we'll reach the—"
"…Click."
A subtle sound rose up, accompanied by the already-dim lights flickering.
In the next instant, all the lift doors slammed shut. The doorway that might have been open also sealed tight.
The two of them were completely trapped in a small room.
Silence flooded the space—so complete that only their breathing remained, clearly audible.
This was… not looking great.
Generally speaking, when something like this happens, it's an "accidental coincidence."
And, of course, it happens when you're alone with a beautiful girl.
As that thought crossed Bai Ling's mind, the dim lights died completely.
Darkness swallowed the room. With sight gone, every other sense sharpened in an instant.
The dragon girl was clearly affected too. She instinctively leaned back—and bumped into Bai Ling.
Even through fabric, he could feel the warmth of her body.
His arm lifted reflexively to steady himself, and in the rush his hand closed around something smooth.
Her tail.
In the next heartbeat, that dragon tail moved with a force that didn't allow refusal—coiling around Bai Ling's wrist and snapping it away, making him release his grip.
With his balance support gone, their bodies pressed almost flush.
In the dark, their close breathing became thunderous. He could even make out the faint, rapid thump of her heartbeat.
"…Tch. These systems are really failing… Mm… we should shift positions…"
Her voice sounded right next to him—tight, strained, trying hard to stay composed.
She seemed to attempt to move, but with total darkness and limbs tangled in an awkward knot, her movements turned clumsy and slow—only making the contact feel even more… sticky, unavoidable.
Then—
A pink light-bolt flared and shot!
"BOOM—!"
A deafening blast and a wave of air surged through. Dust billowed.
A gaping hole was blown into the sealed lift door.
Up to this point, there was only one tiny problem—
When bright light poured in and illuminated the room's situation.
Bai Ling's wrist was still tightly bound by that thick dragon tail, pressed to one side of his waist in a restraining posture.
And the dragon girl was practically pinned against his front, one hand braced against the wall beside his ear from the blast's momentum—forming something that looked disturbingly like a full-on "pin against the wall" pose.
Her body went stiff from the sudden light and commotion.
Outside the blasted opening, Eyjafjalla stood frozen, mouth slightly open.
Eldera wore an expression of curious interest.
Behind them, the Administrator's trio—led by Perlica—each had a different expression on their faces.
And the small robot… its lens seemed to flicker twice in rapid succession.
Time seemed to freeze.
Bai Ling felt the tail coiled around his wrist go rigid, then loosen and retract like it had been shocked.
The dragon girl also jerked back half a step, trying to create distance—though the faint blush rising from embarrassment and awkwardness still lingered across her face.
"…Is it still possible to explain this?"
....
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