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Chapter 59: The Art of Language
After breakfast, Suyan led Busujima Saeko to the garage, approaching the exact same motorcycle they had used the night before.
He patted the leather passenger seat and gestured to the purple-haired girl. "Hop on."
"Are we taking the bike out?" Busujima Saeko asked, a bit confused by his decision.
"Have you forgotten about the school last night?"
Suyan wasn't annoyed by her question. He gently tapped her forehead with his index finger. "These zombies aren't like monsters in a video game; they don't just turn into data and vanish when they die."
"If we just keep killing them right outside the front door, the sheer number of corpses will start piling up. Not only will they block the roads and make it impossible to travel, but the stench of decay will eventually become unbearable. If we let that happen, we'll be forced to abandon this house and find somewhere else to live."
"You don't want to live in a place reeking of rotting corpses, do you?"
"That makes sense." Busujima Saeko nodded.
Following Suyan's logic, her mind flashed back to the previous night. She had slaughtered so many zombies that their bodies had literally formed mountains, leaving them with no place to even step. As a result, they had been forced to constantly shift the battlefield just to keep fighting.
Thinking deeper, she realized that a massive pile of rotting corpses wouldn't just smell bad—it would inevitably breed disease and trigger plagues.
However, because she had collapsed from exhaustion immediately after their private "battle," she had no idea what had happened afterward or how she had even gotten home.
Now that Suyan mentioned it, a thought occurred to her. She looked at him with a hint of concern. "Suyan-kouhai, did you find a way to dispose of the bodies at the school last night?"
"Of course," Suyan replied.
She didn't need to remind him. Corpse disposal to prevent plagues was standard practice even in ancient times.
Before leaving the academy last night, he had used his Transmutation Nen to alter the properties of his aura into fire, and torched the entire school—and the mountains of corpses within it.
The resulting stench had been absolutely mind-numbing. It was so bad that even the normally slow-moving Marikawa Shizuka had picked up her pace to escape the academy grounds faster.
In a way, burning the school down had inadvertently fulfilled his childhood dream of bringing a satchel of explosives to school and blowing it up.
However, since he wasn't very proficient in Transmutation, the fire he produced was just ordinary fire. It wasn't the kind of conceptual, all-incinerating blaze commonly found in higher-tier anime worlds. Without highly flammable accelerants like gasoline, and unwilling to waste too much of his Nen reserves, the most he could do was generate enough intense heat to burn away any potential viral strains or plagues.
As for whether any new complications might arise from the ashes? His hands were tied.
At least he had done everything within his power.
With her worries alleviated, Busujima Saeko relaxed completely. She climbed onto the bike and settled in behind Suyan.
Without needing to be told, she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and pressed herself forward, molding her upper body against his back as if trying to fuse herself into him.
Resting her head against his shoulder, she felt the comforting warmth radiating from his body. She greedily inhaled his scent, suddenly feeling a surge of emotion. "Come to think of it, we've been living together for over half a month, but this is the first time my junior has taken me out for a joyride."
"A joyride?" Suyan chuckled.
So that's how she was interpreting this?
Well, it made sense. Compared to the logistical tasks he had assigned the others, 'killing zombies' really was the perfect assignment for Busujima Saeko. It essentially turned her hobby into an assignment.
And with Suyan accompanying her the entire way, the travel time naturally felt like a romantic drive to her.
Understanding her perspective, Suyan said, "In that case, we'll have opportunities to go for joyrides like this almost every single day. Does that make you even happier, Saeko-senpai?"
"Yes," she replied sweetly in her heart.
Suyan didn't say anything more. He quietly started the iron beast beneath them.
The engine roared to life with a deafening growl, yet the pitch-black motorcycle crept forward at a painfully slow, crawling pace, completely contradicting its aggressive sound.
Seeing this, Busujima Saeko mistakenly assumed Suyan was driving slowly on purpose so she could enjoy the scenery and the gentle morning breeze. Her heart fluttered with even more joy.
However, thinking of the others waiting back at the house, she suppressed her own desires and softly advised, "Suyan-kouhai, you don't have to do this."
"We have a long future ahead of us. You don't need to focus on just this one moment."
"You can drive faster. If we get out there quickly, we can finish up and head home earlier."
While she felt a tiny pang of loss at not being able to monopolize this perfect man forever, she was already deeply satisfied with her current situation. To her, this was enough. If she asked for more, a strange sense of guilt would begin to creep into her heart.
"Huh?"
Suyan's mindset simply wasn't as delicate as a young girl's. For a moment, he couldn't grasp how she had arrived at this sentimental conclusion based on his actions.
He opened his mouth, unsure of what to say.
His actual goal was to use the deafening roar of the motorcycle engine to aggro all the zombies in the vicinity. He wanted to slowly kite the entire horde far away from their neighborhood before wiping them out, drastically increasing the safety perimeter around their base. That way, they wouldn't open their front door one day and get face-hugged by a random stray zombie.
As for why he was driving so slowly? Wasn't that obvious? If he drove too fast, the zombies would lose aggro and fall behind. How was he supposed to clear them out then?
But now that Busujima Saeko had said all that, telling her the truth would just shatter the romantic atmosphere and leave her disappointed. That was a terrible move.
Suyan thought for a second, reorganizing his words. "It's fine. We might as well make some noise, draw all the nearby zombies out, and take them down together. That way, it'll be much safer whenever we leave the house in the future."
This was the art of framing.
Expressing the exact same intent using a different sequence and phrasing could completely change how it was received.
For example, saying "I want to take you to bed" sounds incredibly vulgar. But changing it to "I want to wake up next to you" instantly makes the sentiment romantic and profound. And if you change it again to "I want the first thing I see when I open my eyes to be you," it becomes downright poetic.
By the same logic, if Suyan bluntly stated that his primary goal was pest control and that she could view it as a scenic drive if she wanted to, Busujima Saeko might not complain, but she would definitely feel a little deflated.
Instead, Suyan masterfully shifted the focal point. He framed the situation as him prioritizing their romantic drive, and treated the zombie clearance as merely a convenient afterthought.
The result was immediate and undeniable.
"Mhm." Busujima Saeko hummed softly in agreement.
She didn't say anything else; she merely buried her face deeper into his back.
But Suyan, pressed so intimately against her, could clearly feel her body temperature slowly rising, and the rhythmic beating of her heart quickening against his spine.
Suyan knew instantly—the purple-haired girl behind him was deeply moved.
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