Chapter 136: The Price of a Punklorde Mentality
"Things are looking grim for humanity right now," Dan Heng observed with a heavy sigh. He was watching the unfolding events on the screen with a somber expression. If the current trend continued, humanity was headed for a crushing defeat.
Meanwhile, March 7th and Stelle were huddled around a different screen, scrolling through a gallery of what appeared to be fan art of the Astral Express crew.
"Aww, look! 'Woof-Woof Dan' is actually pretty cute," March chirped, pointing at a chibi drawing of Dan Heng with fluffy dog ears and a tail. "And Pom-Pom's design is spot-on! Oh, and they drew me as a March Hare!"
"Wait, why is Uncle Yang still just 'Uncle Yang'?" Stelle wondered aloud, tapping the screen. "And... is that me as a cat? 'Stelle-cat'... Okay, I can't hold it in, that's hilarious."
"I'm a... bat-raccoon?" March squinted at another image. "Hold on, what is that writhing, indescribable thing next to me?"
"It seems to be Rekka," Stelle deadpanned.
March 7th fell silent, both girls staring at the depiction of Rekka as a large, amorphous mass of shifting, beyond understanding matter.
"Is this what Rekka looks like in other people's eyes?" March finally whispered.
"Seems so?"
"Look, Rozaliya and Liliya are here too!" Stelle pointed. "They're two little kittens!"
As they giggled, a completely unrelated image flashed on the screen, depicting some poor soul whose backside had been riddled with so many light arrows it fanned out like a peacock's tail. The girls blinked, shared a confused look, and quickly scrolled past the bizarre display.
Just then, Stelle's phone buzzed. A message from Herta. "Oh, gotta go," she announced, already scrambling for the exit. "Herta needs me at the space station."
A moment after she left, a familiar pixelated distortion materialized in the parlor car. Silver Wolf's projection flickered into existence, her head swiveling left and right.
"Hey? Where's Rekka?"
"What are you calling me for?" Rekka's voice preceded him as he walked back into the carriage, casually holding a bow.
"The last mission we did went pretty well, didn't it?" Silver Wolf said, a sly grin spreading across her face. "Let's take another trip." She snapped her fingers, the sound echoing with a digital click. "No hurting people, no prison breaks. I never said you had to be a bad guy."
Silver Wolf shrugged, the picture of innocence.
"What is it this time?" Rekka asked, already looking skeptical.
"It is, of course—" Silver Wolf raised a single, triumphant finger. "An Aether Cartridge called 'Punklorde Mentality'!"
"You're going to lose seventy-six accounts," Rekka stated plainly, as if commenting on the weather.
"What seventy-six accounts? Don't talk nonsense," she shot back, glaring at him.
"I'm serious," Rekka insisted. "You'll have seventy-six accounts frozen."
"I don't believe you." Silver Wolf rolled her eyes. "You're not on the Path of Finality today. Just because you say I'll lose seventy-six accounts doesn't mean I will."
"Then let's make a bet," Rekka proposed, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I bet that when you go to the Herta Space Station to steal that cartridge, you'll lose big time and have exactly seventy-six accounts frozen."
"Fine!" The challenge ignited Silver Wolf's competitive spirit. "And what if I don't get seventy-six accounts banned?"
"Then you don't," Rekka said with a careless shrug. "Maybe you'll only lose one or two fewer. Who knows?"
"Tsk. You just wait," Silver Wolf scoffed, her projection already starting to dissolve. "Let's see how stubborn you can be when I get back with my prize." With those parting words, she vanished from the carriage in a flash of pixels.
"Can you really predict that Silver Wolf will lose?" March 7th asked as she and Rekka sat down at the game table.
"Of course," Rekka replied, "but it's not a prediction. Besides, Silver Wolf is going to be crying and throwing a tantrum soon enough."
"Crying and throwing a tantrum? Pfft." March couldn't help but laugh at the image.
"Have some faith in Herta. She's not one to be trifled with. Besides, Screwllum was called in. Silver Wolf is walking right into a setup this time. That cartridge is as tempting to her as an out-of-print, limited-edition figure is to Uncle Yang." Rekka moved a chess piece as he spoke.
He placed a knight in the corner of the board, tilted his head, and decided it didn't look right, so he swapped it back. March followed his lead, sliding her king from a black square to a white one, then back again. Finally, she gave up and just pushed all her pieces into a neat circle in the middle of the board.
Dan Heng, who had been watching their game, let out a long, weary sigh. "The two of you have absolutely no idea how to play chess, do you?"
"Nope," March admitted cheerfully. "We're just arranging the pieces for fun."
Watching them, Dan Heng felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. One could say these two were a match made in heaven.
About one system hour later, in a dark, code-filled room far from the Express, Silver Wolf sat slumped in her chair, looking utterly aggrieved.
"Gone... they're all gone," she muttered, staring blankly at her screens. "Not a single one left... This is too much. Way too much!"
"Alright, alright, stop crying and throwing a tantrum. You're not a child anymore," a calm voice said from beside her. Kafka stood there, an unreadable expression on her face.
"I am not crying or throwing a tantrum," Silver Wolf snapped, standing up. As if on cue, a light, simulated drizzle began to fall within her room, wetting her sorrowful face.
'My accounts...'
"I'm going to find him," she declared, her voice laced with cold fury.
By the time Silver Wolf's projection reappeared on the Astral Express, it was already the next morning.
"Ah, Miss Silver Wolf is here!"
Rekka greeted her with a smile so beatific and radiant that it made Silver Wolf feel a bit embarrassed to even think about questioning him. He was dressed in resplendent, almost glowing attire, and his posture was impossibly perfect.
"Today, I have stepped upon the Path of Beauty!" he announced with a flourish. "I believe in Idrila and am a Beauty Knight for a Day!"
Silver Wolf just stared.
"And this brother here," Rekka gestured to a tall, red-haired man in magnificent silver armor standing beside him, "is the noble Knight Argenti, whom the Astral Express had the great fortune to meet by chance. He is my guide, teaching me how to become a qualified Knight of Beauty. For today, at least, I shall be a paragon of virtue and aesthetics!"
Rekka then performed a flawless, sweeping knightly salute towards her. "Please, allow me to praise you with the utmost sincerity!"
Silver Wolf looked at Rekka's eyes, which were shining with a light that was a bit too bright, and instinctively took half a step back.
"W-What are you trying to do?"
"Naturally, I am praising you with all my heart!" Rekka proclaimed. "Even though you have lost seventy-six carefully cultivated accounts, you still stand here, strong and unyielding! What immense courage that requires!"
Silver Wolf's face twitched. "?"
"You're mocking me, aren't you! You definitely are!" her projection stomped its foot, the pixels scattering and reforming.
"No, no, no! You are like a butterfly that insists on flying despite the pouring rain! Even if your wings are soaked and the path ahead is blurred, you still refuse to give up your longing for the sky! Although you've lost your accounts, you..."
Rekka seemed to hear the faint, ominous stirring of Welt's cane from another room. His hand suddenly twitched, and he subconsciously shook his head, clearing his throat.
'Welt's silent message was clear: Otto-style rhetoric is forbidden.'
Silver Wolf's projection flickered violently. "Can you guys... please speak normally?"
"Alright," Rekka conceded, slightly reining in his deeply affectionate expression. "I knew yesterday that you would have seventy-six accounts banned."
Silver Wolf's projection pointed a finger at Rekka, the digit shaking violently. "You're doing this on purpose to upset me, aren't you!"
"No, I am comforting you," Rekka replied, his face a mask of pure innocence. "I'm just trying to make you feel better."
"How is any of this supposed to make me feel better?!" Silver Wolf was turning red with anger.
"I understand," Rekka nodded sagely.
"What do you understand?"
"I understand the pain of loss," Rekka reached out a hand as if to console her. "But it is precisely because of loss that we can appreciate the happiness of possession. Things that are lost will stay by your side in another form. For example... a rise in head temperature."
'That's called redlining from anger,' Silver Wolf thought furiously.
Today's Rekka was a compliment-showering freak on the Path of Beauty. Of course, sometimes his compliments backfired spectacularly, causing the target to surge with a powerful desire to attack him—the kind that ignored all forms of resistance. But it was also possible for a single sentence to fill the other person with genuine joy. It was quite a binary passive skill.
"But even so, I believe you are still the greatest hacker in the galaxy..."
Rekka's compliments were hitting their stride. The expression on Silver Wolf's face gradually shifted from pure anger to confusion, and then, against her will, she began to enjoy it.
For the next ten minutes, her expression flipped back and forth between fury and appreciation. She bit her lip, wanting to curse him out but feeling like she really was being praised; wanting to say thanks but feeling like this bastard was clearly mocking her.
Silver Wolf found she couldn't move; she could only stand there and listen to Rekka's non-stop torrent of praise. By now, she vaguely realized she was being hard-CC'd in place by a barrage of weaponized compliments.
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