Chapter 79: Ahhh, Why Did It End Up Like This!
Serval stood amidst the metallic clutter of her workshop, her fingers lightly brushing over a dormant gear. She could never bring herself to accept Cocolia's draconian decrees. Yet now, she couldn't even secure an audience with the woman who used to be her closest confidante.
As Belobog's premier mechanic and a former leading researcher for the Architects' Technology Division, Serval had once plunged deep into the mysteries of the Stellaron. However, the very moment her findings brushed against the core truth of that anomaly, Cocolia had ruthlessly expelled her from the Architects, sealing away all related research under strict prohibition.
From that exact moment, Serval had keenly sensed a fundamental shift in Cocolia. The warmth had vanished, replaced by an icy, impenetrable wall.
Even today, she still couldn't wrap her head around it. Why had that high-spirited friend, the girl who had fought side-by-side with her through thick and thin, morphed into such a cold, distant stranger?
"That's because she was bewitched by the Stellaron."
Leon leaned casually against a nearby workbench, his tone as breezy as if he were commenting on the afternoon weather.
Hearing this casual drop of highly classified intelligence, Welt blinked, his hand instinctively rising to adjust his glasses. He shot Leon a look of pure surprise. Such sensitive information, and he just blurts it out? Is this Serval truly that trustworthy?
Beside him, Silver Wolf groaned softly, dragging a hand down her face. Is he really just going to lay all his cards on the table right off the bat?
"What? What do you mean?" Serval froze, her eyes widening as she stared at the dark-haired young man.
"I mean exactly what I said. It's the Stellaron. It bewitched Cocolia..."
Leon held Serval's gaze, the corners of his mouth curling into a faint, knowing smile.
He knew exactly how much weight Cocolia held in Serval's heart. This eldest daughter of the Landau family possessed a cheerful, unrestrained, and rebellious spirit. Yet, beneath that rock-and-roll exterior, the most important person in her life—outside of her immediate bloodline—was her best friend, Cocolia. They had shared countless secrets, whispered dreams, and a bond forged in their youth.
Likewise, he knew that deep within the Supreme Guardian's frozen heart, aside from her adopted daughter Bronya, the softest, most fiercely guarded spot was reserved entirely for Serval.
A sisterly bond like theirs couldn't be erased by mere decrees or years of forced silence.
Of course, Cocolia had already shaken off the insidious whispers of the Stellaron and regained her absolute clarity—but that particular piece of news was currently restricted to a very exclusive circle. Namely, Leon and Bronya.
Leon was genuinely curious to see the fallout.
When Serval finally learned the absolute truth—that her years of bitter confusion and lingering pain did not stem from a callous betrayal, but from the parasitic corrosion of an external, cosmic force—how would she react?
Would the revelation bring a storm of anger? Crushing sorrow? Or a deep, weeping relief?
And when Cocolia finally washed away her hardened shell to stand face-to-face with Serval once more, how would these estranged best friends look at each other? How would they mend a rift carved by years of forced misunderstanding and silent hurt?
As for the immediate safety of Belobog... Leon wasn't worried in the slightest. At this very moment, at least two Aeons had their cosmic gazes fixed upon this frozen world. The possibility of a genuine, world-ending accident occurring under his watch was practically zero.
"The Stellaron... bewitched Cocolia?" Serval muttered, her voice dropping to a whisper as she fell into deep thought.
The gears in her brilliant mind began to turn rapidly. The questions that had haunted her sleepless nights suddenly found a terrifyingly logical anchor.
Why did Cocolia change so drastically overnight?
Why was the Stellaron research brought to such a violent, abrupt halt?
What role did she actually play in the Eternal Freeze?
If the Stellaron was truly the root of the crisis, why stop the very research meant to solve it?
What was she so afraid of?
Why did she choose to align herself with the source of their destruction?
If it was truly the Stellaron's psychological manipulation... then every single disjointed piece of the puzzle snapped perfectly into place.
But a glaring problem remained. How did this complete stranger know something so deeply hidden?
Serval cast a subtle, calculating glance at Leon, keeping her expression perfectly neutral. She didn't entirely swallow his words just yet. She needed to test Cocolia in her own way, on her own terms.
"Oh my... listen to me, why am I suddenly blabbering about all this heavy stuff?" Serval blinked, swiftly masking her turbulent thoughts with a relaxed, practiced laugh. "Just pretend I'm talking to myself."
"Then, why must the heater be placed outside?" March 7th chimed in, her brow furrowed as she stubbornly clung to the previous topic.
"It's the exact same principle as lighting a fire to cook," Serval smiled, leaning against her counter as she offered a vivid analogy. "If you imagine the entire house as a giant iron pot, the heater outside is the stove fire burning right at the bottom of it."
"Hearing her put it like that... I actually can't find a single flaw in that logic," March 7th muttered softly, scratching her pink hair.
"Thank you for the explanation," Dan Heng nodded politely, his calm demeanor a stark contrast to the lively mechanic.
"It's a small matter! Since it's your first time in Belobog, as long as you can feel the warmth of this city, I'm happy."
As Serval spoke, she reached under her workbench and pulled out a small, complex mechanical device. "By the way, do you guys want to help me fix this? Think of it as a little hands-on craft activity. It's actually really fun!"
Before her sentence could even fully register in the air, a synchronized metallic shwing echoed through the workshop.
Leon, Stelle, and Caelus stood shoulder-to-shoulder. In perfect unison, they hoisted heavy, solid-metal baseball bats over their shoulders. Identical, unhinged, and strangely eager smiles stretched across their faces.
"Wait, what are you doing?!" Serval jumped back, her mechanic's instincts screaming in alarm.
March 7th and Dan Heng simultaneously slapped their hands over their faces, groaning in sheer exasperation. They had witnessed this exact, ridiculous scene back on the Herta Space Station.
Welt pushed up his glasses, his stoic face cracking into a mask of pure bewilderment.
Silver Wolf barely glanced up from her holographic screen, utterly uninterested in the impending property damage, while Firefly stood off to the side, looking at Leon's trio with bright, incredibly supportive eyes.
"Didn't you just say you wanted us to fix the machine?" Leon asked righteously, his expression the picture of innocent helpfulness. His posture practically screamed, Isn't this the standard operating procedure?
"Don't worry, our big brother is an absolute professional at fixing things like this!" Stelle and Caelus patted their chests proudly, their voices brimming with blind, fanatical trust in Leon's methods.
"P-Professional?"
A single bead of cold sweat slid down Serval's temple. Watching the three of them brandish blunt-force trauma weapons, she began to seriously re-evaluate her life choices. She hesitated, frantically wondering if it was too late to retract the repair request.
This isn't fixing a machine! They look like they're about to shake me down for protection money!
But deep down, the burning curiosity of a top-tier mechanic was violently piqued. Fixing a delicate, precision-engineered phonograph... with a baseball bat?
Are they for real?
This completely violated every single law of mechanical engineering she had ever studied!
"Alright, then... let me demonstrate the proper steps for you first."
Serval cautiously pulled out a second, identical phonograph, keeping a wary eye on the bats. She picked up a set of delicate tools and carefully walked them through the complex repair process, adjusting gears and tightening microscopic screws.
"Did you understand?" she asked, wiping her hands on a rag.
She turned to look at Leon, only to find that he had completely ignored her tools. Instead, he was pressing his ear flat against the metal casing of the broken machine, his eyes closed in deep concentration.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open. Having apparently located the exact crux of the mechanical failure, he raised his baseball bat, judged the angle, and tapped the casing lightly twice.
Clang! Clang!
Two crisp, resonant metallic strikes echoed through the workshop.
The very next second, the phonograph—which had previously been stuttering, grinding, and spitting out agonizing static—emitted a buttery-smooth hum from its internal gears. The intermittent, garbled noise instantly cleared up, transforming into a stable, melodious tune that filled the room as if the machine had just been reborn.
"Not bad, not bad at all. Good as new."
Leon nodded with deep satisfaction. He casually slung the bat back over his shoulder, brushing off his hands with the smug aura of a master artisan who had just completed a masterpiece. As expected of my flawless technique.
Serval: "..."
"It's... it's fixed just like that?!" She grabbed the edges of her workbench, her eyes wide as she began to violently question the very fabric of reality.
"I told you big brother is a professional!" Stelle's confidence skyrocketed into the stratosphere.
Eager to prove herself, the gray-haired Trailblazer rushed over to a third broken phonograph waiting on the shelf. Imitating Leon's exact posture, she pressed her ear against the metal casing, narrowing her eyes with a feigned, scholarly air of mechanical expertise.
Then, overflowing with absolute certainty, she hoisted her own baseball bat high into the air. She perfectly mimicked Leon's swing, his angle, and his force, bringing the heavy weapon down hard—
CRASH!
Instead of a crisp tap, a deafening crunch shattered the air. Jagged cracks instantly spider-webbed across the phonograph's thick casing. From deep inside the machine came the tragic, unmistakable sound of a hundred delicate gears, springs, and screws violently exploding apart. The faint music choked, sputtered, and died completely.
"No! How could this happen?!" Stelle dropped her bat, staring at her mangled masterpiece in sheer horror. She clutched her head, dropping to her knees and wailing at the ceiling. "The steps were clearly correct! I copied him perfectly!"
"Ahhh! Stelle, you idiot! If you don't have Leon's weird skill, don't just blindly copy his unhinged methods!" March 7th stomped her foot, unable to bear looking at the mechanical carnage.
"That shouldn't be right. The angle must have been off. Let me try!" Caelus shoved his way forward, his eyes burning with determination. He grabbed the fourth and final broken phonograph, lined up his stance, and swung his bat with surgical precision—
SMASH!
With an even louder, more catastrophic crunch, the second phonograph faithfully followed in its predecessor's tragic footsteps. The casing caved in completely, shattering into a dozen pieces right in front of Caelus, reducing the expensive machine to a pathetic pile of twisted scrap metal.
"Ahhh! I broke it too!" Caelus dropped his bat, clutching his head as he crouched down next to Stelle, plunging into an abyss of deep, existential self-doubt. "Why?! My form was flawless! The steps were all correct!"
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