Chapter 186: Only People from Longjiang Know How Solid Jishuai’s Foundation Really Is

A corner of a park in Chiyoda District sat like a place forgotten by the world, submerged in thick darkness and dead silence.

The night air was cold, and the park was empty.

Mizuki Hoshi wrapped her thin lady’s coat tightly around her, but the sharp chill still pierced through the fabric like needles, making her tremble slightly.

‘Master Jiang Jian… will she really be here?’

Although her heart was filled with doubt and nervousness, the fact that she had been “summoned alone by Master Jiang Jian” gave her a strange sense of excitement and the illusion of being valued.

She walked quickly into the park, her long shadow stretching across the ground under the dim yellow streetlights.

Then, she saw it.

Deep in the park, under a solitary streetlight, a blurred figure sat motionless on a cold bench.

“Master… Master Jiang Jian?”

Mizuki Hoshi called out tentatively, her voice trembling in the empty park.

The figure did not move.

Mizuki Hoshi swallowed hard and plucked up the courage to walk over.

“Master Jiang Jian, I… I’m here. You asked for me…”

As she drew closer, the unease in her heart grew stronger.

That back… it was too stiff.

Just as she was three meters away from the bench, her phone rang abruptly.

The caller ID displayed “Master Jiang Jian.”

Mizuki Hoshi subconsciously pressed the answer button.

“…Turn around.”

The voice coming from the receiver had a texture like grinding metal, sounding like a completely different person from the Jiang Jian Yue she knew.

“Eh?”

Mizuki Hoshi froze in place.

“Turn around and look at the electronic billboard behind you,” the voice commanded.

Mizuki Hoshi stiffly turned her neck.

The giant electronic billboard at the park entrance, which usually played GSAC promotional videos on a loop, suddenly flashed.

The screen switched.

It switched to — Mizuki Hoshi’s pupils suddenly shrank to the size of pinheads.

That was… that was footage of her just now in the dormitory bathroom!

“Ah…”

She let out a short cry of despair, and her phone hit the ground with a thud.

“Why… why…?”

“Hoshi, the way you cry is truly beautiful.”

That distorted male voice, sounding like a devil’s whisper, came from all directions.

From the phone lying on the ground.

From the park’s loudspeakers.

From the “sizzling” current sounds emitted by the streetlight transformers.

“Who?! Who are you?! Get out!!”

Mizuki Hoshi covered her ears in a breakdown, but the voice seemed to penetrate her bones and reach her soul.

“Me?”

The voice gave a morbid giggle.

“I’m right here.”

As if to prove his words, the head of the “Jiang Jian Yue” dummy that had been sitting motionless on the bench suddenly made a sharp crack and rotated 180 degrees!

It was a twisted face with Mizuki Hoshi’s photo pasted onto it.

Mizuki Hoshi’s mental defenses completely collapsed.

Screaming, she turned and ran.

“Don’t run, Hoshi.”

Zzzzt —

All the streetlights in the park went out at the same time.

Immediately following that, dozens of small drones suddenly lit up with blinding searchlights from the surrounding darkness.

All the beams focused precisely on the lone, sprinting Mizuki Hoshi like stage spotlights.

She was like a helpless prey trapped in a cage of light.

“You can’t escape.”

“Help… Save me!!”

Blinded by the intense light, Mizuki Hoshi tripped and fell heavily to the ground.

She scrambled backward on her hands and feet, staring in horror at the glowing spots hovering in the air.

“It’s useless, Hoshi.”

“I am ‘God’.”

“I am omnipresent.”

“Now… it’s time to go home, my little star.”

A black van parked by the roadside suddenly started its engine.

The door slid open automatically with a shloop, revealing a bottomless darkness inside.

Several drones abruptly lowered their altitude, their propellers making a piercing wind noise as they dived toward Mizuki Hoshi, seemingly trying to drive her into that car.

At that moment of despair —

A blinding bolt of lightning tore through the night sky without warning, striking precisely into the swarm of drones!

Boom!

The sound of the explosion was deafening.

The drones that were hit instantly blew into fragments, and the burning wreckage fell in all directions, trailing electrical sparks.

The remaining surviving drones were also disrupted by the intense electromagnetic shock.

Their lights flickered erratically, and their formation fell into chaos.

As the light gradually dimmed, Jiang Jian Yue’s figure appeared in the afterglow of the lightning.

She slowly raised her head, her cold, blood-red pupils locking onto a drone that was still struggling to stay airborne.

“Master… Master Jiang Jian?!”

Mizuki Hoshi stared with wide eyes, unable to believe what she saw.

“It’s over.”

“Interference… interference again!!”

The voice became sharp and furious:

“You insects!!”

Jiang Jian Yue withdrew her gaze and simply raised her hand.

A short blade appeared in her grip.

[Ability: Assimilate Injury — Activated]

The radius was only five meters, yet the link had not been broken.

This proved that the voice… was not some Super High School Level Hacker, but indeed an Esper.

Then, Jiang Jian Yue plunged the short blade into her own heart.

“Agh!”

Following a miserable scream, the remaining drones instantly lost control and fell one after another like rain.

The van also cut out, completely dead.

That annoying voice… had vanished.

Everything returned to silence.

“Master Jiang Jian! You…”

Trembling and still in shock, Mizuki Hoshi looked at the white smoke rising from Jiang Jian Yue’s body and the bloodstains on the ground.

Jiang Jian Yue turned around, her blood-red pupils appearing even deeper in the darkness.

She walked toward Mizuki Hoshi step by step.

Mizuki Hoshi felt her skin crawl under that gaze and subconsciously wanted to retreat.

“Master… Master Jiang Jian…”

“You — “

Jiang Jian Yue had just started to speak when she suddenly paused.

She looked at the Mizuki Hoshi before her.

The girl’s body was trembling in a bizarre way.

It wasn’t a tremble of fear.

Rather, it was a breakdown… as if her muscles were losing control and her mind was on the brink of its limit.

“I… I’m so tired…”

Two lines of clear tears flowed from Mizuki Hoshi’s eyes.

She reached out her hand, seemingly wanting to grab Jiang Jian Yue, but her body went limp.

“I… I can’t hold it anymore…”

Under Jiang Jian Yue’s surprised gaze, Mizuki Hoshi’s slender and beautiful body — one that met every fantasy of a pretty girl — began to deflate like a punctured balloon.

No, it was more like she was being injected with a foaming agent.

Her bones groaned, her muscles expanded, and her skin stretched.

Her pale skin became greasy, her slender limbs grew thick, and her smooth, long black hair…

Thud.

A heavy weight fell to the ground.

“Mizuki Hoshi”… had disappeared.

In her place was a fainted man whose weight was estimated to be over 100 kilograms, wearing women’s casual clothes that were stretched out of shape… a “Dead Fat Otaku” of the highest caliber.

Mizuki Kotaro.

Jiang Jian Yue looked at the unconscious man on the ground with an expressionless face.

“…Tch.”

She let out an extremely displeased click of her tongue.

***

1:00 AM, Jiang Jian Apartment.

With the mandatory clock-out order in effect, the apartment was empty, lacking any sign of life.

The atmosphere was eerie to the extreme.

Mizuki Kotaro — that 100-kilogram “true form” — was lying spread-eagle on the living room carpet, snoring lightly.

The tight women’s clothes he wore looked absolutely ridiculous.

“What an eyesore…”

Meiguan complained in disgust.

“Did I force you to look?”

“You did.”

“?”

“Ugh…”

Just then, Kotaro on the carpet let out a groan of pain.

He was awake.

Mizuki Kotaro’s consciousness was still a bit blurry.

He only remembered being pushed to a dead end by that devilish voice, and then Master Jiang Jian descending from the sky…

And then…

…He felt… so heavy.

His body was heavy, his eyelids were heavy, and even his breath… carried a familiar, nauseating sour stench.

He snapped his eyes open.

What greeted his sight was an unfamiliar ceiling.

And Jiang Jian Yue, who was sitting on the sofa, looking down at him from above with a cold, expressionless face.

“Ah — “

He subconsciously tried to scramble up, wanting to apologize, wanting to explain.

Then, he saw his hand.

That wasn’t the slender, delicate hand of “Mizuki Hoshi.”

It was a… filthy and fatty pig’s trotter.

Blood rushed to his brain in an instant, and then receded just as fast.

Mizuki Kotaro let out a scream more shrill and desperate than the one in the park:

“No!”

“Don’t look at me!! Don’t look at me, ahhhhh!!”

He curled his body up like a madman, trying to use his fat arms to cover his face.

“It’s not me! That’s not me!!”

“Let me change back! Let me change back quickly!!”

He desperately tried to “activate” his ability in his mind, but his body was like a rusted machine, showing no response.

The over-exhaustion of his mental energy, combined with the extreme fear of his “true form” being seen, caused him to completely break down.

“I’m not… I’m not that monster…”

“I’m Mizuki Hoshi… I’m Mizuki Hoshi…”

He wailed like a child, curled up on the carpet.

Tears and snot smeared that greasy face; he couldn’t have looked more pathetic.

“So noisy.”

She walked over to Kotaro and kicked him in the stomach.

Of course, she didn’t use much force; she just interrupted his crying.

“Ugh!”

Mizuki Kotaro’s crying stopped abruptly.

He lifted his tear-stained face, looking in terror at the girl before him who seemed like a demon king.

“Master… Master Jiang Jian…”

Jiang Jian Yue threw a paper file in front of him and said softly,

“Read it.”

The content inside was information regarding the Mind Bug System.

Mizuki Kotaro nodded repeatedly.

After reading the file for a while, his face suddenly turned pale.

After a Molting, the ability would change…

This meant that… one day, “Mizuki Hoshi” would disappear completely.

Jiang Jian Yue turned her head and beckoned toward the shadows.

Mark stepped out from the darkness — to be precise, he had been standing there all along without intentionally hiding, but his camouflage made it seem like he had suddenly appeared.

Mark revealed a row of healthy white teeth.

“Mizuki, from now on, besides daily training, you will undergo hellish weight loss training with me.”

“W-Weight… weight loss…?”

A hint of panic appeared on Mizuki Kotaro’s face.

“But! But the daily training and work are already so tiring…”

“Your personal activities will be reduced as much as possible; you just need to satisfy the group activities. Don’t worry, give me some time, and I’ll give you back a confident male physique.”

Mizuki Kotaro looked at Jiang Jian Yue, then at Mark, and gave a forced smile.

“O-Okay then…”