"Do you still remember me..."
"Of course I remember, Raiden Mei, my classmate. A long, long time ago, I even bought you a box of takoyaki. It's hard to talk about what happened after that, but I haven't forgotten. If there's nothing else, please go back to your seat. The teacher is coming. If you have other questions, you can find me after class."
Li Wu smiled. The smile seemed full of warmth, but in reality, it maintained their relationship at a distance that was both strange and familiar—neither intimate nor distant.
After all, she was the heroine; Li Wu didn't want to ruin her impression of him.
He had memories of how the two used to interact, but engaging in S&M was difficult for him right now. It felt too awkward.
After weighing his options, Li Wu decided that interacting with Raiden Mei politely was the most appropriate approach. He would wait until he gradually regained his feelings before deciding anything else.
To clear the two missions of Act 1—
Mission Objective 1: Help Raiden Mei's personality conquer the Herrscher personality, and ensure she survives the Third Honkai Eruption.
Mission Objective 2: Raiden Mei dies.
Although he didn't know why he chose Mission 1 back then, since he had chosen it, it must have seemed like the most correct choice to his past self, the one he could make with a clear conscience.
For now, he would continue in the original direction. He would think about the specific reasons later when his mind was a bit more normal.
Raiden Mei didn't know Li Wu's inner thoughts. Faced with Li Wu's sudden coldness, she felt even more guilty.
In her view, if it weren't for her, Li Wu wouldn't have sacrificed his master personality to let a naive Herrscher personality take over his body.
No matter how intimate they had been in the past, at this moment, they were more like familiar strangers, passing each other by.
She had personally killed the boy who truly cared for her...
Raiden Mei's eyes were red and swollen. She blinked hard, lowered her head, and quickly wiped the moisture from her eyelashes with her hand.
"Just give me a little more time, I'll think of a way..."
After saying this inexplicable sentence, Raiden Mei returned to her seat.
The morning passed in a calm school life.
At noon, classmates gathered in groups to eat lunch, or bought bread and milk at the campus convenience store and walked around the playground while chatting.
The gentle breeze blew away the thoughts of the boys and girls. No one noticed that the lock on the rooftop door had been pried open, and several sneaky figures were fiddling with something dangerous.
Three boys and one girl gathered around a pitch-black carrying case. Through the half-open zipper, extremely precise mechanical parts could be seen inside.
The remote control nestled deepest inside flashed with a red light.
"It's done. As long as we find a chance to put the bomb in Raiden Mei's schoolbag, I'll press the button and kill this monster once she leaves the school! Nagazora City will be protected by us!"
A plainly dressed commoner boy clenched his fist, looking as if he were ready to die for a just cause.
The other two noble boys smiled at each other and seconded the motion. The girl with exquisite makeup took the remote control from the carrying case and handed it to the boy, saying with a look of adoration, "Thank you for believing me. If Raiden Mei's father hadn't been suppressing this news, you wouldn't have had to take the risk to help me..."
"Haha, it's okay. After all, you showed us the evidence, didn't you? The Honkai isn't a secret, but I really didn't expect Raiden Mei to be an artificially created Herrscher. Raiden Ryoma and his cronies are simply insane!"
"Exactly, exactly. If she loses control, we'll have a repeat of the Second Honkai Eruption tragedy from the textbooks."
The four of them huddled together for warmth, even more determined in their idea of killing Raiden Mei to protect Nagazora City.
However, just after the four had agreed on all their plans, an abrupt voice came from behind them.
"Protecting Nagazora City? That's quite a nice reason."
Li Wu stood at the rooftop entrance, leaning against the wall, calmly looking at the four classmates hiding in the corner—one commoner and three nobles.
Seeing someone, two boys immediately stood up to block the view, while another boy quickly stuffed the bomb back into the carrying case and zipped it up.
The last girl stepped forward and asked awkwardly yet politely, "Li Wu, what brings you to the rooftop? Isn't it lunch time? The school doesn't seem to allow being up here. If you get caught, you'll get a demerit..."
Facing the girl's probing, Li Wu walked forward in silence until he was stopped by three serious-looking boys.
The most muscular boy among them reached out directly to grab his shoulder, leaned his head forward, widened his eyes, and said in a vicious tone, "You didn't see anything today, understand?"
"We have plenty of ways to make sure you can't stay in this school. You seem to be just a commoner, right? Just one word to my dad, and you won't even be able to stay in Nagazora City. You know what should be said and what shouldn't."
Li Wu glanced at the other three; no one objected.
"So that's it. This is the crisis event in the plot. Quite interesting. The protagonist is threatened, then falls into self-doubt, hesitating whether to continue saving Raiden Mei. In the end, I recall he should strengthen his conviction, trying repeatedly to finally find the optimal solution."
Li Wu's words were very strange, cold, like an artificial intelligence devoid of emotion, simply stating facts.
"What nonsense are you..." The muscular boy tightened his grip suddenly, trying to make Li Wu submit through pain.
The next second, the crisp sound of bone cracking rang out from his arm, followed by a heart-wrenching wail: "Ahhhh! My hand! My hand!"
After twisting the opponent's arm with taijutsu, Li Wu revealed a polite smile.
Even though it was the height of summer, this polite smile sent chills down the spines of the other three.
"Get him together! We can't let him leave!"
Li Wu breaking an arm just now was a sneak attack and didn't show his true strength.
Therefore, the other two boys confidently believed that they could defeat him if they attacked together. As long as they were careful, they could definitely take him down!
But the moment the two got close, they were hit in their vitals. Li Wu was too fast; they couldn't even react. They could only kneel on the ground breathing hard, struggling for air as if some vital organ had been heavily struck.
Ignoring the last girl, Li Wu walked straight to the carrying case and opened it. Inside lay a small bomb.
In fact, in the original plot, while confronting the group of four, the bomb was activated and happened to be tied to Raiden Mei. The protagonist tried to cut one of two wires with scissors.
Cutting the wrong one would cause an immediate explosion; cutting the right one would successfully disable the bomb.
Yes, a very cliché bomb defusal plot, seen in many movies.
However, Li Wu didn't intend to use that method of mitigation. Compared to solving the bomb crisis, getting rid of the people who created the crisis was faster.
Anyway, the group of four would create new crises later.
Just killing them would be better...