Chapter 366: The Visitor
The moment Bochi splatted onto Sora's face, the oxygen in the office seemed to
undergo an instantaneous freeze protocol.
Ruby's legs had turned to jelly. She stumbled, gripping the back of her chair to
prevent her physical structure from collapsing onto the floor. A single thought
looped through her cognitive processors: That Being. He has manifested again.
The last time she had encountered him at the ruined factory, she had been
paralyzed by the mere ripple of his pressure. Now, that absolute Sovereign had
walked directly into her place of employment.
Her place of employment.
Wait, she realized, I am currently a professional matchmaker for humans. I am a
civil servant of the new order. I no longer need to worry about being
'liquidated' as a rogue anomaly.
Despite this logical deduction, Ruby still felt as though her life-timer had hit
zero.
Misty was in even worse condition. Her vaporous body had shifted from a rolling
boil to a series of violent spasms. Her multiple faces were frozen in the same
expression: jaws unhinged, pupils dilated, manifesting total spiritual shock. If
it were physiologically possible for a cloud of mist to pass out, she would have
fainted at least three times already.
"Sora-Sora-Sora! I missed you so much!"
Bochi was entirely oblivious to the "Survival Instinct" currently red-lining for
his two colleagues. He plastered his gelatinous body against Sora's face, his
tiny tentacles patting her head as he chirped incessantly.
"Do you have any idea?! Master punished me! He made me a 'Pro Bono' teacher!"
"And I could only eat carrots! Every. Single. Day!"
"Carrots! Can you fathom the logic error?! I haven't seen the silhouette of a
doughnut in months!"
"I was on the verge of structural starvation!"
His view obscured by a blue jelly-mask, Sora quickly reached up and peeled Bochi
off her face, cradling him in her arms.
"There, there. I hear you," she said. Her tone was natural, imbued with the
practiced patience of a mother soothing a hyperactive child.
However, her peripheral vision remained locked on the skeleton standing in the
doorway.
Her memory of their last encounter was high-definition. This Being had arrived
with Bochi, dismantled both the Federation and the Scourge in a single
afternoon, and fundamentally rewrote the global parameters of their world.
Sora took a deep breath. She was terrified—that was an objective fact. But she
had spent enough time with Bochi to know that the slime viewed this Being as… a
Master? A partner? The relationship was complex, but whenever Bochi mentioned
his Master, it was always with a mix of absolute devotion and utter dependence.
A Being that could command such loyalty from Bochi—and who had technically saved
her life without demanding a price—likely wouldn't liquidate her now.
Probably. Potentially. Statistically unlikely?
"Um..." Sora began, her voice steadying as she ran through her mental
courage-protocols. "Greetings. I am Sora. We… met once before."
Kaito's soul-fire swept over the small office. It was a modest space—two desks,
a few chairs, and walls covered in promotional slogans and "Success Story"
photographs. The most prominent feature was a giant red banner hanging across
the center wall:
[127 MATCHES COMPLETED SINCE OPENING! ZERO COMPLAINTS!]
Beside it was a smaller banner:
[LOVE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES; HUMAN AND ANOMALY, ONE FAMILY!]
Kaito looked at the banners, then at Sora, and finally at Ruby—who was vibrating
like a faulty engine—and Misty, who looked like she was about to evaporate into
nothingness.
"You..." Kaito's tone was flat, detached. "Actually opened a marriage bureau?"
The moment he spoke, Ruby's knees gave out completely. She hit the floor in a
kneeling position.
"Sovereign, mercy! We haven't committed any logic errors!" Ruby's voice was
thick with tears as she hammered her forehead against the floorboards. Thud.
Thud. "We are a legitimate business! We possess a valid Imperial Business
License!"
Misty's form fragmented further, her multiple faces speaking in a chaotic
overlap.
"Yes, yes! Fully compliant!" "Imperial Bureau of Commerce—wait, I mean Imperial
Food—no! Bureau of Trade approved!" "Serial Number CF-3347!" "We were even
designated as an 'Exemplary Individual Industrial/Commercial Household' last
month!"
Kaito paused. He had asked one simple question. Was this level of panic really
necessary?
"I never suggested you were committing crimes," Kaito said, taking a step
forward.
Ruby's head-banging intensified. Misty shattered into seven or eight independent
"mist-balls," ricocheting around the office in a panic.
Kaito stopped. He looked down at himself. Black robes. Skeletal frame. Hollow
sockets burning with eerie blue soul-fire.
Right. Statistically speaking, I am a nightmare.
"Bochi."
"Present!" Bochi poked his head out from Sora's arms.
"Explain the situation to them. Inform them that I am not here for a
'Liquidating' mission."
"Leave it to me, Master!" Bochi bounced out of Sora's grip and landed in front
of Ruby. "Hey, little sister! Desist! Stand down!" Bochi patted Ruby's head with
a tentacle. "Master is just here to play! He's not here to harvest your souls!"
Ruby looked up, her face a mess of tears and panic, looking piteously at Bochi.
"Re-really?"
"Of course! Master is a good person! Even if he is a skeleton!"
Kaito added from the background, "I am not a 'good person'."
Bochi immediately corrected himself. "Master isn't a good person! But he won't
do anything to you!"
Ruby's expression shifted to even deeper terror. Bochi realized his
"explanation" was producing a logic error and scrambled to clarify.
"What I mean is! Master might not be a 'good person,' but he isn't a 'bad
person' either! He's just… he's just..." Bochi thought for a long time before
manifesting a single term. "Master is just a Hardcore Angler!"
Kaito's soul-fire twitched. Variable: "Angler" (钓鱼佬). Auditing embarrassment...
processing.
"Shut it."
Bochi shrank into himself, wisely opting to go offline.
Sora stood up, rounded the desk, and walked over to Ruby and Misty. "Everyone,
calm down." She knelt, helping Ruby up and pushing the scattered fragments of
Misty back together into a cohesive cloud.
"This… Lord… is with Bochi," Sora said, her phrasing extremely cautious. "You
all know Bochi. He stayed with me for a while. He was always… well-behaved."
Bochi nodded vigorously, his black-bead eyes screaming Look how obedient I am!
"And his Master is..." Sora hesitated, unsure how to introduce the man who had
essentially annexed their reality. She couldn't exactly say: This is the
Eldritch God who conquered our world but seems surprisingly chill.
Kaito saved her the trouble.
"I am Kaito," he said. He casually pulled over a chair and sat down. The chair
let out a pained, wooden groan.
"Continue with your operations. Ignore my presence."
Three humans and two Anomalies stared at him in a perfect, synchronized silence.
"Continue," Kaito repeated, spreading his bony hands. "I am merely a passerby.
I've come to see the friends Bochi managed to make."
Sora was the first to reboot her social protocols. She had been running this
marriage bureau long enough to deal with all sorts of "Outlier" clients.
Although the Being sitting in her office was several tiers above her standard
business range, fundamentally, he was currently just a visitor.
Yes. A visitor.
A visitor capable of planetary destruction. Logistics: Manageable.
☆☆☆
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