"Hey!"
"You bastard, stop playing dead!"
No response.
"Didn't you say you could hold out for plenty more days?!"
Still no response.
Now Wis'adel was genuinely starting to panic. A tense look appeared on her face as she lowered her head to stare at the black layer covering her body, her voice rising.
"You're always going on about keeping your word and doing what you say!"
"You promised me stories, and you haven't even finished telling them yet. At the very least, finish the story before you die, got it?!"
Wis'adel knelt there with her head bowed, staring at the silent black layer on her body. The cave was dark, and once the last echoes of her voice faded away, only silence remained.
"You lied to me!"
A surge of emotion welled up inside her. Her expression twisted more and more. She could not even understand what she was feeling, so the only way she knew to express it was through anger.
"You liar—get out here!"
She yanked hard at the black substance on her body, trying to vent all her fury on it, but no matter how hard she pulled, it would not budge. It was like a layer of skin grown onto her body; using too much force only brought pain.
Her gaze swept the cave. She snatched up the bomb that had fallen nearby, her face turning fierce.
"Don't think I can't do anything to you. If you still won't answer, I'll blow you sky-high and we can go meet the King of Hell together!"
Still, there was only dead silence.
A drop of water landed on the black symbiotic suit, spreading into a dark stain.
She raised the back of her hand and viciously wiped at her eyes, but the more she wiped, the more came out. Even her voice started to shake.
"You big liar…"
A sour, aching emotion rose from her chest and lodged in her throat, impossible to swallow, impossible to spit out.
She had never known crying could feel this awful.
Worse than going hungry. Worse than being beaten while someone chased her down. Worse even than the moment she had been held by the throat and nearly suffocated.
If she had known it would hurt this much, then she never should have…
Never should have what?
She did not know.
And then—
A weak, lazy voice suddenly sounded in her mind.
"Kid, can you keep it down for a bit?"
Wis'adel's head snapped up.
"You're noisy as hell."
The voice was thick with sleepiness, and more than a little cranky. "I'd barely fallen asleep before you woke me up. Why are you crying? I'm not dead."
She froze, snot and tears still smeared across her face, her eyes red, the tip of her nose red too.
"Y-you… you're not dead?"
"No shit."
You Yi sounded utterly drained. "Now that we're in symbiosis, our lives are tied together. If I die, you die too. Aren't you still alive and kicking?"
"Then why didn't you answer just now?!"
"I was sleeping."
"Sleeping?!"
You Yi answered with perfect self-righteousness. "I poured way too much energy into you, so I'm wiped out. When I'm wiped out, I need sleep to recover. What, you think I'm made of iron?"
Wis'adel was speechless for a moment.
But who was she? Someone who had never had the slightest intention of arguing reasonably with him.
She wiped her tears and snot all over her arm, grabbed the grenade, and yanked the pin with a sharp pull.
"You liar! If you were fine, then not answering means you were faking it on purpose! You made me embarrass myself like that—I ought to blow you up!"
Still in the symbiotic state, You Yi felt the madness flaring in her mind and instantly grew alarmed.
"Hey, hey, are you insane? If you blow me up, you die too! Move that thing away!"
"Then we die together, damn it!"
Just as she was about to let go and drop the grenade at her feet, the arm wrapped in black suddenly jerked out of her control and flung it toward the cave entrance.
Boom!
A moment later, an explosion thundered outside the cave, and You Yi let out a sigh of relief.
One grenade would not actually kill him, but taking it at point-blank range definitely would not feel good.
Still, dodging the grenade did not mean the other problem was over.
Wis'adel raised an eyebrow.
"You never told me you could control my body too."
But You Yi did not panic. "You never asked. Besides, it's not like I'm going to do anything weird with your body. Normally, you'll still be you."
Wis'adel folded her arms across her chest. "Oh yeah? Why don't I believe that?"
Still, thanks to that interruption, her impulse to drag them both down together was temporarily suppressed.
You Yi sensed her emotions gradually calming and understood that this matter was more or less over.
To be perfectly honest, Wis'adel had accidentally guessed right. She had not wronged him at all—he really had been deliberately pretending to be dead and refusing to answer.
He had just exhausted his own energy reserves. Although their lives were shared after symbiosis, he truly was in terrible shape. In order to save her, he had practically emptied himself dry. So of course he had wanted to squeeze a good wave of emotions out of her while he could.
That was how the idea had occurred to him.
What he had not expected was that her reaction would be this extreme—or that, at such a young age, she would already have such a reckless streak in her. He had nearly overplayed his hand.
Wis'adel did not keep pressing that issue. Instead, she asked about something else.
"You called me Wis'adel before. What was that supposed to mean?"
Up until now, You Yi had always called her "you" or "kid." She had never minded. After all, like many Sarkaz, she had no real name. Even after becoming a mercenary, she had only used some casual codename.
In the Sarkaz tongue, Wis'adel had a special meaning. "Wis" meant a wish or prayer, while "adel" meant home. Together, it meant "to wish for a home."
In this land of chaos, having a home was an impossible dream for every Sarkaz.
And when one Sarkaz said to another Sarkaz—especially to someone of the opposite sex—that they wanted a home, it carried another meaning entirely, something subtle and suggestive, like saying the moon is beautiful tonight or the weather's nice today.
You Yi, however, only sounded puzzled. "It's the name I gave you. Don't you like it?"
In his previous life, work had kept him so busy that he had never paid much attention to the story. After transmigrating, his memories had grown even hazier, like trying to admire flowers through mist. There were countless details he could no longer remember—how was he supposed to remember the meaning behind Wis'adel's name?
Wis'adel's fists clenched involuntarily. "Do you even know what that means, just handing me a name like that? And who said you were allowed to name me in the first place?!"
Giving someone a name was a privilege reserved for family.
For Wis'adel, who had no family, that carried a weight of its own.
You Yi, meanwhile, felt completely innocent. He had only called her by the name she had in the original story. He had just brought it out early, that was all. What was the big deal?
Sensing that the emotions coming off Wis'adel were complicated—a mix of anger, confusion, nervousness, and even a faint trace of anticipation—and unable to tell what exactly she was thinking, he could only offer a perfunctory sort of comfort.
"All right, all right. If you don't like it, you can pick another one. Call yourself W, or come up with your own. A person ought to have a name at some point in life."
Seeing that he truly did not understand the deeper meaning, Wis'adel gradually unclenched her fists and let out a cold sneer.
"As expected—you really are asking to be blown up."
With that, she no longer wanted to talk to him. She bent down to pick up the dagger and the bundle of grenades that You Yi had expelled earlier during symbiosis. Bits of torn cloth were scattered all over the ground as well.
Looking at how her original clothes had been shredded into such a miserable state, she frowned.
"How did you ruin all my clothes?!"
It was easy to foresee that You Yi was now practically in zero-distance contact with her.
Yet she showed no signs of embarrassment.
For one, she still had only the vaguest understanding of what exactly his species was—she only knew he was male. For another, her understanding of gender relations had not matured at all. It had only ever gone as far as scenes where people treated sex as a transaction, or found a place to have their fun when they fancied each other, then pulled their pants back up afterward and acted like strangers.
Most people in Kazdel did not live long.
So they lived with a one-day-at-a-time mindset. If they had enough to eat today, they did not waste thought on tomorrow.
You could call it shortsighted, but in an environment like that, living one more day already counted as profit.
That was also why so many children were abandoned by their mothers as soon as they were born. Those who survived became orphans. Those who did not survive became causes of death.
Wis'adel came from much the same kind of beginning.
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
I, Herta's Fiancé, the Universe's Number One Male Fist (114 Chapter (Simulpub-Full) )
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Succubus in Sixth Street (400 Chapter)
Reborn in Type-Moon, My Sister is Aoko Aozaki (254 Chapter)
MyGO!! A Story Voiced by Me (140 Chapter)
BLEACH: Blade of Purification (158 Chapter)
Konoha: Starting the Game as Yoriichi (400 Chapter)
My Real Job is Spying on Konoha, but I'm Also its Hokage (140 Chapter)
The Pinnacle of the Navy! Starting from Being Captured by Garp (172 Chapter)
Watching Yu-Gi-Oh! short videos is making the veteran players lose...(80 Chapter)
Uma Musume : The Trainer Who Just Wants to Live (261 Chapter) (Ending)
Zenless Zone Zero The Random Kamen Rider (200 Chapter)
Genshin Impact: It All Began With Me Being Stepped On by Arlecchino (120 Chapter)
Naruto: I Can Synthesize Summoning Beasts (96 Chapter)
Demon Slayer: The Great Swordsman's System, Disciple of Yoriichi (140 Chapter)
My Wife is a General, but I'm an Emanator of Abundance! (160 Chapter)
Type-Moon: My Nine-Fold Path (140 Chapter)
Uma Musume: They're Peeking at My Diary, and All of Tracen is Panickin (Ending)
The Wild History of Type-Moon world (70 Chapter)
Reborn in Conan, But I Refuse to Be the Bad Guy (80 Chapter)
Ruan Mei is begging me to go back? But there's no going back anymore (140 Chapter)
Just a Slacker at Tracen Academy (165 Chapter)
Survival in Blue Archive (70 Chapter)
Kimetsu no Yaiba: Doma Wasn't Hated Today, Either (100 Chapter)
The Vibe of This Chat Group is a Little Off (100 Chapter)
Heartbreak Simulator: I Broke Them and Made Them Cry (80 Chapter)
The Talentless Trainer Doesn't Want to Restart (80 Chapter)
A Journey Starting as a Quincy (80 Chapter)
Uma Musume: The Master of Romance Obstruction (80 Chapter)
Uma Musume: You Can't Be a Hero Without a Little Chemical Enhancement (40 Chapter)
Honkai Impact 3rd Your Boyfriend is Really Amazing (40 Chapter)
Warhammer 40K: My Fiancée, Fulgrim (180 Chapter)
Classroom of the Elite: Trying to Capture Me! (120 Chapter)
Genshin Impact My Named Senji Muramas (150 Chapter)
A Chef, the Vice-Captain of the Rocks Pirates? (160 Chapter)
Naruto : My Uchiha Girlfriend is Too Tsundere (130 Chapter)
Type-Moon: Reincarnated in a Lostbelt, I Became the Alien God (90 Chapter)
The Way These Horse Girls Look at Me Is Terrifying! (160 Chapter)
Naruto: Tsunade's Deskmate (130 Chapter)
I Just Want to Live a Normal (50 Chapter).
Genshin Impact: A Hundred Confessions? It's Just a System Task (70 Chapter)
OnePiece : Starting as a Veteran of the Roger Pirates (60 Chapter)
Uma Musume : I Have Special Horse Taming Techniques (190 Chapter)
Uma Musume : My other self is a Horse Girl (130 Chapter)
Jujutsu Kaisen : All Affection Stats Maxed Out (200 Chapter)
Satou Kazuma's Decision to Live by Swindling, Starting from Re:Zero (60 Chapter)
Bleach : Ichigo! Take Over the Soul Society (89 Chapter)
Crossover Anime: The Master of Plagiarism with a 'Love Obstacle (140 Chapter)
Arknights Succubus Nurturing System, But I'm a Quiet Office Worker (90 Chapter)
Genshin Impact: Using My Personas to Break the Hearts of Players (50 Chapter)
One Punch Man : i am King? (150 Chapter)
Genshin: My Stats Are Irresistible (70 Chapter)
Naruto: Master of Dream Fulfillment! (70 Chapter)
Why Are All My Chat Group Friends Spin-Off Characters? (130 Chapter)
Arknights : Batman System (30 Chapter)
Chat Group: Swapping Bodies with the Bad-Ending Herta from the Start (80 Chapter)
DanMachi: Why Did My Dungeon Turn Into a Soulslike Game? (130 Chapter)
Losing Money on Uma Musume...What Do You Mean You Actually Won? (120 Chapter)
I'm Gotou Hitori—Who Are You? (40 Chapter)
Were You Ever Even a Uma Musume? Stop Making Things Up! (78 Chapter)
Moon Project: A Full-Time Love Adventure for the Lobotomy Corporation (75 Chapter)
The Leisurely Days of the Hyuga Main House (65 Chapter)
Arknights : A Draco Surviving in a Matriarchal Terra (189 Chapter)
Arknights: What if My Luck Is Too Good? (135 Chapter)
Honkai: The Romance System Only Shows Up After I Marry Mei (55 Chapter)
Arknights: Who Are You Calling Repressed, X?! (145 Chapter)
The Chat Group Only Arrived After I'd Cleared the Game (102 Chapter)
Gojo Satoru Flat-Out Refuses to Admit He's a Supporting Character (40 Chapter)
Chat Group Isn't Supposed to Be Like This! (30 Chapter)
If You're Moriarty...then Who Am I? (140 Chapter)
Uma Musume: Since I "Can't See," They Take Turns Stealing My Underwear (50 Chapter)
Arknights: Why Are All My "Brothers" Girls? (54 Chapter)
Danmachi: Start Training Haki (59 Chapter)
Emiya Shirou's Rebirth (30 Chapter)
I Can Get Stronger Just by AFK'ing—So I Joined a Chat Group (50 Chapter)
Endfield: I Can Always Pull Out One Yuan (65 Chapter)
Limbus Company : I Started a Company in Project Moon (50 Chapter)
Lobotomy: Do Cooks of Alley 23 Dream of Bloodfiend Knights? (50 Chapter)
DanMachi: Freya Familia's "One-Blade Shura" (60 Chapter)
DanMachi: Emiya, the Great Hero Becomes the Protagonist (90 Chapter)
TYPE-MOON: One Special Instance Every Week (40 Chapter)
From Danmachi: The Abundance Apothecary (70 Chapter)
Lord Shadow Descends on DanMachi (90 Chapter)
Fuse with Me, Exusiai! (41 Chapter)
Honkai: Star Rail — After I Die, I Forge Their Madness (60 Chapter)
DanMachi: The Last Zeus Familia (95 Chapter)
Endfield: Arknights Heroic Spirit Summoning (75 Chapter)
Toyokawa Family Finances (105 Chapter)
Starting From DanMachi to Become Stronger (90 Chapter)
DanMachi: My Familia Is Made Up Entirely of Heroines from Every World! (75 Chapter)
Arknights: My Intel Refreshes Daily (110 Chapter)
Digimon : I Never Meant to Do Evil, Even Though I Wasn't Chosen (40 Chapter)
Miss Holmes Could Never Be the Losing Heroine! (40 Chapter)
Takayama Gamu at Tracen Academy (40 Chapter)
Legendary Trainer Takes on MYGO (40 Chapter)
Arknights : Yandere Game: The Operators Have Come Knocking (100 Chapter)
Arknights: This Dating Sim Is Seriously Wrong! (120 Chapter)
Arknights : Ch'en Hui-chieh, I'm Done Being the Good Guy! (50 Chapter)
Type-Moon: Wasn't This Supposed to Be a Family Simulator? Why Am I the Family Heirloom? (40 Chapter)
Honkai: Star Rail : The Trailblazer Only Wants a Peaceful Life (45 Chapter)
Arknights: The Unlucky Dad? But I've Got the Chronicle of Time! (55 Chapter)
The Wheelchair War God Is Speedrunning Hogwarts (50 Chapter)
DanMachi: The Elemental Blaster of Orario (40 Chapter)
Playing Honkai in Star Rail (30 Chapter)
As an Alien, I'm Solo Leveling in Warhammer 40K (30 Chapter)
Arknights: A Symbiote's Survival Guide (40 Chapter)
My Yu-Gi-Oh! Deck Is Built Entirely from Stuff I Picked Up (30 Chapter)
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it