My condition’s simple: you let me blow this sky-rail like a silver ribbon in the clouds, and I guarantee every passenger walks away like leaves spared by the storm.

…Huh?

Disbelief pricked me like cold rain; Yekase almost thought she misheard, a bell rung wrong in fog.

Kid, are you even awake? Two doors stand in the wind: one is my blade and oblivion, the other is a dive from heaven with your life like a feather spared.

You think you’re some righteous outlaw from the old tales, a reed boat on a flood?

I’m asking why you have to bomb this car, like a moth fixated on one lantern.

Some things are better left unknown, he said, smiling easy, like a cat basking in noon sun, certain his deal was a silk fan in summer.

Yekase’s face, unseen like the moon behind gauze, went what the hell are you saying, a stone dropped into a still lake.

It’s the things called better left unknown that we must know, she said, voice steady like winter rain; that’s the ember of human curiosity.

Nonsense tangled like vines on a ruined wall; he sounded like his brain had slipped its tracks like a cart in mud.

Or maybe, like a mirror flashing back sunlight, he was trying to use my own pressure tactics on me, a fist closed on smoke.

His smile froze like frost on glass. His eyes caught a shard of cold light, and then Yekase, with Dawn of Eden’s tip, was a breath from his chest, like a hawk stooping.

…Tch!

Steel rasped like cicadas; he drew to meet her, a splash of ink on white paper.

Blades kissed and hissed like rain on tiles; after a few exchanges, Yekase twisted her line like a river’s sudden bend, took a sword to the shoulder, and sent two rounds of Flash Energy at his chest like twin comets.

Yekase owned the speed like wind owns wheat; her tempo stretched and doubled like a furnace stoked hot.

She even had room to test a fledgling hunch, a sparrow’s first flight, while his sword wove a tight net like bamboo lattice, yet he never tried to break her cadence or press her down like thunder.

After several more strokes, her speed bloomed to twice the start, a lotus opening; the black-clad youth finally snapped and shouted like a drum:

Put all remaining stat points into Agility!

With that odd incantation, his figure blurred like heat shimmer, and he barely caught up, a ghost racing his shadow.

They traded at that higher tier, sparks like fireflies, then both stepped back as one, distance opening like a drawn bow.

He readied words like arrows, but Yekase spoke first, cool as a mountain spring.

Your sword work is solid, practiced like copying sutras line by line.

Hmph, scared already? he scoffed, a fox baring its teeth.

It’s hollow—so hollow even an outsider like me feels it, like a temple bell struck with no echo. It’s a thousand points of practice in a courtyard, yet no insight; your sword holds nothing that’s yours, like a mask without eyes.

—?

Her hand brushed her shoulder; the torn metal there knit like ivy growing, the wound sealing like clay smoothed by rain.

She went on, voice calm as dusk: The strengths of the strong and the flaws of the weak are jammed together in you, rough as mismatched stones. It feels… ah, mysterious, like fog wrapping a lantern.

Mysterious? Do you really think that? The youth’s brow pinched like a crease in paper; from this rumor-wreathed girl he drew no probing scent at all, no tremor like a hare under hawk-shadow.

Before the unknown, most hearts sway like grass in wind; seasoned fighters even more, fencing with air and suspicion.

…but not her.

He couldn’t harvest a single emotion point; the field was bare under winter moon.

She was just—doing an experiment, like a scholar weighing stars.

Let’s make a hypothesis, she said, her tone a chalk line on slate.

Yekase set the Gunblade to her left arm crook, a key-shaped stance like an ancient sigil traced in ash.

Both blade tip and muzzle pointed at him, twin stars steadied on one horizon.

Assume you use some method to do things common sense says are impossible, she said, words like lanterns hung in a row. For a mental edge, you even dug up my true name, but your overreach showed your core like reed roots in dry mud.

Here’s my guess: without that method, you’re weak, trivial as dust, thinking and temperament worse than ordinary, a piece of trash fluttering in gutter rain.

His face flared red like embers kicked; the sudden insult lit him with anger like a brushfire.

You… even if you’re a tsundere, you’re way over the top! he snarled, a cat puffed up under thunder.

Who’s tsundere? she shot back, voice sharp as a snapped twig. Let’s list what you’ve done with your cheat—sorry, your method—like tally marks on bamboo: you smuggled dangerous goods past crew like smoke through reeds; you pulled my true name from thin air like a coin from behind an ear; you sense danger without herald like a wolf’s prickle; you wield a sword polished yet mechanical, like a wind-up doll; and then those ‘stat points’ just now, a screen’s whisper.

…

So Yekase framed her hypothesis, a neat box drawn on sand; a small smile touched her lips like crescent moon.

These powers are too scattered, too mixed, like beads from different rosaries. If we trace them to one root, you’re carrying a system, aren’t you? A ticking box in your pocket like a caged firefly.

His expression iced over like a winter pond; in one motion he lifted his right hand and pulled out a flat pale-blue square screen, a glass leaf without thickness.

From Yekase’s angle, it showed attribute panels, words like ants marching.

You’ve chosen death, he hissed, voice a knife on bone. Found out, you can’t be left alive, like rot cut from fruit.

Ha, she exhaled, a laugh like frost.

Terminal World!

The pale-blue screen surged outward like a devouring maw, rushing at Yekase like a wave swallowing a pier.

Yekase didn’t rush; her movements were calm as a fox walking in snow, each step deliberate, each print clean.

With her reaction stacked high like layered armor plates, she strolled through the flood of panels as if through a garden, sometimes spinning lightly like a maple leaf, closing in one step at a time.

And that reason you won’t say for the attack, plus those absurd crimes you did after joining the Shadow Realm War—they’re ‘quests’ your system issued, right? Your superpower is shaped by how you imagine the system genre, like clay taking the potter’s hand.

…?!

You don’t have your own sense of good and evil, do you? Her words fell like pebbles into dark water.

You don’t have your own will, do you? Each question a bell toll.

You don’t have… results earned by your own hands, do you? A final nail in soft wood.

Lymriel’s doll face hovered before him like a porcelain mask, delicate and blank.

Then you can’t beat me, she said, calm as nightfall.

Those perfect false eyes didn’t look at anything, yet fear rose in him like mist—value he was supposed to harvest from foes, now a chill in his marrow.

You’re pushed forward by the malice in your heart, and you soothe yourself with the excuse of quests, she said, voice like a winter reed cutting skin. But that system that issues tasks and forces you to do evil—that’s your superpower, isn’t it? A mirror of your own shadow.

No… no! he howled, grabbing her shoulder like a drowning man clutching reeds. Only I have a system! That’s not a superpower; it’s an author’s perk! I’m the chosen one—the rest of you are just NPCs to feed me resources, like wheat under sickle—

Nightlight Torch.

Shhh.

The pale-blue cage around them flashed error screens like lightning cracks across a storm, then shattered into a sky full of light points, stars spilled from a split gourd.

Dreamlike, gorgeous—like standing within a slow, eternal river of stars.

Yekase wore the drifting starlight like a shawl. The Gunblade tapped his shoulder gentle as a moth’s wing; hidden force folded his knees like bamboo, and he dropped to the floor.

Your system is this fragile, like paper under rain? Exactly like you, she said, voice cool as steel.

True-name reveals, attribute panels, danger pings—if he could smuggle contraband aboard, he likely had storage space or a dimensional shop, the new-era system-genre toilet paper, a nanny app for fools, like bubble wrap around sand.

Annoying power, to be honest, she thought, like burrs in wool. Luckily the host is trash, a rotten beam under fresh paint.

The system’s light points faded like embers dying; silence returned like snow.

The youth sat hollowed, spirit shattered like a clay doll dropped, slumped and still.

Yekase crouched beside him, a cat under the eaves.

Can you trade some points for a cola? Her voice was casual as a breeze.

…

I don’t even know your name yet, she said, a leaf turning in her hand.

…

How about Ainz Ooal Gown? she offered, a grin like a child’s prank.

…

Thinking on it, you’re even more ‘special’ than him; though you’re garbage and you’ve done wicked things like soot on hands, at least your superpower woke from yourself like a thorn from your own branch.

She patted his shoulder like dusting flour, then stood to head back to Dorothy with the report, steps light as smoke.

Suddenly, the carriage chandeliers swayed like pendulums in wind, beads shimmering like rain.

Yekase looked out the window; through thin mist she saw Britain’s land like a green quilt, no odd ripple on the horizon.

Hey, what’s happening? Was that you? Her words flicked like a pebble.

…

He was finished, she thought, a candle guttered to wick.

Yekase steadied herself on a seat, Infinite Force Perception spreading like ripples on a pond, and found a reaction above the carriage roof, a spark behind the ceiling like a mouse behind thatch.

So there’s a partner. This black-clad glass cannon was just the vanguard, a decoy crane. Normal folks would see his layered mystery and raise all their guard, then spook themselves and waste time like horses refusing water.

By that measure, Nightlight Torch, which snuffs powers like wind snuffs candles, is the strongest cheat, a blade in a silk scabbard.

The real cheater is me from nine years ago? She chuckled, a low laugh like iron warming.

Ha—tools you craft yourself make your spine straight as a pine.

She called to Dorothy over her shoulder, voice crisp as a bell, and told her to hand this now-useless pawn to the train guard, then popped the window and slid out like a fish slipping a net.

Hands hooked the frame like claws; her whole body arched like a shrimp, hanging outside in roaring air.

A storm braided with Sorcery flogged her like rain whipping sails; below, the sea lay far and cold, a slate plate at the world’s end—falling from here, the body might be a broken jar.

Flash Energy ascent has this flaw, she thought, like climbing a cliff one fingertip at a time. You have to raise height step by step, stacking resistance like straw mats, jumping off again and again to toughen. Once it’s stacked, you’re near invulnerable for a span, iron under fire. But misstep big mid-process and your bones turn to powder; even your body won’t have time to choose an evolution, a seed crushed before sprout.

Good thing there’s Sorcery to catch me… Celestial Speech, Flight—her words were beads on a string.

…

…

Nothing happened; silence like snow over fields.

…?

Her mind spun fast like a prayer wheel; then the answer struck like lightning.

It’s the sky-rail.

The magitech sky-rail itself rides a Sorcery flowline like a copper fish riding current; outside the car’s flow, she’s a small resistor wired in parallel, a pebble beside a river, and the main line steals all usable flow like a greedy dragon.

In this setup, even if she draws Southern Sky Cross and boots an independent magic system, as long as the flowline nature matches, the sky-rail will drink it dry, a sponge stealing the rain.

Hanging outside, Yekase started doubting life like a poet staring at an empty page.

Then summon Luciferin… she grimaced, a shadow across water. In a diplomatic scene this important, she doesn’t dare show her face; popping a red-glowing mech out of nowhere is a bonfire in a shrine.

Huh?

Out of plans already, like arrows gone from the quiver?

Fine, I climb; I’ll climb honest, she muttered, a sigh like wind in pines.

Teacher, I’ll help! Dorothy leaned halfway out the door like a chick peeking from the nest. I’ll lay a staircase for you! Oz Floating Disc, Oz Floating Disc—

Can’t you chant consecutively? Yekase asked, humor like a knife-tip.

Don’t like using affixes! Straw, you too! Dorothy called, voice bright as brass.

The Scarecrow’s ghost bloomed behind her like a tattered banner; its rags and the exposed straw trembled as Sorcery flowlines brushed them, a field shiver under passing wind.

Huh? A ghost can cast? Surprise flicked through Yekase like a fish in clear stream.

I thought this post ghost could only stand and spook; turns out it has hands, she thought, a grin like ink.

Then I’ll leave it to you! she said, trust laid like a plank across a gap.