With a silent sigh, Otto's gaze was somewhat veiled, but the words he spoke were in the tone Shu had expected.
"Is that so? Then it seems it was my mistake."
Shu hadn't expected Otto to try and gloss over something like this. But he didn't plan on dwelling on it. He was in a good mood today...
"So, did you pass your assessment?" Otto's smiling voice instantly soured Shu's wonderful mood.
That guy Otto definitely knows I ran away from Bianka, doesn't he?
Strictly speaking, he should have already completed the test. As long as direct contact was made, it counted as a catch, and he and Bianka had already exchanged fists several times.
But in the end, that was still Bianka charging at him. Shu himself still hadn't completed the task...
Shu scratched his head in frustration. But since Otto already knew what had happened between him and Bianka, did that mean that either Himeko or Bianka could talk to Otto?
In other words, Otto could get through to at least one of them, right?
Shu's eyes lit up slightly, but Otto, on the other end of the line, poured a bucket of cold water on him first.
"This is your own business. I won't be pleading your case for you." Still that familiar feeling, responding to his thoughts before he could even express them, saving him the effort of even speaking.
"It was all your doing anyway..." Shu muttered under his breath, so low that he couldn't even hear himself.
But Otto was silent for a moment, then a somewhat helpless voice came through: "Do you really think that kind of performance wouldn't be enough to pass?"
The emotion in his words was surprisingly sincere, as if Otto was really just asking the question.
Shu didn't pay attention to the fact that Otto's words implied he knew what he had done. He habitually began to think along the lines of Otto's reminder.
His performance... in his excited state, he really hadn't controlled his output power, and it could even be said that he was bullying Bianka.
But as long as Bianka could say a few words about his performance tonight, he should basically be able to pass the assessment... This wasn't some rigid exam. In the end, didn't Rita and Bianka have the final say on the scoring?
Hmm... it felt a bit like he was using connections. This made Shu's old face flush, and he quickly comforted himself in his heart.
Desperate times call for desperate measures... he was forced to use connections...
Bianka should still be tangled up with Himeko and the others, right? He would hide for a while longer. Once Himeko left, he would go back...
---||---
"...What? That guy is..." At this moment, on the other side, Himeko was on a private call with Otto.
Otto nodded helplessly at Himeko. "Yeah, that guy is afraid of being discovered by you right now. He's hiding and waiting for you to leave before he comes back."
He didn't even add a "probably." Otto was all too clear about what Shu might be thinking. To put it dramatically, he could even guess which dish Shu would eat first at dinner.
"Why doesn't he just explain it to me directly? He definitely has the ability to contact me alone, right?" Himeko asked, puzzled. "It can't be that he just didn't think of it, right?"
"He definitely thought of it," Otto rubbed his temples, a headache coming on. Shu had been fighting with Bianka before Himeko arrived, so he must have been in a state of accelerated thinking. This kind of omission shouldn't have happened.
So, evasion wasn't a solution Shu had come up with, but a choice he had made...
This was what he was worried about... Shu's subconscious choice to evade wasn't to evade the problem, because evasion itself was a way of solving a problem, and it had its own merits compared to communication.
What Shu was evading was active communication with Himeko, with others. But normally, Shu communicated with Kiana, or with him, quite a bit, and there was no obvious resistance...
This was the most serious problem. If his subconscious choice was always to evade, why could Shu still communicate with them normally?
There was only one possibility—Shu had been forcing himself to communicate normally with them for some reason, such as his own duties, or some necessary conditions...
If that were the case, it would be fine. It would just be a matter of them helping Shu relieve his pressure.
But Shu didn't show any resistance...
Then, excluding coercion... the only thing that could make someone who was resistant to communication communicate without any barriers was...
Dependence.
This was the most reasonable explanation for all of Shu's actions so far.
But... why?
Otto could guess the reason why Shu had become like this, but he just didn't understand why Shu had become like this.
---||---
Shu thought that Otto wanted to help him relieve the pressure on his shoulders. He himself felt that the pressure on him didn't require Otto to make such a fuss, even setting up a selection for a new First Exploration Team. It was all just a waste of effort.
After meeting Bianka, Shu now thought that Otto was making her train Bianka, and that his current position was indeed more suitable for the growing Bianka.
So Shu was no longer so resistant to Otto's "arrangement," because in his view, the title of the captain of the First Exploration Team was more useful to Bianka, who needed to grow and gain experience. And he was somewhat... okay with Otto's arrangement of him as the "stabilizing force."
Like hell he was!
That guy Otto was inhuman! Pushing a little kid like Bianka to be the captain of the First Exploration Team?!
Shu had been a captain for so long, how could he not know how dangerous that position was?
Otto wasn't letting Bianka grow; Otto was forcing Bianka to grow!
What if Bianka and her team came face to face with a Herrscher?
Shu racked his brains but couldn't think of any other way for Bianka to deal with it other than shouting about friendship and bonds and having a hot-blooded breakthrough to flip the Herrscher over!
He wasn't dying and in need of being taken care of in the rear, so wasn't what Otto was doing still a useless effort?!
This was what Shu thought, but due to his certain stereotypes of Otto, he really didn't dare to directly refute Otto's arrangement, for fear of messing up some deeper plan of Otto's...
What if this was to root out some enemy hidden within Fire Moth, and he messed it up? Wouldn't that be a disaster?!
Hiss... wait, what if what Otto wanted was his disobedience and resistance? A sort of "your resistance is also your destiny"?
Completely unaware that Shu had already overthought his actions to the point of "determinism," Otto was currently pondering a very simple question.
Why did Shu rely so much on Kiana and the others?