Pushed to the side, the young man glared at the white-haired dango who had once again occupied the prime viewing spot.
(A mere Ah Li dares to fight with this young lady for a spot!)
Having secured the best position, Kiana stuck her little tongue out at the boy she had just shoved aside, making a face at him.
She was completely oblivious to the fact that, on the other side of the hole, the girl named Mei had already turned off the shower and was reaching for a bath towel.
Faced with the paramecium's provocation, Li Zihan said nothing, merely extending his slender hand.
Then, he brought his thumb and middle finger together.
Snap—
A crisp snapping sound echoed through the changing room, which he had already placed under a silencing barrier.
Kiana knew what this gesture meant.
Ah Li disliked others prying into his abilities, but he loved to explain his powers to people in a way that was seven parts truth and three parts fiction.
He had told her this himself while they were playing games earlier.
He had then claimed to possess a fragment of the highest-level spatial power from another world.
Therefore, with a simple snap of his fingers, he could instantly achieve spatial magecraft that other special individuals, known as "magi," might not be able to cast even after lengthy incantations.
Through this type of magecraft, he could arbitrarily teleport anyone he locked onto to a location of his choosing, then follow up with a combo to KO his target.
Those were his words.
At the time, he had even challenged her to guess which parts were true and which were false.
Kiana's response back then had been to completely ignore him, taking advantage of his rambling to unleash her character's ultimate move and wiping out half his health bar.
But things were different now.
The corner of Kiana's eye twitched.
This guy, unable to win the spot, was flipping the whole table over!
He was going to take her down directly.
How does one evade the lock-on of a spatial mage and avoid the ensuing combo?
Kiana, with her first-class athletic reflexes, made her choice in an instant.
Her slender calves and vibrant thighs bent.
Then, they exploded with power.
Activating a strength that seemed utterly inhuman, she launched herself forward like an arrow shot from a bowstring.
She threw a swift punch, causing the surrounding air to let out a harsh scream.
A punch like this could send an African elephant flying!
This was Kiana's answer.
When facing a mage's lock-on, the proper response was, of course—
To close the distance and pummel the mage who treated every other class like cannon fodder into oblivion.
Let me show you the results of my training this past month!
A month ago, she had faced Li Zihan head-on and come out with a slight advantage. A wide grin spread across the white-haired dango's face.
She had trained for a month, while Li Zihan had been busy scheming and running experiments with various bigwigs.
That guy, who had no time to train, was no longer a match for her!
The so-called Pufferfish Herrscher, Sirin, was a creature that constantly oscillated between arrogant inflation and deflating defeat.
And as the personality born from the Pufferfish Herrscher's amnesia, that swelling instinct, carved into her very DNA, was on full display in K423.
Then, a hand reached out, unhurriedly, to meet her rapidly approaching fist.
And then—
Kiana's smile froze.
Her punch had been caught.
The boy, whose eye color was less like the blood she remembered and more like burning flames or the blazing sun, had firmly grasped her outstretched fist.
His body hadn't moved an inch.
Her punch had less of an effect on him than the push she'd given him when fighting for the spot.
What... is going on?
Slightly bewildered, the white-haired dango's expression grew stiff.
She tried to retract her fist, only to find with embarrassment that she couldn't pull it free at all.
She wasn't stupid; she quickly understood the situation.
That bastard Ah Li hadn't gotten weaker from neglecting his training while concocting inscrutable plans with inscrutable bigwigs all day.
On the contrary, he had gotten stronger.
But it wasn't completely outrageous.
Having sparred with a half-crippled Siegfried as a child, Kiana had experience fighting opponents stronger than herself. A glint of determination flashed in her eyes.
Her body spun in a flash. Her long, straight leg whipped around like a lash, carrying terrifying force as it aimed for Li Zihan's neck.
Taking a whip kick to the neck was an absolutely fatal affair.
There was no way Li Zihan didn't know this.
If he wanted to avoid getting his neck snapped, he would have to create distance, which meant he would have to let go of her fist.
So Kiana thought, her mental abacus clacking away.
And then, she witnessed a scene that made her hair stand on end.
The whip kick, carrying immense force, struck Li Zihan squarely on the neck.
During the Romanian Holy Grail War, the dragonslayer Siegfried, who had descended as a Saber, had struck Karna multiple times with the holy dragonslaying sword, Balmung. The result was merely a flesh wound.
And Li Zihan had inherited everything from the dual-class descended Karna.
What weapons did the great Indian hero Karna possess?
The victorious bow used by Parashurama to purge the Kshatriyas twenty-one times, the one-shot-kill spear from the God-King Indra, the sun chariot of his father Surya, the snake arrow formed from the King of the Naga...
And the Armor of the Rising Sun, a turtle shell among turtle shells that had turned the dragonslayer's holy sword into a mere nail clipper.
Compared to that hero from the German epic poem, the Nibelungenlied, Miss Kiana's whip kick...
Was decidedly a bit feeble.
Was it an illusion? Kiana thought she saw HP-0 appear above Li Zihan's head.
This guy was probably absurdly strong.
Forced to admit this, Miss Kiana's smile became extremely strained.
When she saw his playful, enigmatic smile, which held a hint of amusement, the forced grin on her face became utterly rigid.
"Ah Li... how about... I give the spot to you?"
Just like when she saw the bill for the car she smashed and realized she was penniless, a fawning smile bloomed on the white-haired dango's face, covering her previous stiffness.
Her intuition screamed at her that if she didn't convince this guy to let her go right here and now, she was in for some major misfortune.
"There's no need for that anymore."
The boy, who had already noticed Mei wrapping herself in a towel, smiled faintly.
"Mei has already noticed us."
As his words fell, a deeply ominous premonition washed over Kiana's heart.
"To maintain my glorious image in front of Mei."
"Kiana, I'm a little embarrassed to ask, but please temporarily forget that you and I came here to peep together."
"Of course, it's fine if you can't remember on your own."
Behind the boy, crimson feathers began to dance in the air.