"S-Sorry! You have the wrong person. I don't have a mister."
The beautiful woman who opened the door was a bit flustered, her expression slightly tense.
She was clearly lying.
Or perhaps...
The very fact that a beautiful, mature woman was living alone in such a terrible environment was a big problem in itself.
"Alright, stop pretending."
Texas pushed the woman aside, and the large group of people barged directly into her home.
Sora and Jessica, like two curious babies, even gave the hostess an apologetic greeting as they entered before following inside.
*CRACK~*
The bedroom door was violently kicked open.
Exusiai's lazy yet somewhat excited voice came from within.
"'Mister,' you're under arrest. Please... huh?"
Before pushing the door open, Exusiai had already been thinking about what to eat after work. However, the moment she opened the door, she froze. Even the LED halo above her head flickered.
Everyone sensed that something was wrong and rushed in.
At that moment.
In the bedroom of the house, a middle-aged man who at first glance looked similar to their target was sitting on the bed, trembling.
"What's going on? How could Penguin Logistics' intelligence be wrong?"
Exusiai stood there, muttering to herself in confusion.
But the highly experienced Franka and Texas reacted instantly, their expressions changing slightly.
It was a trap!!
However, in the next second.
The middle-aged man who had been trembling on the bed suddenly dropped his act. His fearful expression twisted into a crazed one. He tore open his clothes, revealing a body-worn bomb strapped to his chest, similar in style to the one at Sora's concert.
"Not good!"
Lucas Reeve and Franka cried out at the same time.
[Thunder Breathing—First Form: Thunderclap and Flash]
[Swift Sword Skill—Thorn]
Lucas Reeve and Franka seemed to share a single thought. The moment they reacted, they unleashed their fastest sword techniques. Both vanished, turning into streaks of lightning, leaving only the crisp ring of their swords. In an instant, the middle-aged man's head, still wearing a crazed expression, detached from his neck and traced a perfect arc through the air.
However.
Lucas Reeve had been on time before, but this time, the two of them failed to stop it.
As they severed his neck, his finger had already hooked onto the bomb's pull cord. Even with his neck broken, his arm instinctively pulled the bomb's safety pin.
"!!!!"
Everyone's eyes widened in that instant.
Texas reacted first, shoving Sora and Exusiai out of the room.
"This is bad!!"
Due to inertia.
Franka and Lucas Reeve were unable to immediately change direction and escape. They could only watch as the Originium bomb, its fuse pulled, was about to explode. At such a close distance, taking the full force of the blast head-on, even with Franka's 'superhuman' physique, she would be severely injured, if not killed. As for Jessica's frail frame, she would almost certainly die in the explosion.
No!
I have to overcome this inertia and change direction. Now.
"Sorry, Jessica..."
Lucas Reeve apologized in his heart. Then, he forcefully kicked off the ground and exhaled a breath infused with lightning. A worm-like lightning jumped across 'Jessica's' body's surface.
[Thunder Breathing—First Form: Thunderclap and Flash]
[Godspeed!!]
To overcome the powerful inertia from the initial Thunderclap and Flash, Lucas Reeve had to make Jessica's body instantly erupt with enough force to reverse it.
The pressure from Godspeed combined with the pressure of overcoming inertia. With a *snap*, Lucas Reeve felt a sharp pain from his legs as his body turned into a flash of lightning. In an instant, he tackled Franka, crashing through the wall and out of the building. The moment Lucas Reeve burst through the window.
A massive explosion erupted from the room. The entire house was reduced to rubble by the blast of the body-worn Originium bomb. The woman who had been on the first floor was clearly also killed in the blast. The bomb's power was even greater than Franka had imagined.
Lucas Reeve and Franka, wrapped in an embrace, flew out from the second floor and crashed to the ground, rolling over and over until they hit a large rock and stopped.
As it happened.
Franka was on the bottom.
'Jessica', whose body was occupied by Lucas Reeve, was on top of her.
"Are you okay, Franka... S... Senior..."
Lucas Reeve glanced at Franka's eyes and asked calmly.
The voice was very familiar, it was Jessica's, but to Franka's ears, it sounded like someone else.
And at such a close distance.
Franka quietly noticed.
Jessica's eye color seemed to have changed.
She remembered Jessica's eyes being a beautiful light green, but at this moment, the 'Jessica' lying on top of her, both familiar and strange, had pupils as deep and black as a dark pool.
It was still Jessica's face, but now it inexplicably had a touch of heroic spirit.
Franka quickly shook her head and got up, turning slightly to the side so the other person couldn't see her faintly blushing face.
"Thank you for saving us."
"It was nothing."
"Huh?!"
After casually replying, Lucas Reeve suddenly realized that there seemed to be a trap in her words. He turned his head and met Franka's fox-like eyes.
"You really aren't Jessica..."
"I... am..."
*Pfft...*
Franka laughed.
"You lie just as badly as Jessica does, stranger..."