"What did you put in the coffee you gave me?"
To avoid disturbing Einstein and Bianka conversation, Lin lowered his voice and whispered like a mosquito in Rita ear.
Rita felt her ear tingle, as if Lin was intentionally blowing air into it. The tips of her ears turned a shade of rosy pink.
Rita blinked, initially not understanding what Lin meant. Then, noticing a trace of coffee foam at the corner of her mouth, she gave a heartwarming smile and leaned close to Lin ear. "Actually, it's..."
"My world's observers discovered a disordered quantum phenomenon in this World Bubble, so they sent me to find the cause. Rita, you also come from outside this bubble. Do you know anything?"
Over there, Bianka shifted the conversation back to Rita, though her eyes remained fixed on Lin.
Clearly, she wanted to pressure Lin with her gaze. Normally, Lin might not have cared, but he wasn't in his "normal" state right now.
"Staring at me is useless." Lin spread his hands and said in a toneless voice, "She's not your Rita, but she's my Rita."
"Shameless," Bianka hissed.
"Honorable."
"Are you an elementary schooler who likes to fight?"
"If I am, then so are you."
If one could see an anger meter, they would see Bianka skyrocketing right now.
This Rita indeed wasn't the Rita she knew, and she didn't have the right to demand anything of two people she barely knew. But seeing someone who looked exactly like Rita acting so intimate with a guy who looked like a villain at first sight...
No, Bianka. You are Schicksal's S-rank Valkyrie, Durandal. You cannot lose your composure.
She was usually steady, but Lin made it too easy to stir up her competitive spirit.
Bianka calmed herself and regained her cool. "Miss Rita, could you explain?"
Rita nodded and began her explanation. "This World Bubble was formed from a fragment of Mu. It wasn't a natural birth. Even though it's currently stable, it becomes disordered when hit by an external impact."
Bianka listened intently, nodding with her arms crossed.
"When I arrived, the bubble had already suffered one impact—that was Mr. Lin arrival."
"..."
Bianka glanced at Lin. It wasn't a provocation, but she was curious how he had crossed the Sea of Quanta with a physical body.
"After he arrived, that rift didn't disappear. Miss Bianka, you should have a way to move through the Sea of Quanta, so you probably noticed something different when you entered this bubble, right?"
"It was indeed easier..."
But that didn't count as an abnormal quantum phenomenon. Bianka looked at Rita, who simply smiled and spread her hands, indicating that was all she knew.
"It seems I'll have to investigate for a while."
Bianka was a woman of action. She immediately stood up, took her lance, and headed outside.
"Letting her go?" Einstein stirred her coffee.
Lin shook his head. There was no other choice but to let her go.
Rita face appeared in Lin vision, smiling brightly, yet faintly radiating "irritation."
Yes, Lin saw a hint of a dark aura behind that smiling face.
"Mr. Lin, what did 'my Rita' mean? Am I your property?"
"I..." Lin froze. Noticing the emotion in Rita eyes, he initially wanted to explain, but then he remembered the tactics a certain person had taught him over the past three years regarding a girl's changing moods.
"Lin, when a girl is angry, don't make excuses~" A pink-haired girl had pulled on Lin face with a "kindly" expression. "An explanation is a cover-up, a cover-up is the truth, and the truth means you need a lesson."
"Girls are very smart. You think they need an explanation? They actually understand the logic; what they need is your apology."
"So next time, if you're foolish enough to repeat the reason you made me angry, hmph hmph..."
So, the words reached his lips, and Lin looked into Rita eyes, saying sincerely: "I'm sorry."
Einstein, who had been waiting for the show, stopped stirring her coffee. She stared at Lin, then at the equally stunned maid.
Then, a mischievous smile spread across her face.
Rita caught Einstein's teasing grin and felt a bit flustered. She let out a small cough. "It's alright. Rita was being too serious. You must have been joking."
"As for the coffee you drank, I didn't add anything to it."
"But my taste has returned."
Rita gave a graceful smile. "Then the answer must lie within yourself."
...
"Argh, I'm starving. Yama-chan~ did you prepare a feast for me..."
"Get out."
The man started joking as soon as he returned to the locomotive, only to be met with a cold, heartless rebuke from Yama, who was reading a book.
"That's so cold. Over there, he has a beautiful maid to apply medicine, cook, and brew coffee. Why does the person I rescued feel like the boss of me?" The man sighed and walked to the storage cabinet.
Hearing his lament, Yama gave a disdainful sneer. "I can leave."
"Haha, I was just joking. It's just cooking, no big deal."
The man put cereal and sugar into a bowl, poured in boiling water, and stirred with a spoon, laughing heartily. "It's fine. So what if he has gourmet food and a maid to warm his bed at night, while I have plain water and bread and get yelled at? I don't care at all. Waaah... I don't care at all..."
Yama put down her book and watched his mock sobbing with cold eyes.
He was right about one thing.
He truly didn't care. He had no material needs; eating was just an occasional performance to pretend he was human.
Had he ever shown a single shred of genuine emotion? Yama couldn't tell how much of his own feelings were in those hypocritical eyes.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm different from you; at least I have a sense of taste." The man pointed his spoon at Yama. "Speaking of which, you still don't know why you lost your senses, do you?"
"..."
Yama put down her book and frowned. What did he mean?
"You've seen so many other versions of yourself. Haven't you noticed something? Why are only the two of you 'special,' while the other Lins didn't lose their senses even if their surgeries failed?"
The spoon waved in a circle, enclosing Yama. He curled his lips.
"The answer is... I won't tell you."
"..."
"Hahaha! How is it? Are you angry? This is revenge for not cooking for me! Beg me, and if you beg me, I'll tell you~"
"Get out!"