Chapter 37: Ugh~ That’s exactly what people call ‘doubts’~

Description

Kivotos, D.U. Shiratori District outskirts, Defense Office building, rest area, spare lounge.

The teacher, wrapped tightly in special restraint bindings, felt his mouth parched.

He closed his eyes with a hint of fatigue, while the Shittim Chest fixed before him displayed countless partitioned screens monitoring the entire army’s movements in real time.

At the ambiguous border between the Desert and ordinary open fields, the Defense Office children were moving at double time toward the commercial street marked on the map, following the route he had just sent.

Like a snake slithering along a boundary, stubbornly chasing its target, never stopping.

He recalled his own command process just now and let out a soft sigh.

Being bound to the bed was ultimately a handicap, and having to control the Shittim Chest with only his eyes made things even more difficult.

Using eye movement to control the camera angles and switch between different combat channels was exhausting.

Even pushing himself to his limits, he could only manage seventy to eighty percent of his full command capability—and that was only because these children had excellent military discipline and executed his orders with almost no hesitation.

—After all, directing with full dialogue instead of concise, specialized codes was far too slow.

If he were outside, a regular military dispatch would use a complete set of simplified internal commands.

As Kivotos’s public security force, the Defense Office should have something similar, but he hadn’t learned it yet…

He’d have to find time to ask Hua Ye or someone else later.

Although the initial skirmish of the uprising had been quickly concluded thanks to his foresight, judging by Kaiser’s deliberate stalling, they definitely wouldn’t stop here—

“Uhehe~ Sensei is so relaxed! Even with injuries, you still have the heart to look at the Shittim Chest. Well then, looks like I’m interrupting Sensei’s rest time~?”

A familiar voice cut off his subsequent thoughts.

Unable to move, the teacher shifted his gaze toward the source of the sound—at some point, the door to the spare lounge had been pushed open by someone.

A light orange caduceus gleamed within three overlapping orange-gold rings, and the mysterious light flowing from it illuminated a girl with waist-length golden hair below.

Seeing that he had noticed her, the familiar girl grinned and giggled, revealing curious and puzzled light purple eyes.

She leisurely walked over with a small slice of raisin cake, sat down beside him without any hesitation, and began eating the cake with the fork in her other hand while peering curiously at the Shittim Chest.

“Wow…… this is…… the Defense Office’s troop movements? I didn’t think Advisor-sama would be so concerned about what the Defense Office folks are doing. That does surprise me a bit. You really are…….”

She exclaimed in a tone that sounded somewhat surprised, yet also oddly strange.

The caduceus atop her head and the white beret she wore deliberately askew swayed gently.

Looking at this child whose sense of distance was just as terrible as Hua Ye’s in some ways, the teacher’s brow furrowed with a headache, then relaxed slightly as he spoke to the child who had long since become familiar with him through various means,

“Ersi Hemo-san, good afternoon. Sorry, from the time Hua Ye-san got injured until now, I never had the chance to thank you properly. You see, I really can’t move a single finger right now, haha.”

While speaking with her, he subtly narrowed his eyes toward the Shittim Chest in their conversation, silently switching the terminal to the Momotalk manga section interface through preset commands.

—Though he felt a bit sorry for the curious Ersi Hemo-san, Hua Ye-san probably wouldn’t be happy if someone easily obtained information related to her authority without her permission…

After he confirmed things with Hua Ye-san later, he’d properly explain it all to Ersi Hemo-san.

But…

Did Hua Ye-san not tell the others in the Defense Office that he would also be participating in this riot suppression operation?

Judging from Ersi-san’s reaction, it felt like she hadn’t expected it—and didn’t really want him involved either?

Ersi Hemo, however, seemed not to notice.

She merely glanced at the switched interface before smiling at the teacher’s slightly tired face, tilting her head in thought.

Then, casually using the plastic fork in her hand, she stabbed a small piece of cream cake topped with purple-red raisins and shoved it unceremoniously toward the teacher’s face,

“Advisor-sama, say ah?”

Ersi Hemo narrowed her eyes, wearing an expression that hid her true gaze, and smiled at the teacher.

The teacher, looking at the somewhat familiar scene before him, spoke with mild helplessness,

“Ersi Hemo-san, sorry, but your teacher here can’t really eat right now. Sorry about that. If you truly want to share this cake you love with me, could you place it on the plate on the nightstand? Once I can move, I’ll definitely enjoy your kindness.”

Last time, he’d accepted Hua Ye’s goodwill of “taking care of subordinates,” and those kids from the急救 squad had put him through quite an ordeal.

If he now let Ersi-san—who had helped both him and Hua Ye-san so much—do the same, his image in those children’s eyes would probably warp again.

He didn’t particularly care about his own reputation…

But as a teacher, he had to consider the reputations of the children involved.

—Hua Ye on the earpiece had been silent since he completed the deployment.

He checked briefly, and after confirming that Hua Ye’s channel was in an active call and couldn’t be reached, he refrained from speaking: Hua Ye was probably coordinating work with the other children.

That child Hua Ye called “Weiren Yezhu” on the channel looked quite exhausted…

At some point, he’d need to ask her why she was so tired… and what he could do to help ease her burden…

After hearing the teacher’s refusal, that girl didn’t force “Advisor-sama” to open his mouth like Hua Ye would have.

She simply stuffed that bite of cake into her own mouth without hesitation, chewed noisily, and swallowed it in a couple of bites, as if she’d never expected the teacher to accept in the first place.

Then, as if she were choking, she sat by the teacher’s bed, set down the fork, casually reached under her skirt, and produced two cartons of strawberry milk from who knows where.

“Advisor-sama, want one?”

She casually stabbed a straw into one of the strawberry milk cartons and shoved it toward the teacher’s face.

This time, the teacher hesitated for a moment, then sighed and nodded.

Refusing once was fine.

Refusing twice might make this child sad.

Besides, it wasn’t too intimate, right? No—it was just that Ersi Hemo-san gave off a strange yet familiar feeling that made one unconsciously relax.

Strange.

Even though their only interactions before were that authority exchange and the time Hua Ye got injured afterward.

Ersi Hemo giggled, closed her left eye, put on a playful smile, and rather rudely shoved the straw directly into the teacher’s mouth, speaking with a subtle tone,

“Arare arare, I thought Advisor-sama would refuse. Accepting food from others without permission isn’t a good habit. You should be a bit more careful from now on. Accepting things from students so readily doesn’t make you a good teacher.”

The teacher quietly sucked on the straw, feeling the tangy-sweet milk flow down his throat and soothe his parched mouth.

After hearing Ersi Hemo’s words, he revealed a faint smile,

“That’s right. So, Ersi Hemo-san has caught your teacher’s weakness now. If you ever need anything from me in the future, just tell me directly through Momotalk, Ersi-san.”

Slurp, slurp.

Ersi Hemo simply bit the straw, sat on the bed, drank her strawberry milk, and gazed silently out the window.

She swung her slender legs and swayed her head.

That slightly askew pure-white beret drifted lazily back and forth in the sunlight streaming through the window, yet never fell off.

Drawn by her posture, the teacher reluctantly turned his head toward that direction.

—It was the outer edge of the White Bird District.

If he looked carefully, based on his memory of the map he’d just reviewed, that direction should be toward Abydos.

Gazing at the distant place where nothing could possibly be seen, the uninvited Ersi Hemo wore a calm expression, her light purple eyes revealing nothing.

After a long while, she finally spoke quietly,”Sensei, have you ever looked into the Kaiser Corporation before?”