After making up her mind, she suddenly increased the energy transmission, trying to push people into the [channel] and send them away from here with a tidal-like offensive.
Unfortunately, the Hunter had anticipated this and spun around to throw the lamp oil that was stained on the blade backwards. The ignited orange-red flame disrupted the structure of the energy particles, stirring them into a messy energy ball, which finally exploded.
"...Have you vented enough?" The destroyer took out the leather bag and shook it gently. "If it's not enough, I still have a lot of stock."
Helena, who is good at manipulating energy and space, has no way to deal with the flames, just like a ranged mage encountering a magic immune rogue. The former has used countless skills, but it is still of no use to the latter.
After realizing that her magic attacks had no effect, she had no choice but to rush forward, relying on her relatively mediocre melee ability to return home.
If she were in her normal calm state, she would never choose to engage in close combat with an opponent armed with cold weapons.
Because anyone who can become a [META ship] must be someone who has honed one of his or her abilities to perfection.
[Hunter] has been fighting with her for such a long time, but the old-fashioned cannon behind him has never been used. This either means that the opponent is much stronger than himself, or that the scissors are the weapon that the opponent is best at.
The former did not require her to come to the rescue, while the latter proved the irrationality of the decision to "take the initiative to get close."
Unfortunately, Helena was too obsessed and didn't think this through.
Driven by anxiety, she rushed forward empty-handed, trying to decide the outcome by using abilities like "time stop".
As for the result, it was not what she wanted.
After a long stalemate, the conflict ended with Helena being defeated due to excessive energy loss and debuff.
"So...the wounds on your body were caused by fighting?" Su Xin asked softly after listening to some of the memories.
Helena, who was sitting next to the commander, nodded helplessly, "...You can say that."
In fact, after listening to the whole incident, it feels very confusing.
Why was [Helena] so angry? Why couldn't she have a good talk with him after meeting him? And... why did she look so abnormal when she just showed up?
These were the doubts that the other ship girls who were listening in had, but they didn't dare to ask directly for fear that Helena would feel that she was being ridiculed.
But Su Xin didn't care about that. She frowned and said, "I remember you were very calm before. Why did you suddenly become so impatient this time?"
"That's what I want to tell you, sister." Helena leaned close to her beloved, her expression calm and peaceful. "At first I didn't know why, but later, she told me the answer."
"...That Hunter?"
"Well, she said it was because I was affected by the environment, or... by some kind of pollution."
"pollute?"
Helena nodded. "Magnifying negative emotions, increasing mental damage, destroying psychological defenses... sounds mysterious, right? But after leaving there and thinking back... I feel that it is true."
Su Xin seemed to understand something. This influence sounded somewhat similar to the mental damage caused to highly perceptive humans by special beings in a certain mythological system.
But that was a literary work, and she didn't remember any related settings in the game, so when she really encountered a similar situation, she couldn't come up with a better response.
This made Su Xin, who wanted to help no matter how big or small the matter was, a little helpless. She subconsciously frowned and looked heavy.
Seeing this, [Helena] smiled instead, without any of the fragile look she had when she first arrived. She just leaned towards the little commander, and the other party took on some of the weight, and she felt a lot more relaxed.
"It's okay. I'm not here to ask my sister for advice. I'm just...looking for some energy from my sister."
Su Xin quickly perked up, first leaned over to check the "remaining power" of the small wrench in the other person's hand, then carefully looked at the wound that was recovering.
"Well! When you are well, I will fill it up and you can wear it and take it out when you need it... This is not a ring, you won't feel bad about it anymore, right?"
[Helena] curled her lips and nodded obediently, "I remember, but what I meant...is not this 'charging'."
"What is that--uh, I, I think I know..."
"Well, is that okay?"
Su Xin was a little shy and didn't know why she felt guilty. She just looked up and glanced at Tiancheng and Yixian secretly, then held Helena's hand holding the metal piece.
The extremely satisfied [META ship] received the long-awaited coolness and immediately broke into a smile. Seeing this, the little commander with red ears could only clear his throat in embarrassment.
"Ahem... what happened next?"
"Well, then..."
Chapter 932: Deeply Buried Yesterday
"What happened next?" The Hunter, who was sitting on the ground leaning against the broken wall, stirred the iron pot casually. "...As you can see, everything turned into that kind of stuff."
Helena, who had finally calmed down after exhausting herself, frowned and silently stepped back a distance to avoid smelling the strong stench emanating from the pot.
"You mean, the mutation happened suddenly?"
"...Probably. At that time, I was still a wandering ship girl and didn't care about the reports written by humans." The Hunter took off his gloves, his skin was dazzlingly white. "But when I woke up the next day, I was different."
[Helena] turned her head and took a breath. She found that people's tolerance limit was flexible. Just now she felt that the air was unpleasant, but now she just wanted to take a few more breaths to avoid being suffocated.
After her energy was exhausted, she fell to the ground and fainted, her body stained with orange-red flames and strange lamp oil, as if all her strength had been drained.
She didn't know how long she had slept, but she was instantly brought back to reality by an indescribable stench, and she opened her eyes and began to retch.
After she finally struggled to move some distance, she found that the Hunter, who had taken off his hat, was sitting by the fire, stirring the source of the foul smell in the pot.
As a [META ship] that originated from the White Eagle, [Helena] suspected for a moment that this was a dish specially prepared for her by the royal [Hunter].
After careful inquiry, I learned that the black sticky liquid in the pot was the lamp oil that was used as fuel just now.
[Helena] heaved a sigh of relief for some reason, but when she thought about how she had also been covered in a lot of dirt during the fight, her face turned sour again.
She was in urgent need of repair and could not accept that the wedding ring given to her by her lover was tarnished by such a thing, so she simply chose to give up treatment despite her injuries.
Fortunately, after calming down, the Hunter's hostility decreased a lot, and the two of them finally started to communicate with each other through questions and answers.
[Helena] can obtain intelligence through conversation to understand the specific conditions of the experimental site, which will also facilitate subsequent salvage and rescue operations.
[Hunter] didn't want to continue the meaningless fight just now, even if the other party had good intentions.
However, she now felt that the reaction of this seriously injured patient seemed a bit exaggerated. "...Is it so unbearable?"
Helena, who was retching and had red eyes, took a long while to calm down before she replied with a nasal voice: "...Is your nose rotten?"
"You'll get used to it." The Hunter poked a piece of steel into the bubbling goo to test its viscosity. "...Where were we talking about?"
"Hmm... Mutation."
"Well, the change happened very suddenly. At least in my memory, I just took a nap and the outside world became... chaotic."
[Hunter] looked up at the lightless sky. It was exactly the same as that morning, like a curtain that could not be lifted, covering up everyone's hope.
"It was just a small-scale disturbance at first, but because they were weak and could not withstand a single blow from the ship girls, the news was suppressed."
"After that... you should have guessed it. We couldn't kill them completely, and we couldn't control their proliferation. Plus, the body fluids had a strong ability to infect... their defeat was foreseeable."
[Helena] She knows it very well. After all, she has been stained by the slime and knows the strangeness of this thing.
If even [META energy] must rely on high-intensity burning to kill its activity, then the ship girls who have not yet mastered the use of energy will be just lambs to be slaughtered.
The Hunter took the exaggeratedly large pair of scissors, placed them horizontally across his legs, and wiped them with a rag. "Under the heavy pressure, the collapse came sooner than anyone expected."
"...Why? With your intelligence... you can definitely survive underground, right?"
"Yeah... I tried, but do you think the only problems that can't be solved are these monsters?" The Hunter's voice had never been so cold, "Heh... there's also the human heart."
"..
"This happened suddenly, and resources are scarce. I don't need to remind you what will happen, right?"
"...Although as an outsider, I have no right to question your statement, but I don't think that given the temperament of the ship girls, they would kill each other."
The Hunter sneered, "...Really? What if...it's for their beloved commander?"
[Helena] was stunned. For a moment, she hesitated.
"Hehe... You can't guarantee that, right? Because you value someone more than anything else." The Hunter was silent for a moment, then continued, "... They are the same, everyone... is like this."
"..
"The underground shelter only lasted a few months before it was destroyed by someone who wanted to get more resources. They couldn't accept the equal distribution of resources and only wanted to be the leader who controlled everything."
[Helena] frowned and listened to the other party continue: "Although in hindsight, the extreme measures at the time may not have been the original intention of those people, but... it was only a matter of time."
This sounds a bit contradictory, because in the description of the Hunter, the people who provoked the conflict just wanted to survive, but now they say that was not their intention, which creates a conflict.
She felt strange and asked.
As for this question, the Hunter did not give an answer immediately. Instead, he looked up at Helena for a while, and finally asked:
"...Do you remember if you noticed anything wrong after you came here?"
[Helena] recalled carefully, mentioning the strange "dark clouds" in the sky, the weird glue layer on the ground, the tumor monster that could not be killed, and the mutants in human skin, but [Hunter] still shook his head.
The continuous denials made Helena furious for no reason. Although she was injured and weak, she still clenched her fists with a gloomy expression.
At this moment, the Hunter snapped his fingers. "Yes, just like now. Do you notice it?"
[Helena] was not stupid. She was stunned for a few seconds before she reacted. She frowned and asked, "Are you saying that people back then were just like me now, irritable and easily angered?"
"Yes, and... it's more than that." The Hunter rarely showed a trace of disgust. "Greed, sadness, lust... these extreme emotions have been magnified. It's hard to imagine that in the ruins, those people actually have the leisure to do so..."
Helena, who is no longer a child, also found it outrageous after hearing this. At the same time, she missed her cute sister who would blush no matter what she did.
The [Hunter] glanced at the stranger whose expression was gradually softening, "...You go away. I won't go out with you."
"No, you said it yourself. The situation here is complicated. I don't think it would be a wise choice for you to stay here. Wouldn't it be better to start over in a safe place?"
"...Maybe, but like I said, I have things to do."
"If I must do something, what is it? Tell me. It will be my compensation for the unprovoked attack on you just now, and also to complete my own mission."
[Hunter] did not answer, but wiped the scissors silently. After a moment, he poured the sticky and smelly liquid into the oil lamp, and finally put on gloves and stood up.
"...You're out of energy? I'll take you away from here until I finish my last commission... We'll decide whether to stay or leave when the time comes."
Chapter 933 Peeling Eggs
This is quite embarrassing to talk about.
Helena, who came to rescue people, was injured due to exhaustion and was sent away by the person she was rescuing. The reversal of identities was somewhat funny.
Fortunately, she was not a person who cared much about her reputation. After sticking to the little commander for a while, she felt much more energetic.
The small wounds on the body can actually be repaired very quickly. After cleaning the mucus, the exhausted energy can be replenished by swallowing oil.
The dirty and sticky substances lost their threat after being neutralized by the foul-smelling lamp oil. Apart from leaving some psychological trauma on Helena, they only slightly increased the workload of the water treatment plant.
Su Xin was very interested in those true [disturbance products], but she also knew that no matter how curious she was about bombs, she should not touch them easily.
As for the subsequent arrangements, Helena will leave after completing the charging process, and then return to the experimental site to continue the mission after making sufficient preparations.
The fact that [Hunter] was able to send her away meant that she was willing to stay and was not powerless, and her conditions definitely met [Ashes]'s recruitment standards.
She had to find a way to sell a favor, and then try to persuade the other party to join the organization. Whether it succeeded or not, she had to give it a try.
Before that, the commander would try to fill the metal pieces for repair as much as possible so that the other party could use them without any psychological burden when they encountered danger.
She also sent out other metal pieces that buffed damage and range, so next time Helena wanted to scan an area with radar, she wouldn't have to spend so much energy.
It is foreseeable that Su Xin will be weak for a period of time in the next few days due to the re-production of metal sheets.
However, in this support operation, compared with the high-intensity risk of instant death, what was tested more was her ability to handle affairs as a mature commander.
Nothing would threaten her life. The only thorny issue was the Ono Apricot incident, so being weak or not didn't make much difference.
Since it was harmless to the body and they were helping their own family, Tiancheng and Yixian had no objections.
They found the trainee maid, Little Beifa, and after giving her a few gentle instructions, they left the space to Helena, whose body was covered with knife marks and burns.
You know, jealousy also depends on the time and the object. Tiancheng and Yixian are not children. They actually understand in their hearts that it is important to know when to stop.
From the moment the number of marriage ships exceeds "1", they are doomed to be unable to take anyone as their own.
Instead of competing for the so-called "exclusive favor", asking the commander to classify the ship girls into different levels according to their degree of favor, and then scrambling to get the first place, it is better to live in harmony.
Besides, Su Xin really couldn’t tell the difference and wouldn’t do that, because she always felt that such an action was unworthy of the love the ship girls had for her.
In her mind, she occasionally has many similar subtle thoughts. She can find faults if she says they are right or wrong, but she just regulates herself in this way, which can be regarded as persistence in a sense.
As for the second day of the holiday...
Su Xin looked at the time. It was almost eight o'clock in the morning and the wandering ship girls had almost all left.
She had to visit Nagato's house today, and it would be best if she went alone, but Helena's stubborn and slightly extreme gaze just now made her somewhat uneasy.
Others have also said that they are under a lot of mental pressure, so they need to help themselves "recharge".
