The power of the holy radiance Saint Michael had left behind had suffered yet another drop yesterday.
And what's more... judging by the data and the charts Yamabuki Nanako had sent over.
The scale of this particular drop was just about the steepest of the past half-month and more.
The most critical point was... the timing of the drop coincided precisely with the moment when Su Yuzu met up with the little rabbit and Lyudmila.
Su Yuzu studied the timestamp on the chart where the drop began.
18:22.
Then... under the puzzled gazes of Soga Yura, Sakura Mai, and the two senior ladies, she swiped open her [Operator Development] log.
[Develop——]
[Successfully developed Lyudmila.]
[Lyudmila's Combat experience increased.]
[Level.17 Sun Esper experience: 56% → 73%.]
[Develop: Lyudmila's Favorability +1.]
[Favorability Promotion Reward obtained: Saintess's Cuirass.]
[Compensation for materials expended during Development obtained.]
["Intermediate Combat Records" ×2.]
[...]
The time of the Development was, in fact... 18:22.
A perfect match for the time of the first-wave drop in the holy radiance Saint Michael had left behind.
After that came the stretch during which Su Yuzu had been wickedly... bullying Lyudmila.
Pressing her for Saint Michael's likeness.
Then, by coaxing, by bewitching, by eroding the devout faith within Lyudmila's heart — shattering the girl's inner walls — and breaking through, for the very first time and in this peculiar way, the critical Favorability threshold from 5 (Favor) all the way past 59 (Attachment).
The moment when she'd tamed the pitiful Saintess and collected a whole string of achievements along with it.
And that very moment... lined up exactly, perfectly, with the time of the Saint Michael's holy radiance drop in the chart Yamabuki Nanako had sent her — the same time, an identical match.
Su Yuzu suddenly couldn't help breaking into a smile.
So that was it... Saint Michael's holy radiance had been right next to her all along.
The sight of the girl smiling made Soga Yura and the others all feel tense right along with her.
After all, Su Yuzu's smile really had come awfully out of the blue.
On top of all those charts that just looking at left a person dizzy with a splitting headache... the way the girl had let out that little laugh looked for all the world like a slacker student who, right on the eve of an exam, realizes she can't possibly cram through it all and just decides to smash the cracked pot for good.
Although... in every sense of the word, that was indeed the case.
"Yuzu?" Soga Yura and the others couldn't actually see the [Operator Development] panel and log Su Yuzu had open in front of her.
It was perfectly natural that they'd worry for the girl.
"I'm fine." Su Yuzu lifted her head with a smile, swiped the chart that had been projected from her phone screen closed, then tucked the phone back into the pocket of her skirt.
"I just happened to notice something rather interesting."
Su Yuzu swiped quickly through the [Operator Development] log, then ran a search within the log using 'Lyudmila' as her keyword. And then... she cross-referenced the results she'd pulled up, one by one, against every single drop in Saint Michael's holy radiance that Yamabuki Nanako and her team had monitored over the past half-month.
——A perfect match.
Every single time Su Yuzu had tapped the 'Develop' key on the [Operator Development] panel with Lyudmila as the target, it had been precisely the moment when the intensity of the holy radiance Saint Michael had left behind dropped.
Because every single "Combat Records" was, for Su Yuzu, one more measure of strength.
On top of that... toying with the spotless Saintess.
Tapping down "Develop" at the precise moment the Saintess — so utterly holy that one couldn't even raise the faintest sullying thought toward her — was at her most flustered, then watching the spotless Saintess take on a helpless, choked-back look, gaze going hazy to the very edge of losing focus, really was quite entertaining.
Plus... just a little lingering resentment over the fact that during the Ten-Pull Headhunting, she hadn't directly pulled the Sakura Mai the girl had been pining for at the time, but had instead drifted off-target into Lyudmila.
Su Yuzu rarely let 'Lyudmila' off the hook.
The handful of days when she hadn't developed Lyudmila were all special occasions.
Like when Su Yuzu had been injured and genuinely couldn't pull herself away.
Like... Soga Yura and Su Yuzu's own birthday.
Su Yuzu studied the rare stability the holy radiance had shown on the very day of her own birthday.
Inwardly she mocked her own dullness and arrogance.
She... should have thought of it back then.
What exactly had been so unusual about that one day?
Naturally, it was that on that day, she'd left every last "Combat Records" she had to Soga Yura — and in the very instant the clock's hands crossed midnight, exploited the reset rules of [Operator Development] to Feed her two "Intermediate Combat Records" in a single shot.
Leaving no spare time at all to Feed the little rabbit, Lyudmila, or any of the others.
And she'd actually thought... that even the Aberrants were celebrating her and Soga Yura's birthday for them?
How thoroughly arrogant.
Having confirmed that Saint Michael's connection with Lyudmila was absolutely no shallow one.
That there had to be some sort of link between the holy radiance Saint Michael had left behind and Lyudmila — Su Yuzu felt as though the answers to a great many riddles were now surfacing in her mind.
What she needed now was simply to tease the threads loose one by one, verify them one by one, and find enough evidence.
Gathering up the many thoughts swirling in her heart, Su Yuzu turned with a smile and a respectful air toward the Tennoji Jurei and Sakura Renxin in front of her.
"Tennoji-senpai..."
"Honored Aunt Sakura..."
"There's a favor I'd like to ask of you both, if I may?"
"Little Yuzu has only to say." Tennoji Jurei looked at the Yuzu in front of her.
After confirming that Su Yuzu had been able to reach her hand into Sakura Mai's chest — where the Sword of Erasure resided — and to grip the Sword of Erasure's hilt itself, Tennoji Jurei and Sakura Renxin had begun, wholly and entirely, to regard Su Yuzu as a daughter of their own.
In their eyes, even if it wasn't yet the case right now, given the way things were developing between Little Yuzu and Mai——
That day... would come sooner or later.
Born into a family like the one Tennoji Jurei and Sakura Renxin had built, Sakura Mai possessed, in comparison with the little rabbit and even Yura... a kind of natural advantage.
In her heart, there was that one less bit of reservation.
"Senpai, Honored Aunt... would you be able to retrieve the archives of the 「Holy Royal Court」?"
"Little Yuzu wants to investigate Saint Michael's archives?" Tennoji Jurei knit her brow. "I'm afraid that won't be possible."
"If it were just ordinary clergy, that would be another matter."
"But archives of someone on Saint Michael's level — there's simply no possibility of pulling them up directly."
"No——" Su Yuzu shook her head.
"It's Lyudmila's archives."
"And also..."
"Senpai, Honored Aunt... would you be able to look up the records of any 「Holy Royal Court」 members other than Saint Michael who came to Japan for exchanges over the past seventeen years or so?"
Sakura Mai had already realized whom Su Yuzu was suspecting.
"Yuzu..."
"You're suspecting Lyudmila?"
Su Yuzu kept her head lowered, gaze fixed only on Lyudmila's attribute panel within her own [Operator Development].
"No——" The corner of the girl's lips suddenly curled upward. "I'm suspecting..."
"Saint Michael."
[Operator: Lyudmila]
[☆☆☆☆☆☆]
[Level.17 Sun Esper]
[Talent: Light Descends Here]
[Talent: Revelation]
[Inherent Ability: Holy Light]
[Inherent Ability: ]
[Favorability: 73 (Dependency)]
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