"...The Astral Express has always adhered to the fundamental principle of being kind to others. It is also our honor to get acquainted with Mr. Aventurine."
"Well said, nothing is more precious than friends, right?" Aventurine laughed heartily, flicking his wrist and unexpectedly producing two glittering gold cards. "As an apology for disturbing you two, and as a testament to our friendship—all expenses for the Express crew in Penacony are on me!"
"No, that's—"
"Thanks."
Before Dan Heng could refuse, Twilight had already very naturally taken all the cards from the other party's hand.
"That's right, why be strangers among friends!" Aventurine laughed heartily, finally waving goodbye and turning to leave. "I have other matters to attend to, I believe we'll meet again soon~"
[Detected an increase in target Aventurine's favorability, current favorability: 1]
[Current target charging efficiency: 80%]
Sigh, a side character is just a side character. Leveling up once only gives 80% charging efficiency—but seeing as he rushed over to give money, allowing me to take March 7th on a shopping spree to farm favorability, I'll only beat him half to death later.
"Twilight, we shouldn't have taken his things." Seeing Aventurine's figure disappear among the crowd of guests, Dan Heng finally sighed, sounding slightly helpless. "He's from the Corporation. He definitely wouldn't show us kindness for no reason. There must be some hidden agenda."
"It's okay, he's very weak…"
"Weak? Didn't you say he was strong?"
"He was strong outside, not strong after coming in." Twilight said, silently fanning the two gold cards in front of her face, only her eyes flashing as she looked at Dan Heng. "Have money, can take March shopping now."
Dan Heng wanted to say something more, but looking at Twilight's expectant eyes, he could only sigh lightly in the end.
Mere credits. Since Twilight took them, let her take them. It wasn't a big deal for the Express crew. Anyway, no matter what Aventurine wanted to use them for, the Express crew wasn't afraid. Even if his boss [Diamond], the famous Emanator of Preservation, came over, they probably couldn't do anything to them. What could a mere Stoneheart do to them?
Unless the Interastral Peace Corporation mobilized a large army, but was that possible?
Dan Heng thought for a moment. To push a galaxy-renowned faction to such a desperate point, one would probably have to do something like summoning the Progeny of Pestilence to personally grant blessings on the Xianzhou…
Besides, Twilight said he was strong before but became weak after entering. Perhaps his power came from an external source and was confiscated during the security check… Was it the rumored [Cornerstone]? If it was only that level of power, not quite Emanator level, he could probably handle it by transforming into a dragon, let alone with Twilight around…
Thinking of this, Dan Heng decided not to worry about it anymore.
…
Caelus never expected that just by helping someone out while buying drinks, he would return to the current situation.
"Get away!!!"
"Twilight, calm down!"
Caelus tightly hugged the snarling Twilight, desperately calling for help from his teammates around him, afraid that if he wasn't careful for a second, Twilight would rush up and fight to the death with the friend he had just met.
However, facing the agitated Twilight, March 7th and Dan Heng could only help him smooth Twilight's fur from the side, unable to do much else—after all, it was questionable whether the three of them combined could even beat Twilight.
Caelus was truly at a loss. He had just been wandering around with March 7th on their way to buy SoulGlad, met a lost purple-haired older sister on the road, and kindly led her to the front desk to register. Who knew that upon seeing her, Twilight would charge over like a cat with its fur on end? If he hadn't quickly grabbed her, a fight would have probably broken out by now.
Even now, though it was inconvenient to fight, Twilight was still snarling and threatening the older sister behind him, just like a cat hissing at someone it disliked.
This, this, this—could it be that Twilight was jealous? Seeing him go out for a stroll and bring back a pretty older sister, was she jealous?!
Caelus was very confused. He felt that his relationship with March 7th and Himeko was usually quite good, and he had met many beautiful older sisters on Jarilo-VI before, but he had never seen Twilight react so intensely.
Could it be that she had grown up and started caring about such things? Then if Twilight saw the white-haired sister—uh, Twilight probably couldn't beat the white-haired sister…
"It seems… I'm not quite welcome here?" Looking at Twilight hissing at her, Acheron blinked, nodded slightly at March 7th and Caelus, "Thank you for showing me the way. Let's part ways here for now."
"Okay, okay, the front desk is right over there!"
It wasn't until Acheron's figure disappeared that Caelus felt Twilight in his arms gradually calm down.
Sigh, it really was about Acheron? Unexpectedly, Twilight had learned to be jealous… This wasn't good. Jealousy itself was fine, but this habit of wanting to punch the other person into a pancake whenever she got jealous couldn't be fostered. Otherwise, if Twilight evolved into a yandere, it would be a terrifying incident for both him and the galaxy…
Of course, Twilight could guess what Caelus was thinking, but was she really reacting because he met another woman?
What a joke! Acheron couldn't steal her favorability like a certain blonde. As long as it didn't affect her energy farming, Twilight never cared about other things, okay!
The reason she hissed was simply because Acheron was too strong and would affect the surroundings… Her innocent and kind self was hissing to protect her companions, okay? The other person walked the Path of Nihility. If she stayed near the Express crew, what if everyone accidentally got tainted by a bit of Nihility? That would be a big problem.
But she had to admit, Acheron, this Emanator who didn't admit she was an Emanator, was the first enemy besides a certain blonde that Twilight had encountered who could threaten her. According to Twilight's estimation, if the two of them fought, even if Twilight could win, she probably couldn't protect the people around her.
Acheron, being a lone wolf, naturally didn't care, but Twilight had teammates to protect. Therefore, the best solution to encounter such a situation was naturally to hiss and scare the other party away—after all, she was just a baby less than four months old and hadn't even gone to school yet. Using some less polite primitive methods was normal~
As for Caelus's misunderstanding… Heh, what's wrong with a little misunderstanding? With misunderstanding comes truth and guilt, and with truth and guilt comes energy!
And this misunderstanding might even be used again for something big later…
-----
Emmmmm, so I've decided to change the update sequence a bit:
Webnovel: 2 chapters per day
Free members on Patreon: You'll get up to 5 chapters
Paid members: You get everything I can crank out. No limits. I'll drop as many as I can whenever I can.
I'm doing my best to keep the grind going, and your support—whether free or paid—really means a lot to me. Seriously, thank you.
Big Thanks to My Supporters! ヾ(≧▽≦*)o
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I do this because I feel bad neglecting my paid members—they deserve perks. I started by translating the main story into a web novel. As for the side stories, I uploaded the rest on Patreon. However, I'm sorry I can't upload them right now, as the document was deleted due to a power outage, and my computer didn't save a copy. I was so frustrated that I decided not to translate this fanfic specifically for sometime.