Into the Cosmos (Star Rail SI, Chaos Gacha) (Patreon)

Chapter 42: Face to Face Again

Following Day

Bright and early the next morning, we met up with Welt before we went to the agreed-upon location Tingyun asked us to meet up at.

“That’s a nice outfit, March. You definitely fit in with the locals now,” Welt commented on the way as he turned to March and examined the outfit she was wearing.

Grinning in excitement, March did a little spin for us as she showed off her new clothes.

“Thanks, Mr. Yang! Caelus and I went shopping yesterday, and he convinced me that this would look good on me, and I happened to agree, so we ended up buying it,” March explained happily as she puffed out her chest, showing off her black qipao, red jacket, and white stockings. Her hair was also redone in two ribbon-like buns adorned with silver bells, with a red ribbon tied into her pink hair.

In my humble opinion she looked beautiful, something that I had shared with her first thing this morning, receiving a blinding smile and blush in return.

‘Yep, this outfit is definitely a good look for her,’ I thought silently to myself while mentally patting myself on the back for managing to find it. A cat tail waved behind me currently.

“Benefactors! Over here!” The voice of Tingyun interrupted any further conversation, and we saw her up ahead, waving lightly at us with a practiced smile on her face.

I couldn’t help but notice that she shot my tail a longer look than was strictly necessary, but I pretended like nothing happened as I waved back at her.

“Morning,” I said simply with a relaxed smile, while March and Welt gave their own greetings.

After small pleasantries were out of the way, she got to the heart of the matter, which was the subject of capturing Kafka, and brought our attention to the small curious puppy beside her.

“This is Diting, a bionic dog with all the senses of a Foxian dialed to eleven that I managed to get permission to use for the purpose of tracking our suspect,” Tingyun explained patiently.

“He’s so cute~” March immediately squealed, only just stopping herself from scooping down and grabbing it into her arms.

I turned to look at her with an amused raised brow, causing her to blush and cough into her hand in embarrassment.

“I-I mean, how useful will he be?”

“Why don’t I give you a demonstration? This way it will also let us tweak his settings for our purpose,” Tingyun suggested with a smile that widened as she gave March an approving look.

“By the way, Miss March, that look suits you perfectly~”

“Hehe, thanks. Maybe you’re not so bad after all,” March thanked, going back to her original happy self.

What followed was basically a game of hide and seek as Tingyun hid herself and told us to find her using only Diting to pick up any clues left behind.

With the tried-and-true method of the rule of three, after finding three items touched by Tingyun, Diting led us right to her without any problems.

‘No wonder Wolfie thinks she’s basically in a high-stakes video game when met with basic mechanics like these,’ I thought to myself with a shake of my head.

That did bring up a question I wanted to ask, though.

“Hey, Tingyun?” I asked from my seat next to her as she flew us to our next destination, Stargazer Navalia, in a starskiff.

“Yes, benefactor?” Tingyun responded calmly while turning one green eye toward me. I noticed she couldn’t help but glance at the now dragon tail behind me.

“Am I able to buy a Diting of my own by chance? He looks like he would come in handy,” I asked curiously while letting my own gaze travel to her own tail.

“That… Hmm, I actually don’t have an answer to that, benefactor. I will make sure to ask Madam Yukong if such a thing is possible for you,” Tingyun said a bit hesitantly at first before coming to a compromise.

With the icebreaker out of the way, I went ahead and asked her the real question I had been dying to ask since first meeting her.

“Ahem, also I was wondering if…” I asked before pausing with some hesitance, not sure whether I should go on or not.

“Yes?” Tingyun gave me a patient look, waiting for my question.

“Can I touch your tail?” I decided to go for it before I chickened out again, causing a sudden silence to descend inside the starskiff we were riding on.

Tingyun blinked before turning her head to fully look at me with a blank expression, while March groaned in the background about idiots, and there was even an almost imperceptible chuckle coming from Welt.

“…I apologize. Could you please repeat that, benefactor?” Tingyun asked with a curious tilt in her voice.

Since I had already let the cat out of the bag, shall we say, I trailed ahead like the Trailblazer I was. Akivili would be proud of me for sure.

“Can I touch your tail?” I asked again with a clearer and more sure voice as a teasing smile broke on my face and my dragon tail came up in front of me.

“You can touch mine in exchange if you want. I know you’ve been eyeing it since yesterday,” I said leadingly and temptingly.

Caught by surprise, I had an up-close look as the usually always calm and composed Tingyun finally broke character. A blush rose to her cheeks, her eyes widened in surprise, and her mouth opened, but no words came out.

Knowing I had her, I grinned and brought my tail up to my face and caressed it with my hand as I changed it to a red fox tail with a white tip.

“It’s super sooooft~” I further teased as I snuggled into it and made a content expression.

“I-I—”

Seeing that she was about to say something, I stopped and stared at her intently, even making a quiet “jiii” sound like all those times I had seen it done in anime before.

‘Yosh! I knew being an avid fan of anime and manga would come in handy one day!’ I silently cheered to myself.

Before Tingyun could finish what she wanted to say, though, March’s shriek-like voice interrupted us and the moment we were having.

“Stop flirting and watch the road! There’s a building up ahead!” March exclaimed in a panic, but I could still hear the slight jealousy behind it.

In response, Tingyun widened her eyes before expertly navigating us out of harm’s way and making a landing, since we had apparently arrived.

“Ahem, welcome, benefactors, to Stargazer Navalia,” Tingyun said after coughing into her palm once, willing the blush away, and making sure to not look anywhere near me.

I could only silently pout as I disembarked and sent March a betrayed look for ruining my fun, getting a glare in return.

‘I was so close too!’ I silently despaired as I trailed behind them with Tingyun leading the way.

Apparently the Gacha seemed to think so as well, based on the next notification I received.

[Feat Achieved! Managed to make Tingyun?? genuinely flustered.]

[+1 Gold Random Ticket.]

‘Damn it! This probably means that she was going to accept! Damn you, March, for interrupting the moment I finally got to touch her fluffy tail!’ I thought in even more despair and fake outrage before I schooled my expression to a more serious one.

‘On a more serious note, those question marks after her name probably mean this is not Tingyun after all, and instead a Lord Ravager,’ I determined from the clues I had managed to gather so far.

‘The only question is, how soon do I let the others know and confront her? As with the events that are supposed to play out according to Elio, we will need the Xianzhou’s help in the future, and this is the perfect opportunity to become friendly with them by helping them with such a big crisis.’ Letting my gaze travel to Tingyun’s back once more, I contemplated just exposing her here before stopping myself in the end.

‘I will need to talk to Kafka first to see how much the “Script” Elio told her changed before I make any moves of my own,’ I concluded finally.

“Monsters up ahead!” March yelled, interrupting my thoughts as I pulled out my lance and got ready to fight.

‘I’ll save the roll for later.’

=====

Hours Later

Like we had already experienced before on Jarilo-VI and Herta’s Space Station, when a Stellaron is involved then Fragmentum monsters were sure to be found.

Add in the Mara-struck soldiers that we found on our path to finding Kafka’s whereabouts, our journey took longer than it should have as we were forced to deal with both of them on our path.

March was also a slight concern. With every clue left behind by Kafka that we managed to find, there was a mocking message along with it, causing her to get angrier and angrier as we moved on.

Currently she was muttering under her breath how she hated her and couldn’t wait until we captured her and got her behind bars.

‘I wonder what you will say when you find out that Kafka is one of the people I care about the most and definitely want in my life?’ I wondered curiously, trying to picture the scene of when March learned the truth, only to come up blank.

‘Well, knowing March, I will just have to bribe her with sweets and I’m sure I will be forgiven.’ I nodded to myself at the foolproof plan.

“…The scent, where did it go?” Tingyun suddenly asked with a worried tone as the scent we were chasing led us to a dead end before disappearing.

That was when a smooth and familiar female voice spoke up somewhere above us.

“When the scent of the hunted disappears, the hunter better think twice…”

Looking up, we saw the person we were looking for standing with some Cloud Knights, smiling down at us with a teasing smile and a cocked hip.

‘Kafka. We finally meet face to face again,’ I thought, unable to keep my eyes off of her as a longing feeling rose in my heart. ‘I want to hug her so bad.’

“It might mean the tables have turned,” Kafka finished calmly while giving each of us a look. Her gaze met mine at the end and held it there for several seconds longer than the others, as I saw her smile soften the tiniest bit.

Her gaze then traveled to my tail and she blinked, showing a genuine expression of surprise, before her smile returned bigger than before.

“Kafka!” March exclaimed with a cute angry tone, obviously still peeved at all the mocking messages Kafka had left behind, making it seem as if she was hunting us, not the other way around.

“These Cloud Knights aren’t Mara-struck… What did you do to them?” Tingyun asked after a moment of observing the scene.

“Just a little persuasion to get them to listen to me. But you know all about that already, don’t you, Caelus?” she answered calmly while giving me a small look, causing the others to turn to me as well with questioning expressions.

“Hmph, I would like to see you try that again.” Deciding to play up my role of currently being her enemy, I let a confident smile grow on my face while I crossed my arms, unknowingly mirroring her current pose.

“I’ll have you know that I’m full of surprises~” I finished with a smirk before I brought my arm down and set it on March. “Plus, you also managed to piss off my awesome buddy here, so don’t expect to be let off easy.”

“Yeah, we’re definitely taking you down and handing you over to the Cloud Knights!” March, feeling emboldened by my words of confidence in her, declared just as boldly as she mirrored my pose with a cute smirk of her own.

Standing side by side, we had somehow moved so we were now back to back, making for quite a scene.

‘I’m definitely introducing March, Firefly, and Wolfie to JoJo poses later on,’ I thought, already picturing the cool entrances we could make in the future.

The more I thought of it, the more excited I became. I wasn’t able to keep my emotions reined in, and Kafka witnessed everything with a curious raised brow.

‘…Would Kafka be interested in JoJo?’

“Fufufu, maybe later. Anyway, I’ll see you up ahead. This is too far for the Diviner.” With those cryptic words and a last look in my direction, Kafka walked away, and the clearly hypnotized Cloud Knights got ready to attack us.

“Aargh! That woman is the worst!” March yelled in frustration as she pulled out her bow and immediately attacked.

“Easy, March. Don’t let her get to your head. We don’t want to hurt them, so just knock them out,” Welt cautioned as we did just that.

With us working together, we were able to quickly subdue them before March ran ahead before we could say anything, with an angry look on her face.

“Quick! Don’t let her escape!”

“March! Not so fast!” Welt yelled as we ran after her.

We of course had to deal with more monsters and Mara-struck soldiers on the way, but eventually we did catch up with her again, standing just outside a gate.

“Fufufu~ So close yet so far… you’ll have to keep up the pace,” Kafka teased as the door leading up to her closed and she began walking away.

“Yeah, I’m done with this cat-and-mouse game,” I suddenly declared as I slotted in my Mangekyō Sharingan.

“Everyone! Grab ahold of me!” I exclaimed loudly, and a moment later I felt three hands touch me.

Not stopping my momentum, I kept running straight at the wall, causing the others to panic a bit.

“Caelus! What are you doing!? We’re going to run straight into the door!” March squealed in fright and tightened her grip on my arm.

“That’s right, benefactor. We could use the conveyor belts to the side to get to her. There’s no need to do this!” Tingyun exclaimed in slight panic too.

“I hope you have a plan, Caelus,” Yang muttered quietly.

“Just trust me!” I yelled, and just as we were going to crash face-first into the door, I activated the ability to phase through objects, causing us to literally walk through the door.

A little up ahead, Kafka came to a stop and looked behind her, not looking surprised at all — which didn’t surprise me, as Firefly must have told her and Wolfie everything about me — and smiled.

“Well, well~ Color me surprised. That’s definitely a handy ability to have,” Kafka muttered with a teasing smile as she focused on my left eye, which soon returned to its normal golden shade.

“I don’t know how you just did that, but this is our chance!” March declared as she let go of me and pulled out her bow again, with Welt following her example, while Tingyun retreated a few steps back. I absently noticed the intense gaze she had on my back.

“Time to show you what I’m made of!” I declared as I discarded my spear and instead summoned Ryūjin Jakka, but in its Shikai state, as the blade became engulfed in red and orange flames.

Unknown to the others beside me, my words had a double meaning to them, as I wanted Kafka to see for herself how far I had come since the last time we met.

It seemed she understood my intention perfectly well too, as her smile turned less teasing and she pulled out her own katana and pointed it directly at me.

“Looks like you caught me. Then show me~”