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

Chapter 43: Performance Issues

Shooting off before the others could, with a smile on my face, I brought my blade down and was met with Kafka’s own. The flames of Ryūjin Jakka tried to consume her, only being held back by my tight rein on them.

We grinned at one another as our blades sparked between us.

“Heh, things are getting heated~” Kafka teased with a small, alluring smile.

“You haven’t seen anything yet!” I declared with a bigger smile before I disengaged and started attacking more seriously.

What followed was a deadly clash of blades that looked more like a dance than a fight as we lost ourselves for a moment in the thrill of it.

Thanks to my Sharingan, it was a simple matter tracking her movements. What proved a bit more challenging was her speed, as she was still a bit faster than me, forcing me to rely on my Sharingan a bit to keep up with her — which I just managed to do.

It just made me realize that, despite appearances, Kafka was actually really fucking strong. I could tell she was holding back, though not by how much.

‘No wonder she can hang with my Firefly and Wolfie without dragging them down,’ I thought, silently impressed.

Every now and then, arrows made out of ice or what seemed like bullets made of dark matter would target Kafka. But since March and Welt were careful not to hit me, Kafka was able to easily dodge or block them as we continued our clash.

“Keep up the attack, Caelus! She’s a slippery one! We got your back!” I heard March yell from some distance.

“You’re doing great, Caelus!” Welt also chimed in with encouragement.

“I had no idea you were so impressive, benefactor,” Tingyun also decided to throw in some words, although in her case her tone came off a little weird and put me on edge.

“Thanks!” I shouted back, not daring to remove my gaze from an amused Kafka.

“As expected of the Astral Express. All of you sure are a tight-knit group~” Kafka muttered as she pulled out her gun and shot me almost point-blank.

Thanks to a combination of my skin being super tough from Rasaka’s Venom, which I had eaten a while back, and the resistance granted by the Path of Preservation, all her bullets did was sting a bit as they hit my skin before bouncing off.

Wanting to try something, I focused Preservation energy into Ryūjin Jakka in a similar way I would do with my lance, and became pleasantly surprised when the effect took hold immediately. Ryūjin Jakka’s flames gained a more orange color and grew in size, causing Kafka to raise an impressed eyebrow.

“You channeled the power of Preservation into your new artifact without any problems. Along with your sword skills, I must say that you’re rather impressive for someone who lost his memories~” Kafka spoke, complimenting me and teasing me at the same time.

“Why thank you! I had a great teacher!” I muttered back with a grin while shooting her a pointed look, causing her eyes to crinkle further in amusement.

‘This feels so nostalgic,’ I couldn’t help but think to myself as I continued my fight with Kafka, though at this point I should call it as it is and just admit that Kafka was humoring and playing around with me.

Despite that, though, I found myself smiling without reservation as my Sharingan copied every one of Kafka’s moves and my body had no trouble mirroring them without practice, as if I had done it countless times before. Something that the Sharingan couldn’t do, of course, which meant it either came from my Adept Arms Mastery or I already knew it beforehand.

‘Wasn’t the MC from the game really good with all kinds of weapons with no training beforehand too? My guess is that Kafka must have been the one responsible for teaching me that,’ I concluded internally.

“Darn, it seems our time is up. I was even starting to enjoy myself too~” Kafka said as she suddenly stopped moving and stood still, dismissing her katana and pulling out her guns, holding them pointed up.

Coming to a stop in front of her, I raised an eyebrow while March and Welt immediately surrounded her on all sides.

I got my answer a moment later as Kafka suddenly grinned and fired off into the air, seemingly randomly.

Looking up, we saw she was actually aiming at a petite pink-haired girl in extravagant clothes that were a mix of pink, white, and black.

This was none other than Fu Xuan, Master Diviner of the Luofu and a precog. Blessed with a “third eye” by Nous, that allowed her to predict the future by calculating probabilities, but at the cost of being in almost constant pain.

She immediately proved her ability moments later while throwing some cool lines.

“Rudimentary. Your every move… …has been foreseen… …by the omniscia,” Fu Xuan muttered as her third eye glowed and the bullets seemed to slow down as she redirected them away from her. Once the glow on her third eye stopped, they regained their speed and continued their trajectory.

Her cool line and the cool way she landed was unfortunately interrupted and broken by my following words.

“…Oww. Please watch where you aim next time,” I muttered, massaging my forehead where I now had a small scrape, as one of the bullets had been redirected in my direction. Well, more than one actually, but that one I hadn’t been able to dodge.

The silence that followed was almost deafening, and I caught Fu Xuan freezing in her landing pose, as well as the way the back of her neck turned a bit red.

‘Seems her third eye failed to take me into account thanks to Chaos Response,’ I thought in silent amusement as my lips twitched, just stopping myself from bursting into laughter as it seemed I had ruined her grand entrance.

Someone was not as kind as me, however, and Kafka broke the silence that had descended as she broke out into amused giggles while looking at the slowly reddening neck of Fu Xuan. She also threw a small glance my way, probably already guessing what had happened as well, and causing her amusement to increase.

“Hoh~ Is the Master Diviner of the Luofu perhaps having performance issues?” Kafka teased as she hid her grin behind her hand.

Kafka’s words caused a chain reaction, and next I caught March quickly slapping her hand over her mouth to stifle her own amused giggles, followed by Welt and Tingyun awkwardly coughing into their hands.

I myself had to quickly disguise my chuckle into a cough, which became that much harder to do as Fu Xuan shot to her feet and turned around, revealing her red face, before shooting Kafka an angry glare.

“Silence! I will not be mocked by a criminal!” Fu Xuan exclaimed, clearly embarrassed, getting another amused giggle from Kafka.

“Guards! Take her away!” Clearly unable to take the embarrassment any longer, Fu Xuan signaled to the arriving guards to move in.

Not fighting it, Kafka raised her hands without any complaint, but didn’t let her smile drop even as she was escorted away to the side, leaving us alone with Fu Xuan, who was trying to get herself back together.

“Ahem, I hope you won’t mind me taking the criminal off your hands,” Fu Xuan started before finally facing us with her face gone back to normal.

“Greetings, crew of the Astral Express. My name is Fu Xuan, Master Diviner at the Divination Commission and one of the Six Charioteers. This is our first encounter… though given that I have encountered you in foresight, perhaps I should say the second,” Fu Xuan properly introduced herself with a calm and regal tone, trying to obviously pretend that the past several minutes didn’t happen.

Fu Xuan wasn’t done, though, and went on to mutter some philosophical words that completely went over our heads, or at least mine and March’s, proven by her next words.

“…What the actual heck is she saying?” March leaned closer to me and whispered to my side.

“She’s clearly still embarrassed and is just showing off with some big and fancy words to confuse us,” I said with a sure tone as I crossed my arms and nodded in a sagely manner.

“I see.” March, in complete sync with me, immediately believed me as she gave Fu Xuan a small pitying look.

“I’m not trying to cover up for my embarrassment!” Fu Xuan suddenly exploded with a red face again as she cutely glared at us.

“Not that I was embarrassed in the first place. I was just offering some words of wisdom, but it clearly went over your heads!”

“If the method of my speech is offensive to you, you need but say!” Fu Xuan demanded sternly with crossed arms and pursed lips.

Sensing a confrontation, Welt quickly came to the rescue.

“Ahem, we received an assignment from General Jing Yuan to arrest the Stellaron Hunter. Thank you, Diviner, for coming to our aid, but we must escort the fugitive to the general,” Welt declared with a firm tone.

Fu Xuan clearly didn’t like that and responded back with a sharp tone.

“Inessential. I hold a proclamation from the general here, if you care to see. Upon detaining the Stellaron Hunter, questioning and all further arrangements are to be undertaken by the Divination Commission,” Fu Xuan said firmly.

“So the General spared us a walk with Kafka? I knew he was a good guy,” March commented happily, content to interact the least amount of time with Kafka.

“Understood. However, the general promised that all intel would be shared with us. We have a right to know anything that Kafka divulges,” Welt continued negotiations calmly.

They went back and forth for a bit longer, with Welt eventually winning the argument, allowing us to listen in to Kafka’s interrogation, which was to take place in the Divination Commission.

During their talk, though, I noticed Fu Xuan looking at me a bit weirdly every now and then, as if seeing me for the first time.

“The time has arrived. We must depart. Please proceed,” Fu Xuan motioned to the side where a starskiff was already waiting for us.

Even on our way there, however, Fu Xuan’s gaze kept returning to me, to the point that I eventually called her out on it.

“Is there something you want to say, Miss Fu Xuan?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “You have been looking at me for a while now.”

A bit startled at my question, Fu Xuan blinked before fully focusing on me with an admittedly cute expression of narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

“Are you actually here in person right now, or are you actually a projection?” she asked rather bluntly, making me blink in return and then glance to my lower back, where my horse tail was.

“Umm, that’s a rather strange question, but unless I’ve been replaced with an identical robot clone of me — which sounds rather cool now that I think about it — you are seeing the genuine article right now. Caelus the Galactic Baseballer at your service~” I finished while giving her a reassuring thumbs up and smile.

“That was indeed a strange question. What brought that on?” March, also intrigued with the talk, jumped into the conversation.

Fu Xuan frowned as if not believing me before finally answering. “…It’s just that you appear completely invisible to my third eye no matter what I try. Even earlier with foresight, I was only able to see your companions’ actions while yours remained shrouded to me.”

March and I turned to look at one another silently, and with our eyes came to the conclusion that Chaos Response was responsible — something I already knew, of course.

We made no show of displaying any outward emotion or reaction, and soon turned our gaze back to the curious gaze of the pink-haired shorty and gave identical shrugs.

“Don’t know what to tell ya,” I dismissed calmly with a smile.

“Yeah, maybe you were having an off day or something,” March commented next with a bit of a nervous smile, as usual terrible with lying.

‘And there went my hopes for you, March. I really need to teach her how to lie better, or better yet, get an ability that lets me somehow easily teach her or something,’ I thought internally while pinching her side sneakily, causing her to jump a bit.

“Oww! What gives!?” March exclaimed, turning to me with a glare.

“Sorry. I thought I saw a bug,” I smiled innocently, causing her to narrow her eyes, not fully believing me.

Now clearly a bit suspicious in Fu Xuan’s eyes, we were thankfully saved from answering by Tingyun, who docked the starskiff and signaled for us to get off.

“Let’s disembark here, benefactors.”

Disembarking, we found ourselves in what appeared to be a market area with a huge dead tree poking out in the distance.

Fu Xuan lost all interest in us then as she rounded on Tingyun and demanded why we were here, since this was clearly not the Divination Commission.

Tingyun went on to explain that the way to the Divination Commission was blocked or something, and decided to dock us in the Exalting Sanctum, where we currently were, and walk the rest of the way there.

Another small argument broke out when Fu Xuan wanted to leave ahead. Due to the sensitive nature of how they were going to make Kafka talk, we couldn’t be there to watch the whole process, but she promised that the questioning would not begin until we arrived.

She had even appointed someone to wait for us in front of the Exalting Sanctum Plaza who would bring us to the Divination Commission when they were ready for the questioning.

As we watched them walk away while escorting Kafka, I caught the latter looking back at me for a moment and giving me a teasing wink before she disappeared from our sight.

“Ugh, can that woman at least pretend to act like a proper prisoner instead of acting like everything is still going to her plans?” March whined cutely with a jealous pout, having seen her last gesture.

“Furthermore, I couldn’t help but notice that this Fu Xuan didn’t particularly seem to like us. She was pretty icy…”

“I’m sure that’s just what she appears at a first glance, but I bet that deep inside she’s a real softie,” I nodded in a sagely manner, already knowing that for a fact.

Fu Xuan was almost like a tsundere — all tough and a bit mean at times, but once you got past that you found that she was actually a really nice person.

“If you say so,” March muttered, seemingly not convinced.

“Forget about that and let’s explore this place! A new adventure awaits!” I declared happily while pointing to the horizon dramatically.

‘I think this is the place where we meet that cute dragon girl Bailu. Yosh, time to adopt a new cute little sister!’