Chapter 4
At the Defense Force's third training ground, the clamor of voices was like water-soaked cotton wool, dully blocking the eardrums.
At this moment, the Kansai accent with its unique rhythm was like a tiny feather, scratching Kurozuka Kirishi's nerve endings unexpectedly, causing a subtle but unignorable itch.
She froze for a moment, then raised her eyes, her sight passing through the swaying, blurry human-shaped block in front of her, and finally focusing with difficulty -
Or rather, it simply stays on a block of color with unclear boundaries, composed of rich black and purple and dazzling white.
"I am the selection committee chairperson for the second round of tests, and the deputy captain of the third unit - Bao Ke." The colored block made a sound.
"The qualification test will be held in this training ground." Hoshina Soshiro had his usual smile on his face, his eyes wandering through the crowd, finally accurately anchored on the newcomer who performed exceptionally well.
However... the other party remained silent like a stone statue forgotten in a corner.
Her overly long black hair was like a thick curtain, covering her expression and even her breathing, leaving only a pale, almost transparent jawline.
She seemed unwilling to respond to even the slightest movement of air.
Hoshina Soshiro sighed slightly, then began to explain the test requirements.
After showing the simulated monster in the training ground, he immediately led everyone to change their equipment.
The passage is brightly lit and footsteps echo.
Although Kurozuka Kirishi was walking in the first place, he still habitually hid himself in the shadow of the person in front of him.
She lowered her head, as if what was heavy was not her thoughts, but her body itself.
Hoshina Soshiro calmly slowed down his pace and naturally retreated to her side, walking side by side with her.
The flow of air seemed to stagnate for a moment.
Even though there was an objective distance between them, Kurozuka Kirishi's overly sensitive perception system, like exposed nerve endings, captured and amplified every slight disturbance to a suffocating level.
She could "feel" the gaze of the being made up of black, purple and white blocks beside her—
That gaze seemed to carry a substantial weight, pressing heavily on the skin behind her drooping neck.
What is even harder to ignore is the warm breath of a living person emanating from the other person.
It stirred the originally silent air, forming an invisible, sticky intrusion, constantly washing away the fragile barrier she tried so hard to maintain.
Too close...
There was clearly still plenty of space, but in her infinitely magnified world of perception, the outline of this human figure and the disturbance it brought had already forcefully squeezed out the safe distance she relied on to breathe.
"Are you okay?" The voice with a Kansai accent was more like a stone thrown into the center of this infinitely magnified vortex of perception.
Under the superposition of these multiple intrusions, Heizhong Wushi's body instantly tensed up, like a bowstring that was suddenly stretched to its limit, and every inch of his muscles screamed silently.
A feeling of almost suffocating stiffness gripped her tightly, as if to nail her to the spot.
She could feel her dry throat wriggling, and a few syllables, like rusty gears, were ground out with difficulty and extremely slow: "...Thank you...I'm fine."
She prayed that this brief answer would build a wall to make the overly active "color block" around her retreat.
The invisible, thorny gazes behind her already made her feel like she was in a thorn bush. Any more attention would be like torture.
However, the "color block" did not move away, but instead got closer.
His inquiring voice came again: "Isn't it a problem if your hair is so long?"
Hoshina Soshiro's gaze, as if tangible, fell on her falling black hair.
The hair trembles unconsciously in the weak airflow, the luster flows, and when it sways with the wind, it is like a curtain made of fine black satin, a cat-attracting weapon chosen by heaven.
I feel like I'll be the type of person whose head will be scratched by a cat as soon as I step out of the door...
The trajectory of his gaze was like warm fingertips brushing against the cold hair.
This invisible "touch" aroused a slight shudder in Kurozuka Kirishi's dull perception - it was a physiological resonance that was several times disconnected from consciousness.
This time, Kurozuka Kirishi raised his head, his movements were forced to be almost mechanical and stiff.
A few strands of heavy hair were thrown onto her pale cheeks by this sudden movement, like cold vines sticking to her skin, but she was unaware.
Her voice was as smooth as polished ice, all undercurrents frozen below absolute zero, even the slightest tremor vanished. "I remember the defense team didn't have any hairstyle requirements."
The moment the words came out of her mouth, even she herself felt that the voice was so hollow that it seemed to come from somewhere else.
Angry? Hoshina Soshiro immediately laughed, revealing a pair of fangs: "You're right, our defense team doesn't have such boring rules."
Heizhong Wushi didn't say anything else. An extremely faint and short-lived strange feeling was trying very hard to stir at the bottom of the deep pool in her heart that had long been hardened and frozen.
The feeling was vague, mixed with residual signals of being offended and being watched, and also with a strange heat that was about to extinguish before it even took shape.
So why... was he interested in her? The question hadn't even formed before it drifted away in the wasteland of consciousness. Never mind, he probably wouldn't be able to hold on for long...
This strange disturbance was too weak and too futile. It didn't even really touch her "feelings". It only caused an almost negligible and meaningless static interference on the cold nerve endings.
My thoughts were not disconnected, because they had never really been connected. My brain sank back into the thick, sticky, suffocating nothingness.
And that strange feeling that tried to struggle didn't even need to be cooled or compressed, because it was as light as a feather and was instantly swallowed up, decomposed, and assimilated by the ubiquitous numbness.
Her body was like a machine without power, all the stiffness and tension disappeared instantly, leaving only a kind of dead relaxation.
His head drooped deeply again, as if crushed by an invisible weight, and he returned to that silent, vague existence that seemed to have completely merged with the shadows.
Even Soshiro Hoshina's existence itself was quickly wiped out by this boundless numbness, sinking into eternal silence, as if her world had never been disturbed.
Seeing Kurozuka Kirishi's appearance, Hoshina Soshiro couldn't help but think,
Should he report this to Captain Yabai and invite a few psychological experts to the base?
When they reached the intersection at the end of the passage, Hoshina Soshiro turned around and looked behind him: "Keep going straight on the left road ahead and you will reach your destination."
"Next, you guys go—"
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