Sky Striker Princess, but the swan song of Valkyrie.

The next moment, before she could react, her attention was drawn to the touch of someone beside her. (Yi Lingqi Shiwu Liu)

......

The warm, soft yet slightly hard object, under its master's will, entangled itself with its kind. Its extremely weak power, however, transmitted the master's will to the other's heart.

"Hmph... Just saying that outright, aren't you afraid that my performance just now was merely an attempt to test your thoughts in order to perfect my fake acting?"

Feeling her fingers intertwined, Lingyi's expression froze, and she asked this question.

“If that’s the case, I’ll be very happy, because that’s what you, Lingyi, really want to do.”

"I just hope that Lingyi, you won't be like that before, the one who lost her vitality and wanted to give up everything."

Kohinata Mirai naturally explained her thoughts.

Clearly, in her view, whatever Zero wanted to do was much better than doing nothing and simply following the will of others.

"Oh, is that so?"

Having heard Kohinata Mirai's words, I understood their meaning and perceived the goodwill emanating from them.

"Do you want me to start over? Seriously, I give up."

Lingyi sighed, raised her head, and looked up at the sky.

At this moment, the unpredictable summer weather had changed again. Although the dark clouds had not yet dispersed, the heavy rain that had enveloped the two of them had stopped.

"Well then, since that's the case, I'll try a little harder."

Lingyi muttered to herself.

Kohinata Mirai noticed that her rarely moving, even somewhat stiff, facial muscles seemed to show a slight movement after a long time.

P.S. It should be good noon.

Chapter 121 Moving Forward Again

As the clock ticks, time flows slowly, like the rotation of a planet, as always, almost never stopping.

Since that rainstorm, Kohinata Mirai has never been seen again. Rei's expression changed, as if everything in that rainstorm was just a hazy hallucination she had when she first woke up.

However, Kohinata Mirai knew that it was not an illusion. The faint flame in Rei's heart had been growing little by little, rising in a spiral, under the impetus of time.

If you were to ask how Kohinata Mirai saw it...

"Auntie, may I help you a little? I have some experience in cooking."

Lingyi saw her mother cooking and made this suggestion.

"Hey, Lingyi, are you really sure you can do this?"

His mother said with some distrust.

Although Kohinata Mirai explained that her parents now believed in Zero's identity and knew that she possessed great strength.

However, because of his usual behavior, they mostly treated Lingyi as an ordinary child with some psychological problems and took good care of her in her daily life.

Therefore, Mrs. Kohinata was slightly surprised when she suddenly heard Rei's suggestion.

"It's okay, trust me, I can do it, I just want to give it a try."

However, since Rei made that promise, Mrs. Kohinata let her try it.

However, she didn't have high hopes. In her mind, children of this age should be so bad at cooking that they would be kicked out of the kitchen.

Then, a little while later...

"Little Lingyi, are you sure this is because you have some experience?"

Mrs. Kohinata said in surprise.

To be fair, the help Lingyi just provided wasn't anything special.

The ingredients were just prepared a little faster and neater, the heat control was a little more stable, and the use and combination of seasonings were a little clearer. If I had to say, it was just a typical home-style dish.

However, considering her age and the person Mrs. Kohinata was comparing herself to, a slight look of surprise appeared on her face.

"I just studied it for a period of time before; I've always been good at studying."

Wearing an apron that the Kohinata family had bought before but which had only been used once and was now gathering dust, Rei said this naturally.

"Ah, anyway, having Lingyi around is a huge help. Compared to that, ah, it's nothing."

Mrs. Kohinata smiled as she spoke, glancing at Kohinata Mirai, saying nothing, yet seemingly saying everything.

...In short, seeing Rei like this, even though she didn't know why she was being targeted, Kohinata Mirai finally understood that the current Rei was different from the one before.

As for Kohinata's future life, unlike before, Rei is much more proactive in making demands on her.

"Kohinata, you did this wrong."

Although Kohinata Mirai felt that it was better not to take the initiative in some areas.

"Um, Lingyi, isn't this a bit too strict? Are these really things I should be learning right now?"

Looking at the homework that Rei had assigned her, and the thing she called a knowledge network diagram, Kohinata Mirai's expression became slightly disheveled.

"Kohinata, didn't you miss several days of classes because of me? In that case, it's only natural for me to help you catch up."

Lingyi remained expressionless as she spoke calmly, her words sounding quite reasonable.

"That's true, but in terms of quantity, isn't it a bit excessive? Besides, I've recently started going back to school, so there's no need for me to continue getting tutoring."

Kohinata Mirai said with a hint of pressure.

Since Rei seems to be developing in a positive direction, Kohinata no longer needs to neglect her studies and can resume her regular work.

"Ah, this is because your aunt mentioned before that after my tutoring, your grades not only didn't drop, but actually improved."

"So she asked me to continue tutoring you. Since I was staying at your house temporarily, it wasn't easy for me to refuse."

Lingyi silently explained why she continued to tutor Kohinata Mirai even after she went to school.

"Haha, is that so?"

Hearing what Rei said, Kohinata Mirai had nothing to say.

Moreover, objectively speaking, Lingyi's teaching efficiency is indeed very good.

She always lets Kohinata Mirai rest before her study efficiency drops, and she can see through Kohinata Mirai's pretense at a glance, making it impossible for her to slack off.

"Lingyi, can you read minds?"

Thinking of this, Kohinata Mirai couldn't help but ask.

"How could that be? I don't have mind-reading abilities."

Rei immediately denied Kohinata Mirai's statement.

"That's true. If you could read minds, Lingyi... I probably wouldn't be able to hide my thoughts from you before."

Kohinata Mirai shook her head, shaking off the inexplicable fantasies in her mind.

"So, Lingyi, is it simply because you have more teaching experience?"

Kohinata Mirai was talking to herself.

"Ah, is that what you want to ask? No, that's not it. My ability in this area is actually not that strong. At most, I'm at the level of an average person."

Upon hearing Kohinata Mirai's self-talk, Rei offered this explanation.

"Sigh, but Lingyi, you always manage to pinpoint my condition so accurately. This ability must come from your extensive teaching experience, right?"

Kohinata Mirai couldn't help but feel a little confused by Zero's statement.

"It was just a matter of taking a few shortcuts."

As Lingyi spoke, she walked to the side and picked up the black and red blade that had been flashing with patterns in Kohinata Mirai's eyes since earlier.

"This, shouldn't this be the weapon you call the Flash Blade, Zero?"

Seeing Zero's actions, Kohinata Mirai had some ideas in her mind.

"Well, to put it simply, I can roughly sense the psychological and physiological state of other people through this flashing blade."

“You can sense emotions like joy, sadness, fear, and anger, or even physical problems.”

"That's why I can always grasp your state perfectly, Kohinata."

Lingyi explained it simply to Kohinata Mirai.

"Wow, it actually has such a useful function, even though it looks like just a knife."

Kohinata Mirai was somewhat surprised, but after thinking about what she had heard about the things the other party had done, she felt it was normal.

Only by combining various completely irrational abilities could Lingyi accomplish the kind of irrational feats she had heard of all by herself.

"Let's not talk about that. Today's teaching activities are already finished. Continuing any further would just be a waste of time and energy."

Ignoring Kohinata's future amazement, Rei simply finished today's lesson as usual.

"Ah, okay."

Realizing that class time was over, Kohinata Mirai put away her textbooks, including those for math, music, and social studies, which were slumped on her desk.

"...Speaking of which, Lingyi, there's a question I've always wanted to ask: why do you never teach Chinese? Is it because Chinese is difficult to teach?"

While organizing the textbooks, Kohinata Mirai seemed to have just remembered something and asked with some concern.

Since asking Rei to do her homework, Rei has been teaching her some things, but this does not include the Japanese language lessons that Kohinata Mirai is learning.

"Chinese literature... well, that's the main thing I'm not very good at."

After a moment's thought, Lingyi quickly explained why she wouldn't teach Kohinata Mirai Japanese literature.

"Sigh, so there are things you're not good at, Zero."

Kohinata Mirai was somewhat surprised; she had never encountered anything that Zero didn't understand.

"Of course, I'm not a local here, and learning Chinese from me would make your grammar sound weird."

Lingyi said matter-of-factly.

"I see."

Upon hearing Rei say this, Kohinata Mirai realized that although Rei usually communicated with her smoothly, her accent always had some strange grammatical usage in certain places.

"However, you're not from here... Come to think of it, I don't know where you're from, Lingyi. Could you tell me?"

When the topic came up, Kohinata Mirai subconsciously asked a question out of curiosity.

Although she had known Lingyi for some time, she still had no idea about Lingyi's background.

"Where? You mean...my hometown?"

When faced with Kohinata Mirai's question, Rei paused, as if she had thought of something.

"It usually refers to something like your hometown, right? Judging from your hair color, does that mean you're from Europe or somewhere similar?"

Kohinata Mirai continued to speculate curiously.

"Hmm... no, that's not it."

When asked about Kohinata Mirai's question, Rei fell into deep thought.

"Ah, of course, if it's inconvenient for you to bring it up, you don't have to say it."

Seeing Rei pondering Kohinata Mirai for so long, and considering that Rei's past might contain some unpleasant things, he added this supplement.

"Well, there's nothing I can't say."

After careful consideration, Lingyi shook her head, denying the speculation.

"To be precise, I come from another world, a place that is quite similar to China in this world."

Then, Rei concisely conveyed this information to Kojima Mirai.

"China in another world?!"

Kohinata Mirai's expression couldn't help but show a hint of surprise.

Although she had some guesses about Lingyi's identity, thinking that she might be a foreigner, she never expected that the other party came from another world.

"Well, the specific process is roughly like in light novels, where the street king Hajime is thrown into the sky by a half-dead road stunt, and then wakes up to find himself in this world, something like that."

Lingyi said slowly.

"I always feel like, Zero, you've said something incredibly profound in such an ordinary way."