In a crossover anime, do you believe that a machine spirit can defeat a fake human?

For the remaining days, Chen Yi lay quietly in his hospital room. During this time, the members of the Service Club, Aoyama Nanami, and Hiratsuka-sensei occasionally came to visit him.

Futaba seems to be quite busy, and is only chatting online.

Then there's Kasumigaoka. She comes almost every day, bringing her notebook and using the tables and chairs in the ward to write all day long.

Aside from that, he would occasionally use dirty jokes to tease her, but he didn't do anything else that crossed the line.

"You're being discharged tomorrow, senior." Chen Yi pressed the bandaged area; the pain there had lessened considerably.

Speaking of which, I'm really an iron man... I've been injured so many times since I transmigrated and I haven't had a mental breakdown... Chen Yi sighed.

“It’s not that there isn’t.” Kroos sharpened the red hand axe in her hand with a whetstone, then glanced up at Chen Yi.

"The probability of a commander having PTSD in their daily performance is 76%."

Now that you mention it, it does seem a bit true.

He glanced at Kroos's hand axe, which vanished the next second, leaving a cold sensation in his hand.

"..." Kroos held up the whetstone, her expression somewhat helpless.

This is a new ability added after the 'ritual' these past few days; Kelukai's weapon can come into reality, like right now.

However, she herself still cannot interfere with reality, which is a pity.

"You're discharged from the hospital. Shall we go get something good to eat?" Kasumigaoka pressed the enter key and looked away from the screen.

"Forget it, I'll just cook at home." Chen Yi thought to himself, the fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator were probably all spoiled.

Let's think about what vegetables we can buy.

"Chen-kun, I'm coming in." Rio Futaba knocked on the door and entered the ward.

Her dark circles were quite pronounced, and her face showed an undeniable weariness.

“The basic information of the sample has been extracted... but the experiment to cultivate the bacterial community failed, and now there is only one rare specimen frozen in the lab.” She placed a bag on the table and pulled up a chair to sit down without any hesitation.

"These bacteria die very quickly, and they only decompose pseudo-human cells, ignoring all other organic matter," Futaba said, rubbing her temples with a hint of distress.

"How about I find a way to hunt another one?" Chen Yi pondered.

This thing is much easier to fight than a regular fake human. No matter what, you always have the initiative.

“Let’s think about this carefully.” Rio Futaba shook her head, disapproving of Chen Yi’s radical approach.

“Although the samples are almost used up, the conclusions drawn are still quite substantial. I imagine that once the relevant departments receive the news, they will immediately organize thermal imaging teams to patrol, and then the samples will naturally not be lacking,” Shuangye explained.

“Commander, there’s no need to take that risk,” Kluge agreed.

“Okay, fine…” Chen Yi stroked his chin, suddenly remembering the pile of loose parts at home.

It's time to get their assembly schedule on track...

......

"Speaking of which, Kasumigaoka-senpai, how's your novel coming along?" Chen Yi asked, idly watching Kasumigaoka typing away.

“Didn’t I say? The old book, ‘Love Metronome,’ didn’t sell well and was canceled a long time ago. I’ve been writing a new one. The first volume of the new book is already in print, and I’m writing the second volume now,” Kasumigaoka explained.

Editor Machida is a patient person. She did not give up on herself because she was a newcomer and had a bad start. Instead, she gave herself a second chance and recommended herself to the paperback publisher during the precious window of opportunity when no well-known authors were releasing new books. She managed to secure a promotional spot for herself.

"This is my new book. I've been wanting to show it to my junior for a while..." Kasumigaoka took a blank-covered novel out of her notebook bag and handed it to Chen Yi.

Chen Yi took it; it only had 'Xia Shizi's' autograph on it.

"What's it called?" Chen Yi asked.

"Heartbeat Service Club".

"I'm so scared, it's Lady Monica!" Chen Yi's finger twitched.

"What's the content about?" Chen Yi asked cautiously, while praying silently in his heart.

Don't let it be some kind of story disguised as a slice-of-life romance, only to turn out to be a psychological horror story when you buy it and watch it, where one of the four people suddenly dies while they're talking in the Service Club, and then two more die after the timeline restarts.

"Junior, you'll find out soon enough," Kasumigaoka teased.

Of course, all of the above is a joke. It's just a heartwarming slice-of-life story about a couple, with at most a series of thrilling escape scenes added. It's not the horror novel that Chen Yi was thinking of.

"Did you write this based on the Service Club?" Chen Yi asked casually as he flipped through the pages.

"Half and half," Kasumigaoka's statement was somewhat vague.

"Your description of the Service Club is almost like some kind of civilian hunting organization for fake people," Chen Yi complained. Is this still a normal high school student?

Hmm, Japanese high school students seem to save the world all the time, so this seems normal now.

"Hmph, some people are already thinking about hunting down fake humans while they're still lying in the hospital," Kasumigaoka said sarcastically.

"......" cannot be refuted.

"Update quickly, I can't sleep tonight." After finishing the book, Chen Yi handed it back to Kasumigaoka.

"This is a gift for my junior... What did you mean by what you just said?"

"It's nothing, just some kind of tradition," Chen Yi replied dismissively.

......

I was discharged from the hospital, but I still don't need to go back to school.

Chen Yi asked in the Service Department's group chat and received the reply that "the false people have not been completely eliminated" and the school is still under lockdown.

He took a moment to look around the school and, as expected, he was stopped; several armed helicopters were circling overhead.

He was quite happy to have some free time. Besides having Hiratsuka Shizuka come over privately for tutoring, he also used this free time to assemble the mechanical dog and drone, and debug the system to near completion.

"Messenger-1." Chen Yi beckoned, and the mechanical dog wobbled to its feet.

"Lift your left foreleg."

'Messenger-1' slowly raised its left foreleg, somewhat stiffly.

"At the same time as lowering your left front leg, lift your right back leg."

Hiratsuka Shizuka, standing to the side, observed with great interest.

The metal leg of 'Messenger-1' moved and slammed backward.

"..." Chen Yi sighed inwardly, rubbing his forehead. "My balance control is still lacking."

Optimizing motion algorithms and stuff like that... is a bit of a pain.

It's much better than yesterday; to put it another way, it's a qualitative leap from high-level paraplegia to rehabilitation training.

"If you also have a soul, please become a spirit as soon as possible." Chen Yi clasped his hands together.

"Let me play with it." Hiratsuka Shizuka was used to his usual rambling manner, so she reached out and snatched the remote control from Chen Yi's hand.

Ignoring the sight of the older single woman having so much fun playing with her remote-controlled dog, Chen Yi took a plate of small cakes from the oven.

"Hiratsuka-sensei, please try this." Chen Yi took the cakes out of the baking tray one by one and placed them on a porcelain plate.

"Thank you, Xiao Yi," Hiratsuka Shizuka said casually.

By the way, what is Xiao Yi's nickname...?

Chen Yi was too lazy to correct him.

P.S.: A great user in the group gave me a suggestion: if I don't know how to approach the second young lady, why don't I just start with the eldest young lady? (?o?o)??

Alright, that's it for today's two chapters, meow! Please vote and give me a tip, meow! Thank you all for your support, meow! Or you can pet the author, meow! Meow meow meow!

Service Department: Chapter 53 Back-to-School Routine

My gait has become more agile.

Chen Yi had this feeling for no apparent reason when he tested 'Messenger-1'.

"Kroos, try to control it," Chen Yi said to Kroos, who was sitting next to him.

"Understood." Kroos closed her eyes.

'Messenger-1' bounced around twice, as agile as a lively puppy.

"I feel a little tired... and it's a little difficult to speak." Kroos's voice rang out, coming through the mechanical dog's megaphone.

This amplifier is simply connected to the motherboard, and no drivers have been written yet. It seems that Kluge can bypass the drivers and directly control the hardware.

This feature is quite powerful; if used properly, it might have amazing effects.

However, it seems that it will require additional effort... It looks like this step of iteratively optimizing the system is unavoidable.

With Kruka relinquishing control, 'Messenger-1' once again became sluggish.

"Klukka, I believe that mechanical dogs and drones can also give birth to machine souls." Chen Yi plugged the data cable into the mechanical dog's motherboard, waking up the laptop that was in standby mode.

"Why do you say that?" Kroos asked, sitting next to Chen Yi and looking at the screen.

"Look." Chen Yi turned the screen a little. "The dynamic algorithm I wrote is one of the simpler types, or you could say it's one of the earlier types, but now its iteration speed far exceeds that of earlier algorithms."

"Therefore, I suspect that Messenger-1 should also possess a certain degree of machine spirit."

"Does the commander mean that there will be people like me?" Kluge looked at the mechanical puppy in front of her and inexplicably found it unlovable.

"Maybe, maybe not." Chen Yi didn't seem to care.

......

"Is it all cleaned up?" Early in the morning, Chen Yi received a call from Hiratsuka-sensei and slowly yawned while lying in bed.

"So, that means I can go back to school normally now, right?" Chen Yi got out of bed and slowly stretched.

Damn it, I haven't been back to school for so long, my first reaction is displeasure, I've really fallen from grace.

Chen Yi mentally criticized himself harshly.

"Almost. Also, normally speaking, there's an exam after you go back to school tomorrow, so remember to prepare for it today," Hiratsuka Shizuka instructed.

Normal time? Chen Yi casually switched to his phone's calendar.

May 6th, judging from Japan's semester schedule, is probably the time for midterm exams.

That's really underestimating me. Do you think I'm some kind of bad student?

Chen Yi scoffed at Hiratsuka Shizuka's advice.

"Okay, that's enough for now. I still need to prepare my lesson plans, so I'll have to talk to you later." Hiratsuka Shizuka hung up the phone.

Chen Yi opened the Service Club's group chat, wanting to see how Yukinoshita and the others would react.

...It seems that apart from Tuanzi, whose grades are indeed somewhat mediocre, everyone else's academic level is quite good.

After looking at the phone for a while without finding anything interesting, Chen Yi reluctantly turned it off and went to continue adjusting the mechanical dog.

......

"I failed the exam..." This was Yui-bin who hadn't even bothered to retake it.

"So you should consciously study hard when you're at home..." This is Yukino Yukinoshita, who maintained her ranking.

"..." The two who remained silent were Miko Yotsuya and Hachiman Hikigaya, who had both made significant progress.

"Actually, this time the difficulty wasn't that high." This was Kasumigaoka, who had slightly regressed but still maintained his position as the top student in his grade, pretending to be very humble.

"Pfft..." This was Chen Yi, who was suppressing a laugh. This cunning guy was a ruthless person who secretly competed while everyone was relaxing. In this exam, he was one of the few people in the whole school whose grades improved.

“Xiao Chen is still laughing…” Yubihama accused.

"Ahem, I just remembered something happy." Chen Yi immediately straightened his expression.

Unfortunately, she couldn't hold it in for more than three seconds before breaking down.

"Mr. Chen, it's best not to become arrogant or complacent. Maintaining this pace of progress is the most important thing." Yukino sighed inwardly. She thought to herself, "No wonder he's an exchange student from the University of Tokyo; he adapted to the Japanese exams in just about a month..."

Moreover, I couldn't even beat him in math. Where did this science monster come from?

For the first time, Yukino felt inferior to anyone other than her older sister.

"Alright, it's time to get the Service Club's tutoring done. Yuihama-san, Yotsuya-san, and you, Hikigaya-kun," Yukinoshita announced solemnly. "To make your upcoming final exams less disastrous... I will help you with your tutoring in the Service Club unless you request it."

"Okay..." This was Yui-bin's listless response; it was clear she really wasn't concentrating on her studies.

Several people were half-pushed into a learning mode by Yukino, while Chen Yi and Kasumigaoka, who were left out, were happy to have some free time and simply went for a walk outside in the corridor.

"How's your novel going lately?" Chen Yi asked, leaning on the fence and looking at the bustling city in the distance, as always.