“This…”
Even Ye Xu, who considered himself emotionally steady, couldn’t stop the corner of his mouth from twitching after hearing those words.
——It really was a bit too miserable.
As the second daughter of a marquis family, it was normal for her to be unfavored. With the achievements she had made at school, Irina wasn’t worried about being forced into a political marriage. By the time she graduated in her final semester, if her family dared to pressure her, she would simply leave the family and fly far away.
But… but…
She wasn’t actually weak! She had simply run into something she wasn’t good at.
Those combat maniacs who specialized purely in fighting and magic usage—whose magitech and alchemy scores barely scraped a pass and who couldn’t explain a single magic principle—had dragged her onto the arena and ruthlessly ground her into the dirt without the slightest bit of tender affection for a lady.
At that time she had only been in school for a year and a half. Now, only half a year later, the psychological shadow still hadn’t faded.
“Uh…” Ye Xu rubbed his chin, watching Irina’s current state. After thinking for a moment, he tentatively spoke. “If it really won’t work, you can borrow my machine, Senior. We first-years don’t have rankings this semester anyway, so we can’t participate in the Degree Battles…”
The moment the words left his mouth, Irina flashed forward like teleportation, dropping to her knees in front of Ye Xu who was still sitting on the chair. She grabbed one of his hands with both of hers, eyes sparkling as she spoke excitedly—nothing like the pitiful, nearly crying girl from moments ago.
Uh…
Based on her earlier emotional display, Irina’s pain definitely hadn’t been fake. Her current behavior was purely from over-excitement…
“Mm, the Degree Battles happen on the third day after each monthly exam or mid-term assessment. For this semester’s Degree Battles, I’ll lend you my machine…” Since the words had already been spoken, Ye Xu couldn’t take them back. He nodded in confirmation and added, “You can use it other times too. Just let me know after you’re done.”
The instant he finished speaking, Irina pounced on him, pressing him down onto the long bench and hugging him tightly. She rubbed her face wildly against his.
——How could her little junior be so cute and so considerate? She loved him so much!!!
“Tsk tsk~” Watching the two of them, Wood immediately released his grip the moment Irina tackled Ye Xu and let out a light chuckle. “I remember Junior Nal’s machine is one of the three Radiant Sun Type-14s currently in the school, right? Irina’s going to be in heaven now.”
“S-Senior, have some self-restraint!!!” Ye Xu struggled to push Irina away, but the excited girl completely ignored him, only wanting to cling tightly to her beloved little junior.
“Ahem.”
Just as a faint blush crept across Ye Xu’s face, an old, stern voice came from the nearby office.
Professor Vilans spoke from behind the one-way glass of his office, instantly snapping the excited Irina back to reality.
Her little face flushed red. She awkwardly released Ye Xu and sat up.
“Even though your family doesn’t pay much attention to you, Irina, you’re already quite grown. No matter how much you like someone, you need to control yourself. Don’t make things difficult for others—especially when the other person is a junior. You’re older; you should understand what restraint means…”
A strict teacher’s words were always sobering. The previously lively lab instantly fell silent. Irina coughed twice, glanced at Ye Xu beside her—whose clothes were now rumpled from her rubbing—and quickly turned her flushed face away.
“U-Um, Junior Laixi, shall we head to the hangar now…”
Once she had calmed down and recalled the wonderful experience of piloting Isxila’s Dawn Heart a few days ago, Irina gently tugged at the corner of Ye Xu’s clothes and urged him a little nervously.
“Mm.” Seeing this, Ye Xu nodded. After asking Professor Vilans and confirming that he had already registered him in the lab and was handling the class exemption with the school—requiring only a quick confirmation visit to the lab tomorrow—he followed Irina out.
To be honest, aside from her somewhat jumpy way of thinking, Irina was a genuinely good person. This could be seen from how even the higher-year fourth-year students in Hangar 3 respected her and listened to her.
Although Ye Xu wasn’t good at dealing with this kind of person, he couldn’t let her warm enthusiasm meet a cold shoulder—especially since Irina’s enthusiasm toward him seemed to exceed that toward others.
No helping it. He would just have to play it by ear. He couldn’t exactly summon Ye Lalar to use her imperial mindset and help him figure out a solution, right?
“Then, Senior, you can test-drive it first and collect some data. It’ll make it easier to modify and adjust the machine when the Degree Battles start.”
Because of the Machine Soul Core, the cockpit of the Radiant Sun Type-14 didn’t open with a special mana code. It required a contract with the pilot.
Ordinary machines could be loaned out simply by telling someone the mana code, but there was also the risk of theft.
There had been far too many historical cases of new-model machines being leaked and stolen by foreign spies infiltrating the school.
In comparison, the core contracted directly with the pilot himself. The pilot only needed to use a specific incantation to leave a trace of mana carrying their soul aura on another person. That person would then gain one-time piloting rights, and the original pilot could revoke the rights at any time, ordering the machine to “politely escort” the current pilot out.
Thus, Ye Xu and Irina had agreed that every time she finished piloting, if she wanted to drive again, she would come find him, tell him what she had done, and he would grant her piloting rights once more.
“Mm mm, I’ll try it out.”
The Degree Battles weren’t a trivial matter. It was always good to familiarize herself with the machine’s armaments and performance in advance so she could complete the modifications within the three-day window according to the school’s parameters.
Looking at the night-purple mana mark on the back of her hand, Irina gently stroked Nightfall’s cockpit. As the hatch slowly opened, she stepped inside.
In an instant, the scent of Night Tan flowers flooded her nose.
Their previous daily contact had only been relatively close; she hadn’t smelled it clearly enough. But once a Magitech Knight started up, the cockpit would press tightly against the pilot’s body. The residual fragrance was naturally intense enough.
(Junior… really smells so good…)
Inhaling the intoxicating aroma, even Irina—who considered herself carefree and heartless—couldn’t stop another blush from rising on her face.
[“Senior, is something wrong? Why haven’t you started it yet?”]
Ye Xu’s voice passed through the steel and reached inside the machine.
Seeing Irina enter the cockpit but remain motionless for a long while, Ye Xu patted the hatch in confusion, wondering if something had gone wrong.
“Ah ah ah, I’m fine! I’ll start right away…”
Irina hurriedly channeled her mana and began connecting with the core.
The unique sensation unique to the Radiant Sun Type-14 appeared—as if linking with a living consciousness rather than a simple projected awareness like ordinary machines. The scene before Nightfall’s monitors was instantly projected onto Irina’s retinas.
Nightfall’s monitors then lit up with Irina’s brown-yellow mana glow.
[“How does it feel?”]
Standing in front of the machine, Ye Xu waved at Irina.
“Mm, amazing! It’s incredible!” The performance naturally couldn’t compare to the royal-exclusive Dawn Heart, but it far surpassed the teaching machines she normally piloted.
With a slight thought, she checked whether this deeply customized machine had any special armaments. Irina then asked, “U-Um, Junior, can I take your machine out for a couple of laps?”
It was only the second time in her life piloting such a good machine. Irina shouted a little nervously.
[“Mm, go ahead. I’ll wait here. When you come back, tell me the results and I’ll grant you piloting rights again.”]
Since he had already let her pilot it, he couldn’t possibly stop her from moving around and gathering data.
Ye Xu stepped aside, leaving the hangar exit clear.
Irina gave him a grateful look.
With a slight thought, she used her acting chief authority to activate some facilities inside the hangar.
Accompanied by a faint vibration, a platform resembling a rail rose from beneath the central iron road in the middle of the hangar.
She maneuvered Nightfall, slotting the machine’s feet into the two grooves on the track.
A massive brown-yellow mana condensed behind Nightfall, forming illusory light wings. The machine’s kinetic energy began to surge.
The next instant, Irina spoke the words she had always dreamed of saying.
[“Irina, Radiant Sun Type-14 ‘Nightfall,’ launching!!!”]
The two locking grooves released in an instant. The machine shot forward at high speed along the rail, streaking straight toward the sky. After producing several sonic booms, it transformed into a brown-yellow streak of light and began supersonic-level high-speed cruising in the air.
Ye Xu raised a hand to block the gale produced when the machine accelerated through the launcher, then stepped off the platform. He watched Irina in the sky performing high-difficulty maneuvers—continuous sharp-angled turns at supersonic speeds, repeatedly producing multiple sonic booms that drew the attention of everyone on the ground below. For a moment, he felt genuinely surprised.
It seemed Senior Irina’s piloting skills were truly excellent. She probably just hadn’t had time to train her magic and close-combat techniques.
No wonder she had looked so aggrieved earlier when she mentioned getting beaten twice in one day.
“Hey hey hey, what is that? Does our school have such an amazing Magitech Knight? Its performance is more than twice that of my family’s military-spec machines???”
All the students on the roadside were drawn by the commotion in the sky. They pointed at the brown-yellow streak whose shape could no longer be distinguished and asked. Beside the person who had spoken, a somewhat uncertain student reminded them, “I-I heard that a couple of days after school started, three Radiant Sun Type-14s arrived at our school. Th-This should be one of them.”
“The pilot’s skills are also really impressive. My god, if you got tangled up by something like this in high-speed aerial combat, you wouldn’t even know how you died.”
Compared to the younger students who only paid attention to the machine’s performance, a more mature-looking upperclassman beside them was clearly more astonished by the pilot’s technique.
“Just in terms of piloting skill, it’s probably not far off from a proper knight. However…”
“That machine looks really familiar. If my information is correct, that machine belongs to a newly enrolled junior. No matter how talented he is, it’s impossible for him to have grown to this level in just two days, right?”
Of course, at this moment, while the surrounding students were shocked, Ye Xu’s thoughts were a little more complicated.
He could tell that Irina had trained hard on her piloting skills and also possessed considerable achievements in magitech studies.
If she hadn’t been so young and simply hadn’t had time to train her combat and magic techniques, she probably wouldn’t have been beaten so badly in actual combat. Irina clearly had the talent to become an all-rounder.
It was easy to imagine how little her family valued her, allowing such a talent to be buried. Only today had Ye Xu truly realized the real strength of this seemingly unserious senior of his.
………
He felt a little reluctant to let Irina’s talent go to waste. What should he do about wanting to nurture her?
(Isxila: You know what I want to say, right?)