“Mm… this, this…”
Looking at the two excited girls in front of her, after a long moment, Keti finally couldn’t hold it any longer.
This… this is absolutely impossible to gloss over! It’s completely been nailed down, ahh.
Continuing to cover it up now would just be a waste of time. The more she denies it now, the more it’ll backfire when she admits it later… Keti understood this principle clearly.
So, after a long moment, the silver-haired beauty could only tremble all over as she silently lowered her head.
After a long, long while, her face flushed red, and she muttered softly:
“Mm… okay, okay… Layla, Sylvia, yes, that’s right… it’s… it’s me! I am Keti…”
“If you want to laugh at me in this state, then laugh, I… I… I’ve already embarrassed myself enough in front of you all before, ugh—!”
Finally, she said it.
After admitting her identity, Keti instantly breathed a sigh of relief, as if a heavy burden had been lifted off her shoulders.
She no longer had to struggle!
Mm… although Keti guessed that next, her two former teammates would start their public humiliation of her, dragging in what happened last night along with it, ugh.
After all, back in the dressing room, when she was… bullied by her mortal enemy, those two were hiding outside the door the whole time.
Although the photos were destroyed by Lynn in the end, they definitely heard everything clearly…
Gah.
Just thinking about it made the silver-haired beauty feel even more ashamed. She clenched her teeth desperately, trying to calm herself and hold back… not to cry out loud just yet!
The life of Keti, a boy who was part of the Hero Squad… was ending like this—!
The silver-haired girl quietly shut her eyes tightly, trembling nervously in place, like a prisoner awaiting punishment, waiting for the storm of ridicule to come…
Then, One minute, two minutes, three minutes passed.
Uh… huh?
Why is it so quiet?
After a while, the silver-haired girl quietly opened her eyes and exchanged a confused glance with the two girls before her.
Both blinked in bewilderment.
W-What’s going on? Why hasn’t the mockery started yet?
Hiss… could it be that they’re choosing their words carefully? Are they planning something big?
“Ah… I don’t get it. We’re not planning to laugh at you, Keti… We’re not kids anymore. I’m actually really curious how you ended up like this. Why did it happen all of a sudden… You’ve become a girl, right? Is little Keti still around? Let me check—”
Saying this, the purple-haired, jellyfish-like older sister eagerly reached out to try and pull down Keti’s pants. The silver-haired girl quickly shielded herself, blushing deeply as she shook her head and shouted:
“I really did become a girl, really! Down there… it’s just like yours now!”
“Mm… actually, it’s still a bit different. Layla’s hair is pretty thick, but I’m white…”
“No, no, no—don’t reveal other people’s privacy like that!”
Faced with Sylvia suddenly giving a cold facts lesson, the priestess lady angrily smacked the little spirit old lady twice, then took a deep breath and turned her head, glancing at Keti with a complex expression.
Then she spoke gently in a soft voice:
“So, what exactly happened, Keti? Why did you turn like this? What happened… and what about that Lynn teacher? What’s going on there?”
“Ah… that…”
Originally, Keti was pretty happy that Layla and Sylvia weren’t harshly mocking her, but she hadn’t expected her two former teammates not only to show no contempt but even to reveal some vague worry, as if her turning into a girl was a troubling matter for them.
With her confidence somewhat restored, Keti breathed a sigh of relief, but after a while, she was torn over whether to tell the truth.
After all…
The whole story of how she turned into a girl was, frankly, a bit… ahem, simple. Even made the silver-haired girl feel somewhat embarrassed.
If she told the truth…
Ugh.
Ah, forget it. She couldn’t make up a better story anyway, so she might as well just say what happened honestly!
So, without hesitation, Keti closed her eyes and bluntly began:
“I… I turned out like this because… after I left the team that day, I was feeling really down, so I drank some alcohol alone in the studio. I’m a really bad drinker and got completely drunk.”
“Then, because I was still in a bad mood, I started recklessly brewing potions. I drank the last one in one gulp… and the next morning, I woke up and… this is what I looked like!”
“Uh… huh?!”
Upon hearing this, Layla immediately broke into a cold sweat, and the excitement she’d just worked up was doused like a bucket of cold water. Her breathing grew a little rapid.
“You drank a recklessly brewed potion and turned into a girl? That’s… that’s way too dangerous! How… how could this happen? Th-Then, Keti, can you change back? You won’t… be a girl forever, right?”
“Sh-shouldn’t be, haha… actually, most potions have an opposite formula that reverses their effects, and usually, there’s a connection between the two formulas, but…”
“But…”
“But Keti, you don’t remember the formula of the potion you drank that night, so for now, you can’t brew the potion to change back, right?”
Sylvia quietly added the final jab from the side, making the silver-haired girl cough awkwardly twice.
Then, all she could do was nod helplessly.
Ah… if she could change back, she would have done it already, and she wouldn’t be so anxious about being found out by her former teammates every day.
But… the reaction from her former teammates was a bit different from what Keti had expected.
She thought that upon hearing such a silly way of transforming, they’d at least laugh it off.
Instead, the two girls looked grim. Especially Layla… who could almost be described as looking deeply worried!
“Hiss… th-Then! There’s one more key question! Since Keti can’t change back into a boy for now, how did you end up here?”
“And especially that Lynn, last night when he took you away, did nothing else happen, right?!”
“Mm… last night?! Th-That…”
Mentioning last night, the silver-haired girl suddenly remembered the drum beating incident and completely missed Layla’s question.
Seeing Keti’s flushed, shy, stammering appearance, Layla’s expression grew increasingly tense.
Click.
Stop stammering, self. The more I hear, the more nervous I get, ugh…