Xyrin Empire

To be honest, I've always thought the moral compass of the girls around me is somewhat peculiar.

Especially the few quirky little girls.

Take for example, a child's mother who barely reaches my thigh now—Bubbles is still rolling on the floor, frustrated by that maddening ERROR-35. This "small" Loli with latent violent tendencies has been causing a racket for a full five minutes. In the past five minutes, she scanned the human internet, downloaded every hard drive plugged into the network worldwide, eavesdropped on every operational satellite, and finally confirmed a very, very bad thing—she probably can't play Diablo 3 for the time being. Of course, with Bubbles' capabilities, she could totally be her own server, create over ten thousand alternate accounts, and defeat Diablo in her own mind's intranet a hundred times, which would take less than a second for her with a complete database download, but for a deeply begrudging otaku, that's meaningless.

"I must take action."

Bubbles leapt up from the carpet, her fringe covering her eyes and a chilling air surrounding her like the winds at Yishui, before marching towards the door.

"Where are you going?" I casually reached out and grabbed her collar. This one-meter-nine little girl dangled in the air, kicking and protesting: "Let go! Let go, dad! No domestic violence! For our daughter's sake, can't you be gentler to your wife?!"

"I think you'll go crazy because of her sooner or later," Lin Xue whispered sincerely.

"You're not much better than her," I glanced at Miss Lin, playfully swinging Bubbles up and down, "So where are you going?"

Bubbles squirmed around in mid-air, then pulled out a bunch of shiny metal spikes from thin air, "I'm going to fix their fiber optics! I guarantee a seamless repair within three hours!"

"Go play single-player, or connect with those guys from Shadow City. Stop causing trouble for human society." I tossed Bubbles back, and she glared angrily in this direction, then finally went upstairs sulking, "Fine, just single player. I'll open over ten thousand Diablos and farm heroes..."

Once the living room was quiet again, I glanced at Lin Xue: "Honestly, do you think we should help out? This issue is neither big nor small, Sandora probably doesn't feel a thing, but for human society, it's a real headache."

"You've unconsciously excluded yourself from human society," Lin Xue threw herself onto the sofa, glanced around to make sure no one was around, then boldly took off her little boots and stockings, placing her small feet on my lap and kicking them back and forth, "Give me a massage..."

Since our relationship became clear, physical affection like this between us has become common. But since Miss Lin is unexpectedly shy, she only relaxes when no one or when only someone as oblivious as Qianqian is around, claiming it's to let some idiot bystander enjoy the honor of taking care of a beauty, but in reality, it's just her way of using the only method she can muster to be a bit coquettish to assert her presence: though most of the time I feel Miss Lin's presence is already overwhelming.

"Human society... Gosh, you're contagious with these awkward expressions. Anyway, that's what I mean, human society over there shouldn't need you worrying. No matter your race, whether you're a Void Creature or some other mystical being, you should at least have some faith in the race you've belonged to for twenty years. It's just global communication interference, economic losses are inevitable, and localized chaos unavoidable, but those at the leadership table are there for a reason: they know how to maintain societal stability in times like this, know how to make the most easily panicked civilians believe it's just a small hiccup. Humans have long had contingency plans for solar disasters, at least from what I know, at least seventeen countries have intact contingency plans for handling global communications cuts due to solar flares. Although this sudden disaster has made a laughingstock out of most of them, some of them still serve a purpose, and the global communication system isn't entirely down."

Lin Xue yawned as she spoke: "Ha... I'm just not sure how those scientists will explain this. The moon suddenly releasing an energy radiation stronger than the sun, instantly wiping out one third of human satellites and half of modern communications network, Hollywood's got new material to film again."

"You didn't sleep all night to help them rebuild the crucial communication network, right?"

I asked with a smile, "Your Superpower Team even handles optical welding and communication engineering?"

"Us?" Lin Xue withdrew her feet from my lap, shifted positions and leaned against my shoulder, "We don't bother with that. That's for ordinary people to deal with. We were soothing some bizarre things in the world..."

"Bizarre things?"

"Werewolves, Vampires, Half-Dead People, unstable Superpower Users, and Monks with strong spiritual power," With each word Lin Xue said, my eyes widened a bit, but she was totally unaware, "These special entities have been calm since humans stepped into modern civilization, but last night it almost went out of control, all because of the moon's meddling. If the Shadow Organizations around the world reacted a bit slower, ordinary people would have witnessed a Night Parade of Hundred Demons."

The more I listened, the more intrigued I became, and I couldn't help but grab Lin Xue's head and give her a fierce kiss, "Wow, is it really that intense? There's actually stuff like that on Earth?"

"Duh, didn't you already know there are bizarre things everywhere in the world? It's just less compared to other worlds. Qianqian surely knows. Back in the day, when she led Boundless Love, she broke up quite a few little monster gatherings," Lin Xue blushed, then unceremoniously pried my hands off her face, "These weird and quirky guys have always quietly coexisted with human society, yet last night they nearly lost it. Luckily, all these beings are under the watch of Shadow Organizations worldwide, and were contained in time. The only unlucky ones were in Europe, where a semi-official Monastery, responsible for maintaining world peace during such events, turned out the leader had one-sixteenth werewolf blood. That night, he looked at the moon and went nuts, fighting with his troops all night..."

"If Qianqian knew about such interesting stuff..."

I muttered to myself.

"No need to let her know," Lin Xue anticipated, sighed, and stood up looking toward the stairs, "I'll count to three, one, two, three..."

As she finished, Qianqian's head peeked out from the corner of the second-floor stairs: "Ah Jun, Ah Jun, I've got a new idea!! Our Boundless Love can help fix their satellites!"

I hadn't had a chance to speak before Qianqian slid down the handrail like an agile cat, darted into the kitchen, and after a while came out with a plate of fritters, darted up the stairs, half turned to talk to me, "Didn't eat enough this morning... Ah Jun, who should we fix satellites for first? We'll have to make them think the satellites repaired themselves. It might be tricky. How about we fix the fiber optics first? What to eat for lunch..."

Qianqian happily bounced back to her room, and Lin Xue shrugged at me: "Still so jumpy."

"Always this jumpy," I put a hand to my forehead.

Should have expected it, for Qianqian, there's no need to let her know anything interesting, she herself is quite the amusement, even in times of world peace she could tinker with all sorts of fun elements, let alone now that there's a crisis on Earth, it's surprising enough she only just remembered her Boundless Love.

"Didn't think what seemed like an internal affair caused so much external hassle."

I laid wearily on the sofa, feeling this particular day was rather more chaotic, how come our hard-earned vacation is always so lively—speaking of which, it seems like every vacation I've had didn't turn out smooth once.

Lin Xue was rather blissful, being a source of trouble herself, she was long used to all kinds of complications: "So, lend a hand or not? After all, it's the Imperial Heritage that's caused this chaos, aren't you somewhat responsible too?"

I knew Lin Xue was particularly good at passing the buck to me. Most times her trouble was my trouble, and my trouble... usually stemmed from hers, so I naturally nodded: "Not like there's anything else to do, plus Qianqian will have stuff to play with."

Indeed, Qianqian has something to play with, because this trivial matter probably doesn't hold much interest for Sandora, but Qianqian, compared to leading a fleet and bombing with enemy forces, that girl prefers this kind of fun and plot-filled "game." She's already eagerly restarted her Boundless Love, preparing to secretly help the Earthlings repair the fiber-optic cables and polish the satellites. If this were given to a skilled technician, it might be done in twenty-four hours, but entrusted to Qianqian, she might just tinker with it until she loses interest.

Lin Xue still has to continue dealing with the restless little monsters around the world. According to her, many myths and legends related to the moon from ancient times to the present are not without foundation. Werewolves get excited looking at the full moon, vampires become twice as agile under moonlight, and many superpower users' spiritual power form a subtle connection with the distance of the Earth and Moon—these are all true. And this time, the collision that occurred on the dark side of the moon has magnified these originally mild connections exponentially.

After chatting about her worries and throwing a pile of God-knows-what-use-it-is data at me, Lin Xue went upstairs to nap as if she was in her own home. There's always a room reserved for her in this house; sometimes I don't even know how Lin Xue's parents accept their daughter's peculiar way of life.

I started to idly flip through the data Lin Xue gave me. These things are a mess, but in Sandora's eyes, they are all negligible. Right now, she's busy finding the source of those starship debris, so she just communicated through the Spiritual Connection that she's temporarily too busy to partake in the Boundless Love's action. I also think there's no need for the Imperial Soldiers to mobilize for some little Earthlings' monsters, so I connected to another channel.

White light in the shape of rippling water appeared in the air beside me, rippling a few times, and several people walked out of it.

"Yo, Saber, your standard of living is pretty high..."

I looked up just to say hello, but the second half of my sentence turned into an exclamation.

The golden-haired girl with a tuft of Dai Mao on her head quickly tossed the roast duck into her Personal Space, wiped her mouth, and looked over here with a serious expression: "Always maintaining full Physical Strength is the most important principle for a Soldier! As a Heroic Spirit of Avalon, I should always be ready to fight."

I was speechless: "But it doesn't mean you have to eat a whole roast duck wrapped in half a pound of dough..."

"...This was a new way of eating suggested by Sandora," Altoria's Dai Mao on her head rotated subtly at one corner, speaking hesitantly. She was still wearing her blue casual long dress, looking nothing like someone always ready to fight. "Let's not talk about that for now, is there a new task? Do you need to deliver it personally?"

The channel I just connected to was the normal task receiving channel of the Avalon Heroic Spirit Hall; it was like directly giving commands in their core channel. That's why Altoria appeared holding the roast duck without even changing her clothes. Don't mention Altoria, look at Red A over there, still wearing a small bear apron...

"It's nothing major," I pulled out a few pieces of information from the documents in my hand and handed them to Medusa, who seemed the most stable among these people. "A minor annoyance; didn't the moon have an incident yesterday? In focusing on assessing the damage to Imperial facilities, I didn't expect this matter to impact human society as well. The lunar radiation crippled the internet and satellite systems and gave you quite a bit of work."

"Internet?" Altoria's Dai Mao turned into a question mark, "Although dodging responsibility isn't knightly... but... I only learned to use Taobao the day before yesterday..."

"Let humans handle the internet repair themselves... Wait, you're using Taobao?!"

I jumped up in shock and then ran to the corner of the living room to drag out a big cardboard box, "Then this thing is yours, right?"

Altoria's eyes lit up, and she ran over in a few strides to snatch the box, eagerly tore it open to reveal a massive lion plush toy. She joyously returned to the line with it, only to realize the atmosphere was odd after half a minute. The Dai Mao girl blushed instantly, stuffed the lion toy back into her Personal Space, and looked around speechlessly.

She's incapable of lying, so now she felt very passive.

"Ahem, let's talk business," I awkwardly rubbed my hair, pointing at the data folder in Medusa's hands, "I'm not having you guys do fiber-optic repairs; these are your actual tasks."

Werewolves, vampires, normal superpower users with low self-control, and various other demons and monsters, the data Lin Xue left me basically comprised these things. As enemies, sending a couple of Soldiers could easily wipe out most of them, but our task isn't to exterminate, it's to pacify, which changes the nature of the job. According to the division of responsibilities, this global security task should be handed over to Avalon's Heroic Spirit Army.

I called in the Heroic Spirits I was most familiar with, knowing they haven't had tasks these days because the Macro World has been exceptionally peaceful recently, with every world being unnervingly harmonious. This group of the Dingdang-sided fire brigade was nearly bored to death, and only a few of them could sit idle, so when given this combined vacation and work task, everyone was very enthusiastic.

"According to Lin Xue, those shadowy organizations around the world have started to suppress these special groups, but they are not in the majority, and many members of 'alien organizations' are themselves heirs of ancient Atlantean bloodlines affected by the moon. They are trying to control their behavior while suppressing their irritable kin, but they probably won't last a few days," I said. "I've arranged for people to deal with the radiation from the lunar impact, but the fastest we'll be able to clear it up is in seven or eight days. During this time, there are ticking time bombs throughout human society."

"Our task is to make them 'quiet down'?"

Medusa stood in front of the sofa, looking just like a professional secretary, holding a folder, wearing glasses without prescription, using a perfect fifteen-degree bend and mellow tone to ask.

"Yes," I nodded, "you are Heroic Spirits, soldiers under this world's Management God's Divine Throne, so in pacifying this world's creatures, you're much more professional than the Imperial Soldiers—they would only give a burst of gunfire. Lin Xue marked many key points in this data, all are the most likely to go out of control under the moon's influence, of which over half are under known surveillance networks, and others we only know their general whereabouts, the latter being the most dangerous. You must suppress them before they hurt anyone."

"Easy and pleasant," Cu Chulainn's mouth curved up, a flash emitted from a big white tooth, "we were made for this—although this is our first time executing a mission in this world, a day worth commemorating. Emiya, what did I say, the Big Dragonfly system with pop-ups everywhere would get into trouble eventually..."

Everyone tacitly took two steps back, distancing themselves from this incorrigible fellow, and Red A looked this way with a pained expression: "I just said it casually at the time! How come he's so loose-mouthed..."

"Boom!!"

"...so slack."

"Two non-combat losses," Medusa tilted her mouth subtly, calmly reporting.

I let the Heroic Spirits return to Avalon to mobilize personnel, preparing to coordinate with Qianqian's actions. Acting in the name of this legendary (deservedly so) organization Boundless Love, I'm sure Lin Xue would be very pleased. Then, casually tossing the data on the coffee table into my Personal Space, I got up and teleported to Shadow City.

The three pieces of starship debris from the Moon Impact Crater had already been sent to the research center, but this time, another research team was leading the analysis of the debris. Taville was temporarily tied up: the glasses girl was busy establishing a rapport with the War Song we dragged back from the Mobra World. She felt she was about to reach a peak in her destiny, and for this peak, she and her research team were almost secluding themselves in the War Song.

Sandora arrived at the research center a step before me, and her first words upon seeing me were invigorating:

"Ah Jun, this time, the impact was guided by the Barrier Star itself."

(To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets, your support is the greatest motivation for me.)