A call from her father forced her to log off.
As soon as the call ended, she immediately logged back on. Before she even entered the livestream, a system message popped up in the group chat window and left her stunned:
[[Cross-World Invitation] cooldown has been forcibly ended early by [Mr. Golden Toilet]]
The message appeared at the perfect timing.
She froze for two seconds. No one spoke, but it wasn't as if she were the only one online.
She entered the livestream at once. The screen was nothing but crimson firelight, accompanied by shrill, piercing alarms.
In the livestream chat, she happened to see a line from Ms. Kuroneko:
[If only we could use the earlier [Cross-World Invitation] to invite him right now.]
She didn't clearly catch the earlier messages, but she understood the situation well enough.
The streamer's circumstances were truly on the edge between life and death.
So she immediately exited the livestream, and without hesitation pressed the invite button—no longer greyed out—to send him an invitation.
Almost the instant she did, the other side accepted.
She blanked for a moment, then hesitated for exactly zero seconds, confirming that he would appear right in front of her.
The moment she confirmed it, a person appeared on her floor without warning. At the same time, a wave of heat hit her face, scorching hot.
Saeko Busujima sprang to her feet and ran out of the dojo. She needed water.
She had barely reached the doorway when she heard movement behind her.
"Over here!"
She pointed toward a pond outside.
Behind her, the man in terrible condition didn't hesitate. He sprinted, vaulted, and dove straight into the pond.
As he hit the water, several metal components dropped off him and clattered onto the ground, glowing like red-hot iron.
Saeko fixed her gaze on the pond. Steam was rising in thick white plumes, and her nerves were stretched tight.
Ten seconds passed, though it felt like ten minutes, before there was finally movement.
He stood up.
But he looked like someone who had just crawled out of a massive fire. There was hardly a spot on him that looked intact.
On closer inspection, it didn't seem like open flame had burned his skin so much as extreme heat had tried to cook him through—more like severe scalding than surface burns.
Saeko ran again, rushing back inside. She needed to bring out the emergency medical kit.
He had asked her to help.
She also noticed something else: his body was healing on its own.
If it continued like this, it might be like a snake shedding its skin—peeling away an outer layer.
But in his current weakened state, he didn't have the strength to tear it all off himself. She could only help, because if the dead layer wasn't removed, the healing would be impeded.
Even so, peeling it away left him bleeding heavily.
Saeko's face went pale.
"Do you have anything to eat?"
"Yes. Please wait a moment."
Saeko went to fetch sweets meant for guests.
In the blink of an eye, she was already cooking, and she was preparing enough food for twenty people.
His appetite was simply too enormous.
It looked like it still might not be enough, and she was about to—
"No need to make more. This is enough."
His words stopped her from preparing any further. It didn't feel like he was being polite.
It felt like he genuinely believed it was sufficient.
By now, his appearance was no longer as horrifying as before. He had healed more than half the damage.
Even so, if he walked outside like this, he would still terrify any normal person.
His body was strange like that—rapidly digesting food and converting it into energy that accelerated regeneration.
"Saeko Busujima?"
Kain's vision had mostly recovered. He studied the girl in front of him, who looked like she was dressed as a nurse.
Based on her ID—and the information Ms. Kuroneko had shared—this had to be her.
As for why he had forced the [Cross-World Invitation] cooldown to end early…
After being chased by flame, what came next was pure fate. So he kept half an eye on the livestream, and discovered something unusual about the bar on the interface.
To put it simply, it was like a streaming platform running incentives to attract users.
Watch for long enough, and you earn red packets, points, coins—something exchangeable for rewards.
But he was the streamer, and the platform was new. To attract streamers, it ran streamer incentives: broadcast long enough, and you were rewarded.
The moment he realized, he used it.
One wasn't enough. He used ten in a row before the cooldown finally ended.
After the cooldown ended, he meant to have someone in the livestream pull him out.
But right then, something slammed into his head, making him briefly dizzy.
When he recovered, he saw an invitation and accepted without hesitation.
That was how he arrived at Saeko's home.
"Yes, I'm Saeko Busujima, the only daughter of the Busujima family. I'm a third-year at Fujimi Academy, and the captain of the kendo club. I don't know if that matches what you've heard."
Saeko replied softly.
Ms. Kuroneko had told her the man in front of her already knew her circumstances.
"Yeah. That matches what I know."
Wait. She said third-year?
So what timing was this?
Kain remembered that the zombie outbreak should have happened right after the start of term.
If she had already been in third year for some time, it would mean this world's timeline differed from the anime he knew.
"How long has it been since the start of your third year?"
"Today is the first day. It's just the entrance ceremony. Classes officially begin tomorrow."
"Do you know anyone who's good with computers?"
As he asked, Kain glanced at the STC hard drive he'd brought with him. He'd protected it like his life depended on it, and it didn't look like it had been heat-damaged.
"Sorry. I don't."
Saeko answered apologetically.
"No need to apologize."
Kain could learn to operate A2's fighter craft and power armour quickly, and he could do the same with Imperial hardware. It looked like he could master anything.
But that was not the same as computer work—decryption, scanning, data extraction.
Next time he asked the Emperor's light-orb for a reward, he would request something that would let him learn this kind of expertise.
That so-called "reward acquisition method" was also absurdly predatory. It made him want to complain out loud.
Still, in this world, who could most quickly get value out of an STC?
He thought of someone.
"Tomorrow… well, dawn's almost here. Later, I'll need you to take me to your school."
"Okay."
"Then we kidnap Saya Takagi."
Saeko froze for a moment.
Then she nodded and said, "Okay."
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]