Mei pressed her lips together.
"The debt will be repaid on time."
"…And you are?"
She hung up without waiting for an answer.
Looking at her father sleeping on the couch, Mei closed her eyes and sighed softly.
Pain and exhaustion surged together, twisting her expression.
"Drinking at home… I guess that's fine."
At first, she had been furious at her father's downfall.
Now, all that remained was self-comfort.
At least drinking at home would not land him in jail for brawling, nor would gambling debts bring people to their doorstep.
Sometimes, Mei marveled at her own adaptability.
But she also knew it was numbness.
She had never imagined that adapting from a near-privileged life to single-handedly supporting a household would take less than half a year.
To care for her father and keep this fragile family afloat, she learned how to monetize her knowledge, manage housework, and even cook.
She looked at her father on the couch, nostalgia and pain flickering in her eyes.
How had things ended up like this?
Mei remembered clearly where her life had split from brightness into darkness.
The day her mother died.
After that day, her father, once hailed as a rising star of Far East science and a likely recipient of the highest scientific honor on Mu Continent before forty, collapsed completely.
In an instant, he became someone Mei barely recognized.
Alcohol. Fighting.
She never thought those words would apply to her father.
Then, half a year ago, a drunken accident in the lab caused severe casualties.
And the star fell.
Mei had thought that after such extremes, her father might finally change.
He did.
Just not in the way she ever expected.
He became addicted to gambling.
In no time, their once-considerable savings vanished, replaced by massive debt.
Looking at her father under the dim lights, hollowed out like a shell, Mei sometimes wished—
"If only this were all just a dream…"
She sighed silently and headed toward her room.
In the Far East, debt could be deadly.
The amount Ryoma owed would doom an ordinary family.
Fortunately, at her lowest point, the knowledge in her mind gave her a way out.
She taught herself engineering and mechanics, improved existing single-soldier armor designs, and applied for patents.
Once approved, selling the patent would yield enough money to repay the debt.
With that thought, she opened the door to her father's old study.
Manuscripts lay scattered across the floor.
Mei froze, then hurriedly gathered them.
These were the materials for her patent application.
But when she checked, part of it was missing.
Her expression darkened.
"Stolen?"
She dismissed the thought immediately.
If someone wanted the patent, they would not take only a portion.
"And the house doesn't look broken into…"
A possibility struck her.
She returned to the living room and shook her father awake.
"Dad. Where are the manuscripts from the study?"
Ryoma opened his eyes blearily.
"Mei… you're back from school…"
"The manuscripts. The papers on the desk."
"The pa…pers?"
He thought for a moment, then suddenly lit up.
"Oh, those. I used them to wrap my lunch this morning."
"..."
After digging through the trash, Mei recovered the missing pages.
Looking at the oil-stained documents, she finally let out a breath.
"Once the patent goes through, I can pay off his debt. Then… hopefully things will get better."
…
What Mei did not know was that ever since she returned home, someone had been watching her.
Across from her apartment floor, Li Mu lowered a monocular telescope, having seen everything through the open window.
"…Damn. How did Ryoma end up like this?"
"And this plot feels way too familiar."
"Breadwinner daughter. Fallen father. What is this, some tragic band storyline?"
As Mei closed the window, cutting off the view, Li Mu pocketed the telescope. (T/N: Damn)
As the next key character for a system check-in, Mei, the counterpart of Raiden Mei, was under his close watch.
In this era, Mei was still well-off, but she was not the heiress of a massive corporation, and her father Ryoma was not the president of ME Corporation.
Unlike fifty thousand years later, Ryoma had no family business to inherit and instead pursued research, where he showed genuine talent.
Not on the level of Mei or Mobius, but enough to make a name for himself.
And this era's Mei never became the ordinary young lady who loved cooking.
Influenced by her father, she developed disciplined study habits and walked the path of a scientist.
The system task required the ME Corporation heiress, Raiden Mei.
Since Mei already meant Mei, she did not even need to change her name.
The key was turning Mei into the heiress of ME Corporation.
Li Mu's original plan had been to help Ryoma establish ME Corporation directly.
It would serve future storylines, including the famous moment of "Ryoma imprisoned for economic crimes."
And MEI's resources could be used to stage Anti-Entropy-related plots.
So building ME Corporation was essential.
Ryoma had been Li Mu's chosen partner.
He had even planned to hand him a golden opportunity, letting him live the dream of becoming a CEO.
Who would have thought that after not paying attention for a while, Ryoma would become this mess?
He was clearly finished.
Dragging such a liability into the plan would be like handing the enemy free kills.
The script had gone off the rails again.
"Tch."
Li Mu was annoyed, but not distressed.
Anyone who had written before knew that outlines existed to be torn apart.
Scripts were no different.
"As long as the result is achieved, a messy process is fine."
With that, Li Mu opened the reward he had obtained earlier.
An A-rank Stigmata Selection Box.
At first, he thought the Stigmata inside were like the Natural Stigmata of Valkyries from fifty thousand years later.
After a closer look, he realized they were fundamentally different.
Those Natural Stigmata were closer to manifestations of talent, still requiring development.
But the Stigmata from the selection box were different.
Once equipped, they granted complete combat experience and mastery.
Compared to Stigmata, Li Mu felt they were better described as character templates.
An A-rank Stigmata Selection Box allowed the choice of Stigmata belonging to Valkyries rated A-rank in the later era.
Susannah. Alvitr. Lewis. Shigure Kira.
One chibi portrait after another scrolled past.
Then Li Mu found what he needed.
Wraith.
An A-rank Valkyrie from Schicksal with minimal screen time, appearing only in the Moon Shadow arc.
Her ability was exactly what he needed.
Her Stigmata power: Shapeshifting.
As the Stigmata integrated, Li Mu felt his strength surge explosively.
At this moment, he was equivalent to an A-rank Valkyrie.
He looked toward Mei's home, a cruel smile spreading across his face.
"Ryoma… adults like you…"
"…I have to fix you."
…
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