40 4.2

Having finished dinner, Chen Yu separated from Murong Wen and briskly returned to his dorm room, then slipped into the network login pod.

Before connecting to the data server, however, he pulled out the world's plot again. He hadn't fully concentrated on it due to the sparring session, but now he'd take some time to put together what had happened.

The story mostly rushed through the protagonist's school years, brushing on some confrontations with snobbish students and such, until it reached the fateful quarterly assessment trial. For this event, the plot thoroughly described Murong Wen's disappointment and sadness at his best friend's viciousness, along with the painful process of his rehabilitation.

But how could such misfortune befall the son of heaven without any reward?

At the mention of how the esteemed Hou family had adopted Murong Wen out of pity and approval for his perseverance, Chen Yu chuckled. En, a commoner duckling transforming into a noble swan, this was probably the point at which the protagonist halo kicked in.

The halo continued to shine, within a few years, Murong Wen was titled a sergeant for exceptional service in the face of danger.

This 'exceptional' performance was his valiant efforts in protecting Captain Hou Yi's life during an enemy attack on the Hou Jia residence. Unfortunately, the captain was forever left in a comatose state, but First Lieutenant Murong Wen's rescue attempt, which resulted in his suffering critical injuries, impressed the military so much that he was given Hou Yi's position as captain.

Thus, without Hou Yi to steal the protagonist's spotlight, following this promotion, Murong Wen continued to rise steadily. Ultimately, he went down in Federation history books as the general with the highest battle success rate.

Humming, Chen Yu smiled. Hou Yi, what an elite, really the pride of cannon fodder everywhere ah. Well, he could guess the original sequence of events, now to see if he was right.

From the data he obtained both legally and illegally on the network, Chen Yu, in passing, gained a basic understanding of the mission world's background.

Jin Yongguang was a loyal citizen of the United Federation of Taiyi Galaxy, one of the strongest powers in this quadrant of the universe. Its greatest adversary was the Shangdi Empire, which, as its name implied, was governed by a royal family. The two groups were almost evenly matched despite the Empire's larger population, because Imperial regulations precluded peasants from becoming mecha operators. Thanks to the enemy's restriction on social mobility, the Federation had maintained a slight advantage over the last decade.

Since he generally wasn't much intrigued by war, Chen Yu didn't delve further, instead he turned toward the information he'd gathered on Jin family.

As expected, Jin Yongguang's parents were weak-willed but ambitious people. After having been pressured by the elders to maintain the prestige of Jin Jia, there were indications that his father, Jin Zhong, had succumbed to temptation and begun cooperating with Imperial spies. By exchanging information with the Empire, Jin Jia didn't decline, but once their eldest son insisted on entering the military, Jin Zhong became worried that he would interfere. Therefore, he consistently tried to persuade Jin Yongguang to quit the academy or, even better, to contribute by divulging some information about rising military stars, all to no avail.

Jin Zhong's wife was even more of a coward than her husband, while she was not unaware of these matters, she chose to avoid thinking about them as much as she could, until that son of theirs caused too much trouble to ignore.

That Jin Jia had ties with the Empire, combined with Jin Yongguang's aboveboard personality, made it obvious what these parents must have done.

Right about the time Chen Yu had started this mission, when Jin Yongguang was on the cusp of graduating and formally joining the military, his parents would have given up on persuading him. So, in the plot, Jin Zhong had contacted that commoner friend of Jin Yongguang's, Murong Wen, to stage a scene during the quarterly assessments, leading to everything that took place afterwards. Although Jin Zhong and his wife didn't completely grasp the culture of those military people, anyone could predict that cold-bloodedly harming a peer in such a public arena would destroy their son's reputation.

In the end, their scheme had worked even better than they'd hoped. Not only had Jin Yongguang's image been soiled, allowing them to reasonably designate their obedient younger son as heir, but also, his body had been crippled, thereby uprooting a future threat to the Empire.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Chen Yu didn't automatically conclude that Murong Wen had conspired with Jin Zhong, or at least, he left a possibility that he hadn't done so entirely on his own. This was due not to his saintly trust in the protagonist, but instead due to the variable of Hou Yi.

The Hou household wasn't a simple one, many of its accomplishments had been attained in the dark, hunting down and eliminating traitors. Considering its capabilities, Hou Jia had likely been tracking Jin family's movements, so the instructions from Jin Zhong to Murong Wen would definitely have been noticed.

Probably, the upper ranks of the military had seen this as a chance to draw out the spies inside their government.

For that purpose, Hou Yi would have been instructed to ensure that Murong Wen seemed, to everyone involved, to have cooperated in framing Jin Yongguang, solidifying his link to the treasonous Jin Jia. Then, by adopting Murong Wen, the Hou family would be able to seize an inside source and monitor the traitors' communications.

Of course, for the sake of this plan, the military would have sacrificed Jin Yongguang, lamenting the loss of a talented seed while consoling themselves that such was the nature of collateral damage.

Chen Yu knew that, in that case, whether or not Murong Wen chose to be pummeled by Jin Yongguang, Hou Yi would have found a way to make it happen.

As for the Empire's strike against Hou Jia, it was clearly suspicious, almost certain to have been orchestrated by the protagonist. Perhaps, Murong Wen, whose senses were honed from having to tiptoe around the academy's young masters throughout his youth, had realized that the so-called adoption was merely an imprisonment and retaliated, but that wasn't really something Chen Yu cared to investigate.

Rather, Chen Yu frowned, he needed to think about whom to target.

Although Jin Jia would naturally get its share of punishment, everyone else's involvement in ruining the original owner was somewhat vague.

Even the protagonist wasn't necessarily guilty. After all, the fact that Murong Wen hadn't warned Jin Yongguang about Jin Zhong's ploy suggested that he'd intended to comply, but it didn't guarantee it—Murong Wen could reasonably claim to have hesitated to hurt his good buddy's feelings by exposing how his parents had tried to ambush him, feared that his good buddy wouldn't believe him, so on and so forth.

And what, if anything, Murong Wen had done to Hou Jia? That was irrelevant to Chen Yu.

Narrowing his eyes, Chen Yu considered just destroying every borderline character, but he had to admit that the clean-up would be too troublesome.

Considering that he had plenty of time to spare with the quarterly assessment about a month away, fine, the first thing he'd focus on would be achieving the body's goal of perfect mecha control.

Actually, Chen Yu tended not to care about the original owner's final regrets, he wasn't a wish-fulfilling, fairy-godmother sort of person. What endeavors he made were solely for the sake of staying in character. Nevertheless, since he found Jin Yongguang quite interesting, he didn't mind putting some effort in for the boy.

Having settled on his course of action, Chen Yu logged off from the virtual work and sat up in the pod.

Controlling mecha was a strenuous activity, and many operators failed to advance because their physique wasn't durable enough for protracted battles. Often, in competitions between two well-matched opponents, the victor would be determined by who could last longer. The importance of endurance, therefore, was widely acknowledged.

Chen Yu, however, recalled that besides stamina, the highest level of mecha control required characteristics like incredibly fast and precise hands as well as sharp vision that could accurately track movements at high speeds. So to truly create the best body for mecha control, he would have to enhance various parts.

While the easiest way to meet the objective would be to use his golden finger, he wasn't sure that it would accommodate a broad goal like "optimize physique for mecha operation." And...unsurprisingly, when he tried, his body in the mirror's reflection didn't bulk up or grow taller, nor did he feel any different.

Chen Yu shrugged, preparing to head to the fitness room. He hadn't sincerely expected the system to be so generous anyway, he could handle it himself.

In order to become the future support of the Federation, students at the academy had to both develop impeccable mecha control virtually and boost their builds with exercise in the physical world. To this end, the academy supplied every dorm building with a lavish gym, which was open for use throughout the day.

So, when Chen Yu entered the fitness room, a great deal of machines had already been taken, along with most of the spaces. Looking at the crowd of hardworking little brats, Chen Yu could only click his tongue. To beat out all these overachievers, did that mean he would have to exert that much effort?

Chen Yu grimaced. It would be boring, but since he'd chosen to go through with this task, he resolutely walked into the last empty training room to stretch, then began going through some of the original owner's favorite exercise routines. Curiously, when he pushed the limits on Jin Yongguang's body, he discovered that its statistics had improved very much from when he'd sparred with Murong Wen that afternoon.

Had the system granted his wish after all?

Studying his upgraded body, Chen Yu raised his eyebrows. This feeling was pretty good. His last life, he'd mostly spent lazing around, so this boundless energy was an entertaining change.

Thus, he continuously ran through all the offense and defense sequences he could think of, flying around the room for hours.

---

Because the academy encouraged students to learn from each other, the training rooms each had a large window, through which anyone who wanted to could observe the person inside. A beat after Chen Yu entered his room, another student had approached his room.

Earlier, Hou Yi had received a call from his father, warning him to be on the lookout for irregular movements among his peers and teachers. The military's files had been hacked, the traces leading to the academy, but there were no further clues. Although Jin Yongguang was the most questionable suspect based on his relationship with Jin Zhong, his bright, candid personality was difficult to doubt, nor were there any other indications that he was colluding with his parents.

Still, Hou Yi was cautioned to stay on guard against the boy. Hou Yi, who was somewhat amused, decided that he would like to see what such a simple child could do.

Chen Yu didn't share Yongguang's one-track mind, so he'd noticed Hou Yi's intense gaze from the start. It was only that since he didn't want to bother with him, he hadn't reacted. When there was no sign that the boy planned to leave even after several hours had passed, however, Chen Yu paused, considering whether to deal with this fellow cannon fodder character.

Just as he was about to make a move, a regular student approached Hou Yi to ask for pointers. Smiling at this interruption to his view, Hou Yi leisurely shifted his gaze and walked toward another training room.

But as he left, without any reason, he looked back at Jin Yongguang's flickering figure. Sweat flowed down from that inky hair, the form executed exquisite attacks, the tanned skin glistened like bronze. Simply moving, he caused everyone else to dim.

A moment later, Hou Yi shook his head, laughing at his nonsensical rambling, and turned away.