Chapter 161 30.5 Backtracking?

"Hah! Told ya I can fix ya!"

My eyes widened at what I just witnessed. Did Shen just clock Shizu right in the head with her obviously metal wrench and somehow healed her?

"That's... You can heal?"

"Yep!" Shen proudly puffed up her chest, sporting a massive grin as she replied to Guidance's question. "[Fixit] can fix anything!"

"Huh," I shrugged. "I guess we have an extra healer on us now."

"A melee healer, no less," Guidance weakly chuckled. "I didn't think it could be a thing, but I guess this world had other ideas."

Which means that the Engine willed it into existence without any input from even her scrapped or in-development ideas. I suppose that was just par for the course with how unpredictable this whole place seemed.

"Thanks, Shen," Shizu smiled, her hand still busy wiping off her spit using the hem of her kimono. "I... I haven't felt this good after a change in, well, ever."

"No problem!" Shen gloated, flashing a thumbs up with a wide grin on her face. "And healer? I don't heal, I fix! There's a difference!"

"I suppose there is," I chuckled. "Still, that means you can maybe join us in battle."

"Which I wholly disapprove, mind you," Guidance quickly added.

"I know, which is why I said maybe," I fired back.

Of course, I don't advocate for the literal kid to be in the front lines. While she could heal, there was still a possibility that she wouldn't develop any means to put up a fight like Guidance did. Maybe her [Manifest] was only useful for healing, and she'd need her own weapon to even try and make herself useful against any enemies.

"Eh?! I can fight if I want to, ya know!" Shen pouted. "It's just that I don't have any of your fancy weapons. All I have is [Fixit]."

"So you just whack them to death?" Shizu chuckled.

"Yeah! That's what I've always done back in the scrapyard!"

...

....

"Okay, that's pretty brutal to hear about," I morbidly laughed. "Are you telling us that you've killed before?"

Shen looked at me like I asked her a stupid question. "Of course, I've killed before! I wouldn't be alive if I didn't!"

The three of us all froze at that. Shen, the innocent little kid from the scrapyard, has killed people with her wrench before.... Just imagining how she did it was sending shivers down my spine. Braining people with her wrench was a viable option, but the way whoever she killed went out was probably even more gruesome than anything that Shizu had ever done.

"W-What do you mean?" Guidance nervously asked.

Against all moral norms, Shen puffed her chest up as she proudly beamed, "Well, there's this one guy that really wanted to beat me up that one time. I didn't want him to, of course, but he really wanted to do it still. He even tore off all my clothes for some reason."

Oh my god...

"Shen!?" Guidance fearfully asked. "You almost got-"

"Anyway, I grabbed da nearest thing I can find, which is [Fixit] right here, and banged him over the head with it," she fearlessly declared. "From there, he finally managed to let go of me. Then I kept on whacking him till he stopped bugging me."

....Okay... That was... something....

Wordlessly, Shizu wrapped her arms around Shen, her golden eyes brimming with worry at what could've been. "I'm glad you're alright," she whispered out.

"Yeah? I'm here now?" Shen almost asked. "I did it to a few others too. And all that happened in da past anyway. I'm sure he won't be coming back to do that ta me again!"

"I could only imagine," I weakly chuckled.

An air of awkwardness surrounded the four of us as us three adults in the group gave each other a knowing glance. Guidance and I immediately came to the silent conclusion that there was some repressed trauma in our little mechanic, while Shizu just straight up radiated murder for these supposed scumbags that tried to have their way with a little girl.

"Say, are any of them, well, still alive?" Shizu curiously asked, her innocent tone failing to mask the murderous glint in her eyes even as she smiled.

"I think some of them are," Shen shrugged. "I don't really know, ya know? I don't keep track of that stuff."

"Besides, I don't think we should waste our time with them anyway," I quickly chimed in. "What's important is that Shen here is with us now. She won't be coming back there for a long time."

"Ugh... Fair enough..."

And with that, Shizu had been successfully defused. Beside me, Guidance let out a sigh of relief as the obvious tension on her shoulders visibly released themselves from her person.

"Look, can we just go to the office and be done with this?" the dev asked. "We just got from one stressful situation after the other, and the day's not even over yet."

I let out a chuckle at that. Well, technically, it was probably around eleven PM if we used the standard clocks. The perpetual clock made it difficult to tell time, but our body clocks were still ticking properly.

"I agree," I nodded. "Let's get these people processed and get on with our lives."

"Yeah, and maybe go back out to sea, yeah?" Shizu lightly cheered. "We still have Vestyge to defeat."

With that, we all shared a laugh before we made our way to the Postmaster's office. It was a quiet walk, but my eyes kept roaming back to Shen as a lingering question bugged me to no end.

Oh well. It wasn't like asking wouldn't hurt. "By the way, how old are you, Shen?"

"...Fifteen..."

"Huh..."

I stopped at that. So did Shizu and Guidance. Shen also stopped at her own answer, her prior confidence evaporating as she stared at the ground.

"What do you mean you're fifteen?" I asked.

"I... I'm fifteen, okay?" Shen insisted. "I just haven't had ma growth spurt yet!"

The three of us all stared as one. Somehow, I had a feeling that Guidance and Shizu had yet another idea pop into their heads.

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛