Why Do All the Villains Look at Me Like This? - Chapter 28

It’s the Enforcer!

Shen Zekai’s pupils contracted sharply. Almost reflexively, he reached for his communicator.

He never would’ve imagined that the Enforcer would appear again, right here in the Federal Military Academy, and right in front of him.

The memory of his last direct encounter with the Enforcer surged back, and it felt as though the wounds that had long since healed were suddenly torn open again.

The Enforcer probably never saw him as a threat, did they? After all, the gap between an S-rank and a 2S-rank was more than just a single letter.

But this was the Federal Military Academy. Even if he couldn’t defeat the Enforcer alone, he could still rely on the instructors here, or the academy’s internal defense systems.

The Enforcer was certainly formidable, but one plus many shouldn’t lose to one alone, right? As long as he could reach the outside, even if it was just a single teacher within the academy…

But the screen of his communicator suddenly flashed a bright red line of text:

[You are outside the service area. Unable to connect! Please confirm your location and attempt to reconnect.]

What kind of joke was this?!

The Mecha Maintenance Center was located in the very heart of the Federal Military Academy, how could it possibly be out of the service area? The academy even had specially designated towers just for receiving communication signals!

Shen Zekai quickly switched to another channel and tried to reconnect.

But that bright red line of text on the communicator’s screen still hadn’t disappeared—

[You are outside the service area. Unable to connect! Please confirm your location and attempt to reconnect!]

[Repeating: You are outside the service area, unable to…]

The text on the screen began to blur, as if it had been repeatedly smeared by high-strength pixelation. Eventually, the communicator started emitting sharp, grating sounds of electrical short-circuiting.

“Zzzzz…”

With a sudden flicker, the communicator went completely black. A burnt, acrid smell began to seep from the device.

It had short-circuited—completely.

This…

The Enforcer’s mood today seemed… not very good!

What was going to happen to Meng Xuexiao, still sitting inside that mecha?!

Even though it seemed like the Enforcer and Meng Xuexiao knew each other, who could guarantee that lunatic wouldn’t suddenly turn on him if they were in a bad mood?!

He was a dangerous person, after all!

Shen Zekai could no longer keep calm. He rushed once more to the tightly sealed entrance of the mecha and slammed his fist against the door. The hatch didn’t budge an inch, instead, a surge of intense electricity burst forth, violently shocking Shen Zekai and forcing him several meters back.

Shen Zekai gave himself almost no time to recover and charged forward once more.

Maybe it was because he’d already been shocked once, his body had developed a bit of resistance. This time, gritting his teeth, he clung to the mecha’s entrance and, with some difficulty, leaned his head toward one of the rare semi-transparent sections of the mecha.

He had to confirm Meng Xuexiao’s condition!

Soon, he caught a faint glimpse of the mecha’s interior, and of Meng Xuexiao’s figure.

The mecha had indeed gone completely out of control. Many instruments that were either rarely used or still in the testing phase had activated, and the pilot’s seat had moved Meng Xuexiao right into the middle of those instruments, his back facing Shen Zekai’s direction.

Several strap-like appendages extended from beneath the seat, coiling around Meng Xuexiao’s waist like agile snakes, looping around him twice. They cinched his loose clothing tightly against his slim waist, even pressing into the soft flesh so firmly that a slight curve bulged out between the bands.

As the mecha’s rightful owner, Shen Zekai should have had full control over it, but right now, he couldn’t even open the main hatch.

Meng Xuexiao was locked in place on the seat, like he was part of some strange, sacrificial ritual.

Veins bulged on Shen Zekai’s hands as he gripped the mecha’s sealed entrance.

This mecha was never designed to have these kinds of twisted functions!

All he could do now was call out to the boy trapped inside, “Meng Xuexiao!”

The soundproofing in this mecha was excellent, Shen Zekai’s voice was muffled again and again, but Meng Xuexiao still faintly sensed something.

Just now… did someone call his name?

But the next second, a massive virtual light screen unfolded before him, like a semi-transparent book.

Its content: The Operating Procedures for This Mecha.

Could this be… a fully automated beginner’s tutorial?

Well, that was kind of amazing.

And it had a strong sense of ceremony, too.

No wonder those straps had extended from under the seat earlier. It was probably to make him stay put and focus on learning.

Meng Xuexiao couldn’t help but think of the games he used to play. Right after registering a new account, it would always trigger a tutorial mode automatically. Unless something unusual happened, this kind of mode typically only triggered once.

That made him even more certain, Shen Zekai had been calling him earlier, probably to remind him to treasure this one-time tutorial opportunity!

Meng Xuexiao glanced back at Shen Zekai, and sure enough, the other was also looking at him, one hand resting on the sealed hatch of the mecha, a hint of anxiety in his expression.

Suddenly, Meng Xuexiao felt like a student who’d just been caught by the homeroom teacher for looking out the window during class. Shen Zekai was clearly worried he might miss this tutorial session. If he kept getting distracted by looking outside, that really wouldn’t be appropriate.

He immediately nodded in Shen Zekai’s direction, then refocused all his attention on the virtual light screen in front of him.

But a mecha was ultimately different from a game, this one was clearly highly intelligent. Every time Meng Xuexiao finished reading a page, the mecha would automatically flip to the next, displaying the new content immediately.

This… was basically at the level of a full-service caretaker!

While astonished, Meng Xuexiao couldn’t help but feel a growing admiration for the Federal Military.

No wonder, it was the latest model, after all!

Almost all beginner tutorials had one thing in common, they were unbearably dull, always making people itch to skip ahead. Meng Xuexiao had already mentally prepared himself to grind through it. When it came to theory, he was experienced and methodical.

Back when he was preparing for the Federal Military Academy entrance exam, just the reference books alone totaled more than twenty. At the time, he had found a quiet, remote spot where he’d flip through each book page by page. After finishing a chapter, he would find a blank sheet of paper, write questions for himself, and then grade his own answers.

That process was incredibly boring, highly repetitive. Every morning when he woke up, he was doing that. Every night before sleeping, still doing that. There was even a period of time when he’d stare at the shadow on the wall cast by his own body and feel mentally out of sync.

It was like being trapped in some kind of loop, like Groundhog Day. Days kept passing, yet somehow it felt like time was frozen in place. He couldn’t even tell the difference between today, tomorrow, and yesterday.

But still, what needed to be memorized had to be memorized.

Meng Xuexiao looked around inside the mecha. Because he had come in such a rush, he hadn’t brought any paper, so there was no way he could create written exercises for himself to reinforce what he was learning.

Fortunately, his memory was still pretty good. As long as he closed his eyes, he could run through everything once in his mind, though… the efficiency might be a bit lower.

He silently recited in his heart. The characteristics of this mecha are… Tactics that can be employed include…

Just as Meng Xuexiao mentally simulated answering a few questions, the seat beneath him suddenly jolted.

The straps that had been wrapped around his waist loosened and then re-tightened, like several snakes slithering upward along his body, eventually coiling around his neck, like they were encircling the neck of a porcelain high-neck vase, then gave a light tug upward.

The force wasn’t strong. In fact, it was applied with precision, not pressing against his throat. But still, Meng Xuexiao felt a sudden chill at the back of his neck.

He instinctively opened his eyes, only to find himself once again face to face with the virtual light screen.

Crap. Was the mecha… trying to remind him of something? All tutorials came with a time limit, could it be that the system didn’t include time for reviewing and digesting the information?

A mecha this advanced was likely designed for A-rank and above, people with extensive experience operating mechas. Those people already had a strong foundational knowledge and real-world skills, so they didn’t need to spend much time re-learning the basics.

Not leaving time for review and absorption might actually make perfect sense.

But Meng Xuexiao was just a freshman at the Federal Military Academy, he hadn’t even been using mechas for more than three months…

Even though this mecha and the academy-issued ones technically belonged to the same category, in terms of performance and combat ability, this was like comparing a Gundam to a basic little sedan!

If he moved on to the next stage without being fully proficient, what if something went wrong?!

Meng Xuexiao once again thought of that video, the one where several military buildings collapsed. He immediately tensed up, no longer caring about the strap coiled around his neck. His gaze locked tightly onto the virtual screen in front of him, afraid it would suddenly move on to the next segment.

But the screen, which had been acting incredibly intelligent up to this point, now seemed to freeze, turning completely white, and remaining that way for a long time without displaying anything.

At the same time, the eye-like pattern on the back of the mecha rotated slightly. Its inorganic gaze pierced through the thick armor, falling upon Meng Xuexiao inside.

The Enforcer wasn’t supposed to experience emotions like unease or discomfort. It was, after all, merely an artificial intelligence, no fixed form, drifting among countless data streams.

But in truth, it had been tailing Meng Xuexiao for a very, very long time.

Everything started a few days ago, when it was suddenly struck by a powerful wave of discomfort and anxiety. In that moment, it felt a sharp, overwhelming compression, like something had struck it square in the head, severing all its data streams in one instant.

Its mind had gone blank. It had frozen… for a full three seconds.

From that moment on, it knew, something was about to happen.

As a 2S-level intelligence, there weren’t many things in the world that it would consider significant. But it immediately mobilized all available data for calculation and finally arrived at the most probable outcome, a scenario with a probability as high as 99.9%—Meng Xuexiao is in life-threatening danger.

But, he was in the Federal Military Academy, which boasted an 85% survival rate across the entire Federation!

As long as someone’s physical fitness reached the average level, it should’ve been impossible to die so easily there.

For the first time, the Enforcer began to suspect that its usually flawless calculations might be wrong. It pulled up Meng Xuexiao’s data again and re-ran the analysis—only to find that the probability of something happening to Meng Xuexiao was still a staggering 99.9%.

During the recalculation, one data point was flagged in red: [Meng Xuexiao’s physical fitness level was F—lower than 99.9999% of all life forms in the Federation.]

And that remaining 0.0001%? Either allergic to air from birth, or already dead.

Enforcer, “……”

It had known that Meng Xuexiao was F-rank, but this was the first time it had truly confronted just how brutally real that fact was.

…Meng Xuexiao really was outrageously weak!

This kind of person, who might die from just being left alone for a bit, how could someone like him possibly trigger a world reset?!

It was just… exhausting. Not a moment of peace to be had!

Right now, watching Meng Xuexiao hesitating, unsure whether he should keep reviewing the tutorial in his head, the Enforcer felt like its internal data flow was about to overload from sheer frustration.

Wasn’t the goal to crush the one who issued the duel challenge? Why waste time in a place like this?! Hurry up and activate the weapons to test their power!

This was seriously the worst candidate it had ever worked with!

After waiting more than ten seconds, the Enforcer finally lost patience and began running a program to analyze why Meng Xuexiao wasn’t moving.

It skimmed through several extremely low-probability answers at lightning speed, and finally settled on one—

[Detected: Target Meng Xuexiao has been in contact with mecha for 2 months and 5 days. Total training time operating a mecha is 97 hours.

Suggestion: Piloting a mecha is thrilling, but your safety is priceless! We recommend practicing step-by-step under the supervision of a guardian or instructor, okay, dear? ♥]

Enforcer, “……”

Three minutes later, the virtual light screen, previously white, finally lit up again in front of Meng Xuexiao. What appeared was the very knowledge he’d been struggling over and wishing to review… but not quite the same.

The material had been turned into a holographic game.

At the same time, the inside of the mecha dimmed, simulating the scene of flying through the galaxy.

Hostile enemy mechas, rendered through the holographic projection, floated all around Meng Xuexiao, launching attacks at him, virtual, yet remarkably realistic in their effects.

Meanwhile, a button on the control panel in front of him lit up, seemingly guiding him to press it.

Meng Xuexiao realized, it was the very dodge control key he had just learned about in the tutorial.

He reached out and pressed the button. The mecha tilted instantly, narrowly dodging the incoming enemy attack.

But Meng Xuexiao didn’t let go of the button right away. The mecha continued tilting more and more, until finally, it did a full somersault mid-air.

At the moment the somersault was fully completed, the holographic projections inside the mecha faded, and Meng Xuexiao found himself back in the Mecha Maintenance Center. A small pop-up window appeared on the virtual screen in front of him: [Congratulations, Training Session 1 Complete! Score: 78 points. Areas for improvement include…]

Meng Xuexiao was breathing heavily, as if he still hadn’t fully recovered from the sudden shift in environment.

It had all been virtual, the mecha beneath him hadn’t moved an inch from start to finish, remaining firmly grounded, giving off a strong sense of safety.

He had seen holographic projections before in his mecha operations class. The instructor had thrown all the students into a closed room for full-scale combat simulation training. That was considered the most advanced holographic tech in the entire Federation.

Outside of class, many students submitted requests hoping to use that room during their free time, Meng Xuexiao was one of them. Unfortunately, he’d never managed to get a spot. There were just too many applicants. Rumor had it the schedule was already full through the end of next year.

But even that cutting-edge holographic classroom at the Federal Military Academy didn’t assess a student’s performance in real time, nor did it provide personalized guidance for improvement based on specific movements…

Meng Xuexiao lowered his eyes, gently rubbing the control panel beneath his palm, “Such powerful technology… it’s practically unbeatable. In the entire Federation, I’d bet there’s only one of these.”

In a blind spot where the boy couldn’t see, the image on the virtual screen flickered slightly, then quickly returned to calm.