Chapter 360 - 361: Eat, Sleep, Roast Flay

Chapter 360: Chapter 361: Eat, Sleep, Roast Flay

"Everyone is so busy..."

Kira was still a little lost after climbing down from the Strike.

The Archangel was a complete mess. Bullet holes were everywhere in the living quarters, and even the refugees were helping with repairs.

"Kira! Thank goodness you’re okay!"

Sai, Kuzzey, Tolle, and Miriallia all came running over.

"You guys—eh?!"

Kira was startled.

She realized that all four of them were wearing military uniforms.

"Well, we’re from Orb too, more or less. But if we want to move around freely, military uniforms are still the most convenient," Sai said.

"Mm, we want to help Kira too!" Miriallia grabbed Kira’s hand.

"Exactly, exactly. Captain Murrue said the bridge is wrecked anyway, so at this point, whatever we do doesn’t really matter anymore."

[I’m dying, Murrue has completely given up]

[They’ve already broken who-knows-how-many military regulations. What’s one more?]

[Once you owe enough, you stop worrying about the debt, huh?]

[They handed the whole Archangel over to some random passerby Inori for management and repairs. What else is there to say?]

[Place your bets: is the Archangel going to become the ship that violates the most military rules and regulations in Gundam history?]

[Very possible lol]

[Murrue wanted to enforce military discipline at first, then she just gave up completely]

[I’m dying]

[Badgiruel is pretty strict about military discipline, though]

[Strict about it verbally, you mean?]

[The whole Archangel gives off this "we’re already screwed, so whatever" atmosphere]

[Archangel: We’ve officially given up, thanks.]

"Oh my, I really didn’t expect the Archangel to have this kind of image in everyone’s eyes."

Inori was a little surprised when she saw everyone’s teasing.

In everyone’s eyes, the Archangel had basically become synonymous with "lawlessness."

Of course, that was the result of Inori’s guidance.

Simply put, it was the "broken windows effect."

Once a car window was broken, if nobody dealt with it, the other windows would soon be smashed as well, and people would start helping themselves to whatever was inside.

When the people aboard the Archangel first began breaking the rules, that was effectively the first broken window.

Once the first window was gone, everyone would think that since it was already broken anyway, they might as well stop caring altogether.

This method was especially effective on Badgiruel.

In the "original," Badgiruel had always been highly principled. Even when she was interrogated at the Alaska base, she had kept her head lowered.

But in this world, after breaking her principles for the first time, Badgiruel had started finding all kinds of excuses afterward.

Once the bottom line was broken once, it would keep being broken again and again.

Especially when Badgiruel’s superior was Murrue, who had already decided to throw caution to the wind.

Since she was already prepared to face a court-martial, Murrue’s only principle now was having no principles.

Especially after the Blue Cosmos takeover attempt, Murrue had completely given up on playing by the book.

She even regretted it now—if they had really done what Mu suggested, fought back with everything they had from the start, and fled at full speed, they never would have run into so much trouble afterward.

With Captain Murrue setting the example, Badgiruel naturally began crossing her own lines as well, and gradually stopped caring.

By now, Badgiruel had successfully integrated into the Archangel’s anything-goes environment.

Kira had been in a bad mood before, but after discovering that several of her best friends had come to stay by her side, her tightly furrowed brow finally relaxed a little.

Kira was doing everything she could for her friends, and her friends were doing their part for her too.

Kira was fine for the moment, but Inori, on the other hand, ran into Flay.

Flay wandered through the corridor like a ghost.

"Why did it turn out like this...? It wasn’t supposed to be like this... How could it be like this?!"

Flay was in pain, and seeing Inori only made it worse.

"There is no such thing as ’supposed to.’"

"Didn’t that girl fail to protect anything?!" Flay shouted at Inori.

Inori merely stared at Flay. "Kira has no obligation to protect anyone."

"Eh...?"

"Kira is protecting everyone, but she is not doing it out of obligation. She is doing it because of her own morals and emotions."

Inori took one step forward, and Flay took one step back.

"And Flay-san, why don’t you blame the enemy who killed your father? Why do you blame Kira instead? Because in your eyes, blaming and accusing Kira won’t have any consequences for you, right? Because you know Kira won’t hurt you, don’t you? You say you hate Coordinators, but in reality, you’re still using Kira, aren’t you?"

[Victim blaming]

[I’m starting to think that earlier rumor was true. The screenwriter probably really isn’t Japanese]

[Makes sense. Over there, the idea that strength itself is a sin and victim blaming are both popular. The discrimination against Coordinators is basically a product of that original-sin logic]

[I’ve seen it on the Japanese GBN server. People over there think Naturals discriminating against Coordinators is completely normal. It fits perfectly]

[Was Flay deliberately created by the screenwriter just so she could get roasted?]

[So the whole setup exists just to serve this roasting, huh?]

[Flay’s dad was literally blown up by a shot from Yzak in the first place. What does that have to do with Kira?]

[Protecting you is my hobby, not my obligation]

[I used to wonder about this when reading light novels. If the hero is strong enough to kill the Demon King, how do those people dare discriminate against the hero?]

[Because the hero is too powerful and would disrupt our everyday lives lol]

[If it were a hero from our side, the king would already be gone]

[After becoming the hero: Day one: I’ll protect humanity. Day two: humanity is mine. Day three: I make the rules now]

[Grant the Nine Bestowments, put me in charge of state affairs, give me supreme military authority, let me enter court armed and shod, dispense with naming me at audience, and let me maintain a government on par with the Three Excellencies.]

[Why go through all that? Just have your men throw a yellow robe on you "because it’s cold."]

[Japanese writing has the same beautiful logic as a female-oriented webnovel where a border prince commanding 800,000 troops gets persecuted]

[Hahaha]

You know what? They really were not wrong.

Flay was only a supporting character in the story. Normally, interactions with Flay did not generate many Popularity Points.

But Inori discovered that while she was criticizing Flay here, her Popularity Points were actually shooting upward.

"Huh? Didn’t they say victim blaming is popular on the Japanese server?"

There were not many danmaku from the Japanese region, nor did any of them stand out much. Most were just posting "Grass (a type of exclamation)" and "www," which were the equivalent of laughter like "lol" over there.

Although there were not many danmaku, the Popularity Point gains were substantial. The overall total was lower than the neighboring region, but each individual audience member contributed more Popularity Points.

Sigh. It seemed everyone had reached a consensus when it came to roasting Flay.

Flay’s eyes remained stubborn.

She did not seem to realize she had done anything wrong at all. In her worldview, all of this was probably nothing more than so-called "common sense," and she believed she had made no mistake whatsoever.

Excellent. Time to keep roasting her.