Chapter 149: One plus one

Bunny had eventually drifted off in a complete haze. Between executing a taxing spiritual sea restoration and then staying up past midnight performing "manual labor," the physical toll was brutal for someone who operated on chronically low energy reserves.

All of this was made worse by the fact that Orion had been holding back his heat cycle since daytime without relief—and thanks to their shared sensory link, Illai was forced to ride the exact same wave.

If she had known it would turn out like this, she never would have let her impulse get the better of her, leading her to provoke those two lustful snakes in the first place!

Though credit where credit was due: the twin snakes certainly knew how to attend to a woman’s needs. Having reaped the rewards, they proved eager to please, catering to her every whim with absolute devotion.

The moment Bunny pulled back the covers to swing her legs off the mattress, Orion carried in a hot breakfast tray for her.

She reached for her utensils, only to be hit by a throbbing ache across her wrists, feeling as though she had developed an acute case of tendonitis overnight.

One plus one equals two; two plus two equals four.

When it came to those two, every bit of physical exertion doubled. It had nearly worked her into an early grave!

She had always been quietly curious about whether their anatomical quirks matched the theoretical descriptions, and now she finally had a definitive answer.

There was, in fact, a distinct structural difference.

Recalling the 21-centimeter baseline logged in their digital dossiers, she realized that figure was merely an average metric.

Noticing Bunny’s lingering irritation, the twins acted with prompt obedience, huddling beside her to hand-feed her breakfast.

Orion would spoon up a portion of porridge, followed immediately by Illai popping a dim sum shrimp dumpling past her lips.

She offered a casual query. "Is Astin awake yet?"

Orion shook his head, while Illai picked up the explanation.

"The entity that previously ambushed Captain appears to be active along the Eastern Sector border. Sector 1 has already logged the sudden disappearance of two Sentinels."

"Captain plans to leave a skeleton detail behind to guard the main installation while the rest of the unit deploys to the perimeter to execute a capture operation."

"Has the deployment roster been finalized?"

She wanted to join the strike force; after all, an entity capable of inflicting critical trauma on Cyrus was hardly a foe to be taken lightly.

Moreover, she was intensely curious: what kind of organism possessed an obsession with fashioning human "puppets"?

Illai replied, "Not just yet."

Finishing her meal, Bunny swiped across her tactical slate, spotting an automated schedule reminder.

Tsk. San had taken two days of personal leave—he was finally bothering to show up for class again?

She was scheduled to restore Kai’s spiritual sea later that evening, so without wasting a second, she changed into her combat drills suit and headed straight for the armory.

For field Sentinels and Guides alike, tactical weapon modification was an indispensable survival skill.

While High Command supplied the Sentinel Tower with an extensive array of conventional firearms and cold weaponry, the complex, shifting topography of the area demanded that weapons be customized to suit varying environmental conditions and personal combat preferences.

The armory’s matte-titanium walls were hung with countless configurations of firearms, combat blades, and modular attachments.

At the far end sat the central modification bench, littered with technical schematics and scattered assembly tools.

San leaned casually against the workbench edge, his tactical-gloved fingers idly twirling a combat knife.

The lighting remained dim, leaving half of his face shrouded in shadow, obscuring his expression entirely.

Bunny crossed the anti-slip carbon-black floor plating, tossing out a greeting:

"Good morning, San."

He lifted his eyelids slightly. "Good morning, Miss Guide."

Miss Guide?

Tsk. So she was no longer his "Little Dinosaur"?

Bunny paid little mind to San’s sudden cool detachment. The deep-seated feud between him and Astin was a conflict she had zero authority to navigate.

Moreover, Astin had officially become her bonded Sentinel.

Leaning toward either side would only prove problematic.

"Let’s begin the lesson."

San laid out several baseline firearm components across the table in a neat line.

Shock-absorbing optics, receiver housings, suppressors, tactical foregrips, emission coils...

Along with an assortment of particle thruster core tubes emitting faint, pulsing blue light.

Picking up one of the core tubes, San launched into a flat, emotionless lecture:

"The standard-issue baseline laser rifle is currently designated as the MAK41, while the precision marksman variant is classified as the AWN09."

"The baseline model functions reliably across most operational theatres, but the MAK line suffers from a fatal design vulnerability: its particle thruster core tubes wear down at an accelerated rate."

"In sub-zero conditions, thermal contraction causes the bolt mechanism to bind, leading to frequent feeding jams."

He paused for a beat. "Miss Guide, the true worth of a weapon lies neither in its aesthetic design nor its requisition cost—it lies strictly in its functional utility."

Bunny had a nagging suspicion he was speaking in double meanings.

"Configuring a firearm so that it aligns seamlessly with your own physiology is what matters most."

Having provided a brief rundown of each component, San instructed Bunny to execute an assembly sequence.

Bunny dove into the intricate pile of parts, repeatedly hitting snags—either selecting mismatched components or mixing up the mechanical order.

The reason was simple: San had intentionally buried incompatible modules right in the center of the pile, placing them prominently in plain sight.

San clicked his stopwatch. Two minutes and fifty seconds. Entirely too slow.

"It appears your grasp of foundational firearm schematics remains remarkably inadequate. Are Orion and Illai really maintaining such abysmal standards for you?"

"Or are you simply going through the motions to feed yourself a delusion of effort?"

If she couldn’t master even the basic structural frame, how could she ever hope to execute complex tactical modifications?

San looked down at her through his blazing, crimson eyes, surveying her like a teacher holding up a failing exam.