Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?
"Dr-drugging her on the first meeting!?"
Even though the anti-truth serum is harmless to the body, doing something like this on the very first meeting with an admired assistant feels way too awful!? Or is it just that she can't keep up with a genius's thought process?
Hestia suddenly leaps and clings to Bell's back, solemnly repeating with emphasis: "The scariest ones are always the beautiful big sisters like that! Bell-kun absolutely has to take this as a warning! Never eat food given by strange women! Never eat food given by strange women!"
Feeling the heavy pressure pressing against his back, Bell blushes and takes a step forward away from his goddess: "G-Goddess-sama, you can rest assured. I usually wouldn't casually eat things others give me anyway…"
"Don't think I'm being nagging, Bell-kun."
Hestia puts on the air of someone who's been through it all: "That Ms. Ruan Mei looks so gentle, but her way of doing things is even bolder than Ms. Herta… Truly, you can't judge people by appearances. Even someone as familiar as Kafka or Himeko wouldn't do this kind of thing to Stelle, right?"
"Speaking of which, Bell-kun, do you think that Ms. Ruan Mei is pretty? How does she compare to me—"
Before the final "ne?" could leave her mouth, Hestia notices that Bell-kun's gaze is already firmly locked onto the Celestial Screen, and it's obvious whose figure it's fixed on.
"—Be-Bell-kun!"
Hestia instantly flares with jealousy. Dissatisfied "hmph" sounds echo through the entire basement of the church. She leaps forward, pounces onto Bell, and clamps both hands tightly over his eyes.
"Th-That kind of woman has nothing good about her! No matter how long you stare at her, she won't respond to you! You should pay more attention to the person right in front of you!"
—
[""Think of it as a layer of protection. Protecting my research, and also protecting your personal safety. Once those troubles are resolved, I will give you the antidote." Ruan Mei smiles lightly: "As compensation for becoming my assistant, I can give you rewards. Anything you want, I can satisfy.""]
["She lifts her gaze. Her eyes carry the seriousness unique to a researcher—it doesn't look like she's joking."]
["Stelle stands with one hand on her hip, her chest rising and falling slightly from suppressed anger."]
[""…I'm still very angry.""]
["But Ruan Mei's expression remains like an ancient lake without a ripple, undisturbed in the slightest. She simply calmly raises the offer: "I can give you even more rewards.""]
—
Chainsaw Man.
"Hey hey Power! Did you hear that?"
Denji suddenly springs up from the sofa, pointing at Ruan Mei on the Celestial Screen with an excited voice. "She said 'any request can be satisfied'! Doesn't that mean even asking her to be my girlfriend is possible?"
"Hah!? Denji, are you an idiot?" Power is secretly eating Aki Hayakawa's hamburger patty. Upon hearing this, she wishes she could stuff the two remaining pieces of bread she didn't finish into Denji's mouth: "What exactly is good about that woman? She looks exactly like the type who would trick you into a lab and slice you up!"
"But she talks so nicely, and she's super pretty! She can even make pastries! If she became my girlfriend, maybe every day after work I'd come home to desserts she made herself!"
"Even if you made that kind of request, there's no way she'd seriously treat you like a boyfriend, right?"
Power shrugs her shoulders and lowers her voice dramatically: "Even if she reluctantly agreed, the condition for kissing you might be that you let her do a live experiment on you… and then turn you into a bug! Didn't she say she wants to become an Aeon? Maybe you'd just be a stepping stone on her path to godhood~"
—
["Ruan Mei explains that she previously borrowed another Genius Society member's creation, the [Phase Spirit Fire], from Herta, hoping to gain some inspiration from the research results of other members."]
["She did indeed gain inspiration and conducted a series of life cultivation experiments at the space station. Her original plan was to cultivate an entirely new form of life born as 'geniuses,' even naming them in advance after Genius Society #8 member Ruan… but the results deviated. The creations gained consciousness, but it had nothing to do with genius."]
["Now these 'little lives' have been free-range under her care, and a few have escaped. They are currently hiding somewhere in the space station. She wants to ask Stelle to help retrieve them and find a place to contain them."]
["However, she specifically does not want Herta or Asta to get involved in this matter. The more people know, the more troublesome it becomes. Therefore, she wants to entrust this solely to Stelle."]
["Stelle goes to the Department of Biology to inquire and indeed learns that the space station has recently been in complete chaos—not only are there important figures to receive, but somehow some small monsters have appeared out of nowhere."]
["Following the reminder from the Department of Biology staff, Stelle arrives at the containment section. Quite a few people are gathered here, all discussing the newly arrived Ruan Mei."]
["The people here hold great reverence for Ruan Mei, but they have quite a few complaints about how she immediately took over upon arriving at the space station… while Ms. Herta has completely turned a blind eye…"]
[""Ms. Herta is just indulging Ruan Mei." Stelle is just about to comment when what comes out of her mouth is: "Hey, the Galactic Baseballer has arrived!""]
["Under the bewildered expressions of the nearby staff, Stelle awkwardly curls her toes in embarrassment and sheepishly retreats from the crowd's discussion."]
["She realizes that any statement involving the two words 'Ruan Mei' automatically turns into something else. After testing it with two more people, she becomes even more certain of this."]
—
Mob Psycho 100.
Reigen Arataka strokes his chin, eyes fixed on Stelle's hesitant expression on the Celestial Screen, and suddenly speaks: "Mob, doesn't this look a lot like the situation back when Fubuki was possessed?"
Mob, who is wiping the table, pauses: "Master, are you referring to Cirrus?"
"Look—" Reigen gestures with his finger, "That 'anti-truth serum' is like a sealing technique. Anything involving the two words 'Ruan Mei' gets blocked. But Fubuki's control was the forced kind—" He picks up two chopsticks and crosses them against each other. "So what happens when 'cannot say' meets 'must say'?"
Mob thinks seriously. Suddenly he notices the exposed electrical wires on the wall behind his master, and inspiration strikes: "Would it… be like a short circuit? Fainting?"
"Bingo!"
Reigen snaps his fingers. "I think there would definitely be some kind of repulsive force. Either the person can't hold up under the drug and faints, or the drug's effect gets forcibly diluted and neutralized by the possessing entity—or even tearing apart the personality is possible…"