Wuyou froze, not processing what Gold Ship had just said.
A moment later, cold sweat slid down his back.
This was probably the most nerve-wracking moment of his entire life so far.
You've got to be kidding me?! His identity as a fairy had been exposed?!
Even Manchester Café—who could see her ghost friend—hadn't seen through him. So how the hell did Gold Ship figure it out?!
…Was she really some alien freak-horse?
Gold Ship, on the other hand, looked completely assured—almost smug, like I knew it all along. She wagged a finger.
"Heh heh heh~ Yuyou, you still think you can hide it from Little Gold Ship? Too naïve!"
She leaned close to his face. Her snow-white hair nearly brushed his nose, and her eyes glittered with excited light.
"Look, okay—"
She started counting on her fingers, launching into a torrent of pure, unfiltered "Gold Ship logic."
"First! Yuyou, you can't see, but sometimes you react faster than people who do have eyes!"
"Like just now—when I threw a sack over you, you actually reacted. That's definitely fairy intuition, or… echolocation!"
Gold Ship stuck out her tongue and added, "Heh—anyway, you're not normal!"
Wuyou couldn't help feeling embarrassed.
Because… his reaction speed really was faster than most people's.
When Gold Ship had tried to sack him before, his skin had sensed the air shift first, and he'd instinctively tried to dodge.
Still, he fought back. "That's because you throw it in a super predictable direction—and I heard the wind!"
"Second!"
Gold Ship ignored him completely and raised a second finger.
"Do you remember when you climbed the Three Goddess statue?"
Wuyou's cheeks turned red for once—getting your "dark history" called out to your face was never pleasant…
"You were way too agile back then! You were like a forest fairy climbing a tree!"
"And the way you were feeling up the statue—like you were checking whether the carrots you grew were ripe…"
"You were definitely using fairy methods to communicate with the goddesses, right? Right?!"
Wuyou opened his mouth, but under Gold Ship's interpretation, his past "hands everywhere" behavior had somehow become mystically profound, leaving him speechless.
And in a way… she wasn't even wrong!
Back then, Wuyou really had thought the Three Goddesses might be some kind of fairy-like beings, so he'd tried using his fairy power to communicate.
Turns out it was just an ordinary stone statue.
…Though the chest area did feel pretty nice, not gonna lie.
"Third! And this is the most important evidence!"
Gold Ship suddenly slapped both hands against Wuyou's cheeks.
She controlled the force perfectly—didn't hurt, but the presence was overwhelming.
Her eyes shone as she leaned in until her face was right in front of his, her small nose twitching lightly.
"You have this non-human smell on you! Not a bad smell! It's like… um… after-rain forest vibes where mushrooms suddenly start glowing, snail shells turn rainbow-colored, and ants line up to do tap dance—this kind of amazing feeling! I love it!"
"Only members of the 'Treisen Academy Unexplained Phenomena Alliance' can sense each other like this!"
It was a bizarre description… but of course only Gold Ship would describe something like that.
And what broke Wuyou the most was—when had he ever been drafted into some ridiculous "alliance" like that?!
Was he going to become a freak like Gold Ship someday?
Please, no!!
Gold Ship didn't notice Wuyou's inner turmoil. She only got more excited, even starting to wave her arms around.
"So there's only one truth! Yuyou, you're not a normal human trainer—you're a 'statue-groping fairy who got lost and wandered into Treisen'!"
"Or a 'horsegrass spirit who took human form because you love Umamusume too much'!"
"Or maybe an 'otherworldly magical creature who fell into this world and replaced vision with superpowers'!"
"Waaah—so cool! No wonder Little Gold Ship knew you were perfect for her at first sight! We're the same kind!"
Listening to this string of theories—so insane they belonged outside the Milky Way—Wuyou felt his temples start throbbing again.
He tried to explain. "No, Gold Ship, I'm just an ordinary… slightly unlucky… blind trainer…"
"Ordinary?!" Gold Ship took half a step back dramatically, clutching her chest like she'd been wounded.
"Yuyou, you're insulting the bond between us! And you're insulting Little Gold Ship's detective talents!"
"No thanks. I don't want that weird bond anyway," Wuyou muttered.
He thought: if their daily life were turned into an auto-battler game, then "obeying Gold Ship" would definitely activate the most cursed synergy set imaginable.
Even though he rejected her, Gold Ship didn't look disappointed at all.
Instead, she leaned in again, lowering her voice with a conspiratorial, child-soothing tone.
"Don't worry, Yuyou—Little Gold Ship will keep it a secret! This is our 'contract'!"
"And in exchange, for our next grand adventure, let's go to that old warehouse behind the hill—people say there's singing at midnight!"
"…Wait, you're already planning sequel content? If that Mushroom Guy had your level of motivation, he wouldn't have gotten flamed after writing Part Two's ending."
"Huh? What mushroom is that? Tasty?"
"Not tasty. Poisonous. Don't touch it."
"Got it Little Gold Ship listens to Yuyou"
Looking at Gold Ship's glowing face—completely immersed in her own fantasy—Wuyou finally gave up struggling.
He was truly, utterly done.
He had imagined that one day his identity might slip out through some tiny clue.
After all, that strange healing ability was hard to hide forever.
But he never, ever expected that an alien freak-horse would "see through" him with logic like this.
Six-six-six. How is this not cursed? Whether you're cheating or not, you know it in your heart, Little Gold Ship!
Forget arguing science and logic with Gold Ship—he'd have better odds discussing calculus with the Three Goddess statue.
She didn't treat him like a disabled person.
She didn't treat him like a normal person either.
Great. Now he'd been upgraded from "human" to "fairy"—officially disqualified from humanity.
Wuyou let out a long, deep sigh.
It felt like what awaited him in the future wouldn't just be "wilderness survival" on the ground.
It might also include "Fairy Ruins Exploration," "Magic Circle Summoning Experiments," and "Cross-Species Supernatural Friendship Proof: The Grand Adventure."
"Fine…" he gave in weakly. "Whatever makes you happy… but flying and summoning circles are really not happening."
"Yay! Yuyou admitted it!"
Gold Ship cheered and hugged him tighter, as if she'd found a long-lost fantasy companion.
"Don't worry~ Little Gold Ship has a sense of proportion! Do you have time in a hundred years? Then I'll take you to Venus for a tour! Super normal!"
"...What does the word 'normal' even mean in your dictionary?"
"Heh heh heh Secret"
Gold Ship grinned so widely her teeth almost disappeared, clearly already brainwriting an entire epic called "Treisen Academy's Trainer Is Actually a Fairy?!"—and enthusiastically drafting the second arc of her one-sided fantasy adventure.
Feeling the buoyant, almost tangible force of her joy, Wuyou became certain once again:
In this lifetime, he probably wasn't escaping this "Gold Ship" whose imagination was bigger than the sky.
....
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