Elowen’s body shuddered and Grey shook awake, his gaze sharpening from its previous cloudiness.

’What the fuck is wrong with me?’

He took a quick step back, looking at the girl in front of him with a slight horror in his eyes.

This wasn’t the first time he had come across an Ability that altered the way he thought, but this was very, very different. This wasn’t just a single Ability, and the Wolf Spirit wasn’t just targeting a single aspect of his body.

Instead, it was like it had become one with his Neural Frame. Its level of influence and control was on a completely different level compared to Center of Balance.

But Grey also didn’t feel like it was sinister, which actually made things more scary than the alternative.

If the Wolf Spirit had bad intentions, it would be easy to carve out a lane for it and suppress it. Grey was always quite good at dealing with adversity, he thought.

But the Wolf Spirit wasn’t some enemy inside of him, it was trying to help in its own way. It was using its senses to tell him that Elowen’s blood was something he needed.

On a smaller scale, this had happened already as well, back when he stabbed Zara—the other Imperial Princess who had yet to appear in this loop.

The fang daggers had acted on their own back then, taking in the blood for him, and resulting in the largest leap in his Last Paladin Frame since he actually got it.

"I’m sorry," Grey said. "It looks like I don’t fully understand the Spirit I just combined with."

Honestly, Grey didn’t feel like an apology was enough, but he also knew that he at least had to say something.

Elowen looked like she had become as pale as a sheet, her eyes focused on the ground in front of her. It was like when she experienced her sister’s death all over again. Her mind had completely shut down.

Just how sheltered was this girl?

Grey could understand reacting like that to a sister’s death, but doing so after facing a danger that fixed itself was a bit much, no?

He scratched the back of his head. He had never really experienced something like that.

As much of a loose cannon as he was, he had never drank or smoked—maybe because he was afraid of how much more of a loose cannon he’d become if he did that.

That was all to say that he had never come even close to violating a girl like he had just now. It made him feel uncomfortable not only for himself, but her as well. He had not a single clue of how to handle this situation.

This led to a result where they both stood around a bit awkwardly, a heavy silence hanging in the air. Grey seemed to have completely forgotten he was on a time crunch.

But honestly, even if he was reminded, he wouldn’t care. His own character was far more important to him than his life, and right now he felt too horrible just to hold up a peace sign and split.

After a long while, Grey cleared his throat.

"Um... can I make it up to you somehow? I have more blueprints if you want. Completely for free, of course."

The words felt like chalk on his tongue. He almost started kicking himself, what sort of nonsense was he saying. It sounded like he was trying to pay her off.

’Great job Diddy-Grey. You want to add some baby oil to that?’

He rubbed at his hair more furiously until he heard a slight giggle.

Grey looked up, trying to find who did that, only to find that Elowen was looking at him with a hand covering her mouth.

He was speechless. She was just a frozen statue two seconds ago, why was she laughing all of a sudden.

Well, she did look embarrassed as well, but that hardly changed the whole giggling thing.

"I’m sorry," Elowen said after a while.

Grey was even more speechless now. Why the hell was she apologizing?

"It wasn’t you, it’s okay. You don’t need to pay me. No one was hurt, right?"

Elowen looked up, her amber eyes flashing with something close to peace.

"You showed me something today I never thought I’d see. I don’t think we have a mech technician as good as you in the empire. The Wizard would probably love to meet you." 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"The wizard?" Grey asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Ah, right, you probably don’t know. The Wizard is the title my—the Goddess gave to our strongest mech technician. He is a true monster and even successfully crafted a few Dominion Class Mechs in his time.

"I’ve never had the right to see any of his crafts, but I’ve only read about Spark Life in books. You might be the only one in the empire who’s actually alive and done it."

"Spark Life?" Grey raised an eyebrow. "What’s that?"

Elowen’s lip twitched. "... Spark Life is when the Sync Rate between a mech and a Spirit is so high that it sparks life before they even combine. This allows the Spirit itself to be a part of the Intent process and it makes a mech, overall, far more powerful as a result. Rather than just being a tool, it acts like far more of a living organ on the body."

Grey blinked. Was that why the Wolf Spirit could so easily influence him now?

"I see..." Grey nodded slowly.

Then he jolted awake, seemingly remembering that he was, indeed, on a time crunch.

But what was he going to do now? Charge the palace? There was no way he could make it back to Zone 234 before the end of the loop, and if the Syrn had arrived not long after he left, then there probably wasn’t much to return to by now anyway.

Either the Syrn destroyed everything, or Amunet’s spell did.

What exactly was the best way to maximize the time he had left, then? He felt kind of bad charging the palace all of a sudden. Those people were Elowen’s family, after all.

Something clicked. "Hey, what do you know about the Trolley Family?"