Heroic Spirit: I, Shinji, have tried my best.

"...Then it's up to you to decide for yourself. If you come to a conclusion, you can come to my base here..."

After a few minutes of conversation, Shinji ended his conversation with the Ex-Machina, and then turned his head to look at Chronicle, who was burying her face in his chest and not moving...

"How long are you going to hang on me, you bastard?"

"Ah!... No... Sorry..."

As soon as the words fell, Chloë Grace's delicate body trembled, and she jumped aside with a scream, blushing and tilting her head, not daring to look Shinji in the eye.

It was all because of her careless habit that she always accidentally did things that were embarrassing...

"If you're embarrassed, why did you rush over..."

"Um... I said I was careless, do you believe me..."

"..."

Shinji looked speechlessly at the girl opposite him who was a little bit nervous. It seemed that all the nutrition had gone to the right place, so she was a little careless in her head.

"Wu...you, what are you doing..."

Chloro Ni looked at Shinji who suddenly started to stare at her chest, and she turned sideways to protect it with both hands, and some bad guesses suddenly came to her mind...

Because the dragon's breath had burned off a large piece of her clothes, the clothes that had originally wrapped her tightly had now turned into a low-cut dress.

What if the other party suddenly goes beastly at this moment... With her strength, it seems that she can't do anything except be forced to cater to him!

...Should...Shouldn't...

Finally, under Chronicle's extremely nervous gaze, Shinji took a look at the girl's exposed beauty, and without any hesitation, he turned around and walked directly towards the dragon spirit's corpse.

"Eh!?"

It’s okay…it seems she was overthinking it.

Kloni breathed a sigh of relief, but then began to doubt herself again... Why was her appeal now less than that of a corpse?

While she was still daydreaming, Shinji had already come to the side of the black dragon's corpse, stroking its extremely hard scales with shining eyes...

Although beautiful women are indeed great, they still pale in comparison to a dragon. After all, who can resist the corpse of a whole dragon?

"This is a treasure. It is an excellent material whether it is used to make weapons, armor or magic props. And the effect will definitely be much better than those ordinary dragons."

"By the way, Hubie, can we eat this dragon meat? Will it have any powerful effects?"

"…It is very rare to find a living corpse of a dragon spirit. If the value of the body is not exhausted by [Crash], the body of a dragon spirit can be used as material for the manufacture of multiple weapons."

"If the Dwarves knew about this, they would probably go crazy. However, if Shinji wants to eat meat, I think chewing iron would be easier if we don't consider the high concentration of Elves."

“…Is that so? That’s fine then…”

Shinji sighed with some regret. This was the first time he had killed such a big dragon. If he gave it to someone else, he would definitely not be happy about it. But if he used it himself, it didn't seem to be of much use...

Oh! That’s right!

Suddenly, Shinji had a flash of inspiration and came up with a perfect idea.

Then, under Shubi's puzzled gaze, Shinji walked all the way to the black dragon's big head, and with a flick of his right hand, a black stick slipped out from his sleeve.

The head of this black stick is cut into a sharp thorn shape, and it can be seen that it must be very sharp.

Immediately, Shinji raised his hand impatiently and thrust the black stick into the dragon's head...

"Snapped!"

"..."

However, the ideal is good, but the result is always contrary to one's wishes. Shinji stood there in a daze, staring blankly at the black stick that was broken in half... He actually forgot how hard the scales were...

"Hey...it seems that this plan cannot be realized for the time being, so let's do it later."

Shinji casually threw the broken black stick aside, raised his hand and waved it in the direction of the black dragon's corpse, and black mud immediately began to rise from the ground.

This viscous liquid, like a swamp, gradually swallowed up the slowly sinking dragon spirit corpse, leaving only a large pit with a clear outline in its place...

"? Shinji, what did you do?"

"Well, I saved it. It will be of great use to me later!"

"oh oh…"

"…So, should we go back?"

"Don't worry about this for now. After all, we still have to wait here for our future new friends..."

At this point, Shinji suddenly stretched out his hand towards Hubie with ill intentions. Hubie, who hadn't reacted yet, was pinched on the face by Shinji, like kneading dough...

"Woooo..."

"Aren't you going to tell me now? The thing you hid from me."

"Hide it? Shinji...what are you talking about?"

"You little brat, you're still playing dumb!"

"Wow...Wow...Huh ...

"is it?"

Seeing that the other party didn't seem to realize what he had done, Shinji put down his hands, pinched the other party's chin and asked fiercely:

"Last time when we mentioned the Ex-Machina, your reaction was a little strange. Although I didn't pay much attention to it at that time, your behavior this time has undoubtedly aroused my suspicion... So are you going to make excuses next?"

Hubie was stunned for a moment when he heard this, as if he had just remembered this matter. His stubborn and unconvinced look instantly collapsed and he fell silent.

"Shinji...will you be angry?"

"…I once said that I would not be mad at Hubie no matter what trouble he got into, but I want to take that back now because I will be mad now!"

"The enemy is a Dragon Spirit. Given the disparity in strength, according to our agreement, you should immediately return the way you came, instead of trying to contact the Ex-Machina..."

"..."

"You should know that their help is not necessary for us. There are obviously better ways to protect you and Chloe...but you chose the most dangerous path."

"..."

"You have to know the situation at that time. If I had come a second later, it would have been..."

Before Shinji could finish his words, a little figure suddenly rushed over to him and sobbed in his arms:

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Hubie... Hubie knows he's wrong..."

"…So, tell me why you did this?"

"It's all Shubi's fault... Shubi is too selfish. In fact, from the beginning, after Shubi got the [Heart] from Shinji, as long as the connection with the host was established, all Ex-Machinas would synchronize Shubi's memory and thinking. At that time, the Ex-Machinas would unconditionally obey Shinji's command..."

"But Shubi hesitated... It was clearly the feelings that Shubi and Shinji developed after being together for so long, and it was clearly the [heart] that Shubi had finally found, so why did he share it with them directly!?"

"…It was obviously one person's Hubie, but I didn't expect it to become many… This is the only thing Hubie doesn't want to share with others…"

Hubie cried and threw herself into Shinji's arms to explain. Shinji listened quietly, and gently rubbed his little head with his palm...

"So, you want to convince the Ex-Machina to help us by yourself to make up for your selfishness?"

"Um…"

"…Shh~ You've really become stupid, so stupid that you no longer look like an Ex-Machina… Instead, you look more like a stupid human who lets his emotions interfere with his reason and gets into trouble everywhere because of his self-righteousness…"

After hearing what she said, Xubi thought that Shinji was still angry with her, but after he finished speaking, she suddenly realized that something was wrong:

"Huppy... looks like a human now?"

"Who knows? But in my eyes, Hubie is now completely complete, and your [heart] has also fully matured... Now you have completely broken away from the code name you once had, and have become the one and only Hubie in the world."

“As for the fact that you don’t want to share your [heart] with others, this is proof that you have found your true self.”

Suddenly, Hubie stopped crying, raised her wet face and looked into Shinji's eyes, with a look of disbelief and doubt on her face...

"Hubby... is it complete already?"

"…certainly!"

"Then... Shubi can... become Shinji's wife?"

"…if you wish."

"!"

Hearing this, Shubi's eyes widened instantly. Seeing Shinji smiling gently at her, a look of joy gradually spread across her entire face. Even the mechanically rigid face couldn't suppress the upward curl of her mouth...

……

Legend has it that before the creation of the world, there was a newborn god named Fanlou. She was called the "God of Doubt" because she had endless questions since she was born.

But in that desolate world, there was no creature that could answer her questions.

So in order to find someone to talk to, the girl created several small cubes... the [Unit-01] of the Ex-Machina.

However, the Ex-Machinas at that time were still far from being able to respond to their Lord, which made Houlou, who was completely in despair, finally choose to pierce his own [Essence] and fall into an endless sleep...

However, those few small robots did survive, and continued to evolve over time until they became the [Mechanical Species] of today.

Although they have almost unlimited evolutionary capabilities, they have no awareness of other proactive attacks. After losing their main god, no one gave them instructions and they could only focus on self-evolution as their only goal.

Not all Ex-Machinas still remember this story, because it is sealed in the deepest part of the host's memory system...

And now, the thing that the Ex-Machinas have been unconsciously searching for, the thing that can answer the questions of the Lord God, has been found, and it can even be said that it already exists in the body of a petite girl...