Rebirth: The Universe's Hidden Heiress-Chapter 54: Becoming Top 10 (1)

On Sunday, Yuka told the butler to schedule an early appointment with the bank’s storage program. After greeting Ayoi, she took the two notebooks and headed to the Orion Bank.

Located in Capital Octoxis, not far from Central Square, the bank was heavily guarded.

Yuka showed her ID and the Orion Bank’s black card to the lobby manager, and the guy’s smile instantly changed. He quickly contacted the bank’s internal communication line to have the director personally attend to Yuka.

The director, a man with thinning hair, greeted Yuka with a smile and escorted her to the bank’s most secure internal warehouse. He served her refreshments and brought out a stack of backup contracts, asking her, "Miss Taira, what would you like to store with us?"

Half of the bank’s funds were Hideki’s private wealth, generating enough interest annually to support the entire bank staff for life. Hideki was also a major shareholder with twenty percent of the bank’s shares. The director wouldn’t dare neglect such an important client.

He joyfully thought that Yuka would store valuable items like real estate contracts, planetary purchase agreements, or diamonds worth billions of astracredits. However, to his surprise, Yuka merely replied, "I want to store two notebooks."

The director was astonished and asked again, "Just... two notebooks?"

Yuka nodded, taking out the two slightly yellowed notebooks from her bag and placing them on the table.

The director blinked in disbelief, quickly had the notebooks vacuum-sealed in special packaging, and locked them in a safe.

After securing them with multiple layers of internal locks, external locks, password locks, iris locks, and fingerprint locks, the notebooks were finally stored in the deepest part of the bank’s internal warehouse.

The director reassured Yuka as they left the warehouse, "Miss Taira, please be assured, our bank’s security system is the strictest. In the event of a cyber attack, we will disconnect immediately to ensure safety. Not even a fly can get into the back warehouse, not with this independent security system."

Adjusting his mindset, the director believed that Yuka’s decision to store just two notebooks wasn’t as simple as it seemed. He thought that these notebooks must contain something as valuable as contracts for several planets.

Yuka nodded in satisfaction and told the director to deduct the storage fee directly from her bank account.

After leaving the bank, Yuka went to the restaurant where she had dined before and ordered her lunch. While she was eating, a notification from her opticomputer sounded, and the butler informed her, "Master, your friend Ayoi has sent you a message."

Yuka, still eating, requested, "Read it out, please."

The butler relayed the message, which was a forwarded school notification: "Notice from UUA Security Department. Last Saturday evening, our school’s security system was attacked from outside the campus, lasting for five minutes. During this time, someone broke into the school library’s restricted area and stole some items. We hope the intruder will voluntarily return the items within three days and turn themselves in. Otherwise, we will take measures and the consequences will be much worse if we find the culprit out."

Yuka set down her fork, picked up her opticomputer, and saw another anxious message from Ayoi, asking if they would be discovered.

Yuka reassured her, "We won’t be," because she knew they had someone else to take the blame for them.

Exiting the message interface, Yuka saw a pinned message from Kenji, which she hadn’t replied to. Since reading the notebook’s content the previous day, she had been feeling too conflicted to respond to Kenji.

The butler, thinking Yuka was unsure how to reply, enthusiastically searched the interstellarnet for "how to reply to a man’s message asking where you are" and suggested the most liked response: "In your heart and mind."

Yuka was about to tell the butler to avoid such things, but the butler had already sent the message. Panicking, Yuka tried to retract it, but Kenji quickly responded with a question mark.

Yuka glared at the butler, who trembled and asked if the message was inappropriate. With a killer’s smile, Yuka replied, "What do you think?"

Grabbing her curly hair in frustration, Yuka awkwardly replied to Kenji, "Sent it by mistake, don’t mind it."

On the other end, Kenji’s heart rate settled down after reading Yuka’s follow-up message. He contemplated asking who the original message was intended for and its meaning, but ultimately chose to remain silent.

Yuka waited for a while, and when no new message came, she decided to respond, "I’m out having fun. You asked where I was earlier, was there something you needed?"

Kenji replied promptly, "Nothing now."

Yuka responded, "Oh, okay, goodbye then."

Kenji sent back a simple, "Goodbye."

Yuka put away her opticomputer and quietly exhaled in relief. She was glad Kenji hadn’t probed further into her vague response; it would have been incredibly awkward otherwise.

Stepping out of the diner, Yuka’s mind returned to the contents of the notebook.

The image of Kenji, bandaged and standing next to Nori, staring coldly into the camera as if looking through time at Yuka, lingered in her thoughts.

The butler asked, "Master, are we heading back to school now?"

"No," Yuka replied. "We’re going to the underground arena."

She needed to fight a few matches to vent her emotions.

At the underground arena, Roukujou was in the commentator’s booth, addressing the audience, "Folks, do you think I don’t want to contact Pinky for a match? I just don’t have her contact info!" ƒreewebɳovel.com

"You see, almost all top 100 fighters in the underground arena have made their contact details public. This helps communication with staff and members of the Alliance Army and allows them to interact with each other. But Pinky? She left nothing!" Roukujou complained. "I can’t add her, and I don’t know when she’ll show up. But I think Pinky most likely won’t come today; let’s focus on the other matches."

The chat was buzzing with comments: [Here comes the classic line!]

[For our new friends, whenever Saltyfish says Pinky won’t do something, she definitely will. We call this the ’Saltyfish Contrarian Law’.]

[Waiting for Saltyfish to get face-slapped.]

Roukujou smirked and gestured dismissively, "Pinky hasn’t been here for so long, she definitely won’t—"

The next second, he froze, eyes wide as he saw the pink mech appear on the screen, struggling to find words.

The chat erupted in laughter: [Pinky definitely won’t come (×), Pinky definitely will come (√)]

[Pinky’s in a solo match today, are her partners busy with something?]

[Let’s just watch the match, folks, no more talking.]

On the field, Yuka opted for the shortest-duration arena battles. Even without Ayoi’s fire support, she chose to fight with only melee weapons.

As the match began, Yuka charged forward, her blade striking her opponent’s cockpit before blocking an incoming mechanical arm and flipping her adversary out of the arena, ending the match swiftly.

She immediately moved on to the next match, again quickly dispatching her opponent before they could react.

Back in the commentary booth, Roukujou stroked his chin, "Pinky seems a bit aggressive today."

The chat responded: [I noticed that too!]

[I couldn’t even see Pinky’s moves clearly before the match ended.]

[Pinky’s current opponents aren’t ranked high, so the fights end quickly. But against higher-ranked fighters, it might not be so easy.]

At the arena’s hall, fans who had been following Yuka’s matches eagerly messaged others, "’Lady’ is here, fighting solo. Hurry over!"

Philip, who was initially planning to participate in a map match, immediately changed his plans to a solo, hoping to be paired against Yuka.

Lory, however, expressed disdain for his actions, remarking, "Even if you enter the solo match, you might not get matched with her. Instead of waiting around, you’d be better off improving your ranking."

Indeed, Philip didn’t get matched with Yuka. After Yuka achieved twenty consecutive wins, the system finally paired her with a higher-ranked opponent.

In the commentary booth, Roukujou, who had been lounging in his chair, suddenly perked up. "It’s the eighth-ranked ’Knight’!" he exclaimed. "He’s actually going to face Pinky!"

The live stream chat became curious: [Knight, is that his nickname? What about him? Is he really strong?]

One fan answered, [Let me explain. Knight isn’t a newcomer this year; he has been competing in ring matches since last year. He almost won the championship last year, ending up third. If everything goes right, he’ll be one of the hot favorites for this year’s championship bet.]

Roukujou glanced at the chat and added, "Yes, ’Knight’ is very skilled, especially in close combat with melee weapons. The heavy sword he uses, a relic from the ancient era, is quite heavy and lethal... Okay, the match is about to start, let’s watch."

On the ring, Yuka also recognized her opponent.

The black mecha wielded a distinctive heavy sword. Yuka remembered him as the eighth-ranked player she had seen during her first visit to the underground arena.

Yuka recalled his impressive swordsmanship and thus braced herself for a serious battle.

Inside the black mecha’s cockpit, Morris looked at the pink mecha opposite him and slowly smiled. ’Yuka, is it you? My thorny pink rose...’