Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

That night after exams…
Crim logged in, appearing in Castle Seyfert. It was also night time in-game, and shortly after…

“Ohh, there’s a bit of fur all over them. It feels almost like velvet, it’s so nice.”
“And the membrane area feels more sturdy than I thought, it’s kinda weird.”

…She was surrounded by the two youngest, Hinagiku and Lycoris, who were very curious about her wings.

“Please… couldst thou cease touching them…? It doth feel most… strange…”
“The base…seems attached to your shoulder blades. Just how do these joints work?”
“Ah, stop it, Frey, that area is…!”

All Warbeast players, like Hinagiku, tended to be sensitive in their tails, especially near the base.
Crim had a hunch that she would be no exception, so she desperately tried to stop her childhood friend from touching…but was too late, as Frey’s finger landed right on the spot where Crim’s white skin turned into leathery black wings.

“…Hyeahn?!”

Frey had done that out of curiosity, but Crim’s reaction was intense.
She twitched violently while letting out an alarming yelp…and then trembled as her face reddened while glaring at Frey, tears welling up in her eyes.

“FREYYY, how could you?!”
“Ah…I….I’m sorry.”

He immediately realized what he had done, looking remorseful as he apologized. But it was a bit too late for that.

“Frey, mind explaining what you were trying to do?”
“Frey…?”
“That’s not it, I was just…”
“Hmm? Frey…?”
“…I’m terribly sorry about that. I swear it was an accident. Please stop looking at me like that.”

Having all of the girls there staring daggers at him was too unbearable, and all he could do was get on his knees and curl up.

After that, Kasumi began preparing a sign to hang around Frey’s neck as a mark of his sin. Crim glanced at her, then at her back again, grumbling uneasily under her breath.

“Ugh… I really can’t get used to these wings…”

Maybe it was due to the additional nerve connections that no human had, but it was unnaturally sensitive, and just moving them felt strange.

“I was the same with my tail when I started playing, but I got used to it in no time and now I even forget it’s there!”
“True… This is something all Warbeast players had to endure and overcome.”

Hinagiku’s reassuring words helped Crim calm down, after which she brought forth a black greatsword.
Wielding it, she looked…toward Sorleon, who just casually stood there with only one of his swords in hand.

“Sorry for the wait. So what rules shall we go with?”
“First strike wins, I’m ready whenever you are.”

First strike… That was a type of duel where the first person to land a clean hit would win. They were over quickly, and most stats did not really make much of a difference, serving mainly as a demonstration of one’s skills as a player.

“Also…I’m not going to move from here. Feel free to come at me with everything you’ve got.”
“…Art thou certain of that?”
“Yes, I’m mainly doing this to prove a point. I don’t need to fight back for that.”

Sorleon swiftly swung his sword in a cross pattern before holding it in a natural pose.

“Don’t come crying to me then…!”

Then again, he was not an opponent Crim needed to hold back against.
So Crim did not think more of it and exerted strength with her legs as usual to dash forward.
…Or at least she tried to.

**SLAM**

There was a dry sound that shook the garden.
Everything spun around.
All of a sudden…the moon was in front of her eyes, and the cold floor underneath her back.

“…What, huh?”

And then she realized what had happened.

She had tripped…and in a rather extreme manner.

She had slipped forward, and then continued to roll uncontrollably until she stopped next to Sorleon’s feet.
That much was obvious to Crim, but she could not understand how it happened.
Sorleon looked at her, shaking his head in disapproval as he pressed the button to interrupt the duel.

“…Well, that’s about what I expected.”
“C-Crim! Are you okay?!”

Sorleon calmly sheathed his sword, while Freya rushed to check on Crim, sitting on the floor and raising her onto her lap.
Meanwhile Sorleon began to explain.

“To begin with, when you thought you were being held back in Fort Vargan…there was nothing wrong with you, or at least not with your body.”
“…What does that mean?”
“Your mind at the time managed to go past your reaction and perception limits. It’s what some call being *in the zone*, or *Zero’s Domain*.”

Hearing that cleared up a lot of things right away.
It was not that Crim’s movements had been lagging behind, they were moving just as slow as everything else Crim could see around her at the time.

“Your perception of the world simply ran too quickly for your own body to catch up. If anyone else had seen you at the time, they would think you were moving way too quickly already. And I’m just stabbing in the dark here, but I’m guessing your joints were also under a lot of stress?”
“Ah…”
“Oh right, do you remember how your elbow got all messed up?”

Crim quickly remembered how Freya had to constantly mend her injuries at the time.

“Then when I was fighting Bifrons and I felt like things went back to normal…”
“That was probably when you evolved and could keep up again. Your body also entered the zone.”

Her mind and body were synced again, moving as fast as they could while in the zone… That was the secret behind her power that befitted her title of Demon Lord.

“And that heightened response time…is still active if I had to guess.”

Sorleon seemed sympathetic to Crim as he said that.

“So the reason why I tripped…”
“Your regular muscle memory and habits *haven’t caught up to your new strength and speed*, to put it in other words, it’s like you were driving a sports car daily, which suddenly got replaced with the latest generation Formula One car.”

Once she mastered her evolved body, she would become incredibly strong, as proved by her fight against Bifrons.
But getting to that point would take a lot of practice and training. Until then, she would need to constantly keep her strength in check and ease into it.

“Wait…so they want her to rebuild her whole muscle memory to match this new perception speed…isn’t that a bit ridiculous and unfair for a game?”
“I wholeheartedly agree. I swear…her parents really don’t know how to set limits it seems.”

Frey just had to point that out, and Sorleon gingerly sided with him.
Crim was also faced with the fact that she needed to re-learn all her fighting skills from the ground up.

“…Do I really have to…”

She let out a long sigh, wondering for the umpteenth time just what her parents were trying to do to the human mind.