Honkai Simulator: Not for Kidnapping Herrschers!

Codename Feather, an assassin, recently received a special commission.

The commission was still to kill someone, which wasn't particularly noteworthy. However, the client offered a reward far more generous than usual for such a task.

It was then that she learned there was another side to the world, known as the Honkai.

For Feather, this reward was enough to ensure she wouldn't have to worry about food or drink for the rest of her life, freeing her from a life lived on the edge.

She was accustomed to moving in the shadows, and this was an offer she couldn't refuse.

Therefore, when the client, known as Gray Serpent, approached her, she readily accepted.

Feather didn't care who the target was; they could be good or bad.

It was irrelevant to her.

Assassins don't possess a sense of justice, nor do they concern themselves with good or evil.

With Gray Serpent's assistance, she infiltrated the target location.

The target's photo showed a Shenzhou person, male, eighteen years old.

He was a genius in the field of biology, someone who shouldn't have died so young.

"But... who told you to have bad luck?"

She waited.

Within her line of sight, Feather saw the target begin to return to his dormitory.

That was the perfect hunting ground.

The Oceanic Branch placed a high value on personal privacy, so there were generally no cameras in the dormitory area. While there were alarm systems, Gray Serpent had already dealt with those.

Gray Serpent was skilled with any electronic device.

Everything was prepared, and she had virtually no worries.

The Gray Crow, a symbol of ill omen, cawed high in the sky, signifying that another life was about to depart this world.

Oceanic Branch.

In the world where Chen Ran resided.

"Dada dada dada."

A doorbell rang.

Chen Ran was already sitting in his wheelchair, his palms sweating.

He had put on Wendy's clothes. Without a wig, he had quickly dyed his hair with fluorescent dye.

The assassin's target was Chen Ran, not Wendy. He only needed to make the woman misjudge for a moment to succeed.

According to Mei, when a person with normal intelligence and exceptional abilities intends to kill, they develop reliance on experience and become overly confident in what they see and know.

Such individuals have their own "rhythm," and if that rhythm is disrupted, the killer has a chance to counter-attack.

With only an hour, and even considering travel time, Chen Ran couldn't perfectly imitate Wendy. However, after changing, he actually bore a three to four tenths resemblance to Wendy, with a hint of sharpness.

He didn't expect to counter-attack.

At least, there was no opportunity for a counter-attack at the moment.

However...

Chen Ran took a deep breath and spoke using Wendy's voice, which he had pre-recorded on his phone: "Who is it?"

As expected, Feather outside the door paused instinctively upon hearing the voice.

"The target isn't male?"

A hint of doubt flickered through her mind.

Her rhythm was slightly disrupted.

However, as an experienced assassin, Feather trusted her observations.

She continued to press the doorbell and then spoke in a disguised voice: "It's me."

Based on her own studied experience in psychology, when someone you can't see asks "Who is it?", replying with a generic "It's me" in a common voice will cause the person to imagine someone they know, thus lowering their guard.

It was a small trick.

And this small trick had helped her complete many commissions.

However, Feather, standing outside the door, didn't know that Chen Ran, using the moment the phone was playing sound, had already taken out his gun and disengaged the safety.

The sound of the safety being disengaged would be audible, but it was perfectly masked by the sound from the phone.

He didn't expect to kill with a single shot, but...

Chen Ran pulled open the bolt.

Time seemed to stop at that moment.

The door opened.

Flying knives flew towards Chen Ran, but he was prepared and had already protected his neck and heart with something.

With the Oceanic Branch's technology, as long as he wasn't killed instantly, he had a high probability of survival.

The sharp knives pierced his clothes and dug into his muscles.

He endured the pain, a fierce look on his face, and fired a shot at the assassin.

Of course, the shot missed.

After all, the assassin was experienced. While biologically, a person can't be faster than a bullet, anime logic is just unreasonable like that.

She dodged this shot.

But...

She was hit in the back by the bullet.

Behind the assassin, Wendy, who had been waiting in her wheelchair, timed and ambushed, stared at her furiously: "Who are you!"

This was Chen Ran's contingency plan.

Disrupt the assassin's rhythm and affect her judgment.

Then, find an opportunity to counter-kill.

Given Wendy's immobility, Feather would naturally not expect her to be here.

And precisely because of this, Chen Ran had to make her appear here.

An hour is a short time, but completing a plan is a very long process.

Chapter Fifteen: Only Kisses Make It Better

The assassin fled.

Chen Ran and Wendy were a novice and a disabled person, respectively, so they naturally couldn't stop an experienced assassin.

This was within his expectations; surviving this person was already the greatest luck for both of them at the moment.

"Are you alright?"

Wendy hurriedly pushed her wheelchair to Chen Ran's side: "You're here, I'll help you find someone."

"No, what if the opponent gets angrier and doubles back? Wouldn't that be unfair to me?" Chen Ran endured the pain, not caring about his disheveled state or the pain, and forced himself to stand up.

Chen Ran didn't trust anyone else in the Oceanic Branch.

It was simple. Since someone could infiltrate here directly, who knew if there were other World Serpent spies? What if Wendy found someone and it turned out to be a spy?

Though the probability was small, it wasn't zero.

The reason he only asked Wendy for help back then, instead of seeking assistance from other Valkyries, was the same. Schicksal's Valkyries might not be as pure as imagined.

The only pure Valkyries were the main characters.

His clothes were stained red with blood over large patches, looking terrifying.

"Then what should we do, I..."

Visible panic flickered across the girl's face. For her, the time spent together had already been enough for Chen Ran to leave a distinct mark on her heart.

"It's okay, don't forget I'm a researcher."

"When I was attacked, I specifically chose fleshy areas to protect myself, avoiding vital organs. I'll be fine."

Before entering the simulation, he had repeatedly calculated with the Flame-Chaser's computer how to minimize his injuries.

It was like that news report where a nurse slashed her boyfriend eighteen times and was only diagnosed with minor injuries.

Chen Ran wasn't that outrageous, but it was similar. After all, his body couldn't really be considered that of an ordinary person. His time with the Flame-Chaser wasn't wasted.

Although his recovery ability couldn't compare to a Fusion Warrior, he wasn't completely incapacitated.

Thanks to the System's knowledge.

He felt some strength return and said, "Let's go. It's time to talk to the person in charge."

Chen Ran, a participant in the Divine Right Plan, being injured caused a stir within the Oceanic Branch.

The Divine Right Plan was currently a top priority within the Oceanic Branch, ranked first. Any injury to any participant, regardless of who it was, would affect the plan itself.

Not to mention, Chen Ran's current impact on Wendy was obvious to all.

Although the reason for the gradual disappearance of Wendy's rejection of the Herrscher Core had not been determined, the participants of the Divine Right Plan believed it was inextricably linked to Chen Ran.

At this critical juncture of the plan, someone had attacked Chen Ran.

"This is a provocation against Schicksal!"

The head of the Oceanic Branch directly stated, "The Divine Right Plan is the Oceanic Branch's highest priority project. I've already commissioned Schicksal's intelligence department to investigate it."

Schicksal's various branches did not have independent intelligence systems; such matters could only be reported to headquarters for processing.

"The protection of Chen Ran and Wendy is now a top priority. The more the enemy tries to stop us, the more we must proceed. Chen Ran is highly likely to be the key to the Divine Right Plan's success."

It was clear that although the head of the Oceanic Branch couldn't discern the specific principles behind Wendy's condition, it was definitely related to Chen Ran.

An assassination attempt arranged by World Serpent only served to confirm his suspicions.

He asked his assistant, "Where is Chen Ran?"

"He's in the infirmary getting his wounds disinfected and bandaged. Wendy went with him, asking to take care of him." The assistant paused before continuing, "After considering it, we agreed to let Wendy take care of him."

"Good."

The head of the Oceanic Branch pondered this.

Meanwhile, in the infirmary.

Even though his wounds had been disinfected with alcohol and were bandaged, he deliberately grimaced to tease Wendy.

He felt that if he didn't tease this little girl, Wendy would start crying.

"I'm sorry, it's all because of me. If I had been a little faster, if I had arrived in time..."

She blamed herself, hating her own powerlessness for the first time.

If only her legs weren't like this...

Then she would definitely have been able to protect Chen Ran.

For the first time, a desire welled up in Wendy's heart, a wish for her legs to heal quickly and for this experiment to end soon.

Chen Ran blinked and said, "If you think about it, if you hadn't arrived in time, you would have seen a Chen Ran dried up like a salted fish."

"I wouldn't be able to wink and nudge you like I am now."