4. Xia Ling: "You Optimized Me Out?" / 5. You Can Play Roguelikes in the Data Space Too?

At the heart of the St. Freya Academy stands a grand cathedral, but the cathedral is merely a facade; beneath it lies one of the largest laboratories in the Schicksal academy.

This is the laboratory that Otto once used to try to replicate the Schariac Holy Blood. Of course, the experiment has now ended, and Otto has proven that the Holy Blood is unreplicable. However, the equipment here has not been moved, and the terminal can still be directly connected to the Schicksal Headquarters.

Theresa decided to go there and use her S-rank Valkyrie privileges to see if she could find out anything.

As night fell, Theresa, contrary to her usual coy demeanor, unusually clung to Xia Ling, preparing to go to sleep.

Having immediately guessed what was going on, Xia Ling naturally chose to cooperate with Theresa. After lying down for a moment, she immersed her mind in the system space and pretended to be asleep.

Then, Xia Ling watched in the system space as Theresa slowly crawled out of her arms, put on her clothes, and climbed out of the window.

Shortly after Theresa left, Xia Ling, who was at the window, clearly saw a white furry ball sneaking out after her.

"It seems the plot is finally about to begin..."

[Meat Pigeon Mini-Theater]

"I have good news and bad news for you, Xia Ling."

"Ah?"

Xia Ling, who had just been summoned, looked up in confusion.

"The good news is that we have the Knight this time, and we also got Bone Blood."

"That's great! This means we should be able to get an Ending Two this time."

"Don't worry, there's more bad news."

"What's the bad news?"

"The bad news is that everyone else, except for you who is newly recruited, is Rejection Reaction."

Highmore plucked a tentacle that had inexplicably grown from her body and threw it aside. "Moreover, it's Flesh Mutation."

"Don't worry, trust the knight. As long as the knight can hold on, we can unleash our full damage potential."

Xia Ling wasn't too worried. "By the way, what's the next milestone?"

"Emergency Outbreak."

"Send."

Chapter Four Xia Ling: You optimized me?

In the underground laboratory of the St. Freya Central Church.

"Search for information related to 'Second Honkai Outbreak' and 'Dream'."

Theresa stood in front of the giant mainframe, her fingers swiping across the floating screen in front of her.

[A search of the core database of Schicksal revealed 1453 relevant records.]

"Get them all out for me."

[Because 1452 of these records are related to Sirin Project and have been classified as top secret, your access permissions are insufficient to view them.]

"Tch, Grandfather hid them all...?"

Theresa frowned. Although she was prepared, she still didn't expect that only one of the many records was accessible.

"What about the last one?"

[Related records exist from February 7, 2000, at the Babylon Laboratory in Siberia.]

"That's... Damn it, it was around that time..."

Theresa's face was somewhat gloomy. She was almost certain that the only remaining record in front of her must have been deliberately left for her by her Grandfather. She herself couldn't explain what kind of conspiracy was involved.

However, Kiana's current situation cannot be delayed any longer. If Sirin's consciousness were to reawaken in Kiana's body one day, the consequences would be unimaginable. Therefore, even knowing that this is a trap, Theresa has to do her best to find any clues.

"Database, please retrieve the relevant records for me."

"Yes, Lord Theresa."

At that moment, outside the laboratory door, a fluffy white creature was peeking around furtively.

"Hey, Theresa and the screen have disappeared. I have to hurry and go in."

Seeing Theresa enter the data space, Kiana was slightly taken aback and quickly followed her into the laboratory.

[Virtual space completed. Time: 3 PM, February 7, 2000. Location: Babylon Laboratory, Siberia.]

"Huh? Where... am I?"

Outside the underground chapel, watching Theresa and Kiana disappear one after the other, Xia Ling took off her Scale Cloak hat, and her figure slowly emerged from the air.

Just like in the original story, Theresa and Kiana went in one after the other.

"Kiana entered the data space that Otto had prepared specifically for her, while Theresa was simply looking up information normally."

"Yes, it can be confirmed now."

Xi's voice came through the channel. "Bishop Otto has given us orders, saying that the prey has walked into the trap, and that we must go to St. Freya immediately."

"Besides Fu Hua, who is still in the dark, Rita, Durandal, and I are now heading to St. Freya at full speed."

"Otto's actions are really quick... And doesn't this mean that Kiana is indeed following the same path as in the original storyline?"

Xia Ling sighed, unsure whether she felt melancholy or relief.

"That's fine too. That way, I just need to wait for you to get here, right?"

"No, quite the opposite, you might have to get busy."

"?"

"According to the intelligence I just received, Otto has recently accelerated the preparation of Honkai Energy far exceeding the previous reserves."

"It seems that he got some inspiration from Wendy and plans to 'replenish' Sirin with more Honkai Energy to increase Sirin strength as well."

"From what he said, at the very least, Sirin should be able to utilize the power of the Gem of Serenity to some extent while using the Herrscher of the Void ability."

"Huh?" Xia Ling was confused now. "No, why? Does he think that Sirin, a core member of the Himeko Herrscher of the Void Core, isn't dying fast enough?"

"Uh..." Xi paused for a moment, "Although Otto didn't say it, I think it might be because of... you."

"I?"

"That's right. My mission in bringing Kiana back this time was to counter your abilities."

"I suspect that Otto's last-minute decision to Sirin's strength was based on the same consideration. Although Rita has given you a rough idea of your strength, Otto always seems to be calculating your strength at a higher level in his plans."

"It can be understood that he believes you will definitely perform exceptionally well in this situation and unleash abilities beyond your usual level."

"Hiss—Does Otto think so highly of me?" Xia Ling felt a headache coming on.

"In short, you originally wanted to wait and see how things went, and wait for us to come and proceed with the normal storyline, but that's probably not going to happen now."

"My suggestion is that you try to hinder Sirin's awakening as much as possible. This way, Kiana's consciousness will not be fully dormant, and Otto will consume more Honkai Energy when he awakens Sirin."

"That's all for now. I'll start preparing the battle plan. Good luck."

After hurriedly leaving a long message, Xi immediately left the channel, leaving Xia Ling outside the laboratory looking completely bewildered.

"..."

"Although I was going to cause Otto some trouble, given the current situation, if I had gone in with Kiana, I probably would have been taken to a different data space like Theresa."

"Use Kishinuma? No, not to mention that Otto must have taken precautions, the direction of that data space is basically controlled by Sirin, and Kishinuma can't do anything to the power of the Herrscher Core."

"... Oh, right!"

Xia Ling suddenly remembered something.

It seems the system can also manipulate data space, but because of the Elysian Realm incident, they didn't dare let the system do such a thing again.

Now, it seems there's no other choice...

"System, system, come out quickly! Your dear host needs your help!"

[Huh? Is there something you need, host? I'm still rushing to meet the deadline for AI Little Ther.]

"Put that aside for now. Take a look at the current situation. Is it possible to get me into Kiana's data space without Otto and Sirin finding out?"

[What? After so long, you're letting me go again...?]

"Don't get too excited yet. Let's make this clear: the hard and fast rule is that we can't be discovered. If we are discovered again, Otto will keep a close eye on us, and I might have to consider changing my number."

[I need to check the situation first... I don't know if the optimized trial template can still be nested smoothly like last time.]

Xia Ling's serious voice made the system dare not relax, and it quickly began to check the situation of the data space in front of it.

A moment later.

[Hmm... Host, I have good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?]

"Good news."

The good news is that I tried it with the trial template and found that it can be nested perfectly.

"Uh... what's the bad news?"

The bad news is, I can hack into this data space and throw an awesome rogue party, but it seems you, host, can't be invited.

"Um?"

So they optimized me out?

Chapter 5: Can you play roguelike games in the data space?

[That's right, host, you were indeed optimized out.]

[I found your unique identification code in the system. Once your consciousness enters the data space, you will be immediately kicked out under the pretext that the data space is under maintenance.]

"Fine, fine, so Otto is playing games with me, huh?" Xia Ling gritted her teeth in anger. "He's so sure we won't hurt those innocent Valkyrie at headquarters. If there weren't so many people at headquarters, I would have given him a real demonstration of what a floating Kishinuma showdown looks like!"

[But don't worry, host, I have a way to bypass this restriction, using a rather clever method.]

Although it won't allow you to enter the data space, it can achieve a similar effect.

You can go back to the system space to take a look first.

"Good, good, good. I never thought you'd actually become reliable one day. I'm really relieved... huh?"

Back in the system space, Xia Ling stared blankly at the meat pigeon preparation interface on the screen.

"This is..."

[Ahem, although Otto has restricted your access to the space, he hasn't prevented the generation of your data.]

Therefore, I generated a data instance in the data space that is exactly the same as yours, the host. Then, you can control this data instance, Xia Ling, through the system's trial system template.

[This Xia Ling will automatically respond based on the host's choices and the behavioral data I collect.]

Although it can't move as nimbly as the host can control it personally, it's still better than just watching from the outside.

"Sounds... not bad at all?"

However, the host should not be careless. Although Sirin in the data may not directly erase your data to avoid disrupting the logic of the events, she can certainly use some reasonable reasons to transfer you away.

[Especially in the solo storyline of Kiana and Cecilia in Chapter 6 of the original work, she will definitely not let you participate.]

"It's okay, participating in half of the story is fine, as long as Kiana realizes to some extent that this is just data, and doesn't treat this data as reality like in the original work."

[So, the host wants to focus on strengthening Kiana's impression of you?]

"That's right, but how exactly to do it depends on the situation."

Xia Ling tapped on the formation details on the screen, and Xia Ling's data immediately popped up on the screen.

Xia Ling, A-rank Valkyrie, is a close friend of Valkyrie Theresa and often acts alongside Theresa.

The current squad consists of one member, and only one member can be deployed at a time.

[Current Team: Schicksal Valkyrie Elite Squad. Temporary operators will be added during battle depending on story developments.]

Current Health: 3/15

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