The place had now been completely emptied. Ai Yue had sent all the supplies he had accumulated over the past six months to the sanatorium, with Kalpas handling the transport. The remaining materials and various items he had made had also been packed up and temporarily stored there. They would all be taken away when he left.
Still, Ai Yue had left one box behind, placing it on the coffee table in the living room.
Inside were some things he had prepared for Pardofelis, such as special steel wire, instant-burst smoke bombs, shock-absorbing insoles, and other little gadgets.
These things might not be of much use on the battlefield, but they were more than enough for sneaking around and pulling off petty tricks.
However, when he returned this time, the box was still sitting on the table. Clearly, Pardofelis had not come here during the past thirty-odd hours.
Ai Yue sighed. He had thought he might find Pardofelis asleep on the sofa when he came in this time.
After closing the door, Ai Yue went to the market in the west once more. Every day, people would lay out things they had once treasured—or even their entire family fortunes—just to exchange them for a little more food and survive.
Pardofelis would occasionally bring some easy-to-sell goods here, but unfortunately, Ai Yue did not see her today. He did buy several new things that could be used for research, though.
Two hours passed in a flash, and Ai Yue still failed to find Pardofelis. Although he knew very well that, with her luck, she would survive until the end of the world, he still felt somewhat disappointed.
What a waste. Half a year of building favor had gone down the drain just like that.
But Ai Yue could not bring himself to drag Pardofelis into the Moth to Fire for his own purposes.
"Ai Yue!"
Elysia waved to him from a distance. The plane coming to take them to Moth to Fire headquarters had already landed. "Time to go?"
"Coming!"
Ai Yue took one last look at the settlement where he had lived for more than half a year, and a trace of pride rose in his heart.
In the original story, this place had been turned into a desolate street by the spread of Honkai Energy. Fewer than one in ten survivors remained, and everyone had looked upon the world with coldness and suspicion.
But through his efforts, Twilight Street was still as peaceful and tranquil as it had been at the beginning. With the Moth to Fire moving in, it would likely become the largest and safest settlement in the surrounding area. Perhaps one day, it might even regain the glory of a city.
The changes he had made were insignificant compared with the apocalypse hanging over the entire era, but he had still changed the future a little, hadn't he?
Ai Yue walked toward the transport plane, countless possibilities for the future flashing through his mind.
Those diseases that will gradually eat away at civilization—I'll find a cure for every one of them.
Let everything end in this era, at my hands.
"What's wrong, Ai Yue?" Sitting in the troop compartment inside the plane, Elysia looked at Ai Yue across from her. "You look rather serious. Are you airsick?"
"No, I was just thinking about a few things." Ai Yue returned to his senses, and his expression quickly returned to normal. "I'm more curious about what Moth to Fire headquarters is like."
"In another... hmm, three hours, you'll know." Elysia glanced at the time. "If nothing unexpected happens, everyone should be there at this hour. I can introduce you to lots of new friends!"
"That would be wonderful."
Ai Yue was just about to ask more about Dr. Mei, Kevin, and the others when Sakura, who had been resting with her eyes closed, suddenly opened them and placed a hand on her sword hilt. "There's movement... in the cargo hold."
Aponia also turned her head slightly. Then, with a trace of surprise, she looked at Ai Yue. "It's an old friend of ours, Mr. Ai Yue."
An old friend... No way!
Ai Yue froze for a moment, then rushed toward the cargo hold ahead of Sakura.
"Bang!"
"Ow!"
Ai Yue yanked open the cargo hold door. He immediately heard the crash of something hitting the ground, followed by a dazed groan from someone.
The person who had fallen into the open space in the center of the cargo hold was none other than the one Ai Yue had searched for so long without finding.
"Pardofelis?" Ai Yue's eyes widened. "How'd you come along?"
"Ahaha, Brother Yue..." Pardofelis pushed herself up and knelt on the floor, her face covered by an ingratiating smile. "Um, you're not going to throw me off the plane, are you?"
Onboarding Comes with a Detached Villa
"Name?"
"Ai Yue."
"Age?"
"Um... twenty, I guess?"
"Gender?"
"An armed helicopter."
"What?"
Hearing Ai Yue's absurd answer, the person responsible for registering his information looked up in astonishment. "Are you kidding?"
"You don't allow people to put down 'armed helicopter'? How unreasonable." Ai Yue complained, then shrugged. "Of course, that was a joke. The atmosphere was a little dull, so I was just trying to lighten it up."
"You'd better take this seriously." The registrar frowned, trying to make the man before him face reality. "Do you even know where you are? People like you are a dime a dozen in Moth to Fire!"
"I don't believe you." Ai Yue doubled down, even propping his legs up on the desk. "Go ask your supervisor whether he dares say that. I was personally invited back by Dr. Mei and Elysia. Got it?"
It was true what they said: having someone powerful behind you made everything easier. Thinking of his backers, Ai Yue became much bolder.
"Dr. Dr. Mei?" Elysia might be easy to deal with, but the moment the other person heard Dr. Mei's name, he froze. "That can't be right. We haven't received any notice about this recently."
"Then your rank isn't high enough." Ai Yue put on an impatient expression. "All right, hurry up and finish the procedure. I still have things to do."
He was only doing this to bluff the other person. His background could not withstand close scrutiny. Although he had covered up some details, anyone who investigated carefully would easily find the flaws.
Fortunately, the registrar was indeed intimidated by Dr. Mei's name, and the rest of the registration went smoothly.
After completing the registration, Ai Yue received his own Moth to Fire emblem. The design on its front was the same emblem that had once been printed on the tactical case stolen by Pardofelis, while the back was engraved with his name and the exact date he had joined Moth to Fire.
All right. Time to go see Pardo.
After hesitating briefly, he began asking about Pardofelis's situation.
Ai Yue's feelings about Pardofelis being willing to follow him to Moth to Fire were mixed.
The good news was that Pardofelis trusted him enough to choose to stay by his side. That meant he could rely on her good luck in the future when undertaking projects that required gambling on the odds of success.
The bad news was that, given Pardo's lazy habits and identity as a righteous thief, it remained to be seen whether she could settle into Moth to Fire. She would need some time to prove herself.
If things really did not work out, he could simply register Pardofelis as a family member and settle her in the city. In any case, he was not so poor that he could not support a stray cat.
Deep down, Ai Yue still hoped Pardofelis could stay farther away from danger.
However, before he could find Pardofelis's registration office, Elysia found him first. The pink-haired girl stood at the corner at the other end of the corridor and waved to him. "Ai Yue, over here!"
Ai Yue walked toward Elysia. The registrar, who came out of the registration office a step behind him, also witnessed the scene. The doubts he had still harbored vanished completely, and he now believed Ai Yue's earlier claims.
Someone valued by Dr. Mei and personally brought back to Moth to Fire? The last person like that was already...
His expression shifted unpredictably. Then he turned and squeezed into the crowd. It was easy to imagine that this news would soon spread throughout Moth to Fire.
"Did you need me for something?" Ai Yue walked over to Elysia. "Do you know where Pardo was taken?"
The four of them had been registered separately, since each of their situations was different. Ai Yue was a scientist, Aponia was a superpowered individual, and Kalpas was "a violent criminal with terrifying strength."
Among the four of them, Pardofelis was already the most normal. However, because she had quietly slipped onto the Moth to Fire transport plane while bypassing the senses of two Fused Warriors, she had instead attracted an unusual amount of attention.
At the very least, more people had come to take Pardofelis away than had gone to Aponia.
"Little Pardo? Don't worry, Sakura's watching her over there." Elysia smiled. "Dr. Mei is handling Aponia's side, while Kevin is in charge of Kalpas... Wow, when you put it that way, you really are receiving exceptional treatment."
Elysia was still marveling over the matter, but Ai Yue remained unmoved.
He would leave Kalpas and Pardofelis aside for now. Aponia was receiving so much attention because the information hidden in that song had caused Moth to Fire to misunderstand the situation.
He had been considering whether to check on Aponia, just in case she suffered more torture, but since Dr. Mei was there, it seemed he no longer needed to worry.
But what about Kalpas? Would he really not start a fight?
"Ah, never mind that," Elysia said, returning to the main topic. "Come on, I'll take you to see the laboratory Dr. Mei prepared especially for you! This is what you're looking forward to most, right?"
Elysia naturally did not know that Ai Yue was actually a fraud, so she had assumed that a research scholar like him cared most about his future research conditions. Ai Yue could hardly say that he was more interested in finding out whether the dormitory beds at Moth to Fire were soft, so he could only follow the girl forward.
Moth to Fire headquarters was not a single building. Instead, an entire area of the city had been designated for a comprehensive campus.
Within the campus, combat personnel, researchers, logistics staff, and clerical workers were assigned to designated areas according to their duties and functions. Ai Yue was no exception.
"This is it."
They took an internal shuttle through the campus and finally reached their destination ten minutes later. Elysia stood before a three-story villa and gestured invitingly toward it. "Ta-da-da~ How do you like it?"
"A detached villa?" Ai Yue was a little surprised. "This is assigned to me?"
Ai Yue actually felt as if he were dreaming. In his previous life, his ultimate dream as a corporate drone had probably been to buy a house like this.
He never expected that after dying halfway through his life, he would come to this world and fulfill that dream instead.
"Of course! Moth to Fire is very generous to geniuses!" Elysia said with a smile. "Researchers tend to have similar habits, so this villa also has living quarters. It'll save you time."
"Seeing it for yourself is better than hearing about it. Come on, I'll give you a tour."
Elysia pulled Ai Yue into the villa. It was divided into living and experimental areas. The first floor and the specially reinforced underground section were laboratories, while the second and third floors were living quarters. All kinds of furniture, appliances, and daily necessities were available. Ai Yue could move in directly without bringing anything at all.
"Your things have already been sent here." Elysia pointed at several boxes in the corner. "But I've been meaning to ask: you really don't have much stuff. Didn't you bring over any of your old experimental equipment?"
"Those were all crude things. They won't be useful anymore, so there was no point in going to the trouble." Ai Yue looked at the instruments before him, whose names he could not even remember in full, and did not know what expression to make. "These things are really nice."
Every instrument and piece of equipment in the laboratory could basically be used to advance research projects. For Ai Yue, they were extremely useful.
I've decided. I'll start with the instruments. I can just report them as damaged in a few days.
Ai Yue had heard a story about a great magician who blew up his workshop every day to demand more funding. Compared with that, merely reporting a few damaged instruments should be quite mild, right?
"That's about enough." Ai Yue made a quick tour of the house and did not linger. Instead, he headed straight outside. "Let's go find Pardo and the others."
"Huh? You're leaving already?" Elysia asked in surprise. "I thought you'd be reluctant to leave, at least a little. The conditions here are much better than where you lived before, aren't they?"
"Much better doesn't even begin to describe it. They're fantastic." Ai Yue brushed Elysia off as he walked toward the shuttle. "So let's hurry."
Elysia thoughtfully nodded behind him.
He cares more about his old friends than his new life. What a wonderful person.
"I like that about him too." Thinking this, Elysia could not help saying it aloud, only to receive a baffled look from Ai Yue.
Clearly, Ai Yue had no idea that his actions had made his image in Elysia's heart even more impressive. Even if he had known, he probably would not have cared.
If he ranked the people he had met so far according to how difficult it was to raise their favorability, there might be disagreement over who was the hardest. But the easiest was definitely Elysia.
She simply loved the world too much. As long as you were a normal person—or even if you were not—she could find plenty of shining qualities in you and develop a favorable impression.
And that was precisely why so many people loved Elysia.
The two soon returned to the original main complex. The moment Ai Yue stepped off the shuttle, he heard Pardofelis's energetic voice. "Brother Yue! Where did you two run off to?"
Pardofelis ran excitedly out of the building, with Sakura following unhurriedly behind her.
"Brother Yue, listen! Those big shots praised me!" Pardofelis ran three steps in two to Ai Yue, then began boasting before she had even caught her breath. "They said I was... Oh, Sakura, what did they say about me again?"
"They said you were agile, perceptive, and quick-witted." Sakura walked over with a faint smile. Faced with such a childish Pardofelis, she always thought of her own little sister. "You're suited for reconnaissance, infiltration, and covert missions."
"Right, right, that's it!" Pardofelis proudly puffed out her chest. "So, Brother Yue, aren't I amazing?"
Ai Yue of course knew that Pardofelis was amazing, but he did not really want to respond to that right now. He could only answer perfunctorily. "Yes, yes, you're the best, righteous thief of Twilight Street."
Pardofelis failed to notice the subtle change in Ai Yue's tone and continued grinning foolishly.
"Dr. Mei said Aponia's side will need a little more time. Why don't we go check on Kalpas first?" Elysia spoke up at this moment. "I wonder whether they're getting along peacefully..."
"My guess is that they aren't." Ai Yue shrugged. He had absolute faith in Kalpas—faith that Kalpas would definitely go berserk. "But with Kevin there, it should be fine. Didn't you say Kevin was even stronger than you?"
To be honest, so much time had passed that Ai Yue had assumed Kalpas's side had already finished causing a commotion.
"He's only a tiny bit stronger," Elysia said, pinching her thumb and index finger together and leaving only a sliver of space between them. "Really, only a little!"
At this point, Kevin had not yet fused with enough Honkai Beasts to become a Chimera, so Elysia's statement was technically true.
However, before they could board the shuttle, a sudden boom came from nearby.
Immediately afterward, black smoke shot into the sky.
"That's... the training area!" Elysia and Sakura exchanged a glance. "Don't tell me they really started fighting?"
"We'll go first!" After only a brief pause, Sakura dashed toward the rising smoke. Elysia followed close behind, not forgetting to call back, "You two can follow in the shuttle!"
Although the shuttle was much faster than an ordinary person, it was still far slower than a Fused Warrior unleashing her full strength.
"Nothing's happened to Big Brother Kalpas, has it?" Pardofelis was worried too. "Brother Yue, let's hurry over. After all, we're all from Twilight Street."
Pardofelis had not had much interaction with Kalpas, but they were still fellow townspeople of sorts. Now that they were all in this unfamiliar place, they were bound to feel a little closer.
Before you continue