Flora Is a Missionary

The dream came as always, like a traveler arriving as promised.

A nun named Flora was bathing in the lake next to the facility. Her delicate, snow-white skin was alluringly textured in the afternoon sunlight and on the shimmering lake surface. Her slender limbs, stretched out in the lake, resembled a perfectly measured doll, exuding an artificial and reasonable beauty.

She raised her head, her chaotic eyes barely clear in the light, their color failing to change. The purple markings on her face, which had previously only indicated signs of Honkai Energy erosion, had completely faded, replaced by large scars spreading across her entire body and cheeks.

From Himeko's perspective, if those scars were laid out on a flat surface, they would resemble the symbol of Moth to Fire.

But these subtle changes in detail and reality make this space feel more like a dream shaped by one's own thoughts and knowledge.

Her consciousness suddenly became clear as she entered the dream state. This is the real reason why sleep itself cannot relieve her fatigue. Even if the body is resting, the activity of consciousness makes it difficult for the brain to enter a true resting state.

Describing her current situation as poor sleep quality might be an understatement, but having gotten used to it, Himeko understands that she has no way to escape this situation except to watch the dream unfold and the story end.

Himeko could only watch as the missionary's slow, methodical killings and various inhumane atrocities unfolded, waiting for the familiar scene to end.

Her consciousness sank, and she was plunged into darkness once more. When she regained consciousness, all she could feel was the softness of the bed and the intense throbbing in her head.

The woman opened her wet eyes in a daze, her Amber pupils becoming even clearer in the light falling into the room. Leaning against the velvet-stuffed pillows, she watched the curtains sway in the breeze and sighed.

Himeko had lost track of whether she had actually slept these past few days. She knew that if this situation continued, she might eventually suffer a personality breakdown.

As the captain of the Moth to Fire, who had reviewed countless psychological files of her subordinates, she knew very well that this was not an impossible situation. One of her subordinates had developed a strange insomnia after the war.

In severe cases, excessive doses of sleeping pills or even hypnosis, as well as forced unconsciousness, are unlikely to stop the constant activity of the cerebral cortex, leading to mental exhaustion and unbearable suffering.

After being forced to retire, his condition gradually improved with gradual treatment, but this does not mean he was completely cured.

Himeko vaguely understood that her situation was quite different from that person's; at least the other person wouldn't experience recurring lucid dreams, nor would they possess two completely real, mutually contradictory sets of memories from the outset.

If things continue like this, even just to take responsibility for her teammates and the Australian region, she must temporarily retire and hand over her power and position to someone else; otherwise, sooner or later, it will lead to unacceptable consequences.

Furthermore, in order to ensure a smooth handover of specific matters, Himeko has little time left. Although the handover tasks are not overly complicated, it is still more prudent to maintain the condition that she can communicate normally while her symptoms are still present.

The woman sat up and removed the soft patch from her forehead. This was a small device used to detect the state of the brain during sleep. Only after discovering that her memories were disordered did she begin to take this recurring, strange nightmare seriously and undergo targeted testing.

Himeko took out her tablet from the bedside table. After a preliminary comparison of the data flow over three days with the fluctuations in the normal brain during sleep, she reached the same conclusion as the previous days.

There is no difference.

Data on sleep patterns in normal individuals did not reveal sufficiently noteworthy differences.

The woman gathered her red hair that was loose down her back and tied it up with a hair tie. She felt the skin on her back become slightly cool and comfortable, and her eyes closed slightly.

I felt increasingly sleepy and very tired.

Himeko had come to fully understand that this situation might not be explained by purely mental or even physiological problems.

She began to hypothesize about the recurring, strange dream, wondering if everything that happened in the dream was not a fabrication created from her own delusions and memories.

That means I was influenced by some external factor, which led to my current situation.

The red-haired warrior had endured countless hardships and tribulations.

She witnessed her comrades, who were as close as family, self-destruct their Honkai Energy reactors before her eyes just to kill a Chariot-class Honkai Beast; she saw the horrific carnage of children and adults by scythes and white wings; she experienced the despair of having most of her bones shattered but still being forcibly injected with nano-medicine to regain her mobility and slay powerful enemies, only to fall on the chaotic battlefield and be ignored by everyone.

The events in the Chibbinorton Lake District may be heartbreaking enough, especially for Himeko herself who loves children, but this is far from being the wedge that caused her mental health problems. Her will and heart are not a sieve riddled with holes, but steel forged through countless trials.

This firm self-awareness led Himeko to conclude that something must have gone wrong, that some link in the chain had caused her to encounter an external factor that did not exist in her memory.

She murmured softly:

Sister Flora

If we assume that the dream has no elements of its own and originates purely from the outside world, then the information that the dream itself can provide is the only key to holding onto it.

Himeko had thought the same way before, but her focus remained on the discrepancy between the truth of the Chibbinorton Lake District incident and what she had in mind, trying to find flaws in the story.

The result was flawless, and this effort and thought process came to nothing.

But now, she directly defines Sister Flora's existence as the clue itself and begins using a tablet to investigate the staffing and all the personal information within the Chibing Norton Lake Orphanage.

Searching for Flora on a search engine returned a blank page.

No such person found.

Himeko's heart pounded faster. She understood what this blank space meant. The next step was simple: she just needed to use the vivid memories of the other person's face that she had kept in her dreams over the past few days to match them one by one with the photos of these employees and get a definitive answer.

It took about three minutes to process the information, and the final result was obtained.

Sister Flora did not exist.

At least two weeks ago, her name was not listed among the staff of the orphanage.

In this technologically advanced era, the flow of information is unavoidable, and deliberate concealment is unnecessary, especially since the distribution of supplies and salaries in orphanages must be verified before distribution.

She suppressed her drowsiness and muttered to herself:

"Flora... the key to everything lies with her."

Without pausing to tidy her appearance, Himeko quickly walked to the basement with her tablet, connected the internal data to the Virtual Pod, and then stepped inside, immersing herself in the virtual world.

Using the characteristics of the virtual world, Himeko completely recreated the missionary's face in half a minute. She silently used this data to conduct a facial search, thus opening the door to the entire Australian database, but she came to a conclusion that was similar to the initial search for Su Qing'an.

This is enough to prove that Flora has serious problems.

The fact that she cannot be found in the database across Australia means that she has never appeared in any area with cameras or even detection facilities, which is almost unimaginable in our technologically advanced modern civilization.

Even in such a remote and deserted area as the Chibbinorton Lake District, this orphanage, which was the predecessor of the church, had sophisticated surveillance facilities, yet still no trace of its existence could be found.

This is truly terrifying, far more so than any large-scale Honkai tide with a physical form, a gigantic Temple-class Honkai Beast, a highly lethal infectious disease, or even other more horrific things.

Because all those things have a root, but if Flora is truly an ineffable monster with human form and advanced intelligence, as depicted in the dream, then she doesn't have a root that can be immediately grasped, making her even more difficult to understand and naturally inspiring more fear.

But then terrifying events followed. She could still remember Elinoya telling her vivid stories about Flora's origins, how delicious her cooking was, how she would tell her bedtime stories every night, and how Flora saved her when she fell into the lake a few months ago.

The reality is that Flora could not possibly have entered the orphanage as a staff member at such an early age; any nun who met the conditions described by Elinoya must have been a former clergy member of the church.

Flora didn't leave any records at the original church, and the orphanage staff records updated half a month ago didn't include her. The time period when she entered the orphanage was either after this half month, that is, only 15 days of interaction, or she used some special means to avoid information registration half a month ago.

Either way, it suggests that... Flora may possess the ability to alter human memories.

That's why everyone in the orphanage was so kind to her, why even the naughtiest children seemed so docile and obedient in her presence, and why she was able to easily sneak into the facility, allowing her to mistake her for "Sister Flora" without any suspicion, and thus commit the subsequent atrocities and... leading to her current situation.

But even now, with the same dream recurring, two conflicting memories, and suspected mental health issues, I still can't be sure whether these are all just my own fantasies.

Perhaps the so-called Sister Flora was a fictional character created by herself, which is why the Australian databases could not find a trace of her.

Himeko possesses a clear understanding of herself, which is the core reason why she was able to gradually climb out of the mire, but this does not prevent her from questioning herself.

Inside the Virtual Pod, the woman's face grew increasingly pale; her poor mental state was already manifesting in her body.

It seems that the more she thinks about these issues, the worse her mental state becomes.

But Himeko still couldn't give up on continuing to hypothesize and deduce, as this was the only clue she could hold onto on the path to liberation.

Let's assume this monster isn't a figment of imagination, but rather a real, existing form of terror.

She believed that, in any case, Flora must have left her mark somewhere in this world.

As long as one can hold onto this trace, one can, in turn, prove Flora's real existence and all previous assumptions, and reaffirm one's self-identity.

Himeko has a high level of authorization, and it would not be difficult for her to use this set of physical data to search databases throughout Australia and even the world.

Before obtaining a higher level of computing power license from Prometheus, the normal search speed is simply too slow. The current approach is either to find clues that require a narrower search scope or to apply for higher-level approval.

Himeko muttered to herself:

"Modifying memories? If it truly exists in the world, and is not merely an illusion, then this ability will continue to extend..."

She silently pulled up a past case, and after confirming something, she paused for a moment before slowly uttering three words:

"Yakarta".

That was the Yakarta incident that Su Qing'an experienced shortly after waking up, an event she still cannot forget to this day.

As a prerequisite for Holy Gate Project, the defenses of the Honkai Energy reactor inside the machine factory were easily compromised; dozens of employees who had undergone the psychological testing of the Moth to Fire were turned into human bombs and destroyed; the highest local government leader and subsequent members of parliament betrayed the government one after another and spread several rumors.

Then came the media responsible for managing online information to launch a frenzied propaganda campaign, with departments possessing a monopoly on the right to know allowing it to continue; during civilian demonstrations, rioters inexplicably detonated themselves, escalating the conflict; the Moth to Fire soldiers responsible for suppressing the unrest were suddenly betrayed by their colleagues; and tens of thousands of Honkai Cultist reveled in the chaos.

Even though the terrifying wave that engulfed millions of people was quickly brought to an end thanks to the intervention of the Martial Immortal, the aftermath is still far from over.

The boy at the time speculated that there must have been a mastermind behind the incident, and admitted that he possessed the ability to observe souls, which was how he discovered the anomalies.

And recalling this moment, Himeko grasped a crucial clue, murmuring:

"Assuming that the interference of the soul itself does not manifest in the brain, does the absence of any abnormalities in the detected data guarantee a definitive answer?"

"Unlike my current doubtful memories, the Yakarta incident is a fact that definitely happened, and the conclusions drawn from it will not be greatly erroneous."

"And if Flora's current abilities continue to expand, perhaps she really could meet the conditions for the Yakarta event to be completed."

Humans are social beings, and it is not an exaggeration to say that a monster capable of destroying this social capacity could do something similar.

But if this is true, how much harm did Flora, who came to Australia from Yakarta, actually cause to human civilization during this period?

Himeko recalled the image of the nun happily among the children, and a chill ran down her spine, replaced by a deep-seated fear.

More than worrying about her own situation, she feared that all of this was reality.

As the captain of the Fifth Squad of the Moth to Fire, Himeko would rather her mental state be so severe that she could no longer distinguish between reality and illusion than accept that the conclusion she was drawing was the truth of the matter.

Given the overall efficiency of the Yakarta incident and the specific circumstances of the orphanage, the real impact that the other party could have had probably far exceeded any significant impact caused by a single Herrscher in the past.

Moreover, this influence was so subtle and pervasive that the entire human race was like a frog being slowly boiled in lukewarm water, completely unaware that danger had already arrived.

At this point, Himeko was almost the closest human being to the true face of the missionary, and she could understand that these were likely not her own delusions, but undeniable facts.

"If that dream was a replay of a real event, Flora might possess the ability to change her appearance. If that's the case, then theoretically, the likelihood of this facial data actually identifying the other person is not very high."

Himeko understood that, having deduced to this point, even if no concrete trace of the other party could be found, they could still draw a conclusion as to whether or not they were affected by observing Su Qing'an's ability to observe souls.

However, the fastest way to verify the existence of the other party, and the way to convince the higher-ups that the other party truly exists, is still to clearly track down this trace.

Himeko precisely located Yakarta's database, conducted data analysis and comparison, and finally uncovered clues within five minutes.

Central Jakarta City.

It is the smallest of the five administrative cities in Jakarta, yet it is the administrative and power center of Jakarta and the whole of Indonesia. Central Jakarta is bordered by the other four administrative cities of the Jakarta Special Region according to their names, making it a perfect location for exerting power and even controlling it.

She gazed at the photograph of the nun in the Jakarta Cathedral, her smile as serene as that of the Virgin Mary, and murmured indifferently:

"I've got your tail, Miss Flora."

In the instant she discovered the truth, Himeko sensed intense pain emanating from a deeper source. At the same time, the forces of modification and distortion followed, forcing her to exit the Virtual Pod that was emitting a red glow, her face as pale as paper.

Himeko stumbled out of the Virtual Pod, her steps unsteady, completely ignoring her soaked clothes and the chill that followed.

The woman, expressionless, picked up the tablet beside her and, disregarding her own appalling condition, began compiling a chronicle of the events surrounding the monster codenamed Missionary.

It has always remained outside human sight, committing countless heinous crimes.

Therefore... no matter what fate awaits her, she cannot tolerate the continued existence of such a monster that threatens countless innocent people.