Lin's Humor / New Trouble

This little incident didn't cause much of a stir. If there was anything to it, it was that the man who brought Zero back came to "visit" him.

"Nineteenth record, time: Zi ————, gender: male, age: 5 years old."

A person whose face is obscured is squatting in front of you.

"Did you listen to the nurse?"

"..."

"This is really a headache..." he sighed. "Alright, let's get down to business."

The child sitting in the chair stared blankly at the video camera.

Do you remember how you managed to fall from the third floor without getting hurt?

"Xiao Lin."

Lin stood behind Ling, trying to get closer to see the man's face clearly, but no matter which angle he looked from, the man's face was shrouded in a layer of gray mist.

Upon hearing the name "Kobayashi," Zero regained some awareness. He turned his emotionless eyes to look at the man squatting in front of him.

The man shook his head. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

Zero's skin was abnormally pale, a color somewhere between sickly and normal, and together with his eerie expression, it gave people immense pressure.

"Oh, right, I forgot to tell you, I changed your name." The man wasn't intimidated by Zero's deadpan expression. He leisurely lit a cigarette, puffing out smoke, and said, "Zero doesn't sound like a human name, so I gave you mine. It just so happens that our names only differ by one pronunciation."

"..."

"Your mother is from Shenzhou, and I also happened to grow up in Shenzhou, so we are old acquaintances. We used to work in the same place until your mother and father got married and left the research institute."

The man shook the ash off his cigarette butt and deliberately blew the smoke to his side instead of directly in front of Zero.

"I know that even if you don't say it, you're probably wondering why I killed your parents, and with your thinking ability, you can probably guess pretty accurately." The man squatted down, stubbed out his cigarette, and took a deep breath. "But you have the right and the obligation to know the truth, and I need to explain it to you personally, because no matter how much I hate them, they are still your blood relatives."

"... What's the point of all this? Even if I knew the truth, nothing would change."

Zero's voice was childish, but that was due to his vocal quality; his tone and demeanor were like those of a cold adult.

The man calmly lit another cigarette, waving it with an air of maturity. "Of course it's meaningful. How can a normal person be indifferent to their parents?"

"..."

Before I talk about those things, let me introduce myself first.

The man, a cigarette dangling from his lips, gazed at Zero with a sly smile through his fox-like eyes, "I, Lin, despise foolish humans."

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Lin's Humor

"Any clues?"

Hen stepped past the bloodstains and walked to Kevin, who was carefully examining them. They were two of the many investigators, and compared to the professionals, the two combat squad leaders seemed rather out of place with their clumsy and awkward manner.

The investigation wasn't really their responsibility, but Kevin was worried about Mei, who might be targeted, and Lin, who had been falsely accused of disappearance. He trusted his own eyes more than anyone else's.

However, Kevin overestimated his own observation and analytical abilities. He wandered around the scene for a whole day without finding any new clues.

"No." Kevin clenched his fist in frustration. "We haven't figured out how the killer entered the meeting room or how he left."

Returning to the issue of confidentiality, there are no surveillance cameras in the headquarters' conference room, so everything that happens there cannot be seen through monitoring records.

"..." Hearing Kevin say this, Hen realized just how troublesome this matter was to investigate.

"What exactly happened...?"

"When engaging in logical reasoning, people often fall into self-created pitfalls."

A calm female voice preceded her arrival. The woman with messy blue hair, now dressed in light brown formal trousers, walked in through the main entrance of the conference room.

"That is, habitual thinking."

Hen stared at the woman who had suddenly appeared, completely bewildered. "You are...?"

"Doctor Einstein." Kevin had already known her when May met with Einstein.

Einstein still remembered this little follower of May. She nodded and turned her gaze to the spot where May had found the third person standing there. "Human habitual thinking tends to complicate simple problems. In the end, reality is not entirely determined by logic. When we try to use fragmented clues to logically reconstruct the process, it is itself a difficult task."

Kevin was taken aback by these words, and seemed to clear his head in an instant.

Using logic to reproduce the process... isn't that what he's doing right now?

"'How the assassination was carried out' and 'how they left' are the two directions of the investigation, but since the murderer committed the crime, they must have put effort into these aspects." Einstein had her hands in her coat pockets, and a pale blue flower was pinned to her chest, which stood out against the bright red scene. "Understanding the method is what detectives do, but we are not detectives."

"The first thing we need to determine is the motive for the crime."

"You mean... let's start by figuring out who might be the assassin, and put everything else aside for now?" Hen quickly understood what Einstein meant.

"I'm not a professional, but if we eliminate suspects simply by having an alibi, then probably no one in headquarters would be a suspect." Einstein turned around and smiled. "Then the perpetrator would be someone who knows the headquarters layout well and is extremely agile and efficient?"

Einstein's words were pointed, and Kevin shook his head with a gloomy face, saying, "No, he would never do that."

"That's right, Lin has no criminal motive whatsoever in this matter." Einstein nodded in satisfaction. "He's willing to risk everything to defeat the Herrscher, so there's no reason for him to kill High Council of the Firemoth."

"Then there are some clues worth paying attention to."

Einstein walked to another spot, squatted down, and took out her monocle, clipping it to her right eye.

"Three kinds of footprints, what a coincidence! Almost no clues were left, but three kinds of footprints were left."

"The footprints of the victim, the bystander, and the perpetrator all exceeded the largest size for women at headquarters."

"That is to say, all three people present were male."

"That's what happened back then."

After reading the contents of the file, Lin took a deep look at the final result, closed the file, put it back in the file bag, and returned it to its original place.

Elysia, sitting on the steps, listened intently with her eyes closed, not knowing what was so enjoyable about Lin's monotone tone. Only after Lin finished reading did she open her eyes and stare at him with a smile.

"If I remember correctly, Kevin became a cold-faced guy like you around that time, right?"

"..."

Having witnessed the entire event, Kevin then encountered the biggest change in his life, gradually becoming rational and indifferent.

In Aponia's words, it was as if fate had pushed him onto the battlefield.

When Lin saw Kevin again, he had already become what he is now, and then... he never changed.

"So that's what happened back then..." Elysia murmured softly, then said after a moment, "Lin, don't you feel it's a pity?"

"...What?"

"If you had been there then, you would have been able to find the truth much faster, and the subsequent purges probably wouldn't have happened."

"...No." Lin was quite adept at refuting other people's opinions, and he said firmly, "Mei was building a new Poisoned Cocoon at the time, and even if those things hadn't happened, power would have quickly fallen into her hands."

"Mei... I thought you hated her," Elysia sighed.

"She just made the right choice at that time," Lin said softly. "She has always been the right one among us."

"Hehe, don't think about those unhappy things~ Oh dear, Mei and Mobius are almost done fighting, do you want to go check on them?"

"No need, I'll go outside and wait for Mobius."

Lin walked to the anchor point, preparing to return to the rest area.

Elysia's eyes darted around, and she said with a mischievous smile, "Lin, I've noticed that you can be quite cunning sometimes. You gave the mark to Mei so she could teach Mobius a lesson, right?"

Mobius never appeared with Lin, a fact common knowledge among all visitors. They seemed to be irreconcilable enemies, yet their attitudes were somewhat subtle and ambiguous.

Therefore, Mobius usually doesn't know what Lin does, including handing the mark over to Mei.

"... You're overthinking it." Lin remained silent for a long time before leaving those words behind and walking into the anchor point.

"..."

With her back to the entrance to the Imaginary Tree, Lin walked out, Mobius, her clothes torn and revealing glimpses of her private parts, supported by her walking machine.

He spotted Lin immediately, Mobius gritted his teeth and called out his name: "Lin—"

The helmeted man turned around indifferently and looked at her.

"You contacted me back then just to stall for time?" She quickly realized why Lin had suddenly approached her at that time. "And you actually imprinted the [Nameless] mark on the Herrscher of Thunder? Why!"

It was unbelievable. Mobius had thought of many things, but she never expected Lin to scheme against her.

"We don't get along, so this is normal, isn't it?" the helmeted man said casually, as if trying to make Mobius laugh with his humor.

"You bastard!" Mobius exploded. "You're here just to mock me?"

"No, this is comforting."

Lin said calmly, "When Elysia comes out in a little while, she'll start mocking you."

Chapter Twenty-Nine: New Trouble

"Any discoveries, Prometheus?"

The mechanical girl scanning the scene nodded after hearing Einstein's words. "We can now simulate and recreate the assassination. Shall we project it?"

"Wait a minute, let's go to the Spiral Workshop." Einstein casually glanced around at the people.

Even before he learned that someone at headquarters had been murdered, Einstein knew that the perpetrators were High Council members of Moth of Fire.

As she told Kevin and Hen, the motive is the key to finding the truth. How advanced is the technology of the Fire Moth? Killing someone without leaving a trace is not a difficult task as long as there is meticulous planning.

The problem lies precisely here: the victim was High Council, so this case is unlikely to be the last.

She had no intention of getting involved in this conflict. Her sole purpose in joining the Firemoth was to fight against the Honkai and save humanity. Einstein held a similar attitude to Lin regarding the internal struggles within humanity.

However, at this moment, the turmoil has swept through the entire Moth Chaser, seriously interfering with the work on the Fifth Honkai War. Even after the Fifth Honkai War, there were a total of three Honkai Energy reactions from Upper-class Honkai Beast worldwide, but the headquarters did not take any action and relied entirely on the temporary responses of the branches.

The headquarters was completely paralyzed, with High Council executives living in fear and factions vying for power, making unified command impossible.

The hidden wounds buried within humanity were fully unleashed by this assassination attempt.

"What was the killer's motive... power?" Einstein stared at the gruesome bloodstains on the wall, his fingers rhythmically tapping on his forearm, shaking his head and muttering to himself, "If it was for power, then the vested interests would be easy to spot."

Just as the investigation was in full swing, no one expected that two more people at headquarters would die that very night.

"In order to explain your parents' actions and experiences fairly and impartially, I will start from the first time I met your father and mother."

The man who called himself "Lin" deliberately moved a low stool and sat in front of Zero, completely relaxed as he puffed on his cigarette. Judging from his skillful flicking of ash, he was clearly a seasoned smoker.

Zero didn't seem to care at all about the man smoking; in fact, he didn't seem to care about anything at all.

Ling will comply with other people's requests, but when no one talks to him, he will stay in place like an energy-saving and environmentally friendly robot in standby mode.

"I first met your parents in college. We met briefly at a science competition. They were already in love at that time. It was just a simple competition, so we didn't talk much. But your father won the competition and that's what made me remember him."

The man actually started recounting some old stories, oblivious to whether Zero's rather dim-witted eyes were staring at him, and continued reminiscing on his own.

After all, he was an arrogant person.

"Of course, I believe that during that period, we were all still in a 'normal' phase. There was no deep-seated hatred between us. Every morning, we could have a nutritious breakfast, sit in the library and immerse ourselves in the ocean of knowledge while flirting, and then sneak out to book a hotel room at night."

He chuckled, seemingly recalling something amusing. "Oh, I was talking about your parents. I'm wholeheartedly planning to join an international company right after graduation and enjoy a wonderful office life. If I'm lucky, I might even meet a good woman and get married."

"..." Zero seemed unable to understand the meaning behind the man's words, simply lowering her head and looking as if she were asleep.

"In short, I can assure you that at that time, your parents didn't have any ulterior motives... They might have considered creating you, but not through IVF, or... that kind of method." The man spoke at a measured pace, with the composure of a leader. "But something happened after that."

"Genius ideas seem to be somewhat extreme. In the manga I bought for you, there's one called 'Naruto.' There's a clan in it that awakens a special ability when their emotions are at their extreme. Because strength is linked to emotions, this clan produces some mentally unstable but incredibly powerful guys."

"I think there's some truth to this comic. Some people I know are like the family in this comic. Their groundbreaking ideas can bring opportunities to humanity, but at the same time, their flawed minds often lead them to use those ideas in the opposite way."

He stubbed out his cigarette and stomped on it. "Your parents are that kind of people."

"I don't know what they observed, but after graduation, they went to an ancient site for archaeological work. After returning, they firmly believed that humanity would encounter some kind of unpredictable disaster. It was at that time that I became their colleague."

"'Human Research and Conservation Association'—I objected to that name, but it was no use." The man chuckled awkwardly. "That was the predecessor of the organization I'm in now, and its activities were all written in its name—protecting and researching humans."

The man's topic was indeed very far back, detailing the organization's situation at the time. As Lin, who had been observing him, seemed to have something reawaken in his mind, overlapping with the scene before him.

"We've gone a bit off-topic. You should be more interested in your parents, so let's get back to the main point."

"Your parents, after they joined the organization, were responsible for research in the field of genetics."