Absolutely Impossible / I'll Handle It

When someone is unwilling to tell the truth, no matter how much you ask, you will not get an answer. The Nun did not continue to ask. After all, men have many unusual traits. Even though she had been living here for almost half a month, the Nun could not forget what he did when they first met.

"Mr. Ultraman, why are you writing me a letter?"

The Nun is now conflicted.

The more harmless the man appears and the more he integrates into the sanatorium, the more the Nun is reminded of the chilling side he inadvertently reveals. Even though he does everything perfectly and fits the definition of a "good person" better than anyone she has ever met, she can only increasingly see him as someone who is pretending.

What's even more frightening is that she actually adapted to it, and even somewhat enjoyed the status quo.

With no shortage of resources and funds, the children are optimistic and positive, and the atmosphere is thriving. Even Chrono has a good friend with whom he can play and confide at any time.

He handled everything with such ease that the Nun felt he was... arranging something.

"..." The man didn't say anything, but looked up at the crescent moon in the sky. The Nun followed his gaze, but their eyes met.

Because they were wearing stockings, the Nun could see the man's pupils peeking out through the gaps.

His eyes, a blend of jet black and emerald green, were unlike anything she had ever seen. Even with his absurd attire, his eyes exuded a calm and collected aura.

So, are you willing to let me lie to you just once?

All the stars in the sky are exactly the same, but only the moon can stir the tides. Can I become your moon and the moonlight that shines on you?

The words that were supposed to be a joke now appeared in the Nun's mind, and the last thing the man said was, "So, are you willing to be the only one who was fooled by that?"

So, is he really deceiving her now?

Were those letters also a form of deception? A way to extract information from her?

The man stretched out his hand, held horizontally in the moonlight, towards the Nun.

The Nun stared at the black-gloved hand in front of her. From the first time they met, the man had never taken off his gloves and the mask covering his face, as if he were afraid that others would see the real him.

Most people wouldn't want to be deceived, and she was no exception.

"Mr. Ultraman, is this the last time you'll lie to me?"

"Um."

The Nun smiled softly; in the moonlight, her smile was serene and gentle.

"Then may I ask who you are?" She reached out and placed her hand on the man's, her fingers deftly climbing up his glove.

"My name is Lin, and I'm just a masked man who's not good-looking, speaks rudely, and is cunning and despicable."

Lin pulled off his stockings, revealing his face in the shadows, in a place only the Nun could see.

"My Aponia, and I'm Nun at this nursing home." Aponia's smile wasn't wide, but it was as warm as a spring breeze.

"... Why did you put your fingers inside my glove?"

"Because I wanted to do this when we first met."

Another slender hand reached into the glove, held it up, and interlocked the fingers.

"It doesn't look like a bad person's hand at all."

She whispered this.

Chapter Twenty: Absolutely Impossible

"Cangxuan, why are you watching a drama?"

"Why... But you, Danzhu, why are you making figurines?"

The two people who were slacking off stopped at the same time and exchanged a knowing smile.

"Because the professor is out."

The two of them simultaneously exclaimed "Whoosh!" and put down a pile of work that had long been tedious and boring to them every day, and began to do their own thing with great enthusiasm. Klein saw all of this and could only sigh helplessly.

It's not that Klein wanted to criticize them. Some of the daily data adjustments were indeed useless and had a very high repetition rate. There might not even be a 1% fluctuation range in a week. Moreover, these two were usually secretly slacking off. Now that the Doctor wasn't around, they didn't even bother to act anymore.

After all, Mobius wouldn't dare entrust the real work to the two of them.

"Everyone at headquarters seems to be rushing around lately. Is there some big news we don't know about?" Danzhu chatted with Cangxuan between making figurines. They were probably the most well-informed people in the entire Fire Chaser forum, thanks to their rankings of first and second in posting on the forum...

Cangxuan casually replied, "Why don't you ask Erwin?"

"Because the Flame-Chaser project and the Divine Key Project have reached the end of their first phase."

The one who answered them was Klein, who was writing furiously.

"Hmm? Klein? You heard what we said?"

Klein a wry smile. It was hard not to hear them. Although the laboratory was large, there were only three people in total. Even a mosquito flying in there could be heard clearly, let alone their voices which were not even being hushed up.

"Doctor Mobius was also away on the Flame-Chaser project. I don't know the specific details, but she told me to prepare for the Hypervariable Surgery before she left."

"... Could it be that the Doctor himself also wants to become Flame-Chaser?" Danzhu asked a startling question.

However, Klein did not refute it. She could see the excited look in Mobius's eyes before he left, a look that Mobius only showed when conducting certain special experiments.

Moreover, Mobius herself is a paranoid and crazy person, so it's not surprising that she would do anything.

"I think it's possible." Cangxuan paused the TV series and turned to Klein gossipily, "Senior Sister Klein, guess what Danzhu and I saw at the last ball?"

"... Doctor and Mr. Lin?"

"How did you know?" Cangxuan was shocked, but then he saw that Danzhu looked completely unconcerned. He immediately knew that Danzhu had already told Klein what had happened back then.

"Ahem... Anyway, I feel that the relationship between Doctor and Lin is developing abnormally. When Lin's Hypervariable Surgery failed, Doctor seemed out of sorts for several days in a row, so it's possible that Doctor himself wanted to have Hypervariable Surgery, right?"

"... I think the Doctor's desire to become Flame-Chaser has nothing to do with Mr. Lin," Klein said calmly. "The Doctor is not someone who lets emotions override reason, and neither is Mr. Lin."

"Oh, no wonder they looked so awkward."

"..."

Their focus always surprised Klein.

However... Mebius didn't tell anyone except Klein about her trip. Even the higher-ups at headquarters thought she was working tirelessly on the improved super-transformation surgery. Who would have thought that after noticing the news of the Honkai energy reaction of the Judgment-class Honkai Beast Shesa during the Third Honkai Impact, she quietly left headquarters.

"Great Freedom Heaven, Honkai Beast of the End of Dharma-class, this is the first of its kind in history, Kevin, aren't you nervous?"

Elysia put down her teacup and asked Kevin, who was sitting far away on the other side to prevent the cold air from spreading to others.

After half a year, Kevin has finally mastered the control of the air conditioning. The temperature around him is no longer so high that people will get frostbite if they get too close, and the range is controlled to a very close distance. However, it is still better to stay a little further away from him on such a cold day.

"..."

Kevin didn't even bother to look in her direction.

"Ugh... here we go again~ It used to be Lin, now it's Kevin, can't you guys just smile like me~" Elysia said, glancing at Kosma. "What do you think, Kosma?"

"..." Kosma stared at Elysia for a while... but did not speak.

"Oh my god, how am I supposed to introduce you senior colleagues to newcomers now?"

Elysia shook her head, feeling a headache coming on. She wondered if Lin's silence was contagious, or if all the boys who chased the flame ended up the same way, becoming taciturn as well.

To say that Hen is different, he is married, but Kevin also has a girlfriend. Moreover, Kevin and Mei have known each other for longer than Hen and Bianca have known each other. So in the end, it was Lin who infected them and made them think that Lin's way of doing things was correct.

"But haven't you always been the one organizing the orientation, Elysia?" Hen asked, overhearing her words, as he walked in from another cabin.

"Of course it's me~ Hmm, this kind of thing has to be done by a cute girl. It wouldn't be good if the boys scared the newcomers." Elysia proudly put her hands on her hips. "If we let Lin go, what if he takes the newcomers to do fifty missions as an appetizer?"

"Haha, it's hard to change the habits of a mission expert. Look, he's gone off to do missions again as soon as he's feeling a little better."

Only Hen was talking to Elysia, which dispelled the rather heavy atmosphere in the cabin. Kevin heard them talking about Lin, and although he seemed indifferent, he listened to their conversation in silence.

"But this time he didn't even tell me what the mission was. When I asked him to tell me, he just threw out a 'classified mission, no irrelevant personnel allowed' at me. That's too much! We've known each other for so many years, what's so hard about talking about a mission?" Elysia muttered, feeling very dissatisfied, thinking of how Lin treated her like a monster when he left.

"After all these years, he still hasn't changed his personality."

"Huh? Do I need to change it?"

"Anyway, Lin will definitely tell you if he wants to." After several interactions with Lin, Hen had come to understand some of his temperament. "A classified mission... even defeating the first End of Dharma-class Honkai Beast can't be considered a classified mission. It's easy to think of bad things."

Elysia chuckled, "Could it be that you're dating a beautiful girl?"

"... That must have been tough on him." Hen shook his head with a smile. "Does Lin, with his personality, have any appeal?"

Chapter Twenty-One: I Will Handle It

The plants on Dusk Street were surprisingly plentiful. I had noticed it before, but after observing it a few more times, I realized that flowers were everywhere.

Lin stopped in front of yet another flower. He couldn't see the flower's color, but the soft, delicate petals looked somewhat familiar, and he vaguely remembered seeing them somewhere before.

He tilted his head back and exhaled a puff of white mist.

Moreover, these flowers are still frequently seen in such a cold season. Are they similar to winter plum blossoms that bloom in winter?

However, even if the overall Honkai Energy concentration in Dusk Street is very high, there should be an accumulation process. The Honkai Sickness brought back by Aponia are one of the reasons, but why are there so many Honkai Sickness in Dusk Street?

Because the Honkai Energy concentration was high from the beginning? But there have never been any Honkai Beast or Honkai zombie in Dusk Street, not even small-scale Honkai.

He pondered for a long time but couldn't reach a conclusion, so he cleared his mind and returned to the sanatorium.

It has been a month and a half since he arrived in Dusk Street. Aponia and the others have completely accepted him as a member of the sanatorium. Aponia has even started to discuss with him how to handle some trivial matters of the sanatorium.

In contrast, Moth of Fire has completely disappeared without a trace. Apart from regularly reporting on the progress of the mission, Moth of Fire seems to have completely forgotten about him. Perhaps she is busy with the Flame-Chaser project and does not care much about other things.

Lin was practically giving perfunctory reports on the mission. Even if he did report something useful, he didn't know what to say. Did he mean that he had already infiltrated the enemy and that he was to continue his undercover work for another three years, become the leader, and then come back?

The latest... might be the children in the orphanage...

"Forest."

Interrupted from his thoughts, Lin straightened his mask, looked up, and saw Aponia standing at the entrance of the sanatorium with her hands crossed in front of her. Her expression was as detached and calm as ever, but Lin saw something unusual in her eyes.

The two walked into the sanatorium one after the other without saying a word. They arrived at a nursing room. Lin went in and saw a child lying on the bed with his eyes closed and his face full of pain.

The purple stripes that were originally hidden by the collar suddenly appeared on her cheeks, and the large patch of strange lines looked quite terrifying.

Chrono was also there, leaning against the windowsill, seemingly waiting for Lin. When he saw Lin walk in, he clenched his fists, about to lash out, but was stopped by a look from Aponia.

Lin approached the bed, pinched the boy's chin, looked at the condition inside his mouth, and then opened his eyelids to examine him.

The situation is not optimistic. The lines have already taken root under the skin. At this stage, the skin has basically lost most of its mobility and will only slowly erode and die.

Lin took out a syringe and injected the boy with inhibitors and painkillers. After waiting for his expression to ease a little, Chrono gestured for Lin to follow him outside.

"What's going on? Didn't you say that as long as you're in good mental condition, there won't be any problems?!" Chrono roared at Lin after they arrived at a spacious place where they wouldn't be disturbed.

"..."

According to Lin's experience, most of the Honkai Sickness in the sanatorium were not so severely affected as to lose their ability to move. As long as they maintained a good mental state and received the inhibitors he provided, they could live normally for at least three years.

Even Lin, who had almost no resistance to Honkai Energy, lasted for two years. Ordinary people can only live longer than that.

The erosion rate of most children in the nursing home is between 4% and 7%, which can only be considered as mild symptoms. However, in the past two weeks, the erosion rate of some children has risen directly to 10%, entering the second stage.

This is a bizarre anomaly.

Is it because the Honkai Energy concentration in Dusk Street is too high? Or is it because there is a situation similar to cross-infection among them?

"... From now on, try not to get close to them." In any case, it is necessary to control the Honkai Energy emitted by seriously ill patients. In the second stage, the concentration of Honkai Energy around the body will increase, and prolonged close proximity will only lead to worse things.

Chrono glared angrily. "Then who will take care of them?"

"I'll do it," Lin replied quickly. He was the only one who had been injected with the Honkai Sickness Serum, making him the most suitable person to approach the other Honkai Sickness.

"... Tch, call me if you need anything." Chrono ultimately didn't say anything more. Lin was a professional; at least so far, he had demonstrated far more competence than these laymen. "So, what's next?"

Aponia also looked at Lin, who had once said that he had a way to cure Honkai Sickness.

Lin glanced at the two of them; even Chrono couldn't hide the hope in his eyes.

He nodded calmly. "I will handle it."

Lin sat down against the steps, seemingly gazing into the distance, or perhaps simply lost in thought.

A total of seven people have lost their mobility Honkai Sickness: four are children, two are people living in a nursing home, and one is a person from outside the nursing home who came seeking help.

This undoubtedly increases the pressure on nursing homes.

The usually noisy children were unusually quiet today. Some of them quietly looked out the window at Lin, the teacher who had been teaching them to read and write and taking them out to play for more than a month.

"The teacher looks very tired today."

"Oh dear, the teacher is usually not very talkative, but when he does speak, he says strange things. That's... um... right! A repressed pervert!"

"Hey, Daniela, you..."