"You, you, you—Ming Yu, what are you doing in my room?!"
"You should call me Teacher Ming Yu."
He replied leisurely.
"Huh?"
"The Headmaster handed you over to me. For the next two weeks, I'll be giving you some proper tutoring."
Ming Yu stepped forward and, without giving her a chance to object, pressed a Houm onto Kiana's head.
"Wait, what is this?"
"A learning device. Wearing it increases your experience points."
Ming Yu replied dismissively.
"I'm not a Pokémon!"
Kiana protested.
Well, the device was actually called the Houm-Houm Virtual Reality Connector—a product of the Far East Branch's science division. As long as it was placed over one's head, it allowed the user to enter the database as if they were truly there.
"It's a mysterious little gadget for studying history. Your Headmaster gave it to me."
"Wait... at least let me eat something first..."
Kiana wailed.
"After class."
Ming Yu said impartially.
He then put on another Houm and activated the device.
Authorization verified... Passed Establishing connection... Creating scenario...
The scenery around them shifted wildly. Before fully entering, Ming Yu kept his guard up and made a save at that exact moment.
After all, there was a good chance he would encounter Otto next. It never hurt to be cautious.
Schicksal Headquarters, floating island, inside the Bishop's command room.
The blond man seated on the bench leisurely held a glass of red wine as he observed the various data displayed on the screen.
"Your Eminence, Kiana Kaslana and Ming Yu have entered the Schicksal database through the Far East Branch's data interface."
As the Bishop's secretary, Amber emerged from the shadows and relayed the information to the man before her.
Kiana Kaslana was a crucial part of Otto's plans. Every move she made was under Otto's surveillance, with Amber responsible for monitoring and reporting on her throughout the process.
At the same time, the image on the screen before Otto switched to the database's perspective.
"Hehe, they entered the database? It was probably that naive child Theresa's doing, but that works too..."
Otto narrowed his eyes slightly.
To him, Kiana Kaslana had long since become a puppet in his hand. Her thoughts and actions were all predictable.
As for the others—whether Bronya Zaychik or Raiden Mei—all their information was transparent before him.
Cocolia's little underlings, ME Corp's fallen young lady, or even the Third Herrscher... none of them would interfere with his plan to revive Kallen.
Only this person called Ming Yu remained an exception. Even after mobilizing all of Schicksal's resources and methods, he could not find a single piece of information related to Ming Yu's past.
It was as though... he had appeared out of nowhere amid the Honkai disaster in Changkong City.
And when combined with his unusual abilities... Ming Yu always reminded Otto of a familiar old acquaintance.
Someone who had likewise been born from nothing amid a Honkai disaster, and likewise possessed mysterious, ever-changing powers.
After confirming that Raiden Mei, rather than him, was the Herrscher, his true identity became even more enigmatic.
So would he, too... slip beyond Otto's control?
As the Bishop who had ruled Schicksal for over five hundred years, Otto disliked any unstable factor beyond his control.
Once something escaped his control, he would find a way to erase it.
The last such existence had been the head of the Kaslana family, Siegfried Kaslana.
That excessively powerful strength had forced Otto to decide to erase him by launching a Honkai Fission Bomb.
Thinking of this, Otto could not help but chuckle before decisively making his choice.
"Perfect. I'll use this opportunity to test him."
He pressed several buttons on the control panel and imported a particular set of data into the database.
"...I'll recreate a special scenario for him and see what choice he makes."
He selected a special scenario for Ming Yu.
As the data was imported, a familiar face appeared on the screen.
It was a young man with dark blue hair, light blue eyes, and well-defined features.
He was a man Otto had once sincerely wished to entrust Schicksal to.
He was a man who, had he not died young, might have completely changed the world.
He had many titles.
Test Subject Ω1, the First Herrscher of Reason, Child of Honkai, leader of Anti-Entropy, hero...
Welt Joyce.
An illustration is available here and can be viewed after updating.
1955
In 2717 BC, mutated animals infected by Honkai energy first appeared in southern Asia.
They were the earliest Honkai Beasts, existing solely to kill humanity.
A mysterious young girl named Ji Lin appeared. She was the first person in the East—and the first in human history—to possess the power to fight the Honkai.
Ji Lin alone destroyed all the Honkai Beasts of that era, then vanished without a trace.
In the first century AD, a Honkai disaster erupted in a village somewhere on the island of Britain.
A boy named Arthur survived that disaster and became the first Stigmata awakener in the West.
Later, with the aid of the mage Merlin and the Lady of the Lake, he established the mighty British Empire.
For some reason, Arthur and the mage Merlin seemed to have clashed, leading to civil war. After that, the British Empire gradually declined, while Merlin's whereabouts became unknown.
In fourteenth-century Europe, Honkai Beasts appeared once again, having evolved to become even more powerful.
However, Schicksal had already begun to take shape at that time. With the three great families assisting one another, they formed an order of knights to combat the Honkai, developed weapons against it, and began their long struggle against the Honkai.
This was the first time humanity gained the upper hand in battle against the Honkai.
Just when people believed they had won, they suffered an unexpected blow.
The Honkai disaster instead began spreading rampantly in the form of disease. Within only six years, it swept through all of Europe and claimed twenty-five million lives.
It had to be said that virtual reality constructed from data could not only recreate historical scenes to the greatest extent possible, but also offer observers the extraordinary sensation of truly being there.
Even a poor student like Kiana, who could never bring herself to read, was drawn in by the realistic and ever-changing scenes before her. Theresa's strategy had not been a problem after all.
Ming Yu followed Kiana through the streets of fourteenth-century Kolosten. People flowed past them on every side, yet treated them as though they did not exist.
Naturally. This was merely recreated historical data; they had not truly traveled through time.
In any case, according to the original course of events, Kiana should soon discover the Eleventh God Key, Divine Key: Judgment of Shamash, standing in the street. After touching it, her identity as a Kaslana would trigger a hidden scenario in the database, allowing her to meet Kallen Kaslana as a data entity.
If not for the possibility of running into Otto, he had actually intended to bring a certain fox-eared shrine maiden here to take a look as well.
While Ming Yu was thinking, he noticed from the corner of his eye that a round blue sphere had appeared in the distance down the street and seemed to be rolling toward him and Kiana.
He looked up at Kiana. The girl was still immersed in the medieval scenery and appeared completely unaware of the approaching sphere.
...Or was there another possibility—that only he could see it?
Ming Yu narrowed his eyes and cautiously shifted one step to the left. Sure enough, the sphere rolled left as well.
He moved two steps to the right, and the sphere returned to its original path.
"..."
It seemed there was no doubt about it. It was coming for him.
As the sphere gradually drew closer, he finally saw what it truly was.
That pattern, that color—it was the Ninth God Key, Star of Eden.
Star of Eden rolled to a stop precisely at his feet, as though waiting for him to pick it up.
A God Key completely unrelated to the fourteenth-century European scenario had appeared here and stopped right at his feet... the intent could not have been more obvious.
By ordinary reasoning, faced with such an obvious "invitation" from someone, he should have refused or immediately logged out of the system.
However, for someone who could rewind at any time, this was not enough to frighten him away.
At the very least, he needed to go in and see what Otto was plotting.
With that thought, Ming Yu cleanly bent down and picked up Star of Eden.
The instant he picked it up, a cold electronic voice entered his mind.
User identity confirmed Beginning playback of special record
On January 1, 1952, the first large-scale Honkai disaster of the century occurred in Berlin, Germany. Three hundred thousand people died.
Afterward, at the center of the disaster, Schicksal's Valkyrie rescue force discovered the sole survivor. After recovering him, they designated him Ω1.
Having stood at the center of the Honkai unharmed, combined with the contents recorded in Schicksal's ancient internal documents—that when the Honkai activation output exceeded 1000 HW, an entity known as a "Herrscher" would be born at its center—this survivor was identified by Schicksal as the First Herrscher.
As a suspected Herrscher, he had many puzzling aspects. For instance, he lacked the Herrscher Core described in the ancient records.
For another, he had lost his memory during the Honkai disaster and knew nothing of his origins, yet he still remembered the knowledge he had learned before and was proficient in multiple languages.
Furthermore, aside from the Herrscher of a Thousand, all Herrschers recorded in the ancient documents had been female individuals. Ω1, however, was male.
These many unanswerable questions led Schicksal to conduct meticulous research on him for three years, but they found nothing.
Since the prolonged research yielded no results, at the proposal of Laboratory 42 of the North American Branch, he was transferred under Dr. Tesla and Dr. Einstein to serve as their laboratory assistant.
After arriving at Laboratory 42, Ω1's treatment improved drastically. He rose from an experimental subject subjected to inhumane treatment to an ordinary person.
Dr. Einstein gave him the name "Welt," meaning "world."
Because of a mysterious letter sent by Schrödinger, Welt, Tesla, Einstein, and the Finnish ancient-language expert Elias Nokianvitainen formed a team and traveled to North America together.
Within the Yellowstone ruins, they discovered the secrets of Soulium. Using a supercomputer to decipher the information contained within it, they followed clue after clue and were about to obtain the mysterious gift left behind by the mysterious H. A.
The mysterious H. A.'s real name was Amone Ayet. She had once belonged to Schicksal Headquarters, but after learning of the previous civilization's failed history of fighting the Honkai, she believed that the corrupt Schicksal of that era could not possibly succeed either. Thus, she placed her hopes in others and left them a weapon to resist Schicksal.
As massive amounts of historical information poured in, the environment around Ming Yu gradually stabilized, and a clear image emerged.
He looked around. It was a snowy field in winter.
At that moment, he stood beside an inconspicuous triangular park.
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