The Beginning of Honkai

He set what he was holding on the ground, took a picnic cloth from the system inventory, gave it a shake, and spread it out.

Then he took out two cushions and a small table and placed them on top.

Sitting beside the table, he pulled out a food box and took two steaming bowls of ramen from it.

The rich tonkotsu broth, simmered from pork bones, came with delicately sliced chashu.

Bamboo shoots, seaweed, seafood, and egg adorned the top. The presentation alone was enough to whet anyone's appetite.

Of course, its exquisite appearance and the fragrance that could be smelled from merely standing nearby proved that this ramen was far from cheap.

"Why are you still standing there? Sit."

Qin Mo looked at the dazed Raiden Mei and patted the small table in front of him.

"You..."

What was happening before her surpassed her imagination. "Where did you get all this?"

Qin Mo had no intention of hiding his inventory from her. It would be exposed eventually anyway; after all, he would definitely have to get involved with the main storyline to obtain crystals.

"This? Be my girlfriend and I'll tell you."

"No way."

Qin Mo had said it without much sincerity, and Raiden Mei immediately realized he was only joking. She said nothing more and walked around to sit opposite him.

She looked at the ramen before her with a complicated expression.

"Eat. Staring at it won't fill you up."

After glancing at Qin Mo, Raiden Mei picked up the chopsticks beside her, then seemed to remember something.

"Qin Mo, why are you so good to me?"

She had never felt it before. She had even thought he was simply an annoying person. But there was a saying: true feelings were revealed in adversity.

Raiden Mei's status had plummeted, yet Qin Mo still refused to abandon her and had even been treating her better and better.

"Mmph, I'm courting you."

Qin Mo casually spoke while chewing the chashu in his mouth.

"You won't win a girl over with such half-hearted words."

She could tell Qin Mo was joking. Though she had not received an answer, Raiden Mei still felt a little better.

"That's great, then I'll come bother you every day."

"..."

Although Qin Mo's words sounded strange, even a little perverted, Raiden Mei blushed and murmured softly, "Then it's a promise..."

"Hm? What did you say?"

"Let's eat!"

After pressing her palms together and saying that, Raiden Mei began tasting the ramen in front of her, no longer answering Qin Mo.

"Thank you for the meal..."

Letting out a long breath, Raiden Mei looked at the ramen bowl, which she had emptied down to the last drop of broth. For a moment, she had the illusion of being back home.

Raiden Ryoma's imprisonment had not only cost her her father and the treatment she once received from those around her. Everything valuable in her home had been taken away to settle debts, leaving only an empty mansion. Although she still had a large sum of savings under her name, as a student with no source of income, she naturally could not use that money lightly.

"So? What do you want for dinner?"

Qin Mo, who had finished long ago, gathered the bowls and chopsticks. He still had to return them to the shop later.

"Qin Mo, you don't have to do this."

One should not accept favors without feeling indebted. Raiden Mei felt somewhat embarrassed to keep enjoying someone else's kindness, especially given her personality.

"Because I want to."

Qin Mo smiled. "No amount of money can buy my happiness. If you're worried that I don't have enough money, then don't be. I could easily support a few more people. If you really feel like you owe me, smile at me more often. I like seeing you smile."

Qin Mo's original purpose had only been to grind missions. He could even say that he had been wholeheartedly devoted to missions, but today, perhaps he had wavered a little.

"Kid, did something good happen? You're smiling so happily."

When the ramen shop owner took back the food box, he smiled and joked with Qin Mo.

"Was I smiling?"

Following the owner's pointing finger, Qin Mo saw the slight upward curve of his lips. Yet he had not noticed it at all, and even now that he had, it was difficult to make it disappear.

"Ahem..."

After composing himself, Qin Mo realized once more that he was only an ordinary eighteen-year-old boy. At first, he had approached her solely to survive and for personal gain, but after today, perhaps he really had fallen for her a little.

Just a little...

Yeah... just a little...

He stopped thinking about it and hurried off to complete the public safety mission. His luck had been bad that morning; even with Eagle Vision activated, he had failed to find any criminals.

Though he still had the afternoon, if he was unlucky, he might not make it back before Mei got out of school.

And if he was not there, who knew whether those girls would bully her again.

When he was around, those people did not dare lay a hand on her. At most, they excluded her. But if he was not there, Mei would be in quite some danger alone.

As the saying went, love made people blind.

Qin Mo had completely forgotten that Raiden Mei held a full teaching license in Hokushin Itto-ryu. Still, a few little girls were no match for her. She simply did not want to solve problems with violence because she was kind by nature.

Yet that personality also made her highly sensitive and fragile. After losing her most important pillar of support, those weaknesses had become even more apparent.

Thus, what Qin Mo saw was a lonely, vulnerable girl, unconsciously stirring a faint desire within him to protect her...

Just a faint one...

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The Beginning of Honkai

It was February. Qin Mo had known Raiden Mei for nearly four full months.

What had begun as daily confessions and flower deliveries purely to complete missions, leaving as soon as the missions were done, had gradually turned into spending every day together. By then, it was hard to tell whether the flowers and confessions were for missions or genuine expressions of feeling.

Raiden Mei had never responded to Qin Mo's confessions, just as they had agreed from the beginning...

Yet the bouquets she had once thrown away after receiving them were now carefully preserved.

When he went to her house on weekends to do missions, he could see all kinds of bouquets throughout the empty mansion.

And he was about to save up enough for one hundred pulls from the item pool.

Looking at the ten pulls he would have saved up in a few days, Qin Mo resisted the urge to pull individually.

Still, he did not know whether his luck was simply awful or this damned system truly required a hundred pulls before an S-rank appeared. Including the character pool, he had already pulled a hundred times without getting a single S-rank, relying entirely on the pity system to obtain A-rank items.

There were weapons and items with all sorts of strange effects. Overall, none of them helped him survive amid Honkai Energy.

They were not even as useful as a Stigmata in improving his adaptability.

And...

He was running out of time...

When Qin Mo woke up and checked his missions today, he found that his five unwavering objectives had changed.

The public safety mission had become eliminating Honkai Beasts.

Are you trying to kill me?!

For someone with no Honkai Energy adaptability, coming into contact with Honkai was like coming into contact with deadly poison.

And now there was actually a mission to eliminate Honkai Beasts. Did that mean the plot was about to begin?

Qin Mo had not forgotten that, although he skipped through the game's story and at most watched some well-made famous CG scenes, he still knew that the Great Eruption in Chang Kong City had been arranged by that woman, Cocolia.

She had begun laying the groundwork even before the Great Eruption, especially at Senba Academy, where Mei attended.

Kiana had also been drawn to Chang Kong City by its abnormal Honkai Energy, which was why she enrolled at Senba Academy.

"Forget it... Even if it's a Honkai Beast, the ones at this stage shouldn't be too strong. As long as I don't come into direct contact with it, I should be fine."

As it happened, one of the items he had drawn was a suitable weapon.

He pulled out two guns, one black and one white. Firing guns in the city would easily attract the police, but how could a qualified Assassin Master be caught by the police, even with surveillance cameras around? Besides, these two guns left no gunpowder residue and could even be stored in his inventory...

Honkai Beasts were monsters that appeared alongside Honkai phenomena. In essence, they were beasts infected by Honkai or monsters created from pure Honkai Energy, much like how humans infected by Honkai became zombies.

Honkai Beasts varied in strength depending on the type of animal infected and its adaptability.

The head-sized Honkai Beast flying before Qin Mo was clearly the weakest kind among them: an assault-class Honkai Beast.

It looked like it had been created when an insect was infected with Honkai Energy.

Using Eagle Vision, Qin Mo had easily found this Honkai Beast, which had been born in the corner of an abandoned alley and was wandering about in confusion.

Although there were other insects here, the Honkai Energy seemed too sparse. It had only spawned a single assault-class beast.

Looking at the Honkai Beast, which had yet to notice him, Qin Mo stood on a high balcony and silently drew his black-and-white twin pistols.

They were A-rank weapons he had drawn during this period.

Ebony & Ivory (A)

Effect: Unlimited ammunition. They could generate matching bullets within the corresponding firearms, and special power could be infused into the bullets to grant them special effects and enhanced power.

Description: Twin pistols made by Nier and assembled by Dante. Ivory fired hollow-point rounds at a submachine gun's rate of fire, while Ebony fired high-powered steel-core rounds. However, both guns had enormous recoil.

After considering the description, Qin Mo hung Ivory back at his waist and held Ebony in both hands, aiming at the Honkai Beast below.

After obtaining these weapons, he had often gone somewhere deserted to practice his shooting. Yet even with Ezio's physical capabilities, he could not wield them one-handed like Dante.

After all, the recoil of these two guns was absurdly powerful—powerful enough to briefly lift someone off the ground.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Although Ebony fired three times slower than Ivory, it did not need reloading and would not overheat, so its fire rate was still faster than that of an ordinary pistol.

He fired three bullets in a single second. If Qin Mo had not felt that his arms could barely handle the recoil, he could have simply shot the Honkai Beast dead.

The severely wounded Honkai Beast let out a shriek and charged toward Qin Mo.

Shaking his hands, which trembled slightly from the recoil, Qin Mo pushed off with his legs and leaped onto another balcony. Fortunately, these were all abandoned buildings. He did not have to worry about anyone coming outside upon hearing gunfire and getting attacked by the Honkai Beast.

He would need more than ten seconds before he could fire again...

Qin Mo lightly tensed his hands, gauged their condition, and made his judgment. If he had not wanted to avoid close combat with the Honkai Beast and the risk of being infected by Honkai Energy, he would have drawn his sword and cut the thing down long ago.

For those ten-odd seconds, Qin Mo could only do his best to play hide-and-seek with it.

However, playing hide-and-seek in an alley with a flying Honkai Beast was not a wise choice. Qin Mo leaped and darted across the buildings, but that meant nothing against a flying enemy.

After only a few evasions, Qin Mo realized that this terrain was still disadvantageous to him.

"This won't do..."

An open platform would be even more favorable terrain for the incredibly fast assault-class Honkai Beast. That was why Qin Mo had chosen to fight in the alley: on one hand, it was difficult for others to spot them and there were no cameras; on the other, it limited the Honkai Beast's movement.

Small Honkai Beasts did not possess enough destructive power to damage buildings.

Watching the Honkai Beast charge at him again, Qin Mo jumped directly from the balcony and used the walls to bleed off momentum several times as he descended, landing on the ground.

He watched the hard-headed Honkai Beast slam into the wall, emerge completely unscathed, and charge at him once more.

The twin pistols in Qin Mo's hands vanished at the same time, replaced by a silver-white katana.

His left hand gripped the scabbard while his right clenched the hilt. He assumed an iaijutsu stance toward the Honkai Beast.

Just as it came close, Qin Mo stepped forward, and a silver-white slash swept forth from his hand.