Starting with the Herrschers, I Cut Down All Chapter 33

"Was it the New Maginot Line? That boring dream didn't matter at all."

Anyway, nobody had any agency. It was better to start a new dream in the latter half of the night after the old one shattered. At least he could train.

"No, it wasn't! I dreamed that you came to the Far East when you were thirteen, all muscular and 185 centimeters tall. It was terrifying."

Mei covered her mouth. In the dream, her younger self had thought he was part of some criminal gang and immediately fled into the girls' restroom, too scared to come out.

Good thing it was only a dream... Had being bullied and isolated at school as a child caused her to dream something like that?

"Wouldn't that be cool?"

Kevin froze for a moment.

"Anyway, I got scared and ran away in the dream."

"Good grief, woman. Are you trying to stop me from improving in my dreams?"

Kevin struck an incredibly cool JoJo pose.

Smack! Mei gave Kevin's forehead a light slap, her expression earnest.

"Seriously, Kevin, you're already great as you are. It was just a dream. Please don't work hard in that direction."

As someone born in the Far East, Mei's only impression of characters with that kind of image was yakuza.

On the moon, at the location of the Stigmata Terminal.

[Wah, wah, wah! Why does Kevin have memories from that time?!] Manas, the dark-skinned beautiful-girl AI who had never appeared in the dream, shook Alaya fiercely.

Alaya remained silent.

[What the hell are you doing?!]

Manas even wanted to run over to the Cocoon of Finality, drag out No. 17, and have the two confront each other on the spot! She wanted to see whether Alaya had already betrayed humanity.

But she didn't dare do that. If No. 17 were dragged out, their current perfect progression would blow up. The Cocoon was still secretly causing trouble.

Alaya quietly pressed her legs together, feeling somewhat exhausted. "Originally, I thought I'd let everyone vent a little. An Yu's real life was happy anyway, and then everyone could have a happy ending."

They had finally found a perfect route. Even when the Cocoon tried to secretly interfere, the efforts of their AI family had reduced the effects to almost nothing. Everyone could live peacefully in this world without Honkai! How wonderful was that?!

[Then why is An Yu still slaughtering everyone in the dream?! Meanwhile, Elysia has practically developed a mental illness and is being tormented terribly by An Yu in reality!]

Have you already betrayed humanity?

Manas shook Alaya hard again. She could sense that her loyalty was not absolute!

Tell me! Are the thirteen Herrscher Cores inside you acting up?! Are you going to become Finality, or one of Finality's lackeys?!

"How would I know?! Aren't Reason and Void just experience fodder?"

Alaya looked equally confused. She was just an AI, one created for the future after Finality was born.

In the dream, she could add settings for herself and claim to be a prototype unit, but in reality, she knew nothing! Vill-V had even added foundational code to her and Manas that prevented them from interfering with humanity too much.

[Then why did you make An Yu go to college?!]

He could destroy the world without going to college. If it hadn't gone against the Cocoon's original wish, he wouldn't have entered the cycle again. Manas felt miserable about it.

"...Should I have let him continue teaching himself and experiencing the darkness of the world instead?"

Alaya was helpless as well.

[Then why didn't you let Elysia continue her studies?!]

Wouldn't Elysia have been able to perfectly bring out the true essence of Origin by then?

Let the Cocoon make trouble if it wanted. Could it really make An Yu continue all the way to the end while being relentlessly tortured in a game?

That was impossible. How could An Yu's personality endure constant humiliation in a game? Once the Cocoon ran out of options, everyone could live peacefully on Earth. How great would that be?

"She saw her younger brother get an offer from a major company and wanted to go out and give it a try. Is that my fault?"

[Then why did you give An Yu an offer from a major company?! Your loyalty isn't absolute!]

"He found his own college advisor. Do you have any idea how hard he worked?"

Who knew what kind of environment An Yu had come from? When it came to studying, he never slacked off. His work ethic was absurd.

He had even been wholeheartedly trying to climb higher. If it weren't for Elysia, he might have already made a name for himself in Anti-Entropy without relying on connections.

"And I already made compensation."

Alaya rubbed her forehead in pain.

"Kevin should be able to change the dream and thwart the Cocoon's little tricks."

When An Yu decided the game couldn't be cleared and lost interest, he would focus on reality. What else could the Cocoon do? Wouldn't a happy ending for everyone be nice?

In the end, the Stigmata Project, humanity's ultimate creation, would completely accept everything about the Cocoon while also protecting everyone's Milky Way.

[What if they still can't beat it...]

Manas found it hard to hold herself together. She didn't know whether the Herrscher Core inside Alaya was taking effect, but whenever Alaya became confident, it felt like something would go wrong.

But Herrscher Cores didn't seem to affect jinxes, did they?

"Then we'll give it one last shot. The perfect Stigmata Project, combined with Chimera's Karma, plus Origin Power and Kevin, the ultimate weapon with twelve Herrscher Cores."

It wasn't as though they had never fought before. They just hadn't won before...

Besides, a happy ending for everyone was great right now. As long as they crushed An Yu in the dream, his personality definitely wouldn't let him keep digging into it. If he was unhappy, he would just switch games.

After a long silence, Manas finally asked, [What if that still doesn't work?]

Alaya was rarely surprised.

"Then we give it to him. If he wants to reclaim Finality Power, we give it to him. We'll throw in the Stigmata Project and the ultimate weapon's Karma Power too, just to round things out."

"After so many cycles, he's been single-mindedly trying to obtain Finality Power, conquer the world, and venture into the cosmos. Every time, he finds a way to level up and perfectly achieves his goal. Doesn't that make it obvious that we're the villains?"

[Why not stuff everyone else in there too? Is adding Kevin not enough?]

"Go ask whether No. 17 would agree. If we make such a huge move and the Cocoon explodes directly, what then?"

[...]

Of course she wouldn't agree. No matter what No. 17's original intentions had been, while temporarily acting as a god, she had already become Honkai's dog. Sob...

We AIs...

Where were they supposed to go from here?!

Our Band!

An Yu arrived at the company while biting into a piece of bread. The office had been cleaned thoroughly today, and people were putting up decorations, giving him the refreshing feeling that something was different.

Were business partners coming over?

After leaving Anti-Entropy and truly beginning to handle matters big and small, Boss Bronya had finally understood the difficulty of starting a business. She even knew to have people prepare in advance.

When An Yu reached the elevator, he ran into Bronya waiting for it again... Come to think of it, their schedules were rather similar. Otherwise, they would not have run into each other so often by coincidence.

Bronya estimated the elevator's descent speed, pondered for a moment, then held out her hand and left it suspended in the air.

An Yu did not understand. "Boss? What does that mean?"

Bronya did not answer. She looked at the elevator again, raised her head, and kept her hand in the air.

An Yu paused, then hesitantly took her hand. What did this mean?

Boss, did you obtain an affection system?

Shake hands every day, pat someone on the head, and everyone's affection points would be forced to increase by one?

As thoughts raced through An Yu's mind, Bronya lightly raised her arm and led him through a standard dance turn on the spot... Though only An Yu was spinning.

An Yu looked utterly bewildered.

"Why do you always look so worried? Are you really that unhappy at Reson Studio?"

The joke over, Bronya withdrew her gaze and looked toward the elevator again.

At the mention of emotions, An Yu sighed again. "My sister said that when she goes on vacation, she'll take me downtown to hold an outdoor concert."

And lately, her mental illness seemed to be getting worse. Elysia had not felt as close to him as usual all morning. Sometimes An Yu really wanted to crack open her head and see what she was thinking.

"...Is your sister some huge celebrity?"

Still, Bronya was not too surprised. Although An Yu's sister had not been streaming much lately, she was still a major internet celebrity. Holding a concert was hardly impossible.

"She's going for the wandering singer route. Performing on the street."

An Yu was not sure, but that was probably what his sister meant.

His feelings were complicated now. He hoped his sister would have another episode, stop being close to him, and cancel the concert, but he also hoped her illness would get better soon.

How could one have both?

Bronya turned her head. What?

"Your sister is pretty conscientious. She isn't even charging people."

With Elysia's number of fans, ticket prices for a concert could probably rival those of a second- or third-tier celebrity. Yet Elysia was doing it for free.

"...By the way, didn't you play an instrument during your university orientation?"

"Boss, your memory is quite good."

An Yu praised her expressionlessly, his tone entirely flat.

"Bronya—my memory is as unfathomably deep as Lake Baikal. How could I forget something so trivial?"

"Besides, you were posted on the confession wall for two years. That girl was just a little extreme. After her confession failed, she said a few excessive things, and you slapped her right into the grass... By the way, after I graduated, were you still being posted on the confession wall?"

When no outsiders were around, Bronya was not particularly aloof. Her coldness was more of a protective coloration she had developed to avoid trouble.

An Yu: ...

"Yeah. I was posted there for four years. After graduation, I stopped knowing. But I didn't care. My family taught me from childhood that men and women are equal."

An Yu's expression remained calm. He had grown used to fooling around with Elysia since childhood. He never expected that one slap would send other people sprawling onto the ground. Who could have expected that?

Bronya finally could not hold it in. She chuckled to herself, while An Yu's face became even more expressionless.

But Bronya's smile did not last long. Her phone chimed, and she took it out. Before long, the smile vanished.

"Being pressured into marriage?"

An Yu enjoyed the spectacle, and a smile returned to his face.

Bronya said coldly, "My mom is single herself. What right does she have to pressure me?"

An Yu did not continue the topic. Boss's father had been court-martialed for selling arms, while her mother, depressed and withdrawn, had committed suicide. Young Bronya had ultimately been adopted by the only orphanage in the area... run by Auntie Cocolia, the woman who had reported her father for arms dealing.

Incidentally, that was why Auntie Cocolia was always positioned as a villain in Boss's games.

An Yu changed the subject slightly. "Then what is it? It can't be someone telling you to visit home more often, right?"

Bronya put away her phone without answering, then walked into the elevator with her arms folded coolly over her chest.

She did not intend to let outsiders get involved in her family's mess. Not even Kiana or Mei.

While the elevator held only the two of them, Bronya casually asked, "Does your band still need people?"

An Yu: ...

Were their hobbies really that similar?

They had played instruments, raced cars together, studied the same major, had similar schedules, and were both orphans. What kind of alternate-self gender-swapped version was this?

His tone was complicated. "I don't know. I have to ask my sister."

Bronya's expression turned subtle. She had not expected An Yu to be unable to decide even something so minor.

"Do you have no standing at home?"

Your grip strength was so great. Had you never hit your sister growing up?

In any case, Bronya could not imagine family members living harmoniously together... Since childhood, she had beaten Liliya, Kyo, and Rozaliya regularly. A small beating every three days, a big beating every week.

She had beaten them from childhood to adulthood. If Sister Mei came by occasionally and dared to cause trouble, Bronya beat her too. Overthrowing one's elders was easy.

She, Bronya, was the king of the orphanage!

An Yu hesitated. "Do I really need to fight a mentally ill patient over something like this?"