Mowing Down Enemies from the Herrscher Onward

An Yu pointed at his head.

A perfect, all-purpose explanation. After all, no normal person could understand the thought process of a lunatic.

"Get some rest. I was planning to hold a meeting once everyone was here and discuss the protagonist's character setup."

Bronya patted An Yu on the shoulder. As a proper company, they naturally offered personal leave to their employees. If they hadn't been so busy lately, she wouldn't have made the trip herself.

The protagonist's character setup?

"If it's the Previous Era, I really do have a good character concept to recommend."

A flawless shade of pink flashed through his mind, along with eyes filled with pure sorrow and a trace of murderous intent. But that sort of character clearly wasn't suitable as the protagonist. She'd be better as the second male or female lead.

"What character concept?"

"Raiden Mei."

Bronya: ...

For a moment, she couldn't keep a straight face.

Who? Raiden Mei, whose story in the first installment had already received a happy ending?

"She'd overshadow everyone else, and it could easily backfire."

Bronya shook her head and took a bite of her apple. It was tasteless, yet too wasteful to throw away.

An Yu pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "Boss, Raiden Mei's development in your previous IPs has always been criticized."

It had been a persistent topic on the forums. But back then, the young Bronya had been too inexperienced, so the others' attacks had never quite had enough impact.

"Now's the time to wash away that disgrace."

"We'll choose her most immature state before she grew up, have her search through history, learn about the cruelty of the past through constant battles, and finally step over everyone from the Previous Era, witness everything, and take part in that final, doomed ending through an illusion."

It sounded like it could easily go wrong—for example, people might mock it as a new Honkai DLC—but Bronya was tempted.

Of course she wanted to! What creator wouldn't want the chance to perfect the flaws of their past work?

But she didn't dare bring it up. It could easily stir up controversy, and it might all amount to nothing. Besides, she absolutely couldn't abandon the Honkai IP.

"But growth and cruelty must be kept separate, so we need one—or even several—absolutely tragic characters to contrast her. Otherwise, the cruel Previous Era could easily turn into Mei's personal growth story."

"If that doesn't work, we can bury it as a hidden thread and make Mei a thread that runs through the entire story."

But An Yu was like a parasite in her stomach, constantly adding chips to the table, tempting her reason and reinforcing her confidence until the past finally hooked her.

"Take good care of your sister. I won't count these next few days of vacation as personal leave, and you'll still get paid."

The devil's proposals were always tempting, just as the eunuchs beside an emperor always knew how to make him happy.

Though that comparison was wildly inappropriate here, Bronya really was tempted.

As for how to strike the balance between a DLC and a prequel, that wasn't something they could decide with a few casual words here.

The writing team wasn't paid to sit around doing nothing.

As for her?

She would go to the company, make the final decision and announce their next direction, then conduct the final review, and... contact Mei.

Come to think of it, putting several of her good friends into her games in the past had greatly affected their lives. Still, Mei was easy to talk to.

Seeing that his boss was about to leave, An Yu suddenly remembered the most important matter.

"Boss, doesn't our new project need someone in charge?"

It was all his sister's fault. Her accident had nearly made him forget the important matter of getting promoted.

"I'll be in charge myself!"

Bronya turned back. Her clear eyes shimmered, and several traces of a smile and confidence appeared on her cool face.

It was as if the chosen Duck had returned. She was no longer that useless Duck who got eliminated in the top eight every year and occasionally failed to even make the top sixteen.

An Yu sighed at that. What a terrible development.

He returned to his room. After confirming that his sister was still asleep, he put on his helmet again and prepared to mow down another wave.

There had been more and more irritating matters lately. Only the feeling of going on an unstoppable rampage could let him fully relax.

As his consciousness gradually sank, the scarlet color on the screen became especially obvious, while his health recovered rather slowly.

His broken body writhed unconsciously across the ground. The instant his consciousness returned, An Yu immediately condensed a body—but this time, it was no longer made of flesh and blood.

"Flesh is weak; machines ascend."

He was still in the previous city's ruins, but the boss that had gone berserk seemed to have disappeared as well.

"Forget it. I'll farm safely for a while first."

At the very least, he needed to control the Collective Will and consume all the experience points in this city first.

A Brand-New Open, Free-Exploration World

First Laboratory

"You're awake. Congratulations, you're already a handsome boy."

Mobius spoke calmly, her fingertips continuously tracing the curves of the girl's waist. She was actually almost no different from a human?

"Professor... Mobius?"

Elysia clutched her head with one hand while instinctively grabbing Mobius's wrist with the other. Her head hurt more and more, while the piercing pain in her abdomen surged up again.

Mobius slightly turned her eyes, and a trace of curiosity flashed through her snake-like vertical pupils.

"You know me?"

"I..." Elysia opened her mouth several times, but nothing came out.

Right. This was a dream. Professor Mobius didn't know her.

Elysia sat on the operating table like a sealed gourd, stripped of the smile she had once been so proud of.

"But I do know you. Elysia, an orphan who aspired to travel the world, born in the town of Vostok-51."

Mobius leaned against the side and calmly recounted the girl's life.

This isn't my life. Elysia wanted to argue that, but this strange dream hadn't happened just once or twice. Even Professor Mobius had experienced such dreams before.

Mobius gave her no time to respond.

"The monster born from Honkai has been named a Herrscher."

Moreover, this Herrscher's past life could be traced, yet he had displayed knowledge that completely didn't belong to his life, even reconstructing and upgrading objects.

And then there was Elysia, who was nearly invincible.

Elysia remained silent.

After all, she had acted far more willfully in this dream than before. Unlike in the past, she had exposed far too much.

Mobius handed her a cup of warm water. "I have a friend in the engineering department. She told me that the surveillance footage from that period can all disappear. No one will be able to investigate it."

"Elysia, tell me. Are you human, or are you a monster?"

She stared into Elysia's eyes, her slender fingers unconsciously tightening.

No matter what, she shouldn't have made this decision. But she was Mobius. She didn't care about other people's opinions, nor did she care about supposedly consorting with a tiger.

She was the scientist who believed in and anticipated human nature the most.

This question again... Elysia had been tortured terribly by these dreams over the past few days, but the habits she had developed over the years still allowed her to force out a smile.

"I'm human. I was human in the past, I am human now, and I will be human in the future."

"I guarantee it."

Mobius relaxed as well, and her bewitching face gained a touch of relief.

She remembered an old ballad that had circulated among those ancient fossils in the archaeology world: On that day, He fell from the heavens. The people on the ground looked up, and thus beheld the starry sky...

The little girl who had mysteriously appeared in Vostok—Elysia, could it be you?

Mobius shook her head. Damn it, those old fossils had infected her with their superstitious nonsense too. Why should some prehistorical civilization's aphorisms affect the present?

"Then are you willing to join Fire Moth to save the world?"

Smiles were contagious. Seeing the professor smile in this dream, Elysia smiled as well, then firmly shook her head.

"Since I was little, I've always held onto one dream: I want to create a paradise where everyone can be happy."

She lowered her head and spoke to herself, while Mobius listened patiently.

"Fire Moth won't be a paradise. It never will be."

She raised her head, her gaze passing through the laboratory walls toward some distant place that didn't exist.

Dreams were bizarre and grotesque, but Elysia couldn't forget them.

This Fire Moth, which had only recently transformed itself and still had a decent reputation, crossed humanity's bottom line within just a few years and became absolute evil.

Whenever people mentioned Fire Moth, they would first feel instinctive disgust before belatedly remembering that the evil Mobius seemed to be there too.

"You know even more than I imagined."

The atmosphere became somewhat tense, but Mobius merely raised her chin and regarded Elysia more highly.

"Then what do you want to do?"

Create an organization yourself? Where would you get the money?

"I don't know."

Elysia shook her head with complete frankness. She didn't know, but she truly intended to try. It was only a dream, anyway.

"How about working for Fire Moth first?"

"The First Laboratory?"

"No. The military."

Elysia blinked. The military?

To deal with the next Herrscher? But Mobius shouldn't know there would be another Herrscher next.

"I can give you a platform. How much benefit you can obtain afterward will depend on your own abilities."

"And what you need to do is simple: kill the Herrscher you crippled earlier."

Mobius extended her hand.

Elysia's expression instantly darkened. That thing wasn't dead yet?

She covered her abdomen. The wound was still healing, flesh buds growing as the new skin became nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding area.

"Deal, Professor."

Mobius looked more expectant. Though she had never been a professor, she didn't care about such a small issue.

Survivor: An Yu

Level: 14

Skills: Replica Reconstruction, Artillery Support 3, Collective Will 4

Attributes: Attack Speed 3, Skill Frequency 2

"Bring the boss over!"

Just kidding. Even if he called it over now, he still couldn't beat it.

After all, he hadn't unlocked a second advanced skill yet. Though his reactions and motor nerves were incredibly close to those of an eighteen-year-old, don't make Brother An Yu laugh. Who cared about that stuff in a roguelike game?

In a roguelike, either the numbers had to be good or the mechanics had to be good. Controls? The boss could freeze space directly through its aura. How were you supposed to control your way out of that?

"By the way, which genius designer came up with an open-world roguelike where the boss runs all over the map and everything depends on luck?"

An Yu washed his face at a sink. To keep the final boss from finding him again, he directly mimicked the appearance of an NPC this time.

The underlying logic of this open-world roguelike seemed pretty solid. He planned to send the designer a message and see whether he could invite their team over.

The town streets were bustling with traffic. In this busy world, no one would pay attention to what an NPC was doing.