Himeko · Setting out

"Himeko! Himeko!"

Watching the golden light flash across the screen, the girl eagerly awaited the navigator she had been longing for.

The result did not disappoint: an ordinary Himeko, with no suffix to her name, appeared before her.

"? Fine, at least it's still Himeko."

Undeterred, the girl rubbed her hands together.

After all, some unlucky souls lost their fifty-fifty to Himeko while pulling for Himeko. She did not mind being one of them once.

Just once.

When she pressed the button for her ninth ten-pull, golden light finally appeared again.

There in the center of the screen was an ordinary Himeko, with no suffix to her name!

"Where's my guarantee?"

The girl's eyes widened, her brain freezing as she failed to comprehend what was happening.

"Hiss... one more try."

She did not understand the situation, but perhaps things would turn around if she kept pulling?

Another ten-pull brought another ordinary Himeko, with no suffix to her name, accompanied by nine sneers.

"? Now I refuse to believe this!"

Flushed with anger, the girl pressed the ten-pull button again.

Ten ordinary Himekos, with no suffixes to their names, lined up neatly on the screen.

"Hmm...?"

The girl widened her eyes and tilted her head, trying to make sense of everything before her.

She checked the banner. It was not the standard banner.

"I didn't pull on the wrong one. This is the rate-up banner!"

The girl took a screenshot and started recording her screen, ready to do another ten-pull, document this wretched, game-breaking bug, and demand hefty compensation.

This ten-pull finally turned out differently. What appeared on the screen was finally not the ordinary, coffee-brewing older woman.

Instead, it was an Astral Express barreling toward her.

Before the girl could react, the Astral Express burst out of the screen and slammed into her forehead.

"Guh-gah-"

With a scream, the girl lost consciousness.

Time flew by. Two months later...

A lovely figure, not particularly tall, stood beside an abandoned railway track.

She had long red hair, its ends dotted with starlight. Golden light shimmered in her eyes. She wore a long white glove on her right hand, while the glove covering her left palm bore an exquisite pattern.

A red cape hung down her back, and the red lining on either side of her skirt was likewise dotted with golden starlight.

This was the girl who had been sent here two months ago by the Astral Express inside her screen.

She should now be called Himeko, navigator of the Astral Express.

Though she did not yet have an Astral Express.

At that moment, Himeko was holding a wrench amid tools scattered across the ground, studying the engine of the abandoned train before her.

She was supposedly studying it, but Himeko knew nothing about this. It had not been her university major in her previous life.

When making repairs, all she could do was open an AI.

"Doujiao, Doujiao, how do I fix this engine in front of me?"

"I'll give you the most direct, unambiguous, straight-to-the-point answer: first do this and this, then that and that, and you'll have the engine repaired..."

Whatever the AI told her to do, she did.

Then the engine suddenly jerked and shuddered, spewing black smoke. Despite Himeko's quick reflexes and swift retreat, it still left her face black with soot.

"Doujiao, Doujiao, after I did what you said, the engine looks like it's about to explode."

"Haha, you caught me. Actually, what I said before was wrong. You need to do this and this first, then that and that, to fix it."

Himeko seriously suspected this thing was fooling her, but she had no other options now. She could only try to bring a dead train back to life.

The caretaker responsible for watching this stretch of abandoned railway was probably about to wake up. She had to hurry.

Had she known it would be this hard, she would have put more sleeping pills in the coffee.

There was no time to worry about appearances now. Her face as black as Zhang Fei's, Himeko got to work again, trying to repair the engine.

A few minutes later, Himeko stared at the burning engine before her and sank into thought as the AI's apology sounded from her phone.

She called softly, "System."

A system panel visible only to Himeko appeared before her.

[Name: Himeko (Astral Express coffee proprietor)]

[Roleplay fidelity: 1% (Count yourself lucky you don't have the curse of weathering.)]

[Inventory: Star Rail Pass (Proof of membership in the Nameless. Even without a train yet, you've still got to have a sense of ceremony.), coffee (Seriously, even you don't know what you might concoct with it. Whoever drinks it is in for a treat.)]

[Current mission: Get the Astral Express running again (Buy one if you have money; steal or rob if you don't. You should be grateful we haven't made you pedal a tricycle in this startup phase while stubbornly insisting it's the Astral Express's tricycle form.)]

This was the roleplaying system that had come with her transmigration. By increasing her roleplay fidelity or completing missions, she could earn various rewards.

Repairing the Astral Express was the first mission the system had given Himeko.

"So, where is the Astral Express?"

The system's answer to Himeko's question was straightforward.

[Just find any vehicle. As long as it runs properly, it can be the Astral Express. Provided it's a train-the kind that needs tracks.]

With a goal in mind, Himeko had tried many methods.

At first, Himeko had planned to find a wealthy household or government official who could afford a train and demonstrate her powers-by summoning the Starblazer, for instance, or aiming an orbital cannon-to show them she was worth investing in.

Unfortunately, Himeko had failed.

She could not pull the Starblazer out of her briefcase, nor did she have an orbital cannon. She did not even have a monomolecular saw.

The only thing she had to offer was coffee.

A bodyguard stepped forward and took a sip first, finding Himeko's coffee so delicious it simply had to be tried. The boss behind him came forward and tasted another cup Himeko offered. One sip left him unconscious for an entire day.

Then Himeko was thrown out the door. They also warned her that if she dared show up with swill again, they would plant her in the ground like ginseng.

After repeated unsuccessful attempts, Himeko had been forced to resort to this last option: get friendly with the guard watching the abandoned station, catch him off guard and knock him out with a mouthful of drugged coffee, then rush inside, find a train, and try to bring it back from the dead.

Naturally, she had failed, and gotten a face full of soot for her trouble.

"Ah... this is so hard."

Wrench in hand, Himeko wore a bitter expression. In her anger, she wanted to dismantle the train before her into parts, but that seemed somewhat out of character.

As an adult, she ought to solve problems calmly now. The guard who had woken up behind her, for instance, was a problem.

"Hey! You with the wrench! Don't move!"

Himeko turned, revealing her soot-blackened face. The guard jumped at the sight.

"Holy shit! How did you turn into an African savage?!"

An African savage? That was fair enough.

With luck this rotten, having a dark face was only natural.

Himeko wanted to offer a few excuses, but before she could open her mouth, a strange phenomenon appeared in the sky.

A beam of light shone down from beyond the sky and landed on Himeko.

"A spotlight, too? You've got some nerve!"

The guard was furious. In all his life, he had never seen such a brazen thief, coming out to steal with her own lighting.

Right up until Himeko's body slowly lifted off the ground and began flying skyward, he remained filled with righteous indignation.

"Girl! What's going on? Are aliens taking you away? Don't worry! I'll poke you down with a bamboo pole right now!"

Himeko knew that nothing the guard below did would help.

"Actually, I'd already guessed something like this would happen."

As a transmigrator, she was bound to face some bizarre incidents after transmigrating. It was no big deal.