"It was only after that incident that I realized Kiana wasn't a normal person at all. Of course, the two beside her weren't normal either. I bet they could wipe out a hundred and one Fulis with a wave of their hands."
The big boy, using his past self as a unit of combat power, shook his head amusingly. "We went our separate ways after that. They were invited to join St. Freya Academy, the Valkyrie training school established by Schicksal in the Far East. I, on the other hand, was given some pension and hush money and extradited back home alone."
"But think about it. I was still a hot-blooded chuunibyou teenager back then. After witnessing the 'magnificence' of the Honkai world with my own eyes and being told that surviving the Great Honkai meant I had the potential to become strong, how could I not try every means to find a way to truly step into that world?"
"So, I did just that," Fuli said calmly. "I spent over half a year looking for a way to gain power. Two months after that, I climbed from a rookie helpless against a chicken to B-rank, becoming a somewhat famous solo mercenary."
"And that was when I met Kiana again."
...
Prometheus listened quietly to Fuli's story. Although he glossed over the process, considering his previous remarks about the brutal "rat race," shooting up to B-rank in just two months meant this guy was either extraordinarily talented or had a screw loose.
However, Fuli's attitude towards Kiana surprised her. Anyone with a bit of knowledge about romance knows that truly letting go isn't about deliberately acting angry or treating someone like a stranger, but being able to greet them with a smile when you bump into them on the street.
His calm and breezy attitude proved that Fuli wasn't just paying lip service; he had completely bid farewell to being a hopeless romantic.
For Prometheus, this was undoubtedly excellent.
He was her Host, after all.
Fuli had no idea his little AI was secretly labeling him a mental case. He adjusted his backpack and continued:
"It was during an emergency mission in Singapore. I won't go into the details, but at the celebration banquet afterwards, I ran into that white furball I hadn't seen for a year."
"She seemed to have just completed some important mission too and was gorging herself with a plate at the banquet. Her face was covered in grease, so not only did I not recognize her at first glance, but I almost got into a fight with her."
Because she dared to steal my Thermidor Lobster...
Fuli scratched his cheek, too embarrassed to mention such a bizarre trigger.
"We could be considered old friends, I suppose. We both made it out of Nagazora City. After experiencing disaster together, meeting again gave us a sense of mutual sympathy. Plus, after struggling for so long, you start to take some things lightly."
[Like the promise Miss Kiana made to be your bride when you were kids?]
"Just a childish joke. We were only eight back then. It's been so long, it's normal to forget." Steadying himself as the bus bumped, Fuli said, "So after the banquet, she and I snuck out behind our teammates' backs for a drink."
Bubble tea, that is. They were both minors.
"She secretly told me the intelligence about Jizo Mitama that time. Her tone was so boastful, and I was incredibly envious inside."
The little AI blinked. [Envious?]
"Yes, envious." Fuli sighed. "I don't know how St. Freya trains their warriors. After more than a year apart, not only did Kiana's strength show no improvement, but it had actually regressed quite a bit, to the point where I could even edge her out back then."
Even today, he still leaned towards the theory that St. Freya's training policy was about accumulating potential for a later burst, trading early weakness for rapid progress later on.
Otherwise, Fuli couldn't understand why Kiana would regress to being weaker than him. Surely the living conditions weren't so good that they spoiled her rotten? Right? Right?
"'If she, Kiana, can get her hands on Jizo Mitama, why can't I, Fuli?!'... Not just back then, even now, I still think that way."
Prometheus understood. [So the Host plans to intercept it in advance this time.]
"Anyway, after Jizo Mitama entered Schicksal, it was just kept in storage. Rather than letting them waste a heavenly treasure, I might as well put it to use."
Fuli argued plausibly, then felt helpless.
"It's just a pity that Schicksal actually has the right to waste heavenly treasures. Aside from defective products like the Key of Domination—sorry, 'slightly flawed future wife-type growth armament'—they hold at least half of the remaining Divine Keys. They are filthy rich."
The little AI withdrew her glare and asked in surprise, [Schicksal holds half of the Divine Keys?]
"That's right. Currently, there are ten complete Divine Keys unearthed in total. Among them, the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 11th are all with Schicksal."
Fuli listed them with 114,514% certainty.
"Besides the six mentioned above, the 3rd Divine Key appears in the future Coral City naval battle, held by Raven, one of the legends in the mercenary world; the 7th is in the hands of the S-rank fugitive Siegfried Kaslana who defected from Schicksal; the 8th is rumored to be the personal artifact of the Celestial Phoenix of Shenzhou and isn't shown lightly; the 9th is the symbol and inheritance of the Anti-Entropy Sovereign."
Prometheus looked strange. [Holding more than half of the Divine Keys, yet Schicksal hasn't unified the world and established a unified civilization?]
"How is that possible?" Fuli waved his hand. "I admit Schicksal is in the strongest tier among the major powers, but don't underestimate the others."
"If nothing else, 19th-century France and 20th-century Germany almost overturned Schicksal's rule over Europe twice. The latter even indirectly facilitated the independence of the North American Branch, which became Anti-Entropy."
"Besides, it's not like there are no divine weapons that can rival Divine Keys. The numerous products of Shenzhou's 'South Gate of Heaven' project, Anti-Entropy's Divine Mechas, and the War Gods built on the equator—don't any of these surpass a single Divine Key? After all, the rating for Divine Keys is 'EX' and not a separate 'Divine Key Class,' which already indicates they are the strongest, but by no means invincible."
Compared to the unfortunate Previous Era, which only encountered Honkai in modern times and had the Herrscher of Finality descend before a generation could grow up, the Current Era, thanks to Project EMBER, had a full five thousand years to study Honkai.
Even if limited by the form of civilization, making the efficiency of their chaotic, ork-style private tinkering far inferior to the collective efforts of modern society.
But under the keen exploration of geniuses as numerous as carp crossing the river over five thousand years, saying they surpassed the Previous Era as a whole might be an exaggeration, but super developments like "a villager popping out of a corner to share Honkai fusion technology with you" were definitely not impossible.
After all, as we all know, Honkai can do anything.
"Of course, for a rookie like me, none of the above makes much difference," Fuli teased. "Prometheus, you have to work hard. If one day the Finality Coordinator System really evolves to the level of a War God or Divine Mecha, your Host can cling to your thigh and charge in and out of millions of gods seven times!"
"..."
"..."
"..."
His words seemed to impact the worldview of Prometheus, a remnant of the old era, to a considerable extent, so much so that she couldn't recover for quite a while.
This actually made Fuli feel a tiny bit guilty. Looking at the silent little AI, he asked tentatively, "Babe, anything else you want to ask?"
[Yes,] the little girl answered dizzily. [The Host said before that Kiana's strength was B-rank, same as you. Then why was the Host left behind by her later?]
"I let you ask questions, not poke my wounds!"
Fuli rolled his eyes at her grumpily, but still opened his mouth to satisfy her wish:
"Actually, I'm not entirely sure why Kiana's strength far exceeded mine later on, because after parting ways at the Third Honkai Eruption in Nagazora, she and I only met three times in total."
[Do tell about the meetings.]
The recovered little AI took the opportunity.
"The first was the chance encounter at the Singapore celebration banquet I just mentioned. Let me think... that seems to have been in the summer of 2015."
Fuli looked up at the bus stop sign and found there was still some time before arrival.
So he continued, "The second time was in 2016, when the Herrscher of the Void resurrected."
[Resurrected?!!]
Color Prometheus shocked for a hundred years. Do people in the Current Era love courting death so much?
"Don't ask me. I don't know why the Herrscher of the Void, who should have been subjugated in the millennium year, was revived at Schicksal HQ. God knows what kind of trouble those big shots were stirring up!"
The lone wolf ended his complaint. "The chain reaction brought by the Herrscher of the Void's resurrection made global Honkai phenomena abnormally active, and the number of missions exploded. It was precisely then that I received the mission to 'assist the Immortal Blades unit in clearing up rioting Honkai beasts within Schicksal HQ territory.'"
"Those big organizations are really generous. One of my B-rank skills was the reward for completing that mission... Sorry, I digressed."
He coughed lightly. "Since it was clearing up the territory, we definitely had to search everywhere. I had already risen to A-rank by then, so the person in charge of the Immortal Blades—that strongest Schicksal Valkyrie, Durandal—allowed me to patrol alone."
"Then I picked up Kiana by the seaside."
[Huh?]
Prometheus indicated that this transition was a bit abrupt.
"Can't be helped. The fact is I picked her up by the seaside while wandering around." Fuli expressed that blaming him was useless. "Patrolling by the sea, I saw a white lump being beaten by waves on the beach from afar. Thinking it was a Deadwalker, I ran over to finish it off, but unexpectedly picked up an unconscious Kiana."
"That girl seemed to have just been through a battle. Not only was she bruised all over, but there wasn't even a fluctuating trace of Honkai Energy in her entire body."
Fuli recalled the scene back then. "I guess it had something to do with that spear of destiny stuck in her neck—don't ask what a spear of destiny is, that's just what was labeled on the empty injection casing. The name sure sounded domineering."
[Bruised all over? How did the Host know?]
The little AI's eyes sparkled like Columbus discovering the New World.
"I bandaged her, how could I not know?"
Fuli suppressed the urge to complain about this damn girl's unhealthy thoughts. "She was in a state of 'mailing a package under Big Ben—swinging while sending' (dying). She and I were friends, after all. Could I just leave her to be dinner for seagulls?"
Seagulls don't know what it means to be tender to the fair sex. If you dare to swing (lay there), they'll make you send (die).
[So the Host took the unable-to-resist Miss Kiana (bracket: unconscious) back home.]
"To be precise, back to the hotel," Fuli corrected. "Mercenaries make their home wherever they are. Even if I bought a house, I wouldn't have time to live in it."
[Then why didn't the Host return Miss Kiana to Schicksal? Didn't she belong to the Schicksal Far East Branch?]
It was fine when the little girl didn't mention it, but the moment she did, Fuli immediately clutched his heart in extreme pain.
"Coincidentally, the Schicksal Far East Branch she belonged to had rebelled en masse at that time. Everyone, including Branch Chief Theresa Apocalypse, was on the wanted list!"
Of course, Fuli wouldn't hand Kiana over to Schicksal, but every time he recalled the zeros following the bounty, he felt like his heart was being torn apart.
Just then, the car stereo started playing the theme song of Ming Dynasty in 1566. Although he didn't know why the driver's playlist was so trendy, it successfully resonated Fuli with the old Daoist priest from more than five hundred years ago. (A reference to the historical drama Ming Dynasty in 1566; the "old Daoist" is the Jiajing Emperor, who is famously depicted in the show as being obsessed with the imperial treasury's money.)
My money!!!
After waiting for a while and finding that he was still trapped in painful memories, Prometheus, whose curiosity (gossip) had been piqued, started urging him on.
[And then, and then, and then?]
"And then? I went out to do missions every day, and came back to change that girl's dressing and feed her."
Fuli propped up his chin. "Actually, Kiana opened her eyes on the third day. But I don't know what kind of shock she suffered before; she curled up in bed all day, wrapped in a blanket, staring straight at the ceiling with those dead, highlight-less big eyes, as if there was an Alien President claiming to have been on a UFO playing with a ten-meter-long shell at the bottom of the sea up there."
"I told her to eat properly, she wouldn't listen. I had to mash it up and force it down her throat."
"I told her to change her dressing herself, she wouldn't change it. Once I came back late and the wound almost festered."
"I advised her to take a bath herself, she ignored me. I had to wipe her body with a warm towel."
Babies are easier to take care of than her, because babies are tiny, and they will actually cry and fuss when hungry or thirsty.
[The Host experienced the bitterness of being an old father years in advance.]
That was very high EQ phrasing.
"Come on! Being a father allows you to experience the joy of raising a child, at least. I didn't even have that satisfaction."
[How so?]
"Kiana's body recovered very slowly, slower than a normal person. It was as if something inside her was inhibiting her recovery... But no matter how much it was inhibited, after swallowing more than twenty pills I brought back, her body more or less recovered."
Produced by the Alchemy Commission of the Luofu, everyone who uses it says it's good.
Fuli, who had been complaining excitedly, suddenly calmed down. Watching the buildings passing by outside the window, he said in an ethereal tone:
"So, when I returned to the hotel after work one day, I found that she had left without saying goodbye."
...