Honkai: Fire Moth Herrschers

「Anata ga suki! Watashi mo suki! ♪ (You love me, I love you!)」

「Elishia ga daisuki da yo! ♪ (Elysia really loves you!)」

Michael drowsily reached out from under the covers, swiped his phone screen, and timely turned off the cringe-inducing alarm clock that Elysia had personally recorded.

"Ugh..." He got up and stretched. Immer, on the other bed in the bedroom, was curled up, rubbing the blanket between his legs...

Michael decisively pulled out his phone and recorded a video.

"Immer, Immer..." He pretended to be nonchalant and patted Immer's butt.

"What is it… Sub-Captain…"

"It's time to get up for training!"

"Uh… ah! Sub-Captain, are you okay? We just finished a mission, shouldn't we have three days off?"

"What day is it today?"

"The last day of our vacation!"

"Oh… oh…" Michael scratched his head awkwardly.

"Speaking of which, Sub-Captain, you wouldn't have been getting up this early to train these past two days, would you?"

"Uh…"

"Alright, Sub-Captain, you're amazing!"

Immer rolled over, lying flat on his back, his eyes blankly staring at the ceiling. A few seconds later, his head tilted, and the sound of snoring came again.

Michael silently took another picture of him with his flag raised.

After spending the morning outputting damage onto simulated Honkai beasts, Michael walked out of the training room, yawning.

He glanced at the data: "Mm, good, surpassed Ellie!"

But then, he felt a sense of emptiness in his heart, as if he had forgotten something important.

"Um… that… Sub-Captain Michael…" The girl at the door suddenly waved at Michael.

"What is it?"

Her face was flushed, and she pursed her lips, trying hard to suppress a smile, and pointed to the storage cabinet behind her. "Your phone rang just now."

"Was the ringtone good?"

"Good… pfft… I didn't hear anything. I'm going to the restroom!"

Michael took out his phone. The first thing that caught his eye was a series of calls from Elysia, and then he saw her text messages:

[7:27]Elysia: "We agreed to go to the city to see Pardo today. We're leaving at eight o'clock. Don't forget!"

[8:03]Elysia: "Michael! If you don't show up within ten minutes, I'm going alone!"

[8:33]Elysia: "Michael, you're done for! I'm going to find Pardo by myself. Come if you want!"

[8:34]Elysia: "Elysia has decided to ignore you for a day!"

"Crap!" Michael slapped his forehead. He didn't even have time to eat lunch and ran outside.

Along the way, many Fire Moth staff recognized this young man who had become famous in the past two months, but before they could salute, Michael had already run far away.

At the gate, he was on leave, so after showing his ID card, the guards didn't stop him.

But when he stepped out of the base, he remembered that Ellie was responsible for Pardo's food, clothing, and accommodation. He didn't even know where she lived.

After thinking about it, he took out his phone and sent a message to Ellie.

[Message failed to send]

He wasn't giving up. "Tch, just blacklisted, it's okay, I can still ask Pardo!"

But after flipping through his contact list three times, he still couldn't find Pardo.

Then he remembered that Pardo's phone was new, and he had always forgotten to add Pardo's friend account after Ellie had asked him to.

He quickly flipped through his chat history with Ellie, found Pardo's account, and added her as a friend.

[The other party has rejected your friend request]

"I… Ellie, you…"

Michael returned to the dorm. Immer had already gotten up and was playing a game on the Fire Moth's internal network.

"Sub-Captain, you're back?"

There was no response.

Immer took off his headphones, turned around, and saw Michael lying on the bed, using a pair of underwear to cover his face and block out the light.

His mouth twitched. He pulled out his phone, took a picture of Michael, made it into an emoji, and sent it to Elysia.

「Anata ga suki! Watashi mo suki! ♪ (You love me, I love you!)」

「Elishia ga daisuki da yo! ♪ (Elysia really loves you!)」

Michael jumped up from the bed. His underwear had long flown off to who knows where. He took out his phone and saw:

[Pardofelis has requested to add you as a friend]

"What a roundabout way…"

Although he was complaining, Michael's body was very honest, and he quickly pressed the accept button.

Michael: "Ellie, I was wrong!"

There was silence for a long time on the other end, and then an emoji of him lying on the bed, with underwear on his head, was sent back.

Michael clenched his fist, looking at Immer, who was engrossed in the game, with an unkind expression.

"Ellie, I was wrong!"

"Ellie, I was wrong!"

"Ellie, I was wrong!"

After saying the important thing three times, Michael sent another emoji of a cat kneeling down.

Pardofelis: "You…"

Pardofelis: "No matter what's on your mind, take a good rest today."

For the rest of the afternoon, Michael typed countless replies into the text box, but didn't send a single one.

One thing that Elysia might not know was that every time she showed Michael a bit of kindness, it was equivalent to indirectly spurring him to put in ten times the effort.

Michael smiled helplessly. In a way, he had indeed rested for the entire afternoon.

He hadn't eaten lunch, so Michael simply swept away the remaining half-can of compressed biscuits from the past two days.

"You love me, I love you, Elysia is fond of you!"

Michael took out his phone again, his eyes twitching slightly – why was every ringtone this?

He first muted the phone, then opened his messages.

[Unknown user message: I gave BRK half a day off to be with H. Come to my lab, quick.]

Half an hour later, in Mobius's lab.

"Oh, my little lab rat, it's been a while since we've seen each other. Why are you looking so glum?"

Michael ignored Mobius, who was habitually acting up, and instead asked, "Where's Vill-V?"

"What, are you interested in that girl?"

"No, I'm just curious. After all, I was the one who caught her. I heard she was sent here, so why can't I see her?"

Michael was a little guilty, but because of that, he mustered even more courage to meet Mobius's gaze.

"I'm a bit interested in her robotics technology, but she doesn't want to talk to me. What can I do? I had to have the command department take her away!"

Mobius spread her hands, looking very helpless.

Michael even heard a hint of gritted teeth in her words, but he didn't know what Vill-V had done to offend her.

"Anyway, it's good that she wasn't discovered." Michael felt relieved. That Vill-V was of course not the real one, nor was it the robot they had encountered in Twilight Street before.

Although she could make the robot look roughly the same, it was too difficult to mix the real with the fake due to material limitations. But with Michael, this high-end 3D printer, that wasn't a problem.

That's right, the Vill-V that was captured was—a super-bionic robot co-produced by Vill-V and Michael.

It was very beautiful, wasn't it? Unfortunately, it was a mute and needed to be charged.

"Okay, forget about that madwoman. Let's talk about you."

Mobius tiptoed. The young man in front of her was growing up so fast that she now had to look up to him.

"How does it feel to use the Second Herrscher's core?"

"Here it comes!" Michael's heart skipped a beat, but he had long been mentally prepared for this topic.

"That's a simulated creation, not a real Second Herrscher core."

Mobius tilted her head. "As expected, your authority is to understand and construct?"

Michael nodded. Theoretically, that was indeed the case, but the Herrscher core seemed to be a bit special. Michael was able to construct it just by touching it, but even now, he hadn't been able to fully understand this gem – this ability to construct before understanding seemed to be the talent of Welt Joyce in the later era. Clearly, it had been watered down in Michael's case.

But then he shook his head. "The Second Herrscher's authority is space. I don't need to tell the doctor that, right?"

"Hmm." Mobius made a meaningless sound. "The Fire Moth has renamed the Second Herrscher – the Herrscher of the Void. Oh dear, they're now searching for the First Herrscher's whereabouts. What do you think the First Herrscher should be called?"

Michael ignored Mobius's teasing and said in a deep voice, "But I encountered a problem when using the simulated Second Herrscher core."

"What problem?"

"A space traversal of a hundred meters consumed almost half of my energy. Even if my energy is infinite in a sense, this consumption is still a bit too much."

There was only a small amount of Honkai energy in the Herrscher core. The energy would only flow through the imaginary number channel when it was used. If he used the previous games as an analogy, it was like a character not having any SP when they entered the field, but the Herrscher could increase a lot of SP every second through the imaginary number, seemingly endless, but it still needed time to recover after using a big move.

This was also why the Second Herrscher was attracted to the Honkai energy storage tanks after frequently teleporting for ranged attacks back then.

And the Second Herrscher's core was a closed-loop, dead thing. After the Herrscher died, there would be no next suitable user. Michael was using energy from the imaginary number to drive it, which was like exploiting a bug, but he didn't expect the cost to be so high.

"You're really quite honest." Mobius complained, she was clearly a bit disappointed. "As expected, you haven't mastered the authority of the Void after all…"

"But I have an idea that might solve this problem, and the Second Herrscher's core can still be used by humans."

"What idea?"

"Why not make the Herrscher core into a weapon, um, let's call it a Key of God. Set a fixed rated power, fill it with Honkai energy in advance, and use it to release the Second Herrscher's power."

Mobius's eyes lit up. It was like she was seeing Michael for the first time. She looked him up and down.

"Ah… I see, so this is the First Herrscher… You really are a Herrscher born to serve humanity."

"What do you mean?"

Mobius's sudden praise made Michael a little confused.

"Look, the Second Herrscher's authority has no connection to human civilization. Her purpose is to destroy human civilization. But you… you're different. The First Herrscher's authority: understanding—construction, this power is like a creator… It implies countless possibilities. It means that your strength actually grows with the growth of human civilization… Hmph, knowledge is power, that's something those old antiques used to say to哄(hǒng - coax) kids. I didn't expect it to come true for you!"

"Yes, that's how it is." Michael smiled, and then, as if he had suddenly made up his mind, he said to Mobius, "Actually, I have an even bigger idea that would be of more help to humanity."

"What idea?"

Michael's mention of the "Key of God" just now had made Mobius look at him with new eyes. Naturally, she was looking forward to the following conversation even more.

However, Michael said with a smile, "I have a condition: I want the technical principles of Soul Steel."

Mobius didn't even think about it, turned around, and started typing on the computer. After a while, the printer spat out a thick file.

Michael took it, flipped through it, and after confirming that it was useful, he put it away.

"Then, it's your turn, little lab rat."

Mobius looked at Michael expectantly.

Michael took a deep breath. He didn't want to say that somewhat cruel plan, but unfortunately, humans in this era might have no other choice.

He knew that after this plan was proposed, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even more people would die because of it. Most of the survivors wouldn't be able to confidently call themselves humans, and the damage caused might be more serious than what the Honkai brought.

But still, they had no choice.

Moreover, he was just making this plan come to light a few years earlier.

And what helped him make up his mind wasn't just Ellie's smile, but also what she had sent him:

"No matter what's on your mind, take a good rest today."

And the expectations that everyone in the Fire Moth had for him. In fact, he hadn't noticed this at first. It was as if he had unknowingly transformed from a pitiful person who had lost all his teammates into an idol for all the soldiers.

The gazes focused on him had never been so intense.

"Because of this, I can't let people's expectations down. Because of this, I want to save this world even more, I want to…"

"Then let the people who come next hate me."

Michael suddenly froze – could this be how Kevin had gradually become obsessed?

The thought flashed by, not causing the slightest ripple.

He kept silently repeating "I'm sorry" in his heart, both to those who were about to die and to the conscience he had erased for that moment.

But could these things ever be explained by good and evil?

Just like the woman in front of him, could she be judged by good and evil?

The separation of good and evil, unyielding, was just a child's fairy tale after all.

No… she… only she was kind from beginning to end…

Mobius wasn't short. Michael only needed to lower his head slightly to be able to lean close to her ear.

"So and so, like this and like that…"

Mobius's eyes gradually lit up. She also leaned close to Michael's ear and asked, "According to your plan, they can't really be called humans…"

"Dr. Mobius, is your definition of humanity so narrow?"

Michael asked back.

His breath brushed against the fluff on Mobius's earlobe.

And his words were like a sharp arrow that had struck Mobius's heart.

Mobius, without showing any expression, steadied herself on the desk. In her excitement, she even felt a little weak in the legs.

She closed her eyes and couldn't help but think of the Second Herrscher's corpse, which was on the other side of the wall – what a perfect life it was… The power she had displayed, the way she had controlled her authority, it was all dazzling…

But there were two shortcomings. First, no matter how awe-inspiring she was when she was alive, at this moment, it was just a corpse in the dissection room.

Second, she used to be a human, but now, even if she looked like it, she was no longer a human of the present…

But these two shortcomings didn't exist in the boy in front of her.

He might not be as awe-inspiring as the Second Herrscher, and he might not have displayed any terrifying power, but his authority was still far beyond ordinary people. In her eyes, it was even closer to the level of a god than the Second Herrscher's authority…

And most importantly – he was both a Herrscher and a human.

"Michael…"

"What is it, Doctor?"

"Do you know what I've always wanted?"

"No."

Mobius smiled. She didn't say it out loud but instead said the sentence in her heart:

"By my hand… to ascend to godhood."

"Beep beep beep… beep beep beep…"

Mobius took a step back, taking a seat in her chair.

"What's wrong?"

"Doctor, something happened to Vill-V!"