"Miss Sushang, this way, please."
"Oh, alright, alright! Your Schicksal HQ isn't that big. This young lady knows it like the back of her hand. Besides, there are signs overhead. There's no need for someone to deliberately lead me!"
The young woman munched on a meat bun she'd 'borrowed' from the Schicksal cafeteria a short while ago. The fragrant aroma of grease wafted along with the hot white steam down the corridor. Considering this was a floating harbor, the smell would probably linger here all day—the even younger girl leading the way in front of her offered an awkward smile.
"Miss Sushang, it's not a matter of whether you're familiar with the way or not. It's a matter of etiquette... really. You've come all the way from Shenzhou, so you're naturally a guest. How can a host not entertain a guest and let them find their own way around the host's home?"
Li Sushang pursed her lips and mumbled almost inaudibly, "Actually... I don't have to be a guest..."
"Eh? Miss Sushang, what did you just say?"
"Ah... Ha... I was praising your Schicksal chefs! Their skills are amazing! These meat buns are much tastier than Master's! Sigh! Ever since Lixue... Martial Aunt Lixue was snatched away by you Schicksal folks, the food quality at Mount Taixuan dropped drastically. I've had to sneak down the mountain to buy buns during morning practice several times."
"Mm, about that... I heard Miss Lixue gave the chefs a lot of tips on Chinese cooking, so the Chinese food in the Schicksal cafeteria suddenly became increasingly popular... Ah, um, but I just joined Schicksal, so I don't really know the specifics. It's all hearsay..."
"Sigh..."
Li Sushang sighed and re-examined the girl leading the way.
The girl was probably fourteen or fifteen, yet she already had to bear the responsibilities of a Valkyrie... Aha, Li Sushang felt a little like laughing—for the era she was born in, a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl wasn't young at all; they could even get married and have children. And she herself had been kicked down the mountain by her master to "test her sword" at that age.
However, this relatively peaceful modern society had changed many of her views. She always felt that these Valkyries, not even eighteen, some not even sixteen... it was somewhat cruel.
But there was really no helping it. Combat skills and tactical training required a lot of time, and personal martial arts even more so. As for Sushang herself, she had been practicing swordsmanship with her mother since she could remember. At the age of five, she was sent to Mount Taixuan to be personally taught by her master and grandmaster. She practiced for a full ten years before being allowed to descend the mountain and wander the Jianghu, and the result...
"Eh? So where did Lixue... Martial Aunt Lixue go? Is she on a combat mission? That Raksha guy always used to send Lixue to lead the way."
(Translator's Note: "Raksha" is a nickname Li Sushang uses for Otto, referring to his European/Western origin in a somewhat playful, potentially derogatory way, common in some older Chinese fiction contexts when referring to foreigners.)
"Er... I don't know about that either. I haven't heard of Miss Lixue having any missions. However, all A-rank Valkyries have currently been recalled and are on standby, ready for deployment at any moment..."
Sushang's eyebrows shot up. She looked around again. Besides the two of them, there was almost no one moving in the corridor. The atmosphere was a bit strange, and a bit tense. But she wasn't surprised at all; after all, she had come today specifically for this matter.
"Is that so... What about you? What's your name?"
"Ah... Me? Is Miss Sushang asking for my name?"
"Who else? You took the trouble to show me the way, I should at least know your name. That's polite!"
"Ah... Ah, it's really nothing."
The young girl, praised, was momentarily flustered. She stopped, turned sideways somewhat awkwardly, her profile and earlobes flushed crimson.
"Um... My name is Ragna, C-rank Valkyrie Ragna Lodbrok!"
Having said that, probably feeling that the "C-rank Valkyrie" part was a bit..., she immediately added defensively:
"But! Although I haven't been a Valkyrie for long, I'm already preparing for next year's B-rank Valkyrie assessment!"
"Very good! Full of spirit!"
Sushang pumped her fist, loudly praising the girl's youthful energy!
"Mm-hmm, Ragna, I understand your determination, so... could you please move aside for a moment? You're blocking my way..."
"Eh... Eh! Lord Overseer!"
Ragna's head was gently patted. She slowly turned around to see Otto Apocalypse's exasperated face. Lifting her gaze slightly higher, she saw the sign for the men's restroom.
"Er... Er... Good afternoon, Lord Overseer..."
She silently retreated two steps, still muttering in surprise:
"No way... The Lord Overseer actually needs to use the restroom!"
The muscles on Otto's cheeks twitched violently. He lowered his voice, deliberately feigning seriousness as he retorted, "Oh? Being human, why wouldn't I need to use the restroom?"
"Ah... Ahahaha, it's mainly because we rarely see the Lord Overseer outside his office..."
"Alright, Ragna, your task is complete. I'll personally escort Miss Sushang the rest of the way."
"Oh... Understood! C-rank Valkyrie Ragna, mission complete!"
The girl saluted and fled the scene as if escaping.
"Hey! I say! Raksha, what are you being so stern for? Look how scared you made the little lady!"
Otto shook his head and sighed helplessly, "Just a joke. I say, you usually love to joke around. When someone else makes a joke, how come you can't tell?"
"Ah... Ah... Am I like that..."
The corners of Otto's mouth curled up. He said no more. Sushang didn't cause any more fuss either. She rubbed her head and quietly followed behind Otto. In a few steps, they reached his opulent Overseer's office.
"Alright, you've come all the way from Shenzhou. Did something happen?"
Sushang sat obediently opposite Otto. She heard his words but didn't rush to answer, because her gaze had already been captivated by a figurine on Otto's desk.
"This is..."
For some reason, an impulse surged within her. Even though she knew it was wrong to touch someone else's things without permission, she couldn't help but reach out, her hand extending towards the white-haired girl figurine that felt inexplicably familiar.
"Hm?"
Otto snatched the figurine back in front of him first, then, as if nothing had happened, stored it safely in a wooden box that appeared out of thin air.
Although her action was stopped, Sushang hadn't given up. She lowered her head, feigning indifference with clumsy acting, and asked, "That figurine just now... why did it feel somewhat familiar?"
"Oh? This one, it's natural to feel familiar. I sent you a CD before. This is from it, a role-playing game I personally developed and haven't released publicly—Kallen Fantasy VIII."
"Kallen Fantasy? Oh, oh... Oh... Now that you mention it, I remember. But there are no computers on Mount Taixuan, and you said it's not for public release, so I didn't dare take it to an internet cafe or arcade. So, up until now, I've only seen the cover of the CD..."
This was another half-truth. When she first felt Kallen's figurine was familiar, it was indeed because of the visual memory Kallen Fantasy VIII had left her. But...
The moment she heard Kallen's name, she had actually remembered.
"Raksha, Kallen... that's the name of your childhood sweetheart, right?"
One, two, three—Otto took three slow breaths before leisurely replying, "Yes, but I just borrowed the name."
"Hmm? Only the name? What about her appearance?"
"..."
Otto leaned back on the blood-red sofa, silent. He extended his right hand, and half a glass of red wine appeared in it. He took a sip before speaking again:
"Her appearance... I can't quite recall it clearly anymore."
"How could that be! Isn't this a game you personally made? Kallen must have been modeled after your memory of her, right?"
"...The problem lies with memory."
Otto swirled the wine glass. The floor-to-ceiling curtains opened automatically without any voice command, allowing the brilliant glow of the setting sun outside to flood the room.
Otto stared blankly at the wine glass in his hand. Different shades of red swirled within the glass, light and shadow intermingling, beautiful indeed, yet his eyes held only deep weariness.
"The problem lies with memory, Sushang. After all, those were people and events from five hundred years ago. Five hundred years later, even if I try my best to see everything from that time, it's merely like looking at flowers in a fog. Even her, even her, in my eyes, is just a blurry figure. I can only see snow-white long hair and azure eyes, and the confident curve of her lips. Everything else, I can't see clearly."
Li Sushang knew what he was talking about. Kallen... this person didn't have much to do with her; Kallen's death even occurred before she was born. But...
But along with Otto's calm, unwavering tone, she inexplicably felt sad, heartbroken.
Yet she understood clearly, she wasn't heartbroken for the ethereal Kallen whom she had never met... Perhaps a little, all tragedies make people feel pain. But ultimately, this heartache was more for the man in front of her.
"I've heard you tell her story before."
"Mm... That was five hundred years ago. Which year specifically..."
"Using your calendar, it was 1496."
"You remember it clearly."
"Well, it was the year my master kicked me down the mountain to test my sword, how could I not have a deep impression?"
Sushang forced a bright smile. Yes, that was the year she descended the mountain alone to test her sword. Although, thanks to the efforts of several martial uncles, Mount Taixuan disciples were spread all over the world, her master didn't allow her to use the name of Mount Taixuan, but casually made up something like the "Supreme Unfettered Sect"... And precisely because of this, even now, when she introduced herself, she still used this name... Of course, nowadays in Shenzhou, no one was unaware that the Supreme Unfettered Sect was a branch of the Mount Taixuan Sect.
But... none of that was important.
What was important was that, in her first foray into the Jianghu that year, in the Western Regions where yellow sand filled the sky, she met...
"At that time, you were carrying two coffins. One was Kallen's, and the other was..."
"My younger sister, Eleanor."
"Oh... Now that you mention it, this young lady remembers."
Sushang leaned forward, resting her upper body on Otto's desk. She tilted her head, gazing at the setting sun outside the window, silent, her thoughts unknown.
Otto wasn't in a hurry to speak either. Logically, as the Schicksal Overseer who held absolute power, he shouldn't be so leisurely.
But who asked him to have Amber, that useful tool of a person? As for some obscure, unspeakable things... Hehe, if Schicksal were to fall apart just because Otto Apocalypse neglected his duties for a few months or a year, it would mean he had truly made no progress in these five hundred years.
Besides...
"I'm sorry, I made you talk about those sad things again."
Sushang, still lying on the table, her voice had become somewhat muffled.
"It's nothing. Although they are indeed sad things, I've been sad about them every day for decades, centuries. I've gotten used to it."
Sushang nodded silently.
At first listen, it seemed to make sense. If Sushang put herself in his shoes, if he were truly immersed in past grief, he wouldn't have made Kallen's image into a game, or even made Kallen into a figurine and placed it in front of him.
That way, wouldn't seeing Kallen just make him sadder?
Right? Right? Right? Right... probably... It must be...
Such words could only deceive oneself, right?
[But well... Hah! What does that have to do with this young lady... This young lady just feels that such a good man, yet he left everything of himself five hundred years ago, it's truly somewhat... pitiful... This young lady has a chivalrous heart, she just likes to help pitiful people!]
"Hey! Raksha, repeat after me: Abandon illusions, recognize reality, the world is beautiful!"
Sushang suddenly jumped up from her seat, raising her hands high, looking somewhat comical.
Otto smiled, "Where did you learn that?"
"A mental hospital!"
"...How did you get in there..."
"Oh... That day I snuck down the mountain to play. At the bus stop, a driver said the bus ride was free, so I got on. Turns out, he drove a whole busload of people straight to a mental hospital. I kept insisting I wasn't sick, but the doctors and nurses there all said only sick people think they're not sick, and healthy people all think they're sick. What kind of crazy logic is that?"
"It wasn't until the third day that the police came, saying the driver was hired to transport a busload of mental patients to the hospital. But this guy got off halfway to buy a roast chicken, and when he came back, he found everyone on the bus had run off. He was afraid of getting his pay docked, so... so..."
"Pfft... Hahaha... Hahahahaha... Ahahahahahaha..."
"Aiyah, Raksha, what are you laughing at!"
Sushang was both embarrassed and angry, but ultimately, wasn't she the one who had brought up this embarrassing incident that should have been buried?
But people are often like that; on the one hand, they want to use their embarrassing stories to attract someone's attention, but when that person actually laughs at it, it makes them even more embarrassed.
"Aaaah! Raksha, you're not allowed to laugh!"
Sushang plopped down onto the desk, her hands formed into palms, and she slapped Otto's face hard, squashing his facial muscles together. This time, Otto really couldn't laugh.
"Alright, alright, I won't laugh."
Otto made a promise, and only then did Sushang pout and sit back down in her seat.
"Hm? What was I saying just now?"
He had clearly decided in his mind just a moment ago to talk about serious matters, but once the words left his mouth, somehow, they veered onto another path:
"That was... in 1476."
"Hm? What did you say?"
"I said, the year she and she... Kallen and Eleanor died, was 1476. The spring of 1476."
"Raksha, you..."
"Listen to me."
He clearly said, "Listen to me," but as his voice fell, he himself fell into a long silence.
"If... If you're not happy... then don't say it..."
Sushang's eyelids kept twitching. She both wanted to continue listening and didn't want Raksha to continue speaking.
Chewing on those painful memories alone in the dead of night was painful enough, let alone recounting them in full?
"No, it's not like that."
Otto's eyelids drooped, looking absent-minded, yet he easily saw through Sushang's heart.
"Perhaps those memories do indeed mean pain. But I have deeply felt the powerlessness of memory. Sushang, more painful than retelling these things is watching once crystal-clear memories become blurry, and finally, being powerless. So, I'm telling you this story, consider it as helping me remember. If one day I forget something important... you can tell me."
Sushang swallowed. She wanted to say her memory was really bad, she'd been criticized by her private tutor countless times as a child, but she didn't dare say it. She was afraid Raksha would take the opportunity to give up on continuing.
So, she just listened quietly:
"You know the story before this. I listened to my older sister Risa's instigation and opened a special prison within Kolosten—a prison holding Honkai Beasts. No, at this point, what need is there to hide it. It was a laboratory, an underground laboratory, specifically for live experiments on Honkai Beasts, and I was half the owner of that laboratory.
"By the time I shook off the few Honkai Beasts缠ing me and returned to the surface, the entire Kolosten was already engulfed in flames. Before I could react to what had happened, I saw people fighting, just one blow, a battle that leveled all the buildings in Kolosten except for the church, which had a protective array."
Sushang's mouth twitched. She remembered her master and grandmaster seemed to have been to Kolosten. Could it be...
"At that time, I was completely clueless about the situation, nor did I know if Kallen had been saved. I just ran desperately towards the church, because the gallows prepared for Kallen was there... But, when I got there, everything was gone. I could only continue searching... But not long after, the entire city was submerged in ice and snow. My body couldn't withstand that temperature, and I soon fainted in the snow... When I woke up again, the ice and snow were gone, and all traces of frostbite on my body were also gone. As far as the eye could see, the ground was covered in lilies as white as snow."
"And then... what..."
"My father died directly in that disaster. The Castle Council also suffered heavy casualties, its power greatly diminished. On the field full of lilies, my sister Risa, holding my elder brother's son, Marcel, inherited the position of Schicksal Overseer. And she rebuked me for allowing Honkai Beasts into the city and for colluding with outsiders to disrupt the execution ceremony, and exiled me. I was stripped of the Apocalypse surname and forbidden to ever return to Kolosten."
"Ah... Then you..."
"Oh, right, she also portrayed Kallen and Eleanor as villains who colluded with outsiders to try and subvert Schicksal. But only I know that it was precisely the two of them who saved Kolosten."
"Ah... You, how did you know?"
"While Risa and Marcel were holding the Overseer's coronation ceremony at the church entrance, I found the weapon Eleanor once used on the field full of lilies—the Key of Creation, Abyss Flower."
"Er... Is that the one you used to heal my injuries?"
"Mm."
"But, in the end, you only saw a weapon. How could you be sure they... Er, I don't mean it that way, just curious..."
"I understand. I know you're not that kind of person."
Just a simple sentence, and Sushang was instantly smitten.
And Otto didn't say much more. He reached out to the air beside him, and a pink letter, almost brand new, appeared in his hand.
"This was on the ground beside Abyss Flower."
Sushang took the letter. The handwriting on the paper was clearly a woman's, neat and tidy, with playful curls at the end of the strokes. Some punctuation marks were even replaced with cute musical notes.
She couldn't help but read it aloud:
"This city was saved by the sacrifice of these two. They gave their blood to the Key of Creation in exchange for the lilies that will never wither on this field. They used their lives to save a group of people who neither loved nor understood them. They are true heroes. But, I'm sorry, I took their bodies away. Bodies drained of blood by Abyss Flower are not pretty, and beautiful girls, even in death, should leave their loved ones with their most beautiful side. Of course, a corpse is definitely not beautiful, so just remember the most beautiful moment of them in your memory."
"Er... Their bodies were taken away by an unknown person? Then the coffins you were carrying..."
"They were clones of the two of them. Clones with only their appearance, without souls. I knew Immortal Phoenix had techniques targeting souls. I thought, at that time, I was just thinking, if I could recall their souls and put them into bodies identical to when they were alive, perhaps I could resurrect them."
Sushang pursed her lips and feigned innocence, "Cl... Cl-what people?"
Otto closed his eyes, then opened them in an instant.
"Alright, I've made a fool of myself. Let's get back to business—Miss Li Sushang, the third-generation head of the Mount Taixuan Sect of Shenzhou, who accidentally gained immortality due to a mistake her mother once made. What brings you all the way to Schicksal?"
"I want to eat Martial Aunt Lixue's wonton noodles."
"Ha?"
"Er, no, I mean, north of Shenzhou, in Si... Siberia, there seems to be an abnormal Honkai Energy reaction. Your Schicksal must already know about this, right? This young lady just heard Ragna say that all A-rank Valkyries are already on combat alert."
"Mm, that is indeed the case. But according to the agreement signed between me and your master and grandmaster back then, Siberia should be within Schicksal's sphere of influence, right?"
"Pah! You big villain, don't try to fool this young lady! When this young lady came, I specifically looked at the original agreement. It clearly states... Eh, how did that sentence go again?"
"Schicksal and the Mount Taixuan Sect will jointly ensure the safety of Siberia. If a Honkai disaster occurs in Siberia, Schicksal will be given priority to handle it."
"Ah... Oh... It seems to be like that. Anyway, this young lady is just here to inform you. If you guys can't handle that thing, don't you, Raksha, be too proud to ask for help. Just say the word, and our Mount Taixuan Sect is ready to support you at any time."
"The Mount Taixuan Sect's goodwill... I appreciate it. But at least for now, the situation is still completely within Schicksal's control."
Otto lazily stood up. Sushang naturally wouldn't be outdone.
But as if by telepathy, both turned to look out the window at the same time—
Twilight had passed. A full moon hung quietly above the sea of clouds.
As if possessed, Li Sushang asked a question that had always puzzled her:
"Hey, Raksha, I heard you guys went to the moon a few decades ago. What did you actually see? Why was lunar exploration banned afterwards? It's not really like science fiction novels, with alien wreckage on the dark side of the moon, is it?"
"Science fiction novels also say that humans will have a major war with aliens this year..."
"Heh-yah! Who knows! There are still a few days left this year, you can't speak too soon, you know!"