In a daze, Li Wu reached out his hand, the rainwater slipping continuously through his fingers.
An invisible thread connected him to Raiden Mei. It had once been incredibly strong, tightly binding him to his destined heroine.
But with the handing over of that black card...
The thread had become fragile. Now, it was hanging by a single strand, so thin it was almost invisible.
One minute and forty-one seconds. One minute and forty seconds. One minute and thirty-nine seconds...
Suddenly, Li Wu noticed that the rain had stopped falling on his head, and the biting cold had ceased its assault.
Looking up, he saw Anna holding an umbrella high above him. She was looking at his drenched, pathetic form with a complex expression.
Her eyes were filled with an array of emotions that Li Wu couldn't decipher. Not a single one. Was it anger? Sorrow? Or perhaps pity?
"Sometimes I think you're really pathetic. You act like a jerk to others, but you treat yourself even worse. You don't even act like a proper student."
Li Wu turned his head away, then turned back after seeing clearly who it was. "I've always been a student with limited abilities. Always..."
"Is that so?"
Anna squeezed a bit closer to Li Wu to keep her other shoulder from getting wet. "To me, it doesn't look like that. You were testing me this morning, weren't you? I didn't realize it at the time, but thinking about it later, it felt really strange. For a commoner with no background to dare say something like that to a member of the Schariac family... it's unbelievable. Your eyes and your tone back then were completely different from how you are now."
"How should I put it? Back then, you were like the protagonist of a novel or an anime—refusing to admit defeat, daring to joke around with anyone who came your way. Of course, I've seen plenty of people like that during my missions. I prefer to use the term 'reckless idiot.'"
"...That's because I knew too little. Now that I know more, I won't be like that anymore." Li Wu kept his head down. Even though he was much taller than Anna, his gaze was fixed lower than hers.
So low that even if he were crawling on the ground, his gaze would still be higher than it was right now.
Anna pursed her lips, tilted her head up, and held out her hand, letting the freezing rain hit her palm.
She pointed to the moths repeatedly crashing into a streetlamp under a distant awning. "What are those?"
"Moths," Li Wu answered mechanically.
"Why do they keep crashing into the streetlamp? There's no food there."
"Because of the light. Many insects are phototactic. It helps them quickly fly toward open areas to escape danger or find a habitat. Artificial light sources overly magnify this instinct."
"I see... I thought you'd say something like, 'Moths must feel happy and blissful when they fly into the flame.' I didn't expect you to have such a scientific understanding of it."
"If you already knew the reason why moths fly into flames, why did you ask?"
Li Wu didn't understand. If Anna already knew about the phenomenon of moths flying into flames, why did she pretend not to know just to ask him?
Anna quickly gave him the answer.
"Because we are all moths. Including me. Even as a Valkyrie, I am just as blind and stubborn. Did you really think I didn't know any common sense at all? I'm not an idiot."
Anna held out her right hand, forming a circle with her fingers. Through that circle, she stared intently at the moths desperately flapping their wings and crashing into the streetlamp.
"I used to wonder why they kept circling the light, as if that light was the only thing they recognized in their lives. As I grew older, I realized that people are pretty much the same. Just like these moths, even if it kills them, they will fight for certain positions, empty titles, and honors..."
"At first, I scoffed at it. I thought I was so clear-headed, so special. Valkyrie status, honors, medals—I don't care about any of that!"
"But... during one mission, I watched my teammates die right in front of me. I was the only one left, hiding pathetically in the ruins. At that moment, I desperately wished I had those empty titles and positions... Because Schicksal doesn't waste resources saving trash. If I had those honors, it might have been enough to warrant a B-Rank Valkyrie squad coming to rescue me, and then I could have survived. But I didn't have any honors back then. I could only hide in the corner like a rat, praying the Honkai beasts wouldn't find me. But that was impossible. High-level Honkai beasts can sense the heat of living organisms. I couldn't hide at all."
Anna lowered her fist. Her fingers trembled slightly, as if recalling a terrifying memory.
The umbrella wavered, and several raindrops hit her shoulder, but she didn't seem to notice.
"And then?" Li Wu couldn't help but ask. "You must have been saved in the end, otherwise you wouldn't be standing here telling me this."
"Yeah."
Anna nodded heavily, her tone suddenly shifting, becoming spirited. "My aunt. When she found out that I, a C-Rank, hadn't returned from a B-Rank mission, she violated Schicksal regulations and took the initiative to strike. She reached the battlefield before the high-level Honkai beasts could find me."
"It was like a god descending... can you understand? When she carried me out of the ruins, the swarm of Honkai beasts that had overrun the area were all corpses. She had Honkai beast blood on her face, but I didn't find it disgusting. Instead, I thought she looked incredibly beautiful... so dazzling..."
"Your aunt must have been punished afterward. Because she broke the rules. When a Schicksal Valkyrie breaks the rules... the price is heavy." Li Wu made a simple deduction based on what Arga had told him.
Anna didn't deny it. A look of guilt crossed her face. "Because the blood of our family members is very precious. For breaking the rules, my aunt had a third of the blood in her body drawn. An ordinary person would have died long before that. If it weren't for her superhuman constitution, my aunt would have definitely lost her life... She was bedridden for an entire month recovering after that."
A third of her blood?
A chill suddenly crawled up Li Wu's spine. He froze in place, unable to process it for a long time.
He had thought a few months of confinement or being forced to take on extra missions would have been the end of it. He never expected the punishment to be draining a full third of a person's blood.
Schicksal...
Their rule was actually this cruel.
Anna tilted her head up again, facing the not-so-bright streetlamp. Through the curtain of rain, only a faint, orange glow spilled onto her face, making her short auburn hair shine brilliantly.
"Even my biological parents didn't break the rules to save me. But my aunt, who my siblings always called an 'outsider,' bore such a heavy price to save me."
"At the time, I couldn't understand it at all. I didn't get why she would go that far for me. She was the model of a Schicksal Valkyrie, she had won countless honors and commendations, she was an undeniable S-Rank... The one who always followed the rules the most, broke them for the very first time in years just for me, and suffered such a massive punishment..."
Li Wu glanced at the time. There were less than twenty seconds left. He interrupted Anna's reminiscence and asked directly, "So, since you didn't understand, you must have asked her. What was the answer?"
Anna smiled. In the dreary, cold rainy night, her smile was exceptionally warm. "She said, 'Because you are my family. My family is my entire world. For my family, I can sacrifice myself.'"
"Just like those moths. In their world, chasing the light is the only correct decision. Even if they end up covered in wounds, they still won't stop."
"If a person can't even protect the 'little piece of happiness' in their own world, then they must be the saddest person under the stars. From that moment on, I resolved to become the most outstanding S-Rank Valkyrie. Whether it's empty titles or honors, as long as they let me stand higher and protect my 'entire world,' I don't care how tired or bitter it gets."
"Hm? Wait a minute! Li Wu, what are you doing..."
Before Anna could finish her sentence, Li Wu had already drawn his gun, pulled the safety catch, and pulled the trigger within the final few seconds.
Not every conversation needed to be completed. But Anna's intention to encourage him and help him pull himself together—Li Wu had received it completely.
He really had been too naive. Too stupid.
To actually believe that all these characters were just like in the game—rigidly stereotypical or entirely one-dimensional.
No one was born with a fully formed personality. No matter how twisted or stubborn a person was, there were always events and reasons that led to that personality.
Like Raiden Mei. Like Anna.
When he first started interacting with Raiden Mei, he thought she was just an innocent girl who was being persecuted. Later, he discovered how extremely twisted she was inside, to the point of being incredibly frivolous, willing to give her body away casually.
Only in the end did he understand—she was just too lonely. So lonely she wanted to die. She just wanted to find someone she could rely on, to find a reason to live. But because of Raiden Ryoma's arrangements, no one would approach her. And even if they did, they wouldn't accept her reliance; they would hypocritically use her loneliness to persecute her instead.
Living in such a harsh environment for so long had bred a vengeful mentality in her, making her want to drag others down with her.
Yet, if she found someone who genuinely sacrificed for her, even if that person eventually betrayed her, she would still smile and forgive all their mistakes. She would silently swallow her bitterness and grief, never causing them any trouble.
Anna was the same. Upon their first meeting, Li Wu thought she was identical to her manga counterpart—a traditional Valkyrie who fought against the Honkai on the front lines to protect the people. The kind who, even if she were the last one standing, would insist on rescuing civilians, operating on a "core code" of fulfilling the mission at all costs.
He thought he could use this "core code" to trick this airhead beauty into doing anything for the sake of her mission.
But now Li Wu realized that wasn't the case. Anna wasn't an outstanding Valkyrie who rigidly adhered to the rules. On the contrary, her heart was full of rebellion. She only suppressed her inner discomfort and became the "outstanding Valkyrie" everyone saw so she could stand higher, go further, and better protect the people around her.
Everyone lived relying on some kind of conviction. As long as they were alive, there was definitely something they cared about.
As long as he tackled the problem from this angle, there was absolutely no need to fight the entire system head-on.
The only entity he needed to oppose was the one ruling Schicksal—the Saintess, Kallen Kaslana!
Although he didn't know what this Saintess had experienced in the past to turn into this tyrant-like figure, as long as he properly utilized "Return by Death" to test her and discover her core desires, he might be able to shake her resolve.
Even just a little bit. Li Wu didn't pray for Kallen to revert back to the righteous Saintess from the original work; he just needed her to spare Raiden Mei and Kiana...
There was still... a sliver of hope!