A short clip played.
Amid broken walls and rubble, a slightly bedraggled Otto slowly got to his feet.
Unlike the Otto everyone knew, this one—aside from being a bit dusty—felt… different. Younger. Greener. Almost shy.
Quest: Talk to Otto (?)
Elysia couldn't help frowning. Was this a fake Otto?
She tapped the prompt, full of question marks.
Blond Man: "Thank goodness—finally, someone alive!"
"Um… have you seen a girl? She's got silver-gray curls, a single side ponytail, wears a beret, about a head shorter than me…"
The dialogue window said Blond Man, but no one was fooled. This was Otto, no doubt about it.
Only—though the voice matched perfectly, the tone didn't. He sounded urgent, nervous. None of that scheming, cool-blooded archbishop vibe.
In-game, even Durandal stared, stunned. Players had never seen her look like this—adorably dumbfounded.
Durandal: "…"
Tesla: "…?!"
Theresa: "…Grandpa?"
A line of narration swept by:
At Kolosten's center, the trio investigating a spacetime anomaly met a man both familiar and strange.
They did not yet realize—this tiny vortex would one day churn the world.
[Otto, draw your blade!!]
[Down with Otto!]
[Why is his hair long again?]
[This isn't right… is he acting? Amnesia gimmick?]
[Got it—this must be a projection of Otto from 500 years ago.]
[No way—projections can talk back?]
[Did you see Durandal's face? LMAO]
[I saw—wide-eyed and cute.]
[Classic Duran-d'aww~]
[Punch Otto already!!]
Eden and Elysia were just as curious about this "stranger Otto." That closing narration tickled Eden's instincts too—could this projected Otto actually affect the past?
Elysia didn't overthink it; she dove straight into the next dialogue.
After Theresa laid out the situation, Otto roughly pieced it together.
"Right… let me sort this out. You're saying this is A.D. 2017… you're all from 2017… and you all know me?"
"Why else would I call you grandpa?" Theresa's feelings were a tangle as she looked at this Otto.
Otto still had questions. "Even if everything you said is true… how on earth would I live for five centuries?"
Durandal answered calmly. "You built yourself a mechanical body."
Tesla snorted. "Yep. And you also used a Trojan to steal other people's bodies. For the record, I don't trust you. Prove you're really from the fifteenth century."
She folded her arms. "Because frankly, nothing else in this projection is a living, breathing person like you. Your existence is the anomaly."
Otto scratched his cheek, awkward. "Uh… fair enough as cause for caution… but it sounds like the future me did a lot of things you can't accept…"
Twin-tails bristled. "Can't accept? That's putting it mildly! You—"
Tesla cut herself off with a sigh. "Forget it. If you're truly a different him from the fifteenth century, punching you now won't help. Parallel worlds aren't my problem."
"Parallel worlds, hm?" Otto rubbed his chin. "That would avoid a time paradox. Makes sense."
Tesla blinked. "Philosophy 101 later, pretty boy. Theresa, Durandal—what do we do with him?"
The chat howled for blood, but the game wasn't taking requests.
Theresa thought for only a heartbeat. "Help him… go back to 500 years ago?"
"But as you said," Durandal added, "he could be the Archbishop in disguise. He doesn't seem to be faking it… If you bring him to the Hyperion for investigation, I won't object. However, our priority remains exploring this anomalous zone."
Tesla grudgingly agreed. "Still want to rule out some possibilities," she muttered—meaning "fake Otto" first.
Otto heard her fine and sighed. "So… the future me terrifies you."
"Zip it." Tesla's glare could cut steel. "Do you even know what the man with your disgusting face has done? Want me to list a few?"
"Dr. Tesla, please," Durandal smoothed. "I know the Archbishop wronged you, but our immediate task comes first."
Otto didn't get angry. If anything, he seemed… self-aware. He explained where he'd come from: leading an uprising against the Schicksal order here—then blinking into this place.
It matched history well enough. Under Schicksal's rule then, commoners suffered. In that suffocation, Saint Kallen became a faith among the people—they believed she alone bore the sins of all who were "born guilty," and they venerated anything tied to the Saint.
Tesla's eyes narrowed. "And you cleverly exploited all of it, turning them into stepping stones to the Archbishop's seat, didn't you?"
Otto looked puzzled. "Why would you frame it that way?"
Bias or not, Tesla pressed on, spitting out the ledger of sins:
Sabotaging Nancy, the inventor of the Moonlight Throne.
Driving the strongest Valkyrie of the era—Leanna—to her death.
Murdering the First Herrscher Proxy—Joyce.
During the Second Eruption, sniping Welt, letting the Second Herrscher escape—indirectly causing tens of millions of civilian deaths…
Even this Otto looked shaken. As Tesla grew more heated, Theresa stepped in to soothe.
"Breathe, Dr. Tesla. The man you're accusing and the one in front of us are not the same."
Tesla exhaled sharply. "Sorry. I shouldn't judge by the face. But understand—where we come from, 'Otto Apocalypse' has many labels. None of them is 'good person.'"
Otto fell silent. Then nodded—like he recognized the shape of his own shadow.
"Given who I am," he said quietly, "I can see how centuries of despair and obsession could ferment into that… creature."
Self-awareness, from five centuries ago.
He hesitated, then stunned everyone. "When I return… I'll give up my claim as first heir to the Archbishop's seat."
"What?" all three women blurted.
"That claim was only a symbol—my way of facing my obsession," Otto said. "Thanks to you, I can see it from another angle now… and reach a different conclusion."
[Whoa—are we… changing history?]
[A world without 'Archbishop Otto'?]
[Now that's interesting. If Otto never took the seat, what would the world look like?]
[First off, Theresa wouldn't exist.]
[Not just that—Honkai 3rd's entire plot has Otto's fingerprints.]
[So everything would go off the rails?!]
[Low-key want a side story of this timeline.]
Eden, for the first time, felt her view of Otto shift. The game had always admitted it: he committed horrors, and he did a lot of genuine good; he never stopped fighting the Honkai. It's just… his evil cast too long a shadow.
"What a complicated man," she murmured.
To read 30+ future chapters, head over to Patreon:
patreon.com/WhiteDevil7554