"Dr. Lin, are you ready?"
He stood by the window, looking at the sky, but saw no birds.
Only the boring, empty sky.
It looked as if it could collapse at any moment under the thunder.
The waiter inquired about him, who was standing motionless. Upon hearing the question, he sighed softly: "I'm just a high school student, not a Doctor. I don't have a doctorate."
"But the theory of Honkai Energy Deconstruction you published is enough to earn you the highest achievement in the field of science."
"..."
Here we go again. Everyone was like this.
He actually knew these people were genuinely complimenting him, believing that his research on Honkai Energy Deconstruction at this age would greatly benefit humanity, but he didn't want to hear these meaningless praises.
They had even pushed him onto this global elite meeting to run for the so-called opinion leader of the **Meteor's Demise** movement.
He didn't want to bear the expectations of others because he never believed he could achieve what they hoped for.
Soon, it would be his turn to give a speech, but he hadn't even prepared a manuscript. He planned to go up empty-handed, say a few cursory words, and step down.
The ridiculous part was that others, seeing he hadn't prepared a manuscript, thought he had memorized it. His casual demeanor was interpreted as brimming with confidence, and they said he was indeed the Lin who published the Honkai Energy Deconstruction theory.
He could only offer a bitter smile.
"I understand. Just leave me alone for a while."
He dismissed the waiter and stood in the empty room.
A moment later, a knock came at the door. He was already a little impatient. He walked over and opened the door: "Didn't I say..."
Mid-sentence, he saw that the person standing outside the door was not the waiter, but...
The pink-haired girl.
"Can I come in?" Her smile was refreshing, but her complexion was much more haggard.
The First Herrscher had descended upon Nagazora City, and almost the entire Far East was reduced to ashes under the thunder, before the Herrscher rampaged for a full month after leaving the Far East, wiping out three-tenths of humanity from the Earth.
And the initial victims, Nagazora City, were the location of both him and the pink-haired girl. On that day, the pink-haired girl's entire family perished. Only he and she were fortunate enough to survive the entire Nagazora City, and he had discovered Honkai energy while waiting for rescue.
The pink-haired young woman now seemed to have emerged from the grief of losing her family, displaying her former smile once more.
The pink-haired young woman, who had lost everything, was now dependent on him, and this time, she had followed him here as well.
"Are you troubled?" The pink-haired girl walked into the room, stood on her toes, and gently stroked his head, smiling as warmly as possible.
"If they had seen me clearly from the start, I might not be so troubled," he removed his disguise in front of the pink-haired girl, sitting on the edge of the bed and chuckling self-deprecatingly with resignation. "Now I have to go in front of them and tell them that I'm actually useless, just a guy who hasn't even finished high school."
"But haven't you done it many times before..."
"That's different."
He interrupted the girl, saying vexedly, "I'm just... I'm just doing extremely rigid and conservative things in the fields I excel at, just like how all that high school knowledge is only for answering specific questions. I'm just doing the same thing in another aspect. I simply can't force myself to be the savior when the apocalypse comes. Just like everyone else, I'm waiting for someone else to play that role."
"I told you, don't... have expectations for me. It will only disappoint you."
He buried his head even lower, as if trying to push his head into the ground, to never look at the matter before him again.
If all of humanity pinned their hopes on one person, then that person must respond.
But he knew he couldn't do it. There are no protagonists in this world, and even if there were, it wouldn't be him.
He was just a coward who, when the Herrscher descended, only dared to protect the girl he liked by hiding in a corner, not even daring to go out and save others, praying every day for rescue to arrive.
"Then run away."
"Huh?"
The pink-haired girl's gentle voice made him lift his head. He looked vaguely at her, whose smile was gradually receding.
"If that's the case, then run away. Go up there, say a few perfunctory words, and then go hide in a place no one can find," the pink-haired girl said solemnly. "No one has the right to demand you take on any responsibility. You belong only to yourself."
"..."
He was silent after his initial shock.
Run away?
He had actually been thinking that from the very beginning.
"Then, what about you? If I run away, will you look down on me, like I said you might before?"
"No, because you were the one who saved me in that apocalyptic thunder." She smiled with all the tenderness she could muster, "You are already my savior."
"..."
He seemed to hear something collapsing in his heart.
He often questioned himself: Can I truly bear that responsibility? Can I truly meet the expectations of the masses? Can I truly defeat that terrifying monster?
Even today, he still didn't know the answer.
But perhaps this is what humanity is like.
Even without certainty about the future, unable to know destiny, they will still keep moving forward.
"Dr. Lin, time's up. Are you ready?"
A knock came at the door.
In this moment, he lost the thoughts of panic and evasion, and instead became calm.
"I always thought the word 'Savior' would only exist in fictional works. It is a unique title. It represents someone who rescues humanity from distress."
He stood up.
"But now it seems that perhaps a Savior is just a symbol. To become a true Savior, I might be lacking, but to become a symbol, I think I can still try my best."
The pink-haired young woman stood up, straightened his tie, and looked at him with a face full of smiles.
"Fiancé boy, you look very much like you did when you proposed to me now."
"...Heh heh, well, I hope I won't be rejected this time."
Perhaps it was from that moment that his beloved was no longer just one person, or a single individual.
He "should" and "must" love all of humanity. His beloved was all of humanity. To protect them, he would stand before them, just as he protected the pink-haired young woman in the thunderous Nagazora City.
Once you choose to take a step, there is no turning back.
However, he would always remember many things, not the cheers of people when he developed various weapons and technologies while protecting humanity.
But the day when, on a gentle, breezy morning, he sat on the lawn, enjoying the morning wind.