Chapter 104: "What did you just say?!"
"..." Kevin looked blankly at Irene, and then, with a face full of confusion, turned his gaze toward Elysia.
To be honest, he had made every possible preparation over these past fifty thousand years.
He had considered everything—even if the outside world was already scorched earth, or if all Herrschers had defected to humanity, or even if the world was completely peaceful and the Honkai had not yet begun to plague mankind.
Of course, after meeting that Herrscher of Reason earlier, Kevin had formed some idea of the situation outside. It wasn't the best-case scenario, but it wasn't the worst either.
Everything was still early.
However, he had never imagined that one day he would see his deceased comrades again. He knew the news of Nuwa and Fuxi's deaths, but he had been powerless to change it.
He understood perfectly well that the dead could not be brought back to life, but he never expected to see these two alive right now—even if they were in the state of souls, being alive was still being alive.
What surprised him even more was seeing Pardo. Kevin was well aware of the mission Pardo had executed; there was almost no reason for Pardo to have survived in that kind of place.
Yet, she was standing in front of him now in the form of a soul. Whether it was her appearance, her way of speaking, or even her aura, everything convinced Kevin that this was indeed Pardo.
And what made him feel even more dazed now was hearing that the girl before him had saved Rin. Pieces of intelligence slapped against Kevin's head like a flood.
His brain, which wasn't particularly brilliant to begin with, became even more muddled. Time did not equate to IQ; no matter how much he had experienced or how many preparations he had made, he had no way to face this somewhat bizarre and inexplicable situation.
He felt a desperate need for an external brain right now to help him think through what exactly was going on. After all, as the ancestor of the Kaslana family, Kevin naturally possessed this skill point.
But Su was not here now, and MEI couldn't be here either. As for Elysia... he was wondering whether he should connect to this brain or not?
Given the activity level of Elysia's mind, he felt he might just be led into a pit by her.
"Mm, how about we wait a moment?" A slightly different tone suddenly popped out of Irene's mouth. "I am trying to contact Sister Sakura, but there doesn't seem to be any reply... Uh, Elder Sister Elysia, did you give the card to Sister Sakura?"
"I definitely gave it to her." Elysia patted her chest. "After I got them from Little Senti, I distributed the cards to everyone as fast as I could."
Most people didn't say anything; after all, going out to help with something involving Irene wasn't a problem. Especially Sakura. Only Kalpas grumbled a few sentences, but given Kalpas's personality, it would have been strange if he didn't grumble a bit.
So, the one who wasn't quite right might have been Mobius. Before she left, she probably came close to dissecting that card—no, wait, can the word 'dissect' be used for a card?
"Then the signal in the Sea of Quanta might not be very good." Irene poked the photo album a couple more times, and finally, Sakura's voice came through.
"Miss Irene, is there something you need help with? Did you encounter any difficulties?"
The voice from the Divine Sound side sounded as if, should Irene be in any trouble, Sakura would snap the card and rush out to slash apart any difficulty Irene might be facing.
"Ah, no, no." Irene waved her hand. "I met Mr. Kevin. I hope Mr. Kevin can meet with Rin. Is that okay?"
"Mm, Uncle Kevin?" Before Sakura could respond, Rin, who must have been staying right next to Sakura, suddenly popped up. "Okay! Wait a moment, I'm coming over right away."
Irene wasn't surprised by Rin coming over. After all, Little Corruption and Rin shared the same origin; there was no clear division between new variants of the virus unless the two Herrschers prepared to fight each other.
Clearly, the relationship between the two was quite good right now, so there was naturally no possibility of them fighting. Thus, it was very easy for Rin to borrow Little Corruption's communication channel to cross over.
After a short while, under Kevin's nervous yet somewhat expectant gaze, a Sakura-colored figure flashed out of the photo album in Irene's hand.
"Hehe." Just as Rin wanted to rush over, she was caught by another hand. "Kevin, look what I caught! A cute little fox Rin~"
"...Sister Elysia." Rin dangled, turning her head to look at Elysia who had suddenly appeared behind her and intercepted her in mid-air. "Aiya, don't hug me."
"Don't be like that, let me hug you." Elysia rubbed the little fox Rin in her hands. "I've wanted to hold you for a long time, but unfortunately, I never had the chance before."
She had just realized that Rin, having awakened, hadn't changed out of her current little fox form. For a beautiful girl who loved cute things, this had an immense attraction.
It was just a pity that Rin was always stuck to Sakura, and Sakura clearly knew Elysia's nature, so she had always guarded against her strictly, never letting Elysia succeed.
But now—hehe, Sakura wasn't here. She finally had the time to lay her hands on Rin.
Kevin watched Rin, who was feigning struggle in Elysia's embrace. Withdrawing his aura slightly, he looked at Rin and managed to force a small smile at the corner of his mouth: "You... regained your own consciousness?"
"I feel... I feel like the two of us have no presence anymore. What should we do?" Nuwa, having been ignored by Kevin, shrunk to the side and whispered, "Is our presence really that weak?"
"Come on, it's not like you don't know how much of a psychological shadow that incident back then cast on Mr. Kevin." Fuxi's gaze drifted back and forth between Rin and Kevin. "Now... this is really nice."
"Mm." Rin nodded. Then, her body turned slightly insubstantial as she broke free from Elysia's hands and floated onto Irene's head. "This is all thanks to Sister Irene; that's how I was able to regain control of my body."
"...Thank you. I will remember this." Kevin nodded at Irene, then looked at Rin again. After a period of silence, he said, "About what happened back then... I'm sorry..."
"Aiya, it doesn't matter. It's not like I don't know." Rin sat on Irene's head and patted her chest. "After all, humanity had been hurt enough by the Herrschers at that time. Although I didn't expect the final ending either."
"It was I who failed to protect you." The reason Kevin had been at the base where Rin was imprisoned back then was partly to prevent Rin from going berserk, but also to protect Rin from being harmed by radicals.
But regrettably, despite all precautions, something still went wrong, causing a tragedy. If he had been able to persist a little longer back then, or been a little stronger...
No, that's not right. He shouldn't have gone there at all. If he hadn't been there, Sakura clearly had a way to rescue Rin.
No matter how one put it, Kevin could not escape the blame for that incident.
"Brother Kevin, the events of the past really aren't your fault." Rin floated onto Kevin's head. "It was just that everyone was pushed to their limits."
"Perhaps..."
"I also know what Sister Aponia did. What we need to do is still to resolve the Honkai, right?" Rin looked at Kevin. "That is the source of all the tragedies."
"I know..." Kevin raised his hand and patted Rin's head. "Alright, come down. My body is very cold; if you stay too long, it will be bad for your body."
"If you're shy, just say so." Rin patted Kevin's shoulder. "Anyway, besides me, only Sister Irene is here. It doesn't matter if you say it directly."
"After all, Sister Elysia isn't here."
"..." Kevin silently raised his hand, plucked Rin directly off his shoulder, and gently set her aside. "In any case, it is a good thing that you have recovered your consciousness."
"Additionally..." Kevin looked at Nuwa and Fuxi, who had been ignored by them to the point where they had started rotting and floated away to the side. "What is going on with you two? According to the report, you should have been confirmed as..."
"You are not memories, yet how did you survive?"
"Making memories? We definitely didn't have the conditions for that back then." Fuxi nodded. "But regrettably, it wasn't that our conditions at the time didn't leave us that leeway; mainly, there was no method of preservation."
"After all, in that environment, we didn't have the ability to create memories," Nuwa added from the side. "Of course, we did indeed consider how we should go about completing Project Ember or taking care of Hua after our deaths."
"We used the equipment we could find to create the Book of Fuxi. Fortunately, because I was greedy before..." Nuwa coughed twice halfway through her sentence, changing the subject.
"Nothing. Anyway, compared to memories that are difficult to create, maintain, and preserve, an Armed ELF that can be made using only Soulium, a computer, and a set of systems is much more practical."
If one dug around in the sanctuary, one could always find something like Soulium. Moreover, given the size of an Armed ELF, the usage wouldn't be too large. As for small-scale quantum computers...
For the sake of Project Ember, they had brought quite a few of those usable Soulium computers. Clearing one out for use was simple enough.
As for the system needed—don't really think that the two sisters only knew how to cause trouble!
"Mm." Kevin nodded, then looked at the two with some apology. "So you didn't die inside Chiyou's body. I should have gone to take a look; otherwise, I wouldn't have let you suffer the erosion of thousands of years for nothing."
"That's hard to say. We weren't far from death at that time either." Fuxi shook her head. Only those who experienced it knew how harsh their environment was—not just the problem of their entire bodies crystallizing.
They were only one step away from the death of their souls. It was Irene who used that 'Active Polarization' to activate their souls and finally wake them up.
And Kevin definitely didn't have that ability. Even if Kevin had come back then, it was more likely he would have just been collecting their corpses.
"Mm, it seems it's my turn next, right?" Pardo scratched her head. "Mm, but I might have to let Kevin be a bit disappointed. I am not the Pardo from here."
"Little Pardo is from a parallel world." Elysia, seeing she couldn't touch the fox's face, could only use Little Pardo as a meal replacement. Fortunately, the surrounding environment was also full of Corruption virus.
Pardo and the others could be considered to be in a semi-solid state. Although they had no combat power—after all, the virus didn't preserve their combat data, so it was completely impossible to simulate their combat strength.
Moreover, if it weren't for Little Senti playing around with soul preservation and materialization—playing with it even more smoothly than the Herrscher of Sentience herself—it really might not have turned out this way.
For her, this definitely counted as practice makes perfect in a certain sense.
"A Bubble Universe?" Upon hearing this answer, Kevin's eyes dimmed slightly. He finally sighed. How could Pardo still be alive in that environment? He was indeed being too whimsical.
"I'm really sorry to disappoint Boss Kevin." Pardo scratched her head. She knew her arrival would definitely make Kevin disappointed, but she couldn't lie after all.
"It doesn't matter. Perhaps our Pardo just lacked a bit of luck." Kevin sighed but didn't intend to say anything more.
From Elysia's actions, she had already acknowledged Pardo, so there was no need for him to say more. Apart from other things, Elysia was very strong in the aspect of recognizing people.
Furthermore, that action from Elysia just now basically indicated that she acknowledged Pardo's identity, meaning 'do not bully Pardo'.
Although it wasn't likely he would do that, anyway.
"I am very grateful for everything you have done." Kevin looked at Irene and nodded slightly, trying to divert his attention this way.
"This is what I should do." Irene nodded at Kevin. "It is also what I hoped to see."
"Irene has been working her heart out for this world, so Kevin, you are not allowed to bully her." Elysia stood behind Irene with hands on her hips, looking as if she was backing Irene up.
"I have already seen your strength. You can achieve so much. That is proof enough." Kevin nodded. Irene was a Herrscher, and appeared to be a dual-core Herrscher; her combat power should not be weak.
Judging from how Irene had transformed into Pardo earlier, or looking at the reverse-colored Elysia now, Irene might also possess the ability to transform into others. As for whether she possessed the abilities of those she transformed into, that was hard to say.
Originally, Kevin should have engaged her to make a judgment, but Irene had brought out so many people, and considering what she had done, plus Elysia standing by the side, Kevin really couldn't make a move right now.
If he had to squat for a year, then he would squat for a year. Judging from the words of that Herrscher of Reason earlier, the outside world was still in a very normal state. There was no rush to proceed with Project Stigma.
Irene looked at Kevin, who seemed to have already persuaded himself. She didn't intend to let Kevin just squat here doing nothing for a year.
"It's not just that. I also know information about another Flame-Chaser who is still alive. Don't worry, not a parallel world one."
"Who?" Sure enough, as soon as these words came out, they immediately attracted Kevin's attention. Right now, his surviving comrades could truly be counted on ten fingers. If there really was another one still alive, Kevin could not ignore it.
"Griseo. And she is right here at this moment, inside this Sea of Quanta."
"What did you just say?!"
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