Chapter 237: Otto — This Is My Atonement
At that moment, inside a nearby villa, Otto was sitting in a chair, watching the surveillance light-screen unfolded before him as Fu Hua and Little Senti made their way toward the old residence.
"Mm, just as I expected — Fu Hua's gone looking for Li Sushang." Otto nodded. Some things, after all, had to be settled, had to be brought out into the open. As for what the outcome would actually be, well, that was no business of his.
Some things had to be brought to a close eventually, and now was precisely the time.
Just as Otto was about to pick up his glass of red wine, a tremendous crash came from the direction of the door. Kallen swung Judah and smashed the door clean open, then walked in and looked straight at Otto.
"So you really are here." Kallen's eyes were fixed on Otto. She didn't continue swinging Judah or do anything else with it — she simply slung Judah onto her back and walked over.
Otto raised his wine glass toward Kallen with a gentle, easy smile, then clapped his hands a few times, as though encouraging a friend who'd finally managed to find him in a game of hide-and-seek.
"So you really did find your way here, Kallen — looks like you still remember this place."
"Otto, what exactly are you trying to do?" Kallen clearly wasn't in the mood to make small talk with Otto. Right now, what worried her more was whatever insane thing Otto might be planning.
In the past, Kallen of course would never have believed Otto capable of doing anything truly monstrous. But she could no longer give that guarantee.
She didn't want Otto to add another sin onto himself. She didn't like Otto being this way, and she didn't know why Otto had become the man he was now — if it was only for her sake, there was really no need.
"For you." Otto looked at Kallen and still said it just like that. "That's my answer. I believe I've already said as much before."
"Was it really necessary to go this far, just for me?" Kallen looked at Otto. "Do you really think the things you've done would make me happy?"
"You'd probably want to kill me, I suppose." Otto looked at Kallen and chuckled, then thought it over and added, "No, that's not quite it — if it's you, Kallen, you'd choose to beat me up first, and then drag me along to atone."
"Then—"
Before Kallen could even speak, Otto raised a hand and cut her off. He looked at her with a trace of apology in his eyes: "I know what kind of impression all the things I've done must leave in your heart."
"But the premise of all of it is that you're alive, Kallen."
Otto's gaze held a tangle of complicated emotions as he looked at Kallen: "How I wished you might suddenly appear one day, and condemn everything I've done as wrong. How I wished you could have told me, before I ever did any of this, that I shouldn't."
"But... Kallen, you're dead."
Otto's voice carried an inexpressible sorrow tangled with loss. How he'd hoped that, before he committed those extreme acts, Kallen would come and stop him — or, after he'd done them, that Kallen would come and punish him.
But how could he not know that those were nothing but fantasies? Kallen was dead. Right in front of him, dead in his arms — Kallen had died long ago.
There was no one left who could talk him down, and no one left who could make him willingly accept punishment.
So then — what was it that had made Otto lose Kallen? It was Otto himself.
It was his naïveté, his foolishness, that had led him to trust his elder sister. It was he who had released the Honkai Beast, and that was what had brought about Kallen's death.
He himself was the one who'd extinguished his own light. That, in his eyes, was the original sin that belonged to Otto, that belonged to himself.
If he could have spoken plainly with Kallen earlier — even at the cost of her coming to despise him — they would never have reached that point. He'd had countless other paths he could have taken instead of arriving where he stood today.
But it was too late. Far too late. He'd understood too late, regretted too late, and now the die was cast.
"But I'm still standing here right now." Kallen looked at Otto. "There's no need whatsoever for you to keep going down this road."
"But you aren't my Kallen." Otto shook his head. In that very instant, a curtain of light suddenly rose between him and Kallen. Kallen lunged forward at once, swinging Judah.
What she didn't expect was that this curtain of light had no defensive properties at all — Judah sank into it with ease. But the moment she tried to swing through, it was as though she were a bug burrowing into resin: Judah was slowly congealed into amber, until it could no longer move.
"What?!" Kallen stared at Otto in shock. Then, immediately, she sensed the true nature of this curtain of light, and the astonishment in her eyes deepened.
"Power of Binding — how can this be?" Kallen quickly channeled Judah, and the Power of Binding burst forth from within the blade. Then, as if shattering a seal, Judah followed through with the momentum of her swing and tore free of the light curtain.
"Why? Just who—?" Kallen immediately remembered the Herrscher of the Legion Core that Irene had handed over to Otto earlier. "You used that core Irene gave you?!"
"Old friend turned out to be even more generous than I'd imagined." Otto smiled as he looked at Kallen. "Though I had the same idea: Binding can be used to reverse-nullify Binding."
"In that case, Theresa's side now has the means to resist me, too." The smile that finally settled on Otto's face looked, for once, genuinely sincere, as he gazed at Kallen.
"Thank you, Kallen. But I'm afraid I'll need you to stay here for a little while. Think of it as a knight rescuing the princess scenario."
Kallen was momentarily stunned, but then a heavy thud sounded behind her. She turned to look — at some point, the door behind her had been sealed off by a heavy steel plate, and the same had happened to the ceiling.
"You don't actually think ordinary steel plates can hold me, do you? Otto, since when have you started underestimating me?" Kallen looked at Otto. If it was just steel plates, then between her and Judah she could break out somehow or other.
"Of course I know that, which is why..." Otto raised his hand and traced a circle in the air with his finger, looking somewhat smug as he said, "All of these are Soulium. To gather enough of them, I had to dismantle quite a few of my own bodies."
"But it's fine — consider it a gift to my granddaughter."
"Otto!" Kallen immediately charged forward, intending to plunge through the curtain of light, but the Soulium plates descended faster than she'd anticipated, fully forming a small enclosed space that sealed Kallen inside.
And the speaker Otto had deliberately left within the space continued to carry his voice: "Actually, Kallen, you really should have brought a partner along to support you from outside. But thankfully — I knew you'd come looking for me on your own."
"Otto, stop doing this." Kallen turned toward the direction the voice was coming from. "What is the point of rescuing me like this?"
"The fact that you can live is the point." Otto's voice continued to come through. "This is what I have to do. I have to create a world in which you can live."
"I'm sorry, Kallen. I'm glad that some version of me in some other world was able to do better than I did, but I have to go save my Kallen. Goodbye, Kallen."
"This is my atonement."
"Otto — Otto!!!"
Korosten.
"Otto — what the hell does that bastard even mean by all this?" At that moment, Tesla's face was the picture of bewilderment. He genuinely could not figure out what that bastard Otto was trying to do anymore.
The whole of the Immortal Blades had shown them not a shred of hostility — it was as if they really had come here for a succession ceremony.
Wasn't that right? But now, suddenly, was the next move going to be smashing cups as a signal and three hundred saber-and-axe men rushing out to gang up on them? He could understand any other scenario, but what on earth was going on now?
The problem was, right now Tesla could only stand there with three giant question marks hovering over his head, eyeing every member of every Immortal Blades squad with suspicion — and yet finding no actual reason to suspect them.
"Relax, Dr. Tesla." Einstein casually picked up the teapot beside him — the black tea Rita had been kind enough to brew. "For every move there's a counter, for every flood, earthworks. Maybe this time Otto's actually trying to do something good."
The moment those words left Einstein's mouth, Tesla immediately reached out and pressed a hand to Einstein's forehead. "You're not running a fever — so why are you babbling nonsense over here?"
Einstein waved Tesla's hand away. "What I mean is, let's watch and wait. So far, Otto hasn't even shown himself."
"For us to be suspecting this and suspecting that right now — there's no point in it."
"And there's something else you should believe." As he spoke, Einstein clenched his fist in front of Tesla. "Our combat strength, measured against Otto's, is more than sufficient."
"Our other bases have people holding down the home front, and we've already upgraded the security systems at every base because of that earlier incident."
"Otto's hostage tactics are useless against us — Rin and Little Corruption will be monitoring the status of every missile launch base in the area, around the clock."
"So all Otto can really do is threaten us with force. And on that front, Tesla, why don't you take a look around?"
Following the direction of Einstein's voice, Tesla looked around. All around him were several Herrschers, and over on the Hyperion in the distance was the strongest S-Rank Valkyrie of the current era.
On top of that, they could call in another wave of reinforcements at any moment — combat strength at Durandal's S-Rank or above. The Flame-Chasers were only minding the home base; it wasn't as though they were dead.
If Otto really was about to pull something — and was about to pull it any moment now — one phone call, and whoever was needed would come. Just as Einstein said: scared? Doesn't really seem like it.
Their combat strength was more than enough. If Otto wanted to play dirty, it would just amount to the hostage routine again, and that was all there was to it.
But if he so much as touched something like missiles, Rin and Little Corruption would hack the lot of them in a heartbeat.
In a head-on fight, if Otto could actually muster the kind of combat power needed to take on this many Herrschers — well, Tesla would eat his own knuckle gauntlets on the spot.
Right? So what was there to panic about? Why panic at all? The one who ought to be panicking was Otto, wasn't it?
As everyone knows, a horror game is a horror game because the protagonists have no means of fighting back. But the moment a gun shows up in the game...
It stops being a horror game.
And right now, they were the players holding the gun.
Einstein looked at Tesla and concluded, "So set your mind at ease. We wait for him to make his move. If we throw our own ranks into disarray now, that's exactly when Otto will slip in through the cracks."
Mei and the others standing nearby just shrugged. The reason they were so at ease was that they'd long since understood exactly what Dr. Einstein had been saying.
The point was: don't panic, don't be afraid, trust that Otto was a paper tiger. Schemes and intrigues wouldn't work on them — and if it came to it, they'd just figure out the puzzle when the time came.
Only Tesla was the one standing there with a worried look on his face.
Then again, it wasn't a bad thing to have one person staying on guard the whole time, so none of them said anything — though, of course, the possibility they were just hoping to enjoy the show couldn't be ruled out either.
"As expected of Dr. Einstein. You really have hit me right where it hurts."
At that very moment, Otto's voice suddenly rang out within the room. The television off to the side switched on of its own accord, and Otto's figure appeared on the screen.
Einstein calmly turned his head to look at Otto. "So you really have been watching us this whole time. Then what are you here for now? Couldn't hold out any longer?"
"How can Dr. Einstein say such a thing?" The smile on Otto's face remained. "This is merely a touch of necessary attention. And I wasn't planning on doing anything in particular, either."
"Do you even believe what you're saying yourself?" The moment Tesla saw Otto, all the calm that had been so painstakingly coaxed into him evaporated, replaced once again by simmering rage. "You've finally come out, which means your other little errands are all wrapped up, doesn't it?"
Otto looked at Tesla, putting on a face of regret and contrition. "Sigh. Dr. Tesla, I know you're terribly angry with me for what I've done, but in truth — I, too, am perpetually wishing to repent for the things I have done."
Otto's gaze swept around the room before locking onto Welt. "Is Mr. Welt also together with everyone? Wonderful. I'd like to offer my apologies to you as well — after all, back in the day, I did fail to let you all enjoy a happy Thanksgiving in New York."
"All these years, I've wanted to express my apologies to you. I've even imagined many different ways to do it — for instance, finding some memorial and dropping to my knees on the spot, putting on a performance of weeping and wailing for you."
"But sadly, my official duties have always been such a burden that I never managed to make it happen. Still, so many years have already passed by now — surely you no longer need such a contrived and theatrical sort of ceremony?"
Listening to Otto's words, the faces of Tesla and Welt and the others twitched. Off to one side, Einstein's knuckles, gripping the teacup, had gone white — clearly, he was not exactly composed either.
"Is this really what you've come here to say, Otto?" Suddenly, another screen flickered open beside Otto's. Otto looked at the figure on it, his eyes widening abruptly before returning to calm.
"Oh, Mr. Joyce. I didn't expect you to be there as well. Pardon me, but Mr. Joyce, you are—?"
"I am the Joyce you know." Joyce stood with his arms crossed, his eyes turned uncharacteristically cold. "Otto, that smug, sanctimonious act of yours — it's truly nauseating."
"Or is this what you've come to say in your final hour?"
The smile remained on Otto's face. Now he understood why, when Irene had handed the core over to him, she'd said he might end up meeting someone he hadn't expected.
This really was quite a special little surprise.
Though it might be a surprise sprung on him out of nowhere, it wasn't enough to change Otto's resolve to keep on taunting them. And so Otto continued.
"Or what, then? Or, to put it another way — Joyce, do you really think people like Kiana or Irene have any need of an apology from me at this point?"
Otto spread his hands, an innocent smile on his face. "All of you are heroic figures, after all. Surely you can't be so petty as that? Or am I mistaken?"
"Your shamelessness is genuinely sickening."
Otto only kept the smile on his face. "If any of you happen to be interested, then by all means, come pay a visit to the cathedral. If any of you have questions to ask me, you'll find me there too."
"I look forward to all of your gracious presence."
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