"Do you have a Curio that can guarantee my safety?"
"I do." Chen Li produced the Friends Circle.
"Do you have a Curio that can disguise me?"
"I do." Chen Li took out the Disguise Glasses.
"Do you have a Curio that lets me call for backup?"
"I do, I do." Chen Li handed Pale Justice to Herta.
"Do you have a Curio that will let me play others like a fiddle and completely counter that bitch?"
"I do, I have it all." Chen Li took out the Elation's Die and transferred its usage rights to Herta.
"Reset the state of the Key of Fateful Invitation for me."
"Right away, dear!" Chen Li used his Fiction Value to impose the Key's state from 20 minutes ago onto its current state. The once-broken key instantly became whole again.
"I'm going to end you!"
Surrounded by a golden halo, wearing disguise glasses, a greatsword taller than herself slung over her shoulder, and a die in her other hand, Herta was armed and ready.
"Go get 'em, dear," Chen Li gave her a thumbs-up.
"You're sure that using the Key of Fateful Invitation can forcibly invite any character below the level of an Aeon, right?" Herta asked, holding the key for a final confirmation.
"Guaranteed! If you can't even invite her, I'll upgrade this Curio for you for free to a level where you can directly invite Aeons! Plus, the invitation space can sever causality, which is the perfect counter for her," Chen Li promised.
While it was true that Chen Li had sacrificed the lower limit for a higher ceiling when making the invitation, that lower limit was still at the god level. Not just anyone could come and test it. Although the person Herta was about to challenge was stronger than a typical god, she was, in the end, not an Aeon.
Polka Kakamot, also known as the [Silent Lord], member #4 of the Genius Society. She had once destroyed all her own portraits and sculptures throughout the universe and was suspected of being connected to the deaths of numerous club members, including #27, Emperor Rupert. For this reason, some called her the Genius Killer.
She could deploy an "Omniscience Domain," within which she could determine all probabilistic events, making her nearly omniscient and omnipotent. She repeatedly hunted down geniuses, attempting to limit the growth of knowledge in the universe and extinguish the possibility of chaos. She killed those geniuses precisely because they had touched the edge of the circle of knowledge.
Thus, the Genius Society was, in effect, a high-risk talent list. Perhaps a so-called "genius" was simply someone who had, in some specific area, touched the edge of Nous's "Omniscience Domain."
And Herta was clearly a person of great interest to this particular genius.
"Say the line needed to summon that knight again—the one that's not necessarily strong, but guaranteed to be disgusting enough," Herta asked.
"We rise from filth, we thrive in decay!" Chen Li recited.
"Are you sure it's disgusting enough?"
"Guaranteed disgusting!" After all, you're about to summon a Nurgle Knight. To say he's covered in shit is to praise him!
"If it's not, I'm coming back for a refund!"
"Dear, dear, you absolutely don't need to worry about it not being disgusting enough. The only thing you need to be careful of is to get out before she severs all the friendship and bonds carried by the Friends Circle. Otherwise, once she takes off your Disguise Glasses, your real identity will be exposed," Chen Li reminded her.
"Got it!"
"Query: Why not find or forge a Curio capable of a one-hit kill?" Screwllum asked.
"How could I let her off that easily? On the azure planet alone, she ruined my fun 19 times! I'm going to give her hell!" Herta ground her teeth in fury.
"Correction, your 19 saves of the azure planet were not all due to your own experimental failures. By the same token, she did not disrupt your research on the azure planet 19 times," Chen Li muttered under his breath.
"I don't care! In any case, as soon as I'm done with the Aeon of Erudition, I'm using my daily Key of Fateful Invitation on her. I'm going to disgust her to death! Blood for blood, a tooth for a tooth! Anyone who messes with me, I'll pay them back tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold! Otherwise, I'd be unworthy of my title as a genius!"
"Right, right, I can see you hold a grudge. So what? You want an award for it?"
"Anyway, I'm going in."
"Hey, wait a minute. Find a remote, deserted place first. Put on the disguise glasses, then go in. It's best to make sure your invitation target can't see anything on the other side of the door that could be linked to you," Chen Li reminded her.
"Oh."
Although Chen Li felt that Polka Kakamot had few enemies to begin with—or rather, few who were still alive—and even fewer who could pose a threat to her, he knew she would sooner or later turn her attention to him. After all, his title was Curio Forger. Therefore, Herta would inevitably be exposed to Polka Kakamot's sight. But what Herta wanted wasn't complete concealment, just short-term concealment. Otherwise, she would have asked Chen Li to forge a Curio long ago.
"You know what her nickname is. Without the Friends Circle, you really could die from her assassination. So you'd better be careful," Chen Li reminded her again, seeing that Herta didn't seem to care.
"Hah? Me, afraid of her? Let's see her try to chase me to another world. Worst case, I'll just live at your place starting tomorrow! Besides, don't you have a resurrection Curio? If I die, you can watch ads and revive me!" the Herta puppet said disdainfully. I've got a resurrection Curio, what's there to be afraid of?
"...Why me?"
"Chen Li, you just said it yourself. We're close friends, sworn brothers, beloved family!"
"...Fine."
"Besides, if she dares to assassinate me, I'll spend my entire fortune to have you forge a Curio that can one-shot her! It's like I said: I can fail countless times, but she only has to fail once!" Herta was exceptionally agitated now. You ruined my chances of stepping outside the circle of knowledge so many times, I'll give you hell!
"Right, right. So could you please not be so agitated? You don't just want to openly mess with her; you want her to have no idea who you are at first, and then jump out at the end to reveal your identity—just like she did to you. So try not to expose yourself too quickly," Chen Li said, trying to calm her down.
As for whether Polka Kakamot would get angry? Herta was in the right, what did Herta have to fear?
"Hmph, enough talk. I'm going!"
The Herta puppet, shouldering Pale Justice, stomped off to a more secluded cabin. She then summoned other puppets to use the most ordinary black cloth purchased from Yakumo Yukari to cover up anything in the cabin that could possibly reveal its origin, including the wallpaper.
After completing all this, Herta, wearing the Disguise Glasses, swaggered over and jammed the Key of Fateful Invitation into the lock of a most ordinary door.
Just as Chen Li had said, as long as it wasn't one of the top few Aeons in the Honkai: Star Rail world, any other character could be invited into the invitation space by the Key. And Polka Kakamot was no exception.
"Hehehehe!"
Seeing the figure inside the door—clad in a flamboyant, candy-colored evening gown and holding a dagger (scalpel)—Herta couldn't suppress her laughter as she stepped into the invitation space and pulled the door shut behind her.
Your ability to manifest along the chain of causality is certainly powerful, but what if I don't appear in my real body, and on top of that, the invitation space itself severs the effect of causality? What will you do then, Your Excellency?
"Screwllum, what do you think... is happening inside that door?" Chen Li asked, watching the feed being transmitted back from the Friends Circle terminal, which was acting as a monitor.
"Why don't you just ask Herta directly? She's already out," Screwllum reminded him.
"Right, if you close the door, real-world time is frozen!" Since he had never closed the door while talking to an invited guest before, Chen Li had completely forgotten about this feature.
Chen Li saw Herta emerge from the invitation space, looking a bit disheveled.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go see the show." Chen Li grabbed Screwllum and headed directly to the scene. Saying they were "heading to the scene" was a bit of an exaggeration; it was only two doors away.
"Ahem, Chen Li, that Nurgle Knight you summoned for me was way too disgusting," Herta complained to Chen Li the moment he entered the room.
"???" Seriously, bro? Before you left, you repeatedly insisted that I summon a knight disgusting enough, no disgust no pay, and now you're complaining that the knight I summoned for you was too disgusting... Are you just trying to pick a fight?
"I'm not really complaining about you. It's just that I really didn't expect that Nurgle Knight to be so disgusting that it couldn't distinguish between friend and foe," Herta added, seeing Chen Li's rather speechless expression and realizing what she had just said.
"Just tell me if it was effective or not."
"Well... it was," Herta couldn't help but nod.
Although the Nurgle Knight had managed to disgust Herta while it was disgusting Polka Kakamot, since Herta was on its side, the torment she suffered was far, far less than what Polka Kakamot endured. At least Herta didn't... never mind, let's not talk about it. That scene was just too brutal!
"These Curios of yours are really useful. The Disguise Glasses ensured I wouldn't be... be recognized by that woman. The Friends Circle prevents me from being assassinated, giving me enough time to watch her suffer. And the Elation's Die is the real heavyweight... Chen Li, this die of yours is amazing," Herta praised Chen Li's Elation's Die effusively.
The Elation's Die was the key to Herta's success in disgusting the Silent Lord this time.
Although the combined power of the Herta puppet and the Nurgle Knight wasn't enough to withstand a single slash from Polka Kakamot's scalpel, don't forget that besides helping the user solve their current trouble, the Elation's Die had another effect, one Chen Li had never used:
[Betting on Outcomes]: The user can select a target and then randomly roll the die to obtain a number. If the number is less than or equal to 10, you will become the fun for the other party in the events that follow. If the number is greater than 10, the other party will become your fun or randomly encounter an Elation event, becoming the ultimate beneficiary. There is no limit to the number of uses against the same target.
Your Excellency's ability to manipulate probability is certainly invincible, but what if probability is on my side?
Therefore, for the entire 30 minutes within the invitation space, Polka Kakamot must have been serving as Herta's entertainment. Theoretically, with the Elation's Die, Herta didn't even need the Friends Circle, but the Friends Circle increased her margin for error. Who ever said fun couldn't be hurtful? The Aeon of Elation would surely have something to say about that!
"Of course. It's a 1-Star Curio, after all. It's a Curio that can even stand against a world. The Elation's Die is one of my proudest works. By the way, what number did you roll?"
"5," Herta said, embarrassed.
"...Your luck is pretty bad. But it's a good thing the die was already fully charged with points before I lent it to you." For some reason, ever since he got this die, Chen Li was surrounded by fun; there was no shortage of Elation points.
"Oh, right, here's your Friends Circle back..." Herta returned the metal ring to Chen Li.
"Hmm? Why are there so many fewer friends and bonds in here? Just how many times did she stab you?" Chen Li couldn't help but look at Herta after observing the state of the Friends Circle.
"It's a small matter. I'll cover the cost of preparing Friends Circle terminals for those friends. 5 Star Stones a piece, right? Put it on my tab for now, I'll pay you back double later." Before Chen Li could ask for details, he saw Herta scurry away with quick, small steps.
"The Star Stones aren't the issue. The issue is that Silver Wolf's contact information is gone, and Silver Wolf doesn't even have a backup terminal!" Chen Li sighed, looking at the wave of friendships and bonds that had been lost. Although Yakumo Yukari and Eirin Yagokoro, those two unlucky ones, were also consumed as friends, they both had backups. The only good news for now was that since the terminal sent to Tingyun hadn't been activated yet, it hadn't been consumed.
"Forget it. I'll just have to resort to the backup plan," Chen Li said helplessly.
---o---