Honkai: Man(Sludge) From Future

With the biggest weight lifted from her shoulders, Fu Hua had more than enough confidence to continue her negotiations with the Chinese locals. The only remaining concern was her own negotiation skills, but those could be improved through learning.

After Noldrei's guidance, she immediately realized what a powerful creation the Honkai Fission Bomb was. A superweapon that could produce raw materials and energy would become the most coveted key node of control for any production-based organization.

No wonder Noldrei always said they were all primitives. So this was what it meant to be a primitive?

Fu Hua had thought Noldrei simply looked down on them because of his personal strength. Now it seemed he was most likely just stating a fact about their backward social state, with no intention of looking down on anyone.

Ms. Fu Hua's negotiations with the local Chinese government wouldn't lead to a complete breakdown, and Noldrei's explanation had only given her more confidence.

Meanwhile, on the other side, someone else was troubled by her own affairs.

Durandal. She realized she had actually gotten fat.

Durandal looked down at her leg armor, which she could no longer squeeze into, and a strange sadness washed over her.

Wait! How could this be?

Considering her daily training regimen, there was no reason for her to gain weight! Why was her Valkyrie armor doing this?

Durandal had to go back and check her food list, where she found something that bewildered her.

Honkai Factor Meat Products

Durandal never thought her daily diet would include Honkai-laced food. When did her stomach become so resilient?

With her high Honkai energy resistance, Durandal wasn't worried about this problem. The compensatory effect of the Academy City's Stigma Battlesuit could basically isolate these troubles.

'Strange, is this energy index a bit off?'

She checked her meal plan online and found that all Honkai factor meat products had a high-energy advisory. On the shelves, there was even an emphatic sign indicating restricted purchase.

But Durandal was different...

"Crap! I asked someone else to buy things for me, so I never saw any of this!" Durandal was speechless. After seeing this high-energy food, her first thought was to ask Rita to come back and take care of her.

The unlucky Lady Durandal had intended to adapt to life on her own, but she had been captivated by the deliciousness of the Honkai factor meat products. The fact that she hadn't turned into a big fatty after eating it for so long could only mean that Durandal's own energy consumption was astonishing.

'If Rita hadn't been taking care of me back then, I probably would have starved to death during training.'

Durandal lamented her once-ignorant life.

But now she had to face a very troublesome problem: her Valkyyrie armor wouldn't fit. Without her Valkyrie armor, Durandal couldn't just go out on a mission.

"I thought it was just ordinary meat. I didn't expect it to be like Honkai Beast meat. Has the Academy City already progressed to this level?"

Durandal lamented how quickly the world was changing. A person like her, who only knew how to train, could be eliminated within two months.

"No, I have to find a way to absorb more outside knowledge. Luckily, I still have a custom-made Stigma Battlesuit I can use."

She hadn't used the Stigma Battlesuit before simply because its appearance was a bit... bizarre. Durandal also didn't know that, thanks to Welt's help, a new, cooler batch of Kamen Stigma Battlesuits had been created.

The girl had yet to emerge from the haze of losing her job as a Valkyrie, and now she was already fumbling with her first mission involving a Herrscher in the Academy City.

'I must communicate more with my sister about matters in the Academy City.'

As if some kind of creature were clinging to her, Durandal once again felt the familiar thrum of bloodline power within the Stigma Battlesuit.

"The power of the Kaslana family's Stigma... phew..."

Durandal felt the Stigma Battlesuit. The good thing about this symbiotic armor was that it could adjust to the owner's body at any time. After synchronizing with her nervous system, Durandal felt she was ready to head to Heliopolis Life Sciences.

But what Durandal didn't expect was...

She encountered a "familiar" "person" at the entrance of Heliopolis Life Sciences.

It was a familiar woman, a woman Durandal had only seen in photographs: Cecilia, her mother.

?!

What was going on?

Durandal, who had intended to go straight into the Heliopolis Life Sciences building, was now stuck at the entrance. She stared blankly at "Cecilia," suddenly realizing that this woman was an android.

As if sensing Durandal's gaze, she subconsciously turned to look at her.

There was a special feeling, as if they were fated to meet. The Cecilia android smiled at Durandal.

"Hello."

"Who commissioned this face for you?" Durandal got straight to the point. She didn't want to suddenly have a mother.

Durandal subconsciously touched her own face. Due to her recent nutritional surplus, her face had become slightly rounder. Because of this, she resembled Cecilia even more.

Durandal's originally sharp and heroic features now carried a hint of Schariac's gentleness and beauty.

"Well, how should I explain this? I'm here to ask Heliopolis Life Sciences to recycle and reprocess me."

The Cecilia android truthfully told Durandal her current situation. Since she couldn't self-destruct at will, and Siegfried was unwilling to deal with her, the only one with the authority to handle her was the Heliopolis Life Sciences' android network.

Durandal took a deep breath. She stared at the android who looked so much like her mother and guessed who had created her.

"Why? Is Otto still doing this?"

After learning about what had happened to her family and that a new organization had replaced Schicksal, Durandal had stopped calling Otto "Overseer."

"To be precise, I am a Cecilia recreated through the authority of the council. Not by Otto, but by a group of people led by Otto, Cocolia, and Raiden Ryoma, who favor a more radical social change for the Academy City."

The Cecilia android explained, "Only drastic social change will create suffering people in society, making it more likely for a Herrscher to be born and appear. Only in this way can the stable descent of a Honkai Herrscher be controlled. This is also what the Director-General expects."

Durandal remembered. Rita had told her that androids were the vessels for the new Herrscher. And androids had the defect of not being able to awaken a Stigma, making them excellent vessels—they wouldn't cause a crisis, nor would they become uncontrollably powerful.

'Has humanity's suffering just been transferred in this way?'

Durandal was silent, at a loss for words. She didn't know how to face this new Cecilia.

The two who looked so alike faced each other in silence.

They had no words, nor did they know how to begin a conversation.

Because the mission of the real Kiana Kaslana was to defeat the Herrscher.