Honkai Impact 3rd, a simulator of lifelong regret!

【—What if it were even stronger?】

The answer given in that ancient text is that the butcher's knife could last a lifetime because he could even find the gaps between the ingredients, just enough for the blade to pass through without causing any wear.

This story, seemingly a simple celebration of practice makes perfect and technology, is actually more of an analysis of the human condition.

Thousands of years ago, some people realized that the so-called courage to not turn back until hitting a wall is often a meaningless act.

Truly capable people never waste time on things they don't know how to do, don't like, or don't need to do, simply because they know how.

The sense of self in life is also subject to wear and tear; excessive emotional fluctuations will eventually exhaust us, and the soul will ultimately feel weary.

Things accomplished through courage, hype, or sheer effort and willpower will one day vanish without a trace when that willpower wanes, forgotten forever, never to be remembered again.

True geniuses, those with talent or a good education, would never say something that sounds like they're just giving something worthless.

There are always people in the world who seem extremely eccentric from the perspective of ordinary people. They appear taciturn, unapproachable, and even antisocial.

To others, that person may appear lonely and isolated, but any pity shown towards them is, in essence, nothing more than arrogant arrogance.

[In her heart, there exists a world of its own, a pure land untouched by others, magnificent and breathtaking, brimming with vitality and the wildness of nature. For this personal realm, life is already vibrant enough, needing no worldly clamor.]

The so-called loneliness and indifference are merely the gatekeepers of this world, used to filter out those who should never have set foot in that beautiful realm.

Perhaps someone has stepped into Möbius's heart; perhaps someone has held a birthday cake and used candlelight to illuminate that moment of loneliness.

—It's no longer available.

There's not even a tiny bit left.

[You're just having a cold conversation with Mebius, discussing the latest changes in the world to figure out what to do next, how the next Herrscher might be born, and what kind of disaster might it unleash?]

[Everything seemed almost unchanged until the moment you were about to leave, when the researcher posed a question to you.]

"Which do you prefer, the starry sky or the ocean?"

"I would prefer the ocean."

Mebius's tone was devoid of any hesitation, and his deep green eyes held a hint of intoxication and rapture, as if he were stating something inevitable.

"All life originated from the ocean. Between 20 and 5.5 million years ago, two single cells with different genes began to fuse into a synaptic cell, and began to self-replicate and aggregate, thus forming simple multicellular organisms."

"This is a miracle that is theoretically almost impossible, but over an unimaginable long period of time, probability has turned the impossible into a possibility."

"Perhaps the initial single cell just happened to meet, and accidentally fused together due to some extremely low probability event."

"But it was precisely because of this inevitable miracle that life took its first form in the ocean."

"—Aquatic plants and animals."

The aloof researcher gently adjusted her flat-framed glasses and casually recounted basic knowledge that could be found in elementary school textbooks.

"The ancestors of arthropods, trilobites, mollusks, anomalocaris and vertebrates, Kunmingfish, and later the ancestor Ichthyostega with four limbs, Tittalacus, the world's first fish to climb onto land."

"Survival, reproduction, evolution... Although all of this may be incredibly ugly, it is precisely the reality we need to pursue, the reality of evolution."

"The Honkai is a disaster, an undeniable and irresistible disaster, which is why humanity needs to evolve and climb ever higher."

"Compared to the stars that twinkle in the night sky, and the paradise that does not exist on earth, I prefer the sea."

Mebius calmly offered her assessment, her words laced with a chilling yet intoxicating quality—the coldness of the ocean, the ugliness of reality, a scathing critique that would instinctively make any fairy uncomfortable.

There was no opportunity to answer; despite the verbal inquiry, the cold researcher showed no sign of stopping.

Rather than asking questions, this might seem more like lecturing, or the dissatisfaction and opinions of a bystander regarding the performance on stage.

"My suggestion is the sea. You can also choose not to make a choice, because no matter what you choose in the end, what I will say will be the same, Alicia."

"No matter how much I hate you, I have to remind you that you want to hold onto this happiness that is right in your hands and continue to toy with Jiangcheng."

"Then you must at least be able to protect all of this intact, so that it doesn't collapse like it did during the Collapse of the Firemoth."

"The life between Vilvi and Jiang Cheng can only be described as dreamlike; it's like a story straight out of a fairy tale."

"But the price of looking at the stars is the death of Vilvie, the loss of all that is beautiful, and the inability to tacitly accept that the fruits of final victory will be stolen by you."

“I don’t want this to happen again. If you can’t do that, you might as well release Jiang Cheng sooner rather than later.”

……

"No need, absolutely no need."

“I will never accept any of this, and I will never repeat the mistakes of Vilvie.”

The light shining in those pink eyes was an unwavering determination, an insatiable greed, and an obsession with what she loved—the result of the girl having given up almost everything.

It is absolutely impossible for me to accept losing it.

The end is absolutely unacceptable.

Releasing Jiang Cheng and letting him leave is completely impossible!

……

105. All Alicia has left is her aura.

what……

That really fits the current description of greed and selfishness.

It feels like the innocent girl of the past has been tainted; at least a little bit of pure beauty was still preserved in Alicia, who has been completely transformed into Velvey.

Could it be that Jiang Cheng's greatest ability is not his talent, nor his strategic skills, but rather the ability to transform everyone around him into someone with an unimaginably heavy heart and personality, just like Wilvi?

Well……

We shouldn't overthink this.

Mebius dared not delve any deeper into the matter here.

On the day Jiang Cheng died, and on the day she realized that there was no one left to understand and accompany her, the seemingly cold girl did something she had never experienced even when she was being abused by her father.

--sad.

Even though many years have passed, the emotions of that moment remain so clear and so vivid. They were emotions that Möbius, who left his family alone at a young age to venture into society, had never felt, experienced, or imagined.

She never thought she could feel sadness over someone's passing or intense pain because of someone else's death.

Until that day comes.

Until the news of that death arrived.

If we delve deeper into this topic and carefully examine the emotions we felt during that period, the heavy and oppressive unease in our hearts...

Perhaps in a sense, it's understandable that what was never truly understood was only the heavy emotions belonging to Wilvi that were understood by the other party.

Because one thing that cannot be denied is that I am also an important friend of Jiangcheng, or at least I consider myself an important friend.

Mebius rejected the answer in his mind without hesitation, and with his overly slender and pale fingertips, he gently lifted the flat-framed glasses that reflected the light.

"So……"

How do you plan to manage the town's behavior?

How would you design a self-consistent blueprint?

……

"Eh?"

A lovely voice escaped from her rosy lips, accompanied by a stiffness in her diamond-shaped pupils, which should have been resolute and sparkling.

Alice, who was waiting to be tested by Mebius, an important friend of Jiangcheng and the only person in the world who knew her true identity, spoke in a puzzled tone, which even turned slightly pale.

The gaze fixed gently on the scholar's eyes, as if asking—why do you think fairies would understand matters concerning governance and planning of small towns?

If it were any other test, the girl believed she could overcome it, whether in terms of strength or absolute loyalty to love.

I just can't understand why those seemingly simple and ordinary characters can't do anything at all.

It looks like very ordinary text.

Once connected, it becomes incomprehensible.

……

what……

what?

—Can't you even understand this?

—What kind of trouble am I getting myself into?

Mebius sighed softly, forcibly suppressing the urge to run away immediately, and gently picked up a pen from the table.

With a slight rub of the fingertips, the screen in front of the user sensed the user's intention, automatically adjusted to be larger, and floated in the air to project the image.

It is one of the most basic textbooks and the simplest way to describe social and biological evolution.

I never imagined I'd have to review this one day.

"If you want an eternal paradise to last, you first need a complete development framework, whether the basic structure is theocracy or something else."

"Human consciousness is different from that of animals. What makes humans human is that they develop into humans through social labor. Labor plays a crucial and decisive role in shaping primitive humans."

"Based on communal living and labor, humans formed the simplest primitive commune. Later, people learned to cultivate crops and broke away from hunting and gathering."

"The demand for labor in the life of gathering gave rise to wars between tribes, and the wars of annexation between tribes brought about the labor force of slaves."

“The ordinary people of other tribes, the residents of normal life, became the victors, the property of the slave-owning tribes, and thus slave society came into being.”

……

"Aren't these things products of evolution?"

Alicia gently raised her hand, tilting her head in confusion, as if she had returned to the time when she and Jiang Cheng were studying together in the classroom in the small town.

Although it was just a school in a small town, the girl, who followed in the footsteps of the boys at that time and listened attentively, clearly remembered it.

Ordinary humans, the average humans, the humans who appear before us, like those in Jiangcheng, are the product of continuous evolution and thousands of years of effort.

Why is it being linked to labor, something everyone has and is an innate ability?