Honkai Impact 3rd, a simulator of lifelong regret!

189. The gift...should I refuse it?

He said it.

He expressed his will.

The pathetic Raiden Mei gave away a gift she had been blackmailed for, a gift that disappointed the boy immensely—a gift imbued with her own selfish motives from the very beginning.

The box isn't heavy. Even with multiple layers of wrapping, it's designed to maintain a sense of ceremony while perfectly maximizing anticipation. The contents, which are simply a modified kaleidoscope, can't possibly be too heavy either. Even a small child could easily pick it up with one hand.

The box was heavy. Even though his hands, which could hold swords without trembling and could easily swing hundreds of times a minute, trembled when he held the box, causing his whole body to shake. No matter how hard he tried to suppress it, he couldn't control it.

It's gone, it's gone.

The power has been lost.

It seems that the one-sword style he had trained countless times has been lost.

It seems that the power gained through all the effort of cultivation has been lost.

It seems that the numbness that had been worn down over a long period of time has finally broken.

Everything he relied on had vanished; all the pillars that supported him had collapsed. There was nothing left to depend on in this powerless body. It was as if he had once again fallen into boundless darkness, a complete and utter despair without a glimmer of light.

Essentially, all the normalcy and all the mental effort were merely a final burst of energy in this body, barely sustaining itself with the gentleness of a young boy.

The current behavior is essentially suicide; a person about to be hanged kicks away the stool under their feet, stands on the edge of a cliff, and smashes the rocks connecting to it.

The fact that they didn't completely fall into darkness and die numbly is essentially because the light given by the boy provided a last straw.

Now, however, he tries to grasp at straws and offer gifts to a boy who has everything he needs and who has no desire for him whatsoever—this is utterly meaningless. He has not recognized his own position and is unaware of his current state.

Such an ungrateful, shameless, and self-aware person is probably destined to suffocate or fall and be smashed into a pulp.

Too arrogant

Too arrogant

Too much...

—A thirst for.

I can no longer understand or accept this state of grasping at straws while being completely clueless.

It is no longer possible to live with life and everything else tied to things we know nothing about.

Having no knowledge of straw, not knowing how long it would last, or when it would break, I couldn't feel at ease or at ease. My heart was pounding in my chest for a second, constantly teetering on the edge of fear—would I fall down in the next second?

The constant anxiety stems from knowing the despair of falling, and from longing for the happiness of being saved; this very anxiety gives rise to fear.

Yes.

That's greedy.

That's arrogant.

Even though it has already been saved, it still shamelessly demands more; even though it has been given selfless sunlight and granted the ability to fly like Icarus, it still tries to go to a place closer to the sun.

She was nothing more than a gloomy woman with no redeeming qualities; her talent, beauty, and strength were all completely overwhelmed by the boy.

Even in terms of physical strength, on a few occasions, one could inadvertently sense the boy's physical prowess, at least in terms of power, through subtle details.

It's beyond description; you can't even describe it as splitting bricks or cutting steel pipes. You stay firmly in place on the roller coaster, unaffected by the wind. All you need to do is hold onto the handle with one hand to keep yourself still as it accelerates.

This power has reached an extraordinary level, it shouldn't belong to humans. If it wanted to, it could probably even bend steel bars.

The so-called exquisite family secret technique of One-Sword Style, and the so-called strength of a swordsman, are nothing but lies told to exaggerate.

This is a power that is simply unattainable. So-called technology is nothing in front of numerical monsters. Even if you try your best, you can't touch it in the slightest.

Unable to find any strengths or any place that would qualify him to stand before him, he still stands there so shamelessly and arrogantly.

But that's just human nature.

Despite their greed and arrogance, it is precisely this insatiable spirit that has enabled humanity to continue progressing to this day.

People can really scare themselves to death. There's a legendary experiment where you blindfold yourself, then take a piece of paper and make a cut on your wrist, turn on a tap, and keep yourself in a position where water drips down one drop at a time.

Although no wounds were caused, the subtle coolness and the dripping water felt as if my wrist had been cut and was bleeding.

According to the story, when people opened the warehouse the next day and saw the person, they found that the person, who had no wounds, was already dead.

The cause appears to be cardiac arrest. The fear was so intense that the person was constantly on edge, wondering if they would die, that their heart could no longer withstand the pressure and stopped beating.

If a person is constantly caught in an endless cycle of fear of being abandoned at any moment, then the result would surely be that their heart cannot bear it.

and so……

Please allow me to do something so presumptuous.

Please accept the despicable nature of the person named Raiden Mei, all the unease and desires within her heart, a nature more greedy than Satan himself.

……

The sunlight was just right at that moment, and although it was not long before the curtain fell, it gave the world a final ray of light with its fervor before the end.

The pure, flawless light had already been tinged with the twilight, and the sculpted sunset made the remaining afterglow so dazzling that it defied description.

Perhaps the clarity of the morning light and shadow can be compared to it, but in terms of aesthetics, nothing can surpass the sunset at dusk.

That's so special that it could even have its own column in all the color charts, with an adjective created specifically for it—namely, the yellowish beauty of a sunset.

The essence of adjectives is that they can be described in the most concise language. For example, if you want to describe the intensity of something, you can directly say it is like fire. The things that can be described must be extremely common and extremely symbolic, to the point that you can unconsciously imagine them just by seeing them. They are either images or beauty itself.

Even today, the most common way to describe a beautiful young girl is to use flowers, and the sunset can indeed be almost compared to that.

Whenever I mention the sunset and the beauty of the setting sun, I can't help but drift into the beautiful scenery that is etched in my memory.

Although this beautiful scene became a forgotten backdrop at this moment, neither the naive young girl nor the absent-minded boy paid attention to the fiery clouds. The only thing that could be seen in their mirror-like clear eyes was each other.

My thoughts were inexplicably hazy, as if even the physical attributes of a Herrscher body couldn't fully withstand the dizziness of a roller coaster and a pirate ship.

The shaking that once seemed insignificant has now become a trigger for a chaotic, turbulent state in my mind, like a clump of paste.

This isn't the first time she's received a gift from someone.

This isn't the first time they've given a gift like this, one-on-one.

Having already experienced something like this before, one should not act like a novice.

But clearly, at this moment, mind, soul, and body all denied this piece of advice, delivering the expected confusion and disorientation from the deepest part of the heart and the innermost layer of the body.

For a fleeting moment, his dark eyes expressed bewilderment. Even the deep blue of the sea and starry sky seemed to be caught in a whirlpool and a black hole, causing chaos even in the calm ocean and the starry sky.

Perhaps this is already a sign of experience; if one were truly ignorant and had nothing, perhaps their performance would have been even uglier.

I have never experienced anything as cold as Alicia in real life.

Because there wasn't even that fairy-like girl by my side.

Because they don't even qualify as passersby.

Ordinary and unremarkable, that's all that happened in the past, all that life went by, and there was no one special or unusual about them.

For ordinary mortals, even joining a hero's team as a support staff member or a foot-wiping worker is a life-changing event, a long-awaited goal.

The works depict the lives of others, the lives that can truly be called lives, yet people can only eke out a living in their own existence.

The so-called relaxation, the so-called romance, the so-called travel, the so-called souvenirs exchanged between loved ones at the end of a trip.

Regardless of gender or physical appearance, there is no reason why a man must give this gift to a woman; it is simply a gift given out of a feeling of blessing.

These seemingly normal 'ordinary' individuals never belonged to ordinary people from the beginning—they were not passersby, not NPCs, but data that didn't even deserve to appear on stage, and didn't even deserve to have their own lives on stage.

There is no rest in studying, no rest in working, and no rest in being pressured to get married – this is the reality for the vast majority of people.

Even now, at this very moment, in this truly real and tangible instant, the ordinariness of an ordinary person has been shattered in an instant.

It is something that only the protagonist in the story could experience; it is not a simulation, nor is it the vague and ethereal emotions between dead people from 50,000 years ago, but something that is truly happening right before your eyes, just like in a novel.

what……

what……

Is this what it feels like to receive a souvenir/gift from someone?

Is this the kind of light novel-like development that's missing from my ordinary life?

……

The Ferris wheel slowly turned, the decaying, lifeless object seemingly unaware of the girl's feelings. Even after reaching its highest point, it continued its predetermined downward trajectory, causing the cabins belonging to the two of them to cycle once more.

But an ignorant bird landed by the window, watching the outpouring of emotion, unable to cry out, stirring up the twilight of the setting sun, painting the sky a dim yellow.

The wind blew across the grass without making a sound, only the bent roots could be heard. Perhaps because it was too far away, even the rustling of the leaves was buried.

Everything was so quiet, as if even the world itself was aware that something important was happening, and had stopped all the noise.

The two Herrschers' bodies were now gathered together, their emotions reaching their peak, a limit that even the Great Collapse could not have been too much to bear, like two nuclear warheads on the verge of exploding at the same time. If they were not careful, the whole world would probably be destroyed as a result.

……

Is Jiangcheng hesitating?

Why didn't you choose to refuse immediately?

Raiden Mei bit her lip, her heart a bottomless abyss, a pit where she had no self-confidence, a tightrope walk at any moment, a sorrow where it would be perfectly normal to fall the next second. Yet, her beautiful eyebrows were raised, and she remained silent, waiting, to present the gift she had entrusted with her heart to her.

No matter how long it takes, she will choose to wait; no matter how long it is, she will surely wait until everything is over—how could a girl who has already experienced a long period of darkness not be able to tolerate this little bit of time?

But the unease in my heart, my still-beating heart, was somewhat reluctant to receive a reply.

Unbeknownst to him, Jiang Cheng was gazing into those dazzling eyes.

It can no longer be described as human...