Honkai Impact 3rd: My Days as a Captain in Schicksal

The next scene can only be seen in the game.

In an instant, the entire St. Freya Academy was filled with the sounds of huge machines running and the ground trembling slightly. All the Valkyries who were busy with their own things couldn't help but want to run out and see what was going on.

They watched as the enormous transport ship suddenly unfolded, its smooth metal hull splitting open layer by layer like a Transformer, revealing the metal structure inside. These structures, like willow buds sprouting in spring, unfolded one after another from the nested structure, expanding almost magically from nothing to a size that looked much larger than a transport ship.

Meanwhile, the outer shell plates rapidly deformed and extended, suddenly protruding from the middle layer of the deck into another hidden layer, effectively doubling the platform area of ​​the transport ship's outer shell deck.

The machines didn't stop; instead, a bunch of round, autonomous machines suddenly emerged from the gaps inside the unfolded transport ship. These machines were shaped like four-legged spheres, and from a distance, they looked like a bunch of steel balls rolling out.

They hopped and leaped off the extended deck, landing on the ground. With a series of dull thuds, Keng Huo could clearly see that many of the autonomous machines that jumped later had smashed the ones that landed earlier into the soil.

Keng Huo's eyes sharpened: "Is this how you build foundations in Siberia?"

Von Tolovsky coughed lightly: "The soil there is so frozen that you can't lay a foundation without using some serious materials..."

Then Keng Huo said "Oh".

After those spherical autonomous machines were smashed into the ground, Keng Huo couldn't see their next move, but the rumbling sounds coming from underground showed that the autonomous machines seemed to be working hard.

"What can you self-regulating machines do?" Keng Huo's eyes seemed to gleam with a green light, like a hungry wolf pouncing on its prey.

“Watering flowers, pruning branches, sweeping, repairing physical damage to training equipment and buildings,” von Tolovsky said, taking out his communicator and pressing a few buttons. Soon, a round, autonomous machine came running over, chattering away, and even rubbed against his trouser leg in a very canine manner. “It also has the function of acting as a pet dog.”

“Your designer must be an artist,” Keng Huo said sincerely, shaking hands with von Tolovsky. “I see artistic inspiration leaping wildly in him.”

"Not at all, not at all. Actually, it is my humble design of the Z1 type super cute all-purpose autonomous engineering machine," von Tolovsky said modestly, shaking hands with Keng Huo. "It is completely inferior to the ZZ-3 type automatic bed-warming combat maid autonomous robot designed by our branch's chief engineer, Master Tolov Vonsky..."

Just as Keng Huo was increasingly feeling that his colleagues' branch seemed to be developing in a strange direction, von Tolovsky shook his head and continued, "It's a pity that such a perfect masterpiece is no longer being sold simply because it accidentally caused moderate burns to the user. It's incomprehensible. What's wrong with people these days..."

Keng Huo's expression had turned into a stiff, dead fish eye, and he could only respond with "oh, oh." Finally, after a long while, when von Tolovsky smacked his lips with lingering interest and was about to continue talking about the work of the fourth engineer in his branch, Keng Huo interrupted him: "So, do you sell this autonomous machine?"

“Sell it,” von Tolovsky agreed readily. “Fifteen units of Honkai Crystals per unit, charging equipment included, three-year warranty with full payment…”

"Uh...look...we ordered so many buildings at once, could you give us a discount or something..."

“Sure, if you buy our insurance, our branch can send you twelve of these self-regulating machines for routine maintenance,” von Tolovsky replied matter-of-factly.

“But look… we don’t have that much money right now… this is our first time working together, and we’ll definitely come to you again for future upgrades to our buildings, so could you give us something…” Keng Huo rubbed his hands together, “…some kind of extra discount?”

"Oh," von Tolovsky exclaimed with sudden realization, "So that's what you meant!"

"Hehehe..." Keng Huo seemed a little embarrassed, leaned closer to von Tolovsky and whispered, "So, could you send us a few..."

“That’s easy! Considering we’ll continue to cooperate in the future, I’ll give you one!” Von Tolovsky waved his hand generously, as if casually handing over a mountain of gold.

“One…one?” Keng Huo almost bit his tongue. “Brother, we’ve ordered so many construction projects, you can’t even count them on one hand. Who knows when we’ll get another job this big!”

“It’s alright, we can wait,” von Tolovsky replied with a smile.

Keng Huo cursed the middle-aged man, who was actually a salesman but called an engineer, a thousand times in his mind, but still smiled and said, "Look, we have so many buildings... at least one should be allocated to each building, right? So..."

"Hmm...that makes sense. Then we'll send twenty autonomous maintenance robots to headquarters later..."

"Wait, we ordered this..."

“But it was headquarters that paid for it,” von Tolovsky shrugged. “It’s not that I don’t want to help you, brother, but there are really rules from above.”

Keng Huo spent countless hours persuading them, from the very beginning of the training hall's construction until its completion, before finally agreeing that the Siberian branch would donate three autonomous maintenance robots to the Far East branch.

“Friend! Welcome to visit the Far East Branch again!” Keng Huo stood at the boarding gate of the transport ship that had completed the expansion of the hub port, shaking von Tolovsky’s hand with gratitude. “We will definitely become long-term partners! How about staying for dinner?”

"Of course, of course! But we need to hurry back to report, so let's save dinner for next time." Von Tolovsky shook Keng Huo's hand familiarly, his face full of reluctance. "I have high hopes for your branch's development potential!"

"Then we're going back to our branch to report. Good luck, brother!" Vontolovsky walked into the transport engineering ship and waved to Keng Huo.

"Great! Come visit us anytime!" Keng Huo stood at the boarding gate, as if bidding farewell to relatives and friends who were about to embark on a long journey.

After boarding the ship, von Tolovsky pulled aside his deputy, who was compiling a list of autonomous machinery to be recovered, and asked, "Did you send those three autonomous machines to them?"

"As you instructed, it has been sent over," the deputy replied with a smile, putting down the list in his hand.

"Which three?" von Tolovsky continued to ask.

"It's that voice receiving and identification system that's faulty, the robotic arm's drive shaft that's aged and hasn't been replaced yet, and the maintenance program that keeps crashing with blue screens and bugs." The deputy answered very skillfully, as if he had rehearsed it a thousand times.

"Did you give them the warranty card?" Von Tolovsky glanced at his deputy with an appreciative look and continued to press for an answer.

"They didn't give it to me."

“Good, I like people like you who understand me.” Von Tolovsky patted the other’s shoulder with great satisfaction, walked to the luxurious lounge, took out a bottle of white wine, poured himself half a glass, and sat comfortably on the sofa. “Then let’s hurry up and go. We need to go to the Oceania branch to pick up the research equipment we entrusted.”

Keng Huo stood at the boarding gate for a long time. The strong wind pressure brought by the transport ship leaving the post could not shake him in the slightest. His trouser legs fluttered in the cold wind in the setting sun. He stared at the departing transport ship, his lips tightly pursed, without saying a word.

He was the only person at the boarding gate, and no one could see his expression. Keng Huo's face slowly darkened, and his hands had clenched into fists, making a creaking sound in the wind.

Keng Huo took a few steps forward and looked at the newly completed training halls, medical center, and refinery. The Valkyries who weren't on missions were gathered around the buildings, looking like a swarm of ants that had found food. Keng Huo looked at the Valkyries, imagining them happily discussing the new training halls, and a look of mixed feelings flashed in his eyes—a look that was hard to tell whether it was happiness, sadness, or both.

Suddenly, as if venting his anger, Keng Huo slammed his fist into the transparent glass wall of the boarding gate. The glass vibrated with a buzzing sound, and his fist turned red, but he seemed oblivious. Keng Huo slowly rested his head on his fist, making a vicious grinding sound through his teeth.

Keng Huo raised his fist again, a fierce look flashing in his eyes, as if he wanted to smash the glass wall a few more times. But in the end, he slowly lowered his fist and gently touched the glass wall he had smashed, as if he wanted to uneasily confirm whether he had damaged these glass structures.

“A research center…it’s so nice…” Keng Huo murmured almost inaudibly, “I really want to…get one for these kids too…”

Chapter Fifty-Three: St. Freya, My Home

"So you called me here just for this?" Kiana crossed her arms and raised her head high. "What endless abyss or finite abyss? I can handle that in a minute."

"Kiana..." Mei tugged at Kiana's sleeve, "Teacher Keng seems to be talking about something very important."

"Hmm..." Keng Huo looked at the smug Kiana with a very pained expression. He couldn't help but wonder where Kiana's confidence came from. After all, in the past month, Kiana's hunter team had completed almost all of their missions very well. The value of the materials they obtained from hunting mid-level Honkai Beasts was almost comparable to the total harvest of the six Valkyrie teams behind them. Keng Huo would also read their mission feedback and reports every day, and he felt more and more that his initial decision was very correct.

These three are practically chosen ones. It's not that they're particularly lucky, but rather that their combat awareness, fighting skills, and teamwork have all improved dramatically through continuous battles. None of them have received artificial stigmata, yet their individual combat power far surpasses that of the Valkyries who received them at the same time.

"Anyway, information about the target location is completely unimportant to Kiana, and understanding the enemy's characteristics and mission objectives is completely unnecessary," Bronya calmly remarked from the side. "After all, she simply can't understand it... Even if she could understand it, she wouldn't know what it means, and even if she knew what it meant, she wouldn't know what to do..."

Keng Huo nodded in deep agreement.

"Bronya, are you going to fight?!" Kiana shouted from the side.

"Alright, alright, Teacher Keng, let's talk about the mission first. You called us over in a hurry after we came back from the mission, and said that we don't need to accompany the team on the next mission..." Mei keenly noticed that Keng Huo seemed to be looking at them differently this time. Just from the fact that Keng Huo didn't spout any nonsense this time, she could tell that he was serious.

After all, according to the usual practice, if Keng Huo said three sentences, he would definitely provoke Kiana to punch and kick him - although it sounds a bit strange, this is the daily routine between Kiana and Keng Huo that everyone has assumed.

"Hmm... Let me show you the introduction to [Endless Abyss] first." Keng Huo handed over the three documents with a heavy heart, and the three people who received the documents reacted differently.

Bronya flipped through the document at a rate of almost one page per second, so fast that strangers might doubt whether she was even looking at it. But Keng Huo knew that for this girl whose mind was as precise and efficient as a machine, this speed could even be considered as reading the document very carefully.

Mei carefully read through the document, page by page. As she turned the pages, her expression grew increasingly serious, and she would occasionally glance nervously at Keng Huo.

Kiana casually opened the folder, flipped through it hastily, and put it back on the table. She rested her hands on her knees and idly swayed back and forth to pass the time, waiting for someone to finish reading and explain it to her.

"Teacher Keng... is everything... on this document true?" Mei's face showed some unease. Her fingers unconsciously twirled her loose hair, a small habit she had when nervous. "It does sound like a very important and dangerous mission..."

"Mei~ What does the document say?" Kiana grabbed Mei's arm and shook it after Mei finished reading the document.

Before Mei could even speak, Bronya's cool voice rang out.

“We will enter a subspace in three-person teams without support, and under the constant threat of high-concentration Honkai energy, we will complete a cycle of exploration, clearing Honkai beasts, protecting the [Mule] to collect Honkai crystals, finding a safe place to set up a teleportation point, sending supplies back, and continuing exploration.” Bronya’s gaze was focused on Keng Huo. “Furthermore, the location we enter is unknown, the surrounding environment is unknown, the distribution of enemies is unknown, and the strength of enemies is unknown. We will be collecting resources without being able to return safely until the teleportation point is set up.”

"And our target is an extremely important mineral resource - Honkai Crystals." Bronya finished speaking in a mechanical tone and then fell silent, seemingly waiting for Keng Huo to give an answer.

“Yes, that’s right.” Keng Huo sighed. “This is an extremely dangerous yet extremely important mission. I’m entrusting this mission to you. I don’t know if you are willing to accept it.”

The three of them looked at each other in bewilderment.

Before the three could finish exchanging glances, Keng Huo continued, "You have the right to refuse this mission... I will continue to look for other Valkyries willing to go, you don't need to force yourselves."

The four of them sat facing each other in silence. Even Kiana, with her carefree personality, could sense the danger of the mission from Bronya's concise description.

After an unknown amount of time, Keng Huo seemed to have accepted something, sighed, and was about to speak when Bronya interrupted him.

“Bronya wants to know…why did the Academy decide to send newly recruited Valkyries like us on this mission?” Bronya’s question cut to the chase. “As far as Bronya knows, the elite Valkyries under the Headmaster are clearly more suited for this mission, so why send the Hunter Squad?”

Keng Huo hesitated for a moment, unsure how to speak, but Kiana spoke first, saying what was on her mind: "Of course it's because we're better than them!"

"Bronya thinks it's best if Kiana doesn't ramble on while we're discussing serious matters." Bronya glanced at Kiana expressionlessly. "You need to understand... when we faced Major Himeko... she single-handedly crushed us... The only reason we were able to win was because Major Himeko had expended too much energy returning to the Hyperion to clear out the invading Anti-Entropy forces and the suicide squads, while we had been conserving our strength and hadn't been attacked at all along the way..."

"But we've gotten stronger too!" Kiana retorted defiantly.

“While you’re getting stronger, others are getting stronger too.” Bronya’s answer was firm. “Do you think a squad of three Valkyries with the combat power of Major Himeko would be weaker than us?”

Kiana stammered, unable to speak. Although she had always been confident in herself, Himeko's strength as an A-rank Valkyrie had left a deep impression on her. She recalled the first time she faced Himeko, when Himeko wielded that heavy sword, which she still found difficult to lift, with effortless ease. The rolling waves of wind generated by the sword's movement were as powerful as the legendary sword energy. She nonchalantly withstood the attacks of three people, slashing the greatsword down on them. Her seemingly unstoppable momentum was suffocating to watch.

It truly felt like a mountain was being swung at you, a powerful and heavy strike that seemed to carry an irresistible will. Even if a mountain or a sea blocked your way, the sword would mercilessly cleave it in two, cleave the sea in two, and obliterate everything that stood in your way.

"Honkai energy crystals...are they important?" Mei asked, seemingly hesitant.

"Without Honkai energy crystals, we will be unable to move an inch." Keng Huo's tone was very heavy, and there was a hint of unease in his eyes. At this moment, he finally understood the feelings that Theresa had when she begged him to find a way out for St. Freya Academy.

"Then why were we chosen as the first choice to fight?" Mei seemed very confused about this.

Keng Huo rubbed his eyes to clear his head: "Can you pilot a warship?"

"Uh..." The three looked at each other, "No way..."

"Therefore, the veteran Valkyries under Theresa's command cannot go into battle. They must pilot the Hyperion to guard Changkong City to prevent unforeseen emergencies." Keng Huo carefully considered each word before giving his answer.

"So, given that the most suitable candidate couldn't be deployed, and the Honkai Crystal is extremely important, Teacher Keng chose us to carry out this mission, is that right?"

“...Yes.” Keng Huo answered with great difficulty.

"Alright, I'm willing to accept this task." Mei chuckled and pushed the folder onto the table.

“Okay, okay, I accept!” Kiana quickly chimed in.

"Bronya will listen to Mei-neechan."

"Are you sure? This mission is far more dangerous than anything you've ever experienced..." Keng Huo hesitated for a moment, but finally decided to make everything clear, "You might die there, and we won't be able to rescue you..."

“I know,” Mei chuckled softly, as if she were talking about something insignificant, “but Mr. Keng, don’t underestimate our resolve, okay?”

"Besides... seeing how conflicted Teacher Keng looks, it seems he can't find a suitable candidate, right? I've been feeling that Teacher Keng hasn't been in good spirits lately, probably because he's been busy preparing for this matter," Mei's smile seemed to have a healing power, "If we just refuse like this, Teacher Keng will also be in a difficult position, won't he?"

"Or rather than saying it's difficult, it would be better to say it's a dead end?" Mei said in a teasing tone, her slender eyebrows and eyes filled with a hint of mischief.

"Besides... Mr. Keng, you really are something, you clearly taught us..." Mei's fingers finally stopped fiddling with her hair. "As a teacher, you have to trust your students' awareness one hundred percent."

"St. Freya Academy is our home, and we are willing to do anything to protect it."

Chapter Fifty-Four: Intensive Preparations