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

Large beads of sweat appeared on Keng Huo's forehead: "Bronya, at least say something! What's with this beeping sound like a system self-check?!"

"Beep beep~ Beep? Bilibili..."

"Bronya, tell Heavy Bunny to stop playing..." Mei's helpless voice came from the loudspeaker.

Keng Huo leaned forward and, upon closer inspection, realized that Bronya had placed the microphone near the mouth of the Heavy Bunny 19C...

"Holy crap, the Heavy Bunny can actually talk?" Keng Huo exclaimed in astonishment.

Although it's just Bilibili, this is a groundbreaking new concept!

"I'll leave the rest to you... I'm going to Changkong City to carry out a mission and calm down..." Theresa stood up from the ground as if she had lost her soul, and gently poked Keng Huo's waist, which tickled him and made him shudder.

"You're really that confident? I don't understand any of this data! You're not just trying to make me take the blame if something goes wrong, are you?" Keng Huo pointed at Theresa righteously. "Unless you give me a raise, there's no room for negotiation!"

Theresa rolled her eyes: "I'd be a fool to believe you if you said you couldn't understand this data. Who's been stuck in the virtual reality link of the Destiny's internal data library these past few days?"

"Then a raise?"

"……roll!"

"Alright, alright, stop fooling around. Are you ready?" Keng Huo said to the three people below in the monitoring room. "Don't be reckless once you're inside. If there's any real danger, I'll use the emergency evacuation system to pull you back..."

"Alright, alright, why is a grown man so long-winded... Heave-ho..." Kiana was doing warm-up exercises below, "We've almost memorized it all. Next, you'll say that we need to carefully observe our surroundings after we go in, and that we must check the operation of the MULE after all three of us are there. You also said to follow the MULE closely and not get lost, and that when we decide to attack the Honkai Crystal Mine, we must leave the MULE outside the Honkai Crystal Mine's radiation zone and keep it in silent mode; and after clearing a certain number of mining areas, we need to be careful of [Abyss's Gaze]..."

A huge "囧" (embarrassed/frustrated) appeared above Keng Huo's head: "Did I... really say it that many times?"

"So many times that even an idiot like Kiana could memorize them." Bronya remarked calmly.

"Bronya, do you want to fight?!" Kiana started yelling again.

"Alright, alright, once you've finished your self-check, go lie down in your cabin..." Keng Huo gave the order with an embarrassed look on his face.

"Are you sure? I have a feeling this cabin... uh..." Kiana hesitated.

"The shape doesn't seem very auspicious..." Even the most composed Mei couldn't help but complain.

Admittedly, a rectangular compartment is quite normal, but if its lid extends about ten centimeters beyond the edge of the compartment, the lid is slightly curved, and especially if it is not standing upright but lying horizontally on the ground...

This shape certainly doesn't look very auspicious...

"Ahem... Just bear with it for now, I'll give you a Hello Kitty paint job next time..." Keng Huo pretended to cough and turned his face away.

Even if you paint yourself with Godzilla, you can't change the fact that this thing looks like a coffin!

"Ahem... We're all people who save the world, so let's not worry about this little thing..."

———————————————————————————————————

"Space parameters are normal, space anchoring coordinates are linked, second space stabilization device activated..."

"The liquid collapse energy pressure relief pipe reading is too high. Reduce the power furnace output power by seven percentage points. The subspace link anchor point is 12% unstable. Increase the load of the imaginary number calculation device to 87% to reduce the instability rate of the link anchor point to below 4%." Keng Huo stood like a statue in the monitoring room. The four or five screens in front of him were full of charts and data that would make one dizzy just by looking at them. At this moment, Keng Huo stood in the center of the monitoring room, as if he were commanding a thousand troops. "Mule launches collapse energy shielding missiles. Start the transmission thirty seconds after the shielding missiles are deployed."

"30..."

"10..."

"3..."

"2..."

"1..."

"Teleportation initiated, Mulch Collapse Energy Shielding Crystal Plate activated."

Keng Huo held his breath, his eyes fixed on the teleportation process, his mouth also moving: "B-line anti-space lock released, increase spatial inflation curvature to 4 standard units; Fourth process team, begin your data acquisition operations; Control room, fix the real-time data from the mutine's energy furnace to my command module..."

"Teleportation complete."

Keng Huo didn't relax at all until Kiana's face, which almost filled the entire screen, appeared on the screen in front of him, and then he breathed a sigh of relief.

Kiana, how are you feeling?

“Ugh…” Kiana answered honestly.

A large black line appeared on Keng Huo's forehead. Indeed, the instruction manual stated that the Valkyrie might experience severe dizziness during her first teleportation...

But this terrifying power that can make a Valkyrie dizzy is... a five-speed electric fan?

Before long, Mei appeared beneath the teleportation panel. She too looked unsteady, and Keng Huo could almost count how many mosquito coils were in her eyes...

"I..." Mei seemed to be about to say something.

"vomit……"

Keng Huo pinned his last hope on the portal; Bronya was about to emerge from there. As the one with the clearest mind among the three, Bronya shouldn't be...

Then Keng Huo saw a hand reach out from the teleportation pod, clinging to the edge of the pod. Then another hand, which looked equally soft, reached out from the same place. Finally, there was a small head facing down, as if it was too lazy to even lift itself.

Keng Huo watched helplessly as Bronya slowly crawled out of the teleportation pod like an earthworm, landing on the ground with a thud like a flatbread that had fallen, and then lay there motionless.

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Ruins of Annihilation

While the hunter team was still dazed, Keng Huo turned the camera on the mule to try to observe which of the thirteen template worlds they had entered was the [Endless Abyss].

The surrounding area was a desolate wasteland of buildings. The red bricks and green tiles that looked no different from modern human architecture were covered with lush ivy. The telephone poles were bent and the lights were all off. Occasionally, a few light bulbs would flicker wildly as if having a seizure, and then go out listlessly. The road was split open in the middle like a giant mouth, with wrecked vehicles everywhere, and even tanks that looked like they had been smashed by something. Some of the relatively intact ground was covered with claw marks of various depths and marks of being hit by a giant blunt object.

The four words "ruins and ruins" are enough to describe everything around us.

“The Ruins of Annihilation…” Keng Huo murmured, “Not bad luck… I even considered that if it were the [Purgatory] and [Dimensional Storm] template worlds, I would have pulled them back directly…”

The template worlds are also divided into danger levels, which are unrelated to the strength of the Honkai-side creatures within them, but simply related to the geographical environment. The Ruins of Annihilation is just a vast expanse of continuous human ruins, making it arguably one of the safest of the thirteen template worlds.

The more dangerous template worlds, such as [Purgatory], are ablaze. The entire world there is engulfed in flames, with the earth, sky, and even the oceans a sea of ​​fire. The surface temperature reaches hundreds of degrees Celsius, and in some places even thousands of degrees Celsius. Lava flows are everywhere, and the surface cracks open from time to time due to the extreme heat, spewing out hot steam containing poisonous gases. It can be described as a land of death.

"How are you feeling?" After a while, Kiana seemed to have finally recovered and slowly stood up. Seeing this, Keng Huo quickly asked through the communication device.

"Ugh..." Kiana's answer was as concise and to the point as ever.

Keng Huo stared at Kiana, who had fallen to her knees again, with a dark expression, and slowly covered his forehead with his hand.

Why is it that everything seems to go in a strange direction when it comes to me?

"Bronya requests connection..." Bronya's weak voice came through the communicator, "Abyss deployment... complete..."

"Let's wait here and take it easy for a while," Keng Huo said, somewhat annoyed. The three of them were indeed in poor condition, and it seemed that even if he tried to talk to them, they would probably ignore him...

Finally, the three of them sat there for a while before they seemed to come to their senses.

"Is this thing always this terrifying when it teleports...?" Kiana shuddered, her gaze towards the mule seeming off. "I feel like I've been stuck a note on an electric fan..."

“It’s still a five-speed electric fan operating under zero-gravity conditions,” Bronya added.

"Ahem... You'll definitely feel a bit uneasy the first time you teleport, because it takes time to get used to the teleportation process... By the time you teleport back, you should have found a way to resist this dizziness..." Keng Huo said somewhat uncertainly.

"So that's why you can't eat before teleporting..." Mei said weakly. "I'm really grateful to the person who wrote this rule..."

"Ahem... Now that we've rested, let's begin the formal exploration process. First, let's check the operation of the mining mules."

"The mule is operating well, and the power furnace has 99% energy reserve," Bronya replied, expertly opening a hidden compartment on the back of the mule and glancing at the data on the electronic screen inside.

"Manually shut down the teleportation chamber crystal plate, check the crystal plate's airtightness, and then activate the anti-collision energy shield."

"The crystal plate closed smoothly, the airtightness is good, and the anti-collapse energy shield deployed smoothly."

"Now establish a wireless signal link with the mining mule."

"...Signal link established, communication channel stable, ready to launch at any time."

"Alright, open the portable PDAs attached to your armors and release [Dandelion]," Keng Huo ordered.

Bronya raised her left arm, and an armored section on her forearm, resembling a metal shield, suddenly unfolded, revealing a projection device inside. A screen appeared in front of Bronya through the projection device, and she lightly tapped a few buttons on the screen.

"The Dandelion System has been activated. What is the initial release quantity?"

“Eighty units, evenly distributed in formation. We expect to begin formal operations in an hour.” After a moment’s thought, Keng Huo gave a reasonable figure. “We will retrieve them in three hours, collect the data, and then destroy them on site.”

"Yes."

As Bronya quickly completed the setup, the armor plates on both sides of the upper body of the mule suddenly opened, revealing a dense array of miniature machines inside. The lights on the surfaces of those machines lit up one by one, trembling slightly as if waking from hibernation.

Suddenly, as if awakened, the miniature machines leaped out of the miniature hangars inside the mules one after another, like divers. During their descent, their tiny bodies unfolded from their folded state, completing a series of complex transformations before hitting the ground. They transformed from small cubes of about four cubic centimeters into mechanical structures nearly one decimeter long, shaped like large insects. They extended a pair of mechanical wings, nearly two decimeters long like dragonfly wings, and flapped them rapidly, escaping the impact zone of their companions.

This little thing is called "Dandelion," a disposable micro-drone developed by Schicksal. It is inexpensive, and although its lifespan is too short due to its size, it is a dedicated reconnaissance aircraft used in the "Endless Abyss." After being recovered, it will be destroyed on the spot to prevent it from being destroyed by Honkai energy—Schicksal doesn't have enough metals that can resist Honkai energy to use on such a reconnaissance aircraft with a very high failure rate—so it was simply made into a disposable reconnaissance aircraft.

You can imagine that if these tiny reconnaissance drones, only ten centimeters long, were to disintegrate, these incredibly fast and small creatures, difficult to hit, would become the nightmare of the Valkyries who would later enter the Endless Abyss.

These tiny "Dandelions" are equipped with sensitive Honkai energy detection devices and are connected in real-time to the MULE's central computer. They feed back the detected terrain and Honkai energy fluctuations to the MULE's central computer in real time to create maps for the operation. However, sometimes the signal is poor, and the data may not be able to be transmitted wirelessly to the MULE's central computer. Therefore, before the expected lifespan expires, they will automatically fly back to the vicinity of the MULE to transmit the physical data, ensuring that no data is lost. Under the Valkyrie's supervision, they will self-destruct to prevent the self-destruct system from malfunctioning due to Honkai erosion or other reasons, thus preventing the "Dandelions" from being left behind in the Endless Abyss.

Eighty dandelions hovered briefly above the mining mule before scattering like a swarm of insects under command, hurtling off in all directions.

An hour passed quickly, and the terrain data transmitted back by the dandelions was enough to construct a rough topographic map. The center point of each Honkai energy radiation source was marked with a conspicuous red mark, and some dangerous terrain and some impassable areas were also marked on the map.

"The MULE is advancing towards area Z-46, escorted by the Hunter Squad. The MULE will enter silent mode four kilometers from the central radiation point," Keng Huo frowned. "At the same time, it will release four dandelions to conduct reconnaissance within the radiation area."

"Why not go to area C-1? That's much closer," Mei asked, somewhat puzzled.

“The C-1 radiation source is in the center of the building ruins. If the battle is too intense, it may cause the building to collapse. I don’t want this uncertainty to become an unknown factor in our operation.” Keng Huo’s answer was reasonable and well-founded. “Moreover, the situation inside the building is difficult to investigate. Dandelions have a high failure rate in confined spaces, so it’s not worth it.”

"Yes, sir."

"The battle map has been set up."

"Dandelion collection operation completed."

"Data retrieval complete, Dandelion self-destruct system confirmed to be activated."

"Is there anything else?" Kiana asked Keng Huo through the communicator with a hint of anticipation.

"Hmm...the preparations are done...but what's with that expectant tone?" Keng Huo raised his eyebrows; he could feel Kiana's excitement even through the screen.