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

"If the headmaster hadn't been unpaid, how could I have stooped to embezzling public funds to buy comics!" Theresa's excitement completely overwhelmed her sense of propriety. "If it's a mascot... then it wouldn't be a problem to get a salary, right?"

Keng Huo stared in utter shock between Kiana and Theresa, then suddenly looked enlightened and patted Kiana on the shoulder: "Now I believe she is your aunt."

"Are you out of your mind?!" Kiana kicked Keng Huo. "Never mind that, Auntie, come look at the comic! This volume's plot is amazing! You idiot, get it out here!"

Keng Huo's expression suddenly stiffened: "Um... I accidentally lost it on the way..."

"It's this one." Bronya's voice suddenly rang out from behind Keng Huo, who had been sitting to the side playing with his handheld game console. Keng Huo was startled by the emptiness in his pocket and quickly reached out to cover it, but it was too late. Bronya had already taken the comic book out with lightning speed.

"It is indeed the latest volume of 'Houmu's Great Adventure,' originally scheduled for release tomorrow. Bronya has already pre-ordered three first-print collector's editions." Bronya looked at the comic in his hand. "But this one seems a little different."

"[Dedicated to the revered Mother Teresa], that's what it says on the title page." Bronya uttered these words with an electronic, calm tone, like a bolt from the blue.

"How...how did my comic end up...with you?" Theresa was taken aback, and her gaze toward Keng Huo gradually turned hostile.

"Headmaster, if I said that it was an ancestral treasure that I dug up while treasure hunting, would you believe me?" Keng Huo asked with a mournful face, silently moving towards the main gate.

"Whose ancestors would bury a new comic book that won't be released until tomorrow as a treasure?! Are you out of your mind?!" Theresa finally roared, no longer caring about her image.

"Ah, yes, it's me! I saw you acting suspiciously this morning, you must have something to hide, you buried something in the garden! So I wanted to dig it up and see! Who knew it was just a comic book!" Seeing Theresa blocking the gate, Keng Huo knew he had no hope of escaping and shouted in despair, "All that scouting, all that intelligence gathering, and then spending the whole afternoon pretending to trim the plants in the garden before finding a quiet moment to secretly dig it up! I wasted an entire afternoon of my youth and energy just to dig up a comic book that's going to be released tomorrow! Headmistress, I think you're the one who's out of your mind!"

"You jerk! Do you know how much effort I put into getting this comic book with the author's autograph ahead of time?! Do you know how anxious I was when I couldn't find it?! Keng Huo, you're finished! I'm going to dock a month's salary from you! And your bonus! Your perfect attendance bonus!"

"Deduct it if you want! Who's afraid of who! I think you're worried because you're afraid the book will get lost and the finance department will find out you embezzled public funds!" Keng Huo retorted sarcastically.

"You!" Theresa immediately rolled up her sleeves and was about to step forward, but Mei and Kiana quickly stopped her. Unable to reach the object, Theresa angrily waved her short legs and thin arms, screaming at the top of her lungs, "Two months! Two months!!"

"So, Headmaster, how much money did you spend on 'bribing' people this time? Where did this money come from?" This was Himeko's voice.

"Himeko, how dare you talk back! If you hadn't come to my office first thing this morning and refused to leave, I wouldn't have had a chance to hide the comics!"

Tonight is destined to be a chaotic night.

In the central garden, a gray-haired girl with long hair and red-rimmed glasses, dressed in the school's uniform, sat on a flower chair, sipping a cup of hot tea and gazing at the moon in the sky: "The moonlight is so beautiful tonight... It's another peaceful day."

Chapter Seven: Kiana's Exam Results

The final exams arrived as scheduled. Kiana and her group, as a combat team, achieved excellent results in actual combat. The three of them demonstrated amazing teamwork during the battle. Facing the giant statue driven by Honkai energy, Bronya was responsible for attracting fire and defense from the front, while Mei harassed and restrained it from the side, hindering the statue's mobility. Kiana seized the opportunity to use the chainsaw to forcibly break through the statue's defense and destroy the Honkai core inside it.

The entire tactical sequence was executed cleanly and efficiently, without any hesitation or delay, as if it had been rehearsed hundreds of times beforehand.

However, it's understandable. During their escape from Changkong City, where the Honkai outbreak occurred, the three of them encountered several attacks from zombie hordes and Honkai beasts. Although their teamwork is not as good as that of an elite Valkyrie combat team, it is still a rare top-tier team among the reserve Valkyries of the same period.

After all, most of the reserve Valkyries in the academy have never officially participated in the Honkai battle. No matter how many tactical training sessions they have taken, they are still no match for Kiana and her group who have fought their way through real combat.

On the day the results were released, everyone nervously discussed the upcoming scores in class.

"Kiana, aren't you worried at all?" a girl with short white hair asked anxiously. "She just transferred here and has exams coming up soon."

"Worried? Not at all."

"This exam wasn't that easy, was it? That idiot kept telling me to take it seriously before the practical exam, but I still managed to take it down in no time." Kiana stood in the middle of the corridor, looking smug, her nose practically wagging like Pinocchio's.

“Bronya reminded the idiot that the final exam is divided into a theory exam and a practical exam. Given Kiana’s intelligence level, her score on the theory exam is likely to be negative,” Bronya calmly remarked from the side. “It’s the kind of exam where even if she gets a high score in the practical exam, she can still lose all her points due to a negative score on the theory exam.”

"Hahahaha, Bronya, you're just jealous of my intelligence and talent, that's why you're spouting nonsense here. Just wait! The results board is right ahead! I'm a genius! With my talent, passing this kind of exam is a piece of cake!" Kiana said with her hands on her hips, full of pride.

"Kiana, it's good to be confident, but the Valkyrie Exam isn't so easy to pass," a cool voice came from behind. The three turned around and saw a girl with red-rimmed glasses, long gray hair, and a bird-shaped silver braid at the end of her hair walking towards them with her hands behind her back. "As the ancients said: Pride comes before a fall."

"Huh?" Kiana didn't understand the classical Chinese at all.

"It's Sister Fu Hua!" The girls surrounding the results board kept exclaiming in surprise.

"Sister Fu Hua is so elegant and cool today!" Some girls' eyes were already sparkling, and some even had hearts in their eyes...

"Although you are exceptionally talented, you must not be impatient for quick success. Be careful not to be hasty and fail to achieve your goals," Fu Hua said calmly, still with his hands behind his back.

"Hmph, of course I know that." Kiana's eyes were full of seriousness.

"Is that so? Then I misspoke." Fu Hua didn't say anything more and turned to leave.

"Look! The second and third place are..." At this moment, a girl in the crowd suddenly exclaimed, "Bronya Zaycek and... Raiden Mei? Are they the new transfer students?"

"Amazing!"

"Let me see too!" Kiana exclaimed, quickly pushing her way to the front of the crowd. "I'm sure to be number one!"

However, when Kiana's gaze finally reached the top of the list, the result greatly disappointed her: "Fu...Fu Hua? Where is my name?"

Kiana quickly looked down the rankings, but couldn't find her own name.

"Mei! Why isn't my name on this leaderboard?!" Kiana rushed to Mei's side and shook her arm.

Mei raised her head with some difficulty and said in a very embarrassed tone, "Um... Kiana... I found your name... but it's on the list over there..."

"Really? Really!" Kiana immediately became excited and skipped towards the list. "It must be because my grades were so good that I got a special praise!"

"Why is this happening..." Kiana's body petrified rapidly before her eyes, collapsing to the ground in a disheartened, forward-leaning posture. "Impossible... It can't be... There must be something wrong with the database... My number one spot..."

"Of course it's because you failed all the written tests, how could we possibly let you pass?" A haunting voice came from behind Kiana at an inopportune moment. "Look, you even got a zero on your Honkai History test."

Keng Huo held up a test paper covered in crosses: "I am very sad."

"Ah! Give me back my test paper! Mei, don't look!" Kiana was shocked and jumped left and right, trying to snatch the test paper from Keng Huo's hands. However, Keng Huo was prepared and used his height advantage to hold the test paper above his head and sway it from side to side. Kiana couldn't reach it at all.

After a while, Kiana, panting heavily, resumed her dejected, hunched posture, while Keng Huo turned to read the grades on the report card: "Biology, history, geography, physics, and chemistry combined only have 21 points. I think Kiana, while you may not be the last one to achieve this, you are certainly unprecedented."

“If you don’t pass the exam, your dream of becoming a Valkyrie will be just a pipe dream,” Keng Huo said, frowning. “There will be a makeup exam next week; that will be your last chance.”

"Of course, as long as you pass all of them, that's fine."

"Although I think it will be very difficult for you..."

Dinner time.

"A make-up exam?" Himeko looked very surprised when she heard the news.

“Yes, just one week from now,” Mei sighed at the dinner table, looking at Kiana with concern. “Honestly, there’s a limit to how stupid you can be!”

"She's just a small-chested, brainless girl," Himeko said, pointing at Kiana with her chopsticks. "I've never heard of such a score before."

"What about the makeup exam next week? Teacher Keng said that if I don't pass, I can't become a Valkyrie..." Mei put the last chicken leg on Kiana's plate.

"There's no other way but to implement special training!" Himeko's expression hardened as she brandished her chopsticks like a pointer. "To transform a student who scores in single digits in every subject into someone who passes in every subject within a week... hellish special training!"

"Special training?" Mei and Bronya looked at Himeko simultaneously.

Meanwhile, Kiana was still pulling up the hem of her nightgown to look inside: "It's not small at all..."

After dinner, Kiana was dragged back to her bedroom by Mei, who left her with a large stack of textbooks and ordered her to study hard.

Bronya returned to her bedroom, put on her yellow Houmu sleeping cap, and sat in front of her computer as usual, logging into the wildly popular game "Honkai Impact 3rd".

In the game guild's chat room.

【Metal Gear Solid Wolf Fang】is now available.

[Uncle Green Pipe]: Cloth Wolf Fang, you're finally here! Hurry up and join the crew! We've been waiting for you!

【Metal Gear Solid Wolf Fang】: Sorry guys, I'm just letting you know that I can't play with you guys today.

[Uncle Green Pipe]: Huh?! Weren't we always playing until midnight?

【Metal Gear Solid Wolf Fang】: I made a promise to a confused girl that I would go and guide her.

[Uncle Green Pipe]: No! How are we supposed to farm the "Houmu Tyrannosaurus" dungeon without you?!

[Green Hat Connector]: Let him go. A man's promise must be kept!

[Metal Gear Solid Wolf Fang]: Sorry, guys!

"Bronya, Logout!" Bronya gave a solemn salute to the screen.

If it weren't for the humming-style sleeping cap on her head, I think she could have looked even more serious.

“Next, we need to deal with that idiot.” Bronya rummaged through the storage box behind her. “I remember putting it here…”

At this moment, Kiana was sitting cross-legged on the bedroom floor, her face almost pressed against the textbook in her hands: "I...can't remember any of it!"

"Why do we have to take such a boring subject as history?!" Kiana frantically scratched her head, her white hair flying. "Are we supposed to go to the battlefield and use reason and emotion to persuade the Honkai Beasts with the glorious history of humanity?!"

"Who is it?" Kiana suddenly turned around and looked in the direction of the sound of the door opening.

"Pfft—" An unidentified object was pressed onto Kiana's head. "It's me, Bronya."

"Bronya, what did you put on me?!" Kiana asked uncertainly, feeling the weight of the hard object on her head.

“It’s the Houmu Virtual Reality Connector.” Bronya was also wearing a helmet that looked like a puppet Houmu, but unlike Kiana’s blue connector, Bronya’s was the genuine protagonist Houmu’s yellow. “I’ll help you catch up, starting with history.”

“Link start”.

Before Kiana could react, a dizzying sensation from being transported through time struck her, and Kiana collapsed onto the carpet without any resistance.

"Whoa whoa whoa whata! What's going on?!" Kiana screamed as she flew in a straight line through a space that resembled a wormhole tunnel. "What the hell! Where am I?! Bronya, come out..."

"Huh?" As a beam of light, growing increasingly blinding in the darkness, drew closer, Kiana's face was filled with surprise.

Because she is now standing in a boundless sea of ​​books.

To be precise, it was the interior of a building, but the building was so large that Kiana couldn't quite gauge its size.

She looked up and saw countless staircases and passageways crisscrossing and connecting countless enormous bookshelves. The height seemed infinite, and the corridors on the left and right, lined with bookshelves, also seemed infinitely deep. Just staring at them gave her the feeling of gazing into an abyss.

"This is the core database of the Destiny Organization, which records the most detailed history of the Honkai." Bronya's voice suddenly came from above.

Kiana quickly turned around, only to see Bronya dressed in a pink and white princess dress, holding a magic wand, looking like a magical girl. A very awkward expression immediately appeared on her face.

"I am Bronya, the guiding witch, and I will guide you on the path to truth."

"The guiding witch?" Kiana felt incredibly embarrassed.

Bronya didn't seem to care about that, and went straight to a row of bookshelves: "Let's start with the earliest Honkai records."