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

Kiana slowly emerged from the bushes, glanced ahead cautiously, and suddenly noticed a familiar-looking object lying motionless on the ground.

Kiana tiptoed over, first circling the motionless object to carefully check for any strange traps. Still not entirely sure, she broke off a branch from a nearby flowerbed and gently poked it from a distance.

After poking around for a while and finding nothing unusual, and that the person lying down didn't react, they moved a little closer, feeling slightly more at ease.

Then I poked it with a twig.

Finding that Keng Huo didn't react after being poked more than a dozen times, Kiana couldn't help but worry. She slowly approached Keng Huo and poked his face, which looked somewhat tired, with her finger.

"He fainted?" Kiana had a bad feeling, and at the same time, dozens of possible reasons came to mind, such as St. Freya Academy being invaded or Keng Huo doing something mysterious again.

However, the motionless Keng Huo lying on the ground was indeed a bit frightening. Kiana looked around with slight unease and found a bench for resting not far away, which made her eyes light up.

Kiana carefully flipped the face-down Keng Huo over and instantly leaped backward. However, due to her lack of strength and weakness, she not only didn't leap far but also tripped and fell heavily to the ground.

"Ouch...it hurts..." Kiana sat on the ground, grimacing as she observed Keng Huo's reaction. When she realized that he seemed to have lost consciousness, she ran to Keng Huo's side in her slippers and tried to help him up.

"Hey! Wake up! How did you fall asleep outside..." The weak Kiana finally managed to help the other person into a sitting position. She patted Keng Huo's face with some concern. After hesitating for a moment about whether to use more force to wake him up, she realized that she was not strong enough at the moment. Instead, she changed to holding his shoulders with both hands and slowly dragged him to the bench.

Along the way, Keng Huo was like a tattered sack, with all sorts of strange things clattering out from who-knows-where: neon lights, clothes racks, pliers, wrenches, small stools; kettles, linen, gloves, helmets, capri pants; porcelain from Jingdezhen, bowls from Britain, dedicated graphics cards, bucket shovels...

"Where on earth did this guy hide all this stuff..." Kiana, panting heavily, rolled her eyes. "Did he hide all this stuff according to a rhyming table...?"

After finally managing to move this hapless creature, whose clothes were constantly falling off, onto the bench, Kiana looked at the mess on the floor and wondered, "What is all this stuff...?"

Kiana instinctively wanted to sit down and rest, but found that the already small bench was completely occupied by Keng Huo. Unless she sat on Keng Huo's head, there was no place for her to rest...

Kiana angrily lifted Keng Huo's head, sat down where his head should have been, and then carefully placed Keng Huo's head on her lap.

Kiana felt a sense of relief as she finally sat down. Looking down at Keng Huo's sleeping face, she poked his cheek with her finger out of boredom.

"This seems to be the first time I've seen this guy so quiet..." Kiana thought to herself, "He looks like a normal person when he's not causing trouble..."

However, when Kiana thought of Keng Huo's usual "illustrious achievements", she couldn't help but feel a headache. Otherwise, her first reaction when she found Keng Huo lying on the ground would not have been to check the surroundings for traps. These were good habits she had cultivated in her long-term battles of wits with Keng Huo.

Keng Huo, fast asleep, was as still as a statue. If Kiana hadn't had excellent hearing and could hear his even breathing, she probably would have thought that he had already passed away.

Kiana lowered her head and slowly brought her face closer to Keng Huo, carefully examining this strange person in her mind.

It was a face that wasn't much older than his own, but even in his sleep, his brows were furrowed, as if he couldn't find peace even in his dreams; his face was also a little dirty, as if he had picked up dust while lying on the ground, and even his non-prescription glasses showed fine scratches that had been there for who knows how long.

Kiana gently brushed the dust off his face with her hand, completely unaware of how intimate this gesture was.

Suddenly, she heard a gurgling sound. Her first thought was that her stomach was growling, but upon closer inspection, she realized that the sound was coming from Keng Huo's stomach.

"Could he have fainted from hunger?" A thought flashed through Kiana's mind. "That's right... He seems to have never left since we entered the Abyss..."

Even when the three of them were resting on the mining mule and eating energy bars, Keng Huo never rested.

He always seemed to be doing something, constantly busy, never stopping, rushing around as if every second was planned.

Kiana suddenly realized at this moment how different the person lying on her lap was from her.

To be precise, he was extremely different from everyone else in this academy.

Because he was the only ordinary person at St. Freya Academy.

While the Valkyries found it easy to fight for 24 hours straight, Keng Huo was also fighting alongside them.

While the Valkyries thought it was no big deal to go a day or two without sleep, Keng Huo also went a day or two without sleep.

While the Valkyries felt that skipping a meal or two wouldn't be a problem and that they could easily handle it with their own bodies, Keng Huo did the same thing.

But he was just an ordinary person.

He didn't have the Valkyrie's steel-like physique, nor did he have the Valkyrie's superhumanly powerful nervous system.

Even their immune system is significantly weaker.

Keng Huo seemed like an ordinary person running alongside a world-class marathon team, giving his all but never showing any signs of fatigue on his face. He laughed and joked, as if he were no different from anyone else around him. But while others ran with ease and even had the energy to chat, he had to exhaust himself just to keep up with everyone else.

How much reluctance lies behind that smile?

In the past month or so, Keng Huo's workload has been unimaginable to ordinary people.

Planning for the school festival, the school's enrollment plan, the overseas research lab's commission, the action plan for the Changkong City hunting operation, preparations for the construction of the commercial street, tricking and deceiving the headquarters into providing equipment reinforcements, assessing the commercial value of the black market within Schicksal, the arrangement and training plan for combat teams, and psychological counseling for the war phobia of the newly promoted Valkyrie...

Each of these tasks alone could keep a team busy for at least a week, and even if Keng Huo were the most talented, he could not make up for the difference in quantity on his own.

But Keng Huo took on all these tasks by himself, working overtime every day. If he didn't have enough time during the day, he would make up for it at night. If the library's information was insufficient, he would use a virtual reality connection device to immerse himself in the database of Destiny. If he lacked energy, he would take drugs to boost his nerve excitability. He would only take a nap when his body could no longer endure it, and then continue working after waking up.

Because if he could finish all the work of the headmaster, Theresa could focus more on helping him find Elisa's whereabouts, or at least that's what he thought.

During this period, he experienced overwork, fever, and mental instability, but he didn't take it seriously and just threw himself into his work and studies as if he were possessed.

He seemed to distrust and distrust everything, as if he felt that no one's work efficiency and results were as good as his. He wanted to take over everyone's work, do everything himself, and supervise every detail to ensure that it was completed as he wished.

Like a mother hen protecting all her chicks under her wings.

Just as Kiana was lost in thought, Keng Huo slowly opened his eyes, and their eyes met, so close that they could almost hear each other's breath.

Chapter 73 The Valkyrie We Can't Abandon

Kiana suddenly straightened her upper body, like a student listening attentively in class, avoiding eye contact with Keng Huo.

"Hey, good morning." Keng Huo could even joke with a smile on his face. "What are you trying to do, standing so close to me? To molest me?"

Considering her current physical condition and Keng Huo's seemingly poor health, Kiana decided to only give him a light tap.

"Boom."

"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die!" Keng Huo shouted exaggeratedly, but his weak voice sounded really out of place.

"Why are you lying on the ground?" Kiana decided to change the subject.

"I want to feel the warmth of Mother Earth."

"This is thousands of meters in the air; Mother Earth can't warm you here."

"That is to draw nourishment from the rich cultural soil of the academy." Keng Huo pursed his lips, his eyes slowly showing signs of closing.

Kiana felt the weight on her legs lighten, and sensed that Keng Huo seemed to be trying to sit up, so she quickly pressed him down with her hand and ordered him to lie still.

"If you're not feeling well..." Kiana said hesitantly. She wasn't sure if their current position was suitable or not, but it was obvious that Keng Huo, who was clearly weak, shouldn't get up at this time. "You should continue lying down."

"Let me make this clear first, it was only because I felt sorry for you and there really wasn't anywhere else to sit that I reluctantly allowed you to lie on my lap. Don't get any ideas!" Kiana declared righteously, but because she had used almost all her strength to move Keng Huo onto the bench, her voice was soft and lacked any strength. "And also! Don't move around!"

"Well... I never expected that Miss Kiana could be so gentle and considerate. I am very pleased," Keng Huo smiled slightly and closed his eyes. "It feels like a child has grown up."

"Tch... Let me make this clear beforehand, from the moment I met you, I thought you were out of your mind, the kind of person I should keep my distance from. Being familiar with you is just your imagination." Kiana felt her cheeks burning slightly, and quietly turned her face away, poking Keng Huo's cheek with her finger. "Don't stare at me!"

"And you're one to talk! Do you know how I felt when I first saw you..." Keng Huo chuckled, slowly turning his body so his back was to Kiana. "Like a murderer who had just fought his way out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood, alert to everything, on high alert at the slightest sound. When you looked at something, you would first observe its vital points, and when you came to an unfamiliar environment, you would first look around to find an escape route... But now you still let me rest my head on your lap, and you have someone you want to protect, and you have a reason to live besides finding your father... Isn't that good? You clearly like this place so much, so don't just do the superficial stuff."

The phrase "铿惑" (kēng huò) is a veiled reference to the fact that Kiana's social circle consists of only a limited number of people.

Seeing Kiana's face turn bright red as if it were being cooked, Keng Huo spoke up before Kiana could get angry: "So the idea that you don't accept something because you're afraid of losing it is a false premise."

Kiana fell silent, as if her secret had been revealed.

“I know that you and Mei and the others went through a lot of hardships to escape from Changkong City. In that kind of dangerous environment, people who didn’t have this kind of vigilance died…” Keng Huo prepared his words, “But… we are all people who can be relied on, so feel a little more at ease. It’s safe here.”

"...Hmm." Perhaps because she was too weak, Kiana seemed rather docile today and didn't argue with Keng Huo as usual.

"I heard from the people at the medical center..." Kiana hesitated for a moment, then decided to speak, "You've been very busy lately?"

"Um...maybe..." Keng Huo mumbled incoherently.

“I also heard from them that you applied for neurological drugs.”

"Hmm... because we need to develop a panacea..." Keng Huo casually made up a story.

Kiana lightly tapped the back of his head: "Come and fix the hole in your brain?"

"Um……"

"to be frank!"

"It's nothing serious. I often stay up late, so I need some caffeine to stay awake."

"You can't eat too much of that kind of thing..."

"It's okay... It's nothing for young people to stay up a little late."

Faced with this stubborn person, Kiana trembled with anger. She angrily twisted Keng Huo's ear and said, "I just said! You can't eat too much of that stuff!"

"……I know."

"You're not allowed to eat it anymore!"

"...You want to control what I eat? You're my wife!"

Kiana's face flushed red at a visible speed, and she angrily plucked out strands of Keng Huo's hair to hide her little tantrum.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch! I don't want to eat anymore! I don't want to eat anymore!"

"Hmph!" Kiana stopped what she was doing when she heard the clatter, and blew away the few white hairs she had just plucked out.

"But I also heard from the medical staff that you just asked for another bottle!"

"There's still a lot of work waiting for me to do..." Keng Huo's voice calmed down, as if he were talking about something trivial.

"What are you busy with all day? I asked you to duo queue and you wouldn't come! You didn't even come to our concert at the school festival!"

"Hmm... I'll probably just read some text documents, think about how to solve the troubles that are affecting the academy's development, think about the hunting operation in Changkong City, the overseas missions, and have heart-to-heart talks with the students..."

Although Keng Huo spoke euphemistically, Kiana was still able to piece together what he had done from his fragmented words.

Read some text materials? How much text materials do you need to read to need to stay up all night or even rely on drugs to stay awake?

How do we solve the troubles that plague the academy's development? What troubles could an academy possibly have? Building expansion, daily maintenance, resource allocation, the school festival, student recruitment preparation, sorting out sorties, managing the cash flow, daily intelligence exchange with headquarters...

In Kiana's memory, Theresa was always a hands-off manager who didn't care about anything and only stepped in to make decisions when it was particularly important, while Himeko was a shameless battle maniac...

Thinking about it this way, it seems that all the daily operations and decision-making work in the entire St. Freya Academy are somewhat related to Keng Huo.

It could even be said that this person single-handedly shouldered the vast majority of the workload that the academy experienced during that period.

Unbeknownst to everyone, this man, carrying the heavy burden that should have been placed on their shoulders, led them silently along the sunlit avenue he had carefully chosen.

Thinking about this, Kiana felt a little down.