Humans are in chaos, despicable outsiders.

"These wonderful times lasted until my 15th birthday. At the birthday party that Eileen had carefully prepared, my adoptive father, whom I rarely saw, also attended. It was then that I made a wish to him that I wanted to leave Vienna and even Europe to see the outside world."

"My adoptive father agreed and bought numerous properties in cities around the world, as well as shares in many prestigious academies—sounds like a cliché novel plot, right? But he really did it."

"And as a stop on my long journey through life—Changkong City—I met you all here," Snow said, turning his gaze to the three people beside him.

The three people she was watching were staring wide-eyed.

"Private maids," "Real estates in cities around the world," and "A whole host of shares in prestigious academies!"

"You call that ordinary!?"

"Uh... is there a problem?"

"Have"

"?"

"Miss Snow, do you need another accessory to adorn your thigh?"

"Oh, right! Snow, since you have an adoptive father, why don't you have a surname?" Jiu Xiao asked the girl, seemingly having thought of something.

Three pairs of eyes turned to the girl again, their gazes filled with curiosity.

"Hmm... my adoptive father never told me his surname, and he told me that when we met again at the end of my journey..."

"I will find the answer myself."

"That sounds like a really weird guy, and he's probably a bit eccentric," Kiana remarked.

"Perhaps, at least I miss the days I spent with him."

Chapter Five: Bronya Zaycek

The group continued walking down the street, exchanging anecdotes from the past. Meanwhile, on a nearby high-rise building, a petite girl with silver-gray hair tied in double spiral ponytails floated, followed by a giant humanoid robot.

"Bioreactive response detected, quantity 4, Honkai sign scan initiated." His eyes, as silver-gray as his hair, held no emotion as he coldly watched the four people walking downstairs.

......

"Detection complete. Signs of collapse detected. Confirmed as target A for recovery. Execute countermeasures. Recovery operation commences."

As the words fell, the massive cannon on the humanoid robot arm behind the girl began to glow intensely, and then—the roar of the heavy cannon echoed between the buildings, and the streets covered by the artillery fire billowed up thick smoke, obscuring the silver-haired girl's view.

"Target lost, close-range engagement, Reload Bunny 19C, switch to melee mode," the girl's mechanical voice rang out again. The robot behind her picked her up, its giant cannon on its arm transformed into a massive lance, and it leaped swiftly down the building, charging into the smoke.

The storm stirred up by the descending mechs dispersed the smoke that filled the street, and a gigantic humanoid machine appeared before the three people who were waving air and coughing.

"Which scoundrel is it? Don't let me catch her!" Kiana, who was the first to recover, angrily drew her dual pistols from her waist, then looked up and saw the gray-haired girl in front of her.

"Why would such a young child be with a robot like this..." Mei looked at the child in front of her with some confusion, until she saw those cold, emotionless gray eyes. Something seemed to pierce Mei's heart.

"Um... excuse me, little girl, who are you... and also, did you cause that explosion just now?" Mei asked with a hint of heartache, looking at the petite girl facing Kiana with lifeless eyes.

"I am Bronya, the embedded, general-purpose girl's decisive weapon, the carrier of Heavy Bunny," the expressionless girl answered Raiden Mei's question, and then—

"Girl weapon?" Raiden Mei looked puzzled. Just as she tried to press for more information, Kiana's voice rang in her ears.

"Mei, watch out!"

Bang—the hand cannon bullet struck the heavily armored bunny's shield, simultaneously halting its advance.

"Tch, brat, you started it, so don't blame me for being ruthless! Everyone, get behind me, I'll handle this big guy!" Kiana shouted, firing continuously at the Heavy Bunny, then pounced on it and began to wrestle with it.

--

............

"Stop your hostile actions, Miss Bronya, or rather, 'Ural Silver Wolf'?" While the gray-haired girl was intently controlling the Heavy Bunny 19C to deal with a certain monstrous gorilla from the Kaslana family, a chilling ice blade was pressed against Bronya's neck. The blonde girl, with stealth skills inherited from a certain perfect maid, silently crept up behind her.

"According to the system's calculations... Bronya's win rate is..."

A bone-chilling cold spread rapidly through Bronya's body, eventually converging at one point and completely freezing and destroying some kind of device.

"Hmm!...Bronya doesn't understand, how did you bypass Heavy Bunny's scan?" Her previously mechanical words were interrupted, a hint of confusion in her voice. Her inorganic eyes glanced at Heavy Bunny, who was being held back by the white-haired girl's bare hands, unable to escape. After a brief, rapid thought, she raised her hands.

"Bronya chooses to surrender." The heavily armored bunny 19C, far away, also abandoned its plan to wrestle with the monstrous gorilla from the Kaslana family, releasing its lance. Its two mechanical arms performed a remarkably human-like French salute.

“People always have many secrets, which often makes them more charming and attractive, doesn’t it?” Snow didn’t answer Bronya’s question, but instead lowered the blade to the girl’s shoulder, guiding her step by step toward her companions.

[Good, the external personality suppression system has been destroyed, but the control chip in Bronya's brain... tsk, I'm not some neuroscientist.]

"Ouch! Why did you suddenly stop fighting?" Kiana, who had been arm-wrestling with her lance when the heavily armored bunny suddenly let go and fell face-first into the mud, quickly got up. Just as she was about to continue taunting the gray-haired dwarf, she saw Snow walking towards her with his sword blade pressed against Bronya's shoulder.

"…Well done, Kiana. Before I could even touch the child's back and subdue her, her attention was completely focused on you," Snow nodded in praise of Kiana.

"Hehe, of course, how could I possibly fail when I personally take action?" The white-fuzzy ball swallowed back the sarcasm that had been stuck in its throat, and accepted its companion's praise with a smug look.

"So, what's going on with this child?" Mei looked at the gray-haired girl who had become silent after being surrounded by the crowd, and boldly picked her up and hugged her.

"Wait, Mei, that little dwarf is dangerous!" Kiana looked at Mei, who had immediately hugged him, and seemed a little nervous and... well... jealous?

“Bronya... if nothing unexpected happens, she should have another name or title... um, in the past, Eileen told me some interesting stories and rumors about European society—in Eastern Europe, especially in the more chaotic countries and the Russian region, a large number of child soldiers were born as orphans due to a certain massive disaster.”

"And her appearance perfectly matched the descriptions of the legendary assassin that Eileen had told me about."

"—The Silver Wolf of the Urals, but it is said that she disappeared after a failed operation. Now it seems that she was under some kind of control."

Snow tossed a black device the size of a coin between his fingers, attracting the attention of his companions.

"What is this thing?" Jiuxiao asked curiously, looking at the small black gadget fluttering up and down.

“What I removed from the child was probably some kind of control device. After I took it off, the mechanical quality in her voice lessened considerably. It was probably some kind of device that suppressed personality or emotions,” Snow shook his head.

"Those guys! How could they treat a child like that!" Raiden Mei's sudden outburst of anger startled the three people beside her, even Bronya, the inorganic being she was holding, looked confused.

Bronya is merely a weapon. A weapon needs neither will nor compassion.

"..." Everyone fell silent after hearing the girl's words.

"Little girl, weapons do indeed lack will and don't need sympathy... but weapons also won't understand the words of others."

"And you are doing this, a decision made based on your own thoughts and your own will."

"I'm not a psychology expert, nor am I good at counseling people, so I can only tell you one thing."

"—Your actions now depend entirely on your own will, that is, the will of Bronya Zaychek," the blonde girl said, looking at the nameplate hanging around the girl's neck, and pronounced her full name slowly and deliberately.

"My...own will?" The girl's voice was filled with deep confusion.

The blonde girl then gave Raiden Mei, who was holding the girl, a wink, and gradually retreated—she still needed to scout ahead and decide where to stay for the night. After all, a city of a million people couldn't be explored in a single day, and she had much to do before nightfall.

--

"Hmm? You are... Heavy Bunny?" Snow looked at the floating robot beside him with some confusion.

The robot in front of her didn't keep the girl confused for long; it offered her a piece of cardboard with the word "thank you" written on it in somewhat messy handwriting.

"...Ha, it was nothing, you should go back to your master." The blonde girl chuckled and gently shook her head at the robot.

The heavily armored bunny nodded to Snow and quickly disappeared from her sight.

The girl watched the heavily armored bunny disappear from her sight, then turned her gaze back to the nearby buildings.

This is the closest residential area to the Changkong City Bridge. We'll arrive here before dark to use as our campsite, and then evacuate to the outside world via the Changkong City Bridge the next day.

[The plan was beautiful, but reality was cruel.] The girl gave a soft snort, looking towards the direction of Shenzhou. There, in Kowloon City, the bustling Pearl of the Orient, the Hyperion had already met their captain, Himeko Murata. The large airship, fully loaded with the elite Valkyrie squad of the Far East branch, was charging towards them at full speed.

[And those huge guys... Eileen never told me how to deal with a creature dozens of times bigger than herself.] Snow looked helplessly into the distance—several fully formed Temple-class Honkai Beasts were walking through the ruins. Their colossal, building-like forms were clearly visible even from a thousand meters away. They were wandering around, and having lost the Herrscher command tower that served as the core will of their race, these Honkai Beasts were left with only beast-like instincts.

"Oh... Kiana, Kiana... please don't let anything happen to you." Snow's head started to ache again as he thought of that black-haired girl in the team, who was like a ticking time bomb.

[That's enough. We've done everything we can. Let fate decide. It's not impossible to temporarily suppress the rampaging Herrscher if we've given it our all, but...] Snow's gaze turned back towards the direction of Shenzhou.

"Don't let this so-called 'destiny' come too late—" The girl took a deep look at the distant sky, then leaped down from the building and headed back the way she came. Her temporary team consisted of some heavyweights; if she didn't go back soon, Raiden Mei alone wouldn't be able to control them.

Before the girl even got close to the temporary camp, she heard Kiana arguing with Heavy Bunny 19C—yes, arguing with Heavy Bunny...

"Hey! You big brute, put down that bag of chips! That's the last bag I managed to find in the convenience store under the ruins after a lot of searching!" This was Kiana, who was clutching the corner of the bag tightly.

"Beep beep beep-beep beep—beep—beep beep!" This is the heavy-duty bunny gripping the other corner of the packaging bag with its robotic arm.

"Whoa...!" The stalemate finally ended with the potato chip bag bursting in mid-air, unable to withstand the monstrous strength of the person and the machine. Thanks to the Heavy Bunny's ability to fly, only Kiana was once again defeated by the mecha, falling face-first into the mud. Congratulations, Coca-Cola...

The heavily armed bunny looked at the white fluffy ball that had fallen headfirst and the broken plastic bag in its hand, tilted its head and thought for a moment, then casually tossed the bag aside and made a very human-like fist-clenching gesture.

[I'm so done with this!] The mecha-humanoid figure floated in the air, watching the white furry ball get up from the ground, spitting mud everywhere.

"Thanks for opening the bag of chips for me... Hmm, that was a pretty novel way to open it?" Snow was holding a bowl of medium size, with the bag of chips that had exploded in mid-air during their struggle completely inside. His azure eyes swept over Kiana and Heavy Bunny beside him, finally settling on Bronya, who was hugging a Homu plushie. Mei was leaning against her, seemingly resting from the morning's running around and taking care of Bronya afterwards.

[He's really won big] Snow thought, holding the potato chips he'd gotten for free.

"The taste is alright?" The girl grabbed a piece, popped it into her mouth, chewed, and walked towards the gray-haired girl's location.

"Looks like you're adapting to your new companions pretty well... Want some?" Snow handed over a bowl full of potato chips, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"Thank...thank you...?" Bronya's voice was hesitant. The aftereffects of the personality suppression device being removed hadn't completely disappeared. She awkwardly reached out a hand, grabbed a potato chip, and carefully put it in her mouth to taste. Then her eyes lit up, and without hesitation, she grabbed more potato chips from the bowl.

"Hmm...no rush, Bronya, these are all yours. I'll go take care of things with Jiuxiao and Kiana first. You stay here and protect Mei-neechan, okay?" Snow placed the bowl full of snacks on the gray-haired girl's lap, hesitated for a moment, then nodded seriously.

Having received the promise, Snow turned and walked towards Kiana, who was still fooling around, and Jiuxiao, who looked at the white-fuzzy ball with a helpless expression.

"Alright, how old are you... still picking on a little girl? I've found a place to stay for tonight. It's a coastal residential area closest to the Changkong City Bridge. We'll spend the night there, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, we'll cross the bridge the next morning and reach the outside world by tomorrow night."

[Assuming no unforeseen circumstances]

"Wow! So fast? It feels like it hasn't been that long... But we'll all have to part ways soon..." Kiana seemed excited when she learned that she would be leaving soon, but before her excitement subsided, she became melancholic as she thought of something.

"Don't think too far ahead, Kiana. I have another piece of bad news to tell you," Snow's face darkened.

"Uh, what news?"

"I saw some large, white-purple creatures that were as tall as buildings. They must be one of the Honkai Beasts you mentioned."

"A Honkai Beast the size of a building... that should be the Temple-class Honkai Beast that my stinky dad mentioned. If we're unlucky, it might even be a Honkai Emperor—as a warrior with the blood of the Kaslana family flowing through my veins, my intuition tells me that you seem to have some strange backup plan. But when you see those monsters, please don't attack them. Even my stinky dad would find them very troublesome to deal with."

"If you encounter them alone, the wisest choice is to hide or run away," Kiana earnestly advised her companion.

"Wow, I didn't know you had such a serious side..."

"Hey, you rascal, I'm genuinely concerned about you!"

"I know, I'm not the kind of guy who gets carried away with his emotions. I'll avoid them if I see them. You should worry more about yourself."

"Good to know. In short, whatever you do, don't provoke them! As for me, you don't need to worry about me. I am a warrior of the Kaslana family!"

"That's why I'm worried about you..." The girl shook her head helplessly.