Honkai: Strijder
Chapter 6: The Proper Way to Handle Things
Nighttime, snowy mountains, inside a cave.
Sigurd carried a bowl of noodles topped with a cracked egg and sliced ham over to Kiana.
"Here. Eat."
The boy spoke maliciously and contemptuously, looking at her with the cold, disdainful eyes one might reserve for a useless piece of trash.
Kiana, who had been rubbing her reddened cheeks, had been glaring at Sigurd with tearful, accusatory eyes just a moment earlier. But in the next instant, she put on a flattering smile and eagerly accepted the noodles.
"Thank you, Sig! You're the best!"
Slurp, slurp!
That was the sound of someone happily devouring noodles—with a special fork designed for little children.
Seeing that Kiana had settled down and started eating, Sigurd finally turned his attention back to the matter he had been considering earlier.
Wait, what was I thinking about at the end of the previous chapter?
Oh! Right, whether I should leave Kiana…
"Sig, I'm finished! Give me another bowl!"
Sigurd turned his head with a blank expression.
Before him was a silver-haired girl whose lips were glistening with oil. She held up an empty bowl that had been cleaned so thoroughly that not even a drop of soup remained. Her blue eyes, filled with the words delicious and more, please, stared at him without blinking.
"Serve yourself. If you really can't wait, you can just pour some straight out of the pot."
"Oh, come on! Sig, what are you saying? I'm a lady! I would never do something so impolite… Give me a piece of cloth. The edge of this pot looks a little hot. It'll burn my hands if I pick it up directly."
Looking at the pair of chubby little hands extended toward him, Sigurd took a deep breath, lowered his head, and revealed a kindly smile.
What Sigurd offered her wasn't a piece of cloth, but a pair of dead-fish eyes radiating danger and darkness.
Then, he grabbed those two little chubby hands.
"Come on. It's actually not hot at all. Why would you need a cloth? You can just pick it up directly. What? You don't believe me? That's fine. I'll personally help you try it, and then you'll know."
Sigurd spoke in an extremely gentle voice. Combined with his malicious, lifeless stare, he looked just like a psychopathic serial killer in a horror movie.
Cold sweat immediately broke out on Kiana's forehead, but she still tried to maintain her composure.
"Sig! Calm down! Just calm down! Don't do anything reckless! This lady isn't someone you can bully so easily— Ah! Stop, stop! You're going to touch it! Not there! That's not allowed! I was wrong! I admit I was wrong, okay?!"
At the very last moment, just before Sigurd could press her little hands against the pot, he stopped.
"What's your mistake?"
"My mistake is… is… I dunnooo…"
"Stop acting cute."
"Oh."
Sigurd released Kiana's hands, picked up her bowl, filled it with noodles, and placed it in her hands.
Then, while Kiana was visibly relieved, Sigurd slowly began to speak.
"First, you were interrupting me while I was thinking. Whether it's me or anyone else who's concentrating on something important, interrupting them is impolite. Try not to do it. Understand?"
"Understood! I get it!"
Her answer came so quickly that Sigurd couldn't help asking:
"Are you answering so promptly because you're just brushing me off?"
"No, no! I'm listening very carefully!"
Kiana held her bowl and tilted her head back, defending herself with an aggrieved expression.
Sigurd stared at her for a moment before continuing.
"I'll assume you're listening seriously. Now, the second point: picking up the cooking pot and wolfing down its contents is also impolite. More broadly speaking, any behavior that lacks restraint or is excessively uninhibited is an ill-mannered and uncultured act."
"I know people nowadays like to talk about things such as liberating one's nature and individual freedom. But one's natural instincts and personal freedom are two entirely different matters from whether one has good manners."
While Kiana looked on with a somewhat bewildered expression, seemingly understanding only part of what he was saying, Sigurd took out a clean piece of cloth and wiped the oil from the corners of her mouth.
He continued, "Throughout our lives, we'll interact with an enormous number of people. Among them, the number of intimate individuals who can understand and accept every aspect of us is extremely small. This applies to everyone. We'll encounter countless strangers over the course of our lives."
"How those strangers see you, and how they treat you, depends on the impression you give them. And that impression comes half from your appearance and half from your manners."
"When it comes to appearance, I'm confident that you'll be quite outstanding, both now and in the future. As for manners, they mean maintaining restraint in your words and actions even when you're dealing with strangers or people you dislike."
"That sounds easy, but it's actually difficult to do. Still, I hope you'll be able to achieve it, because having good manners is an essential part of becoming…"
Sigurd suddenly stopped.
"Forget it. Just pretend I never said that. Remember not to eat straight out of the cooking pot."
Kiana's eyes had already turned into spinning spirals, much like a pair of cartoon mosquito coils. Clearly, this girl simply couldn't understand such profound lessons about personal refinement and proper conduct.
Sigurd felt a faint throbbing between his eyebrows.
It was like trying to play music to a cow.
Sigurd considered himself to possess a mature soul, and he couldn't help wanting to teach Kiana a thing or two.
But for Kiana, who had already endured so much, perhaps living freely, indulging in her little whims, and simply being happy was far more important.
"Sigh~"
Looking at the little white-haired girl happily enjoying her noodles, completely absorbed in her food and paying no attention to anything else, Sigurd let out a quiet sigh.
Forget it. There's still plenty of time. He could figure out how to educate her properly later.
Slurp, slurp!
"Delicious!"
With those one familiar word serving as her after-meal conclusion, Kiana patted her now-round belly with complete satisfaction. A happy blush spread across her little face.
Sigurd tossed the bowl and fork into the cooking pot, added some snow, and placed it back over the campfire. By boiling the melted snow, he washed away the grease and oil stains from the cookware.
Then, he patted Kiana's little head, motioning for her to perk up, and asked:
"I haven't asked how you're feeling yet. Is there anywhere that hurts or feels uncomfortable?"
"Nope! I feel great. I think I've even gotten a little stronger. Maybe it's just my imagination?" Kiana replied with a cheerful grin.
However, Sigurd didn't think it was necessarily her imagination. Perhaps the active Honkai Energy had also strengthened Kiana's young body.
Unfortunately, his own understanding of Honkai Energy was still at the stage of knowing what it could do without understanding how it worked. He couldn't determine whether this change was beneficial or harmful.
Sigurd pushed the matter to the back of his mind and asked another question.
"So, how did your scouting go? If you didn't find any signs of human habitation, did you at least spot any other landmarks?"
"Not really… Oh! If I had to mention something, there are a few mountains in that direction that look pretty strange. It's as if someone blasted part of them apart with some kind of giant cannon. They look really weird."
"So, in other words, you didn't find anything useful after all. This is a bit troublesome. It'll be difficult to figure out which direction we should go next."
Sigurd muttered to himself, although he understood that those strange-looking mountains might not have been naturally formed at all. Perhaps Kiana or Siegfried had destroyed them.
Honkai Energy really was a mysterious and dangerous power.
However, if that was indeed the case, it at least confirmed that they hadn't strayed too far from their original route. Finding their way shouldn't be too difficult. Besides, he had prepared enough supplies, so there was no immediate need to worry about getting lost or running out of provisions.
Just then, Kiana suddenly looked at him with a puzzled expression.
"Eh? Since that uncle who rescued us came back, why didn't you ask him for directions?"
Sigurd leaned backward and stared up at the sky.
That's right. Why had he forgotten to ask Siegfried for directions?
"I forgot," Sigurd answered honestly.
Kiana clapped her hands and laughed.
"Hahaha! And you called me an idiot? Aren't you the real idiot here?"
"...Go to sleep."
Sigurd was at a loss for words and could only say those two words.
As for Kiana's teasing, well, it really had been his mistake. She could laugh all she wanted.
However, Kiana clearly had a different opinion about his suggestion. She drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and shook her head vigorously. Then she tilted her little head toward Sigurd and asked:
"But I just woke up! I don't want to sleep yet. What should I do?"
"...Actually, I'm not sleepy either."
After Siegfried's explanation, Sigurd understood that his current alertness wasn't simply an illusion caused by his fever subsiding. It was the result of Honkai Energy strengthening his body.
In the few short days since his transmigration, this was the best his physical and mental condition had been. He wasn't sleepy in the slightest.