"So, Lynelle, what's your next move?"
"Simple, really."
After scouting around Svarog's base, Lynelle found a suitable spot. Then, she pulled out her stasis pod: "We wait."
"Wait?"
"Mhm. My friends are still in the Overworld. It'll probably be about half a day before they come down. So, I'm going to take this chance to hop in stasis and handle some things on my end."
Lynelle gently patted Clara's head as she spoke softly.
After all, even though Lynelle could speedrun the main storyline quests, Bronya's change of heart genuinely needed time.
Only by seeing the Underworld's state for herself could she steel her resolve to launch her 'magnificent rebellion against Mother'.
Besides, Lynelle needed Bronya to stay in the Underworld a bit longer anyway, to earn her trust and make the next phase of the plan easier.
So, the half-day she'd saved by 'persuading' Svarog ahead of schedule could now be used to deal with the Honkai Impact 3rd side of things.
"Mmm... So, big sister is going to sleep? That makes sense... you were repairing the Automatons all last night, so you really should get some rest..."
Even though Clara seemed to have misunderstood a little, Lynelle was fine with that. She then turned to Svarog and gave her orders.
"Svarog, while I'm in stasis, you are to follow these three directives. How you execute them is up to your discretion."
"First, you are to re-open negotiations with Wildfire and make contact with my companions. I've already sent their information to your storage."
"Second, regarding the Stellaron, you must wait until I wake up before disclosing it to them. However, it's highly unlikely my stasis will exceed twelve hours, so this is just a precaution."
"Finally, protect my stasis pod while I'm under... Do not reveal my location to anyone except the Express crew."
"Directives logged. Effective immediately."
"Good. That's settled."
With matters at the Robot Settlement temporarily arranged, Lynelle opened the stasis pod and climbed inside.
The reason she was rushing over to the Honkai Impact 3rd world was twofold. First, according to what Kiana-chan had said earlier, the space-time environment over on Earth-side was fluctuating again. This would cause the flow rate between her two worlds to briefly speed up for a while.
Last time this happened, she'd spent less than two days on the space station and directly 'skipped' fourteen years of plot. This time... she'd been in Belobog for a full day.
The other reason was... just moments ago, the system had sent an alert requesting manual intervention.
"Kiana-chan, Kiana-chan, what's the situation over in Honkai Impact? Why did the proxy command trigger an error?"
[Oh, it's not really an error! It's just that something pretty important came up that needs you to handle it personally.]
The voice of Customer Service Kiana-chan was unhurried.
"So... what is it?"
[Mmm, basically, you might have to fight Cocolia in both worlds at the same time.]
[The Anti-Entropy Invasion incident, ring any bells?]
With Kiana-chan's reminder, Lynelle quickly realized what timeframe the Honkai Impact 3rd world was in.
Right, roughly the period where Cocolia was at her most troublesome.
Perhaps because she'd made significant progress cloning Joyce (resulting in a bunch of hyper-masculine, low-intelligence Welt clones), and with the aid of the mysterious organization World Serpent, Cocolia—believing she had fully mastered the power of the first Herrscher—had decided to raid St. Freya to seize the third Herrscher core within Mei.
This part of the story took place around April 2015. Meaning, this space-time fluctuation had caused Lynelle to jump forward about a year.
This made Lynelle feel grateful she'd unlocked the auto-function early.
If she'd just vanished without a word for a whole year, her favorability with Anti-Entropy would probably be fine, but St. Freya would likely have expelled her, with Theresa probably doing the honors.
Oh, but if Lynelle had really left without a word, Kiana would probably have been full of self-blame, since... ahem, that night a certain delightful little incident had occurred, and Kiana seemed to have gotten the wrong idea about her own actions.
"So, I can just head over there now?"
[Yep! The moment you enter the Honkai Impact 3rd side, the system will automatically transfer the memories from the auto-period to you. They'll be input in a fuzzy state, kinda like a compressed file.]
[But, taking this auto opportunity, I pasted in a few fragments of events from the first playthrough as chimera points... Well, you probably wouldn't understand that explanation.]
[Let me put it in terms you know: I implanted a few first-playthrough memories in them at suitable times to strengthen the connection between the first and second playthroughs.]
"Uh... So, why are you telling me this?"
Lynelle scratched her head. "Are those memories important?"
[Nope, just some daily-life snippets. Precisely because they're unimportant, I could use them as anchor points. However, having the related memories means that, in their consciousness, these things did happen.]
[So I've bundled those snippets in with the auto-memories I'm sending you. Just try not to be too surprised.]
"They're just everyday memories from the first playthrough, right? What's so surprising about that..."
[What I mean is... if you suddenly notice your behavior in those memories seems a bit bottom-coded, don't try to deny it. Because in the first playthrough, you really were that submissive and bottom-y.]
"?!"
Lynelle slowly formed a question mark in her mind. But, having gotten her little jab in, Customer Service Kiana-chan didn't give her a chance to ask more and simply activated the transfer.
[Initiating memory transfer from auto-period...]
Instantly, a flood of memories poured into Lynelle's mind. Most were just daily life stuff, like attending classes once or twice a week, visiting the Anti-Entropy base to see Bella, nothing really substantial.
"Let me see those first-playthrough fragments Kiana-chan mentioned..."
Lynelle randomly selected one of the light orbs.
"Oh, it's playing games with Bronya. That seems pretty normal... Wait, what game are you playing?"
Watching the restricted content appearing on the game screen, and seeing her memory-self sitting there blushing, heart racing, occasionally teased by the ducky in her lap, Lynelle covered her eyes, unable to bear the sight.
"Alright... fine, just getting teased by Bronya. She's an old pro at this, it's normal. Let me check Mei's..."
The light orb concerning Mei restored a good deal of Lynelle's confidence. The scene showed Mei accidentally cutting her finger, and Lynelle sucking on Mei's finger to stop the bleeding.
Judging from the memory, it seemed like she was the one teasing Mei. Ah, that's just how Mei-zero is.
"And then there's... Kiana... Wait, what?!"
Lynelle stared at the scene with disbelief.
"What do you mean, 'I played Truth or Dare with Kiana, chose to eat the Pocky from opposite ends, and Kiana not only ate all the Pocky but also used some masterful 'technique' to steal the bit from my mouth too'?!"
"Since when was Kiana that much of a top?! No, wait, was I really that much of a bottom?!"
"I refuse! This is the first playthrough! I'm cutting ties with that version of me!"
[Heheh... Stubborn, bottom-coded Lynelle is so cute~]
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.