Chapter 236: Surprisingly Easy to Handle
Irene opened her eyes, and the very next moment Elysia's face appeared right in front of her. Seeing that Irene was awake, Elysia raised a hand and gave it a little wave. "How was it? Did everything go smoothly?"
"You don't even ask whether I'm hurt or not?" Irene reached out, intending to pull the handle inside the capsule and lift the hatch open — but after a few tugs, she found there was no response at all.
"No need to keep pulling — that thing's broken," Vill-V's voice rang out from one side. "The Honkai energy fluctuations that erupted from your body burned the circuits straight out."
"Eh, it won't cause any problems, will it?" Irene immediately raised her hand and forced the hatch open with sheer strength.
"What kind of problems could there be? Is there a single one of us who'd be afraid of a little Honkai energy?" Mobius shrugged. Everyone in here was either a Herrscher or a MANTIS.
Even though the Honkai energy fluctuations that had erupted from inside Irene really had been quite strong, to the few of them it was just so-so — it was simply that the makeshift observation capsule, hastily thrown together a moment ago, hadn't been able to take it, and the circuits had burned out.
"Isn't this what's called showing concern?" Irene scratched her head. Elysia, standing beside her, immediately seized her opening and climbed all over her, throwing her arms around Irene.
"I'm so happy. Irene, you're allowed to worry about me, you know." Elysia nuzzled against Irene. "By the way — did Irene succeed?"
"Of course I succeeded." Irene planted her hands on her hips, then closed her eyes and pulled that ball of light right out from within her own soul.
She had to admit — this little fellow seemed to have latched onto her. A moment ago, when she'd been pulling, it had even taken her and [Irene] working together, pushing and yanking, to finally get him out.
There had even been a wisp of unwilling emotion seeping out from within him.
"Eh, how come he's so small?" Elysia reached out and poked at the ball of light, and the glow immediately rolled in Irene's direction.
"He's already developed a will?" Vill-V furrowed her brow. This was going to be a real bit of trouble — looked like Rin and Little Corruption were going to have to give him some strict discipline.
As if sensing the wary aura emanating from Vill-V's side, the ball of light shrank even further into Irene's embrace. Seeing this, Elysia immediately spoke up.
"Aiya, don't put out so much killing intent."
As she spoke, Elysia reached out and scooped the light up and out of Irene's embrace. Though that light tried to resist, facing Elysia, its resistance was doomed to be futile.
And as she looked at the light cradled in her arms, Elysia also stretched out a hand and started poking it up and down, teasing the naive, unknowing little consciousness in her grasp.
"This actually reminds me of how I used to be." Little Corruption suddenly appeared at that very moment, his eyes a touch complicated as he looked at the light in Elysia's arms.
"Tell me about it — don't tell me, in the past...?" Irene immediately put on an interested expression and nudged Little Corruption with her elbow, all set to dig in for some gossip.
"It's really nothing." Little Corruption waved a hand. "Elysia's personality — it's not like you don't know it. What I would've gone through while getting along with Elysia — well, what do you think?"
"Mm, I understand." Irene nodded. It was nothing more than being teased by Elysia and having stuff stirred up — but, well, this was Elysia, after all.
Seeing that Irene had caught on, Little Corruption shrugged, and then in a flash he was over at Elysia's side, beginning to collude with her.
He started in on relentlessly teasing the naive, unknowing Corruption.
"You'd only just finished sighing wistfully, and now you're already joining in on the collusion." Irene spread her hands a little helplessly. But fortunately, with the goodwill radiating from both Elysia and Little Corruption, that ball of light, which had originally been quivering nonstop, surprisingly began to relax bit by bit.
"Mm, well — this is Elysia we're talking about." Mobius folded his arms across his chest. As for Little Corruption — sigh, those two had practically been cut from the same mold.
Wait, no — if Elysia ended up raising this little fellow too, wouldn't that mean later on there'd be three Elysias?
A single Elysia was already trouble enough. Having two Elysias had already gotten to the point of giving people a real headache. If it weren't for the fact that Little Corruption was always off helping Irene with crowd control and such, and so didn't come around to cause trouble all that often —
Now they were about to get one more added on top.
Mobius and Vill-V, standing beside him, exchanged a glance, and read the very same mental exhaustion in each other's eyes. It seemed the other had thought of that same point.
"But right now Elysia really is the easier one to handle, after all." It was at this very moment that Irene suddenly squeezed in between the two of them, smiling at each in turn.
"Hah, you sure don't mind having more." Mobius rolled his eyes — but then, on second thought, Elysia would probably be more willing to go bother Irene now.
As for Little Corruption, he usually had plenty of work to do, so he wasn't really all that much of a nuisance. And besides, he was a great deal more obedient than Elysia — once you told Little Corruption to leave, he wouldn't cling and pester the way Elysia did.
"Was the process difficult? You were in there for quite a while." Vill-V looked over at Irene. Hearing Vill-V's question, Irene looked a little puzzled. "Quite a while?"
She had clearly only been in there for a few minutes, hadn't she? After all, the Corruption had been actively handed over by the Will of the Honkai itself; the time she'd spent facing off with the Will of the Honkai, all told, should have come out to less than five minutes.
"Yes — a whole day has already gone by." Vill-V nodded. "Looking at you like this — in your own subjective sense, did it not feel that long?"
"Mm." Irene nodded. "In my perception, it seemed like only a few minutes had passed. I genuinely had no idea a whole day had already gone by."
"Oh, that reminds me." Only at this point did Irene seem to remember someone, and she glanced over at the other capsule, which had long since been emptied out. Well — looked like Yutu had already left some time ago.
Noticing Irene's gaze, Vill-V explained: "She left as soon as your mental state had stabilized. Although she was born out of that Cecilia, her personality is completely different from hers."
"Mm, well — they're two different people, after all. There's no way to demand their personalities be exactly the same." Irene smiled. As long as Yutu was alright, then it didn't really matter, did it?
Irene turned her head back and looked again at the light in Elysia's hand. Beside her, Little Corruption was feeding it pure data, helping it rapidly acquire a sense of self of its own.
Mobius, off to the side, hurriedly stepped forward: "Careful, careful — don't let this child end up learning that same routine of yours. The Corruption Authority has enormous developmental potential."
Mobius really did not want another Little Corruption. If they just got another one, what good would that do? It absolutely had to be developed in a different direction. Little Corruption mustn't go and feed and feed until he locked someone else's skill tree in place all over again.
"Aiya, relax — it's only data. It won't get fed into something bad." Little Corruption waved a hand. He naturally knew what Mobius and the others were talking about.
And the young Corruption was rapidly growing during this process as well. The originally thin consciousness, under all the feeding, began to learn the emotions contained within the data.
And to prevent the Corruption from turning out badly, Little Corruption had also refrained from feeding it any of the negative emotions; that sort of stuff could simply be left for him to learn on his own later on.
In the process of growth, you really did have to give a child more love, after all. Once the child had grown up, then you could slowly let him pick up the negative emotions on his own.
But what Little Corruption hadn't anticipated was this: at this very moment, as though he had been dunked into a honey jar, soaking in those pure positive emotions, the Corruption began to instinctively compare it against the feeling of having been together with Irene before.
Closeness — that was the emotion he had felt while hiding inside Irene's mental world. He liked that feeling.
Liked. Because he liked that feeling, that's why he...
Love? Did he love?
He didn't yet truly understand who the mental world he had been inside earlier represented — but under Little Corruption's feeding, the Corruption, now in possession of pure positive emotions, found his feelings gradually deepening, too.
Elysia lowered her head and looked at the Corruption. She somehow felt her head was a little heavy — but when she reached up and patted her head, she confirmed there was nothing on top of it.
Never mind, forget it — it wasn't anything important; probably just her imagination. She could also start sending some other kinds of data along with Little Corruption.
Things like what everyone's name was, who they were — basic common sense and so on. Though, of course, it was common sense with an Elysia-flavored quality to it.
As for what "Elysia-flavored" meant — just take a look at the Little Corruption right next door and you'd understand.
Seeing that the Corruption was behaving well enough for now, Irene looked over at the others: "I'll leave this kid to all of you. I've got to go help Theresa and the rest — a whole day's passed, and I have no idea how things are going on their end."
"Mm, go on, go on." Mobius waved a hand. In this area Irene couldn't really help with anything anyway, and the matters over on that end really did need Irene keeping an eye on them.
According to what Irene had said, on that side it was very likely that things might eventually escalate into the birth of the Herrscher of Binding — and the impact of Binding on them was far, far too great.
Most likely, even though Irene had told them to help mind the home base, there were probably already a few who had quietly snuck off after her. As for Mobius and Vill-V — they had no intention of sticking a foot in.
Neither of them was much good at fighting; staying here to look after the Corruption was more interesting anyway.
And the Corruption seemed to have noticed Irene leaving too. The young consciousness wanted to make her stay — or rather, wanted to burrow back into Irene's body. But, lacking any physical form, he had no way at all of escaping the clutches of Little Corruption and Elysia.
After losing the person closest to him, the Corruption began self-learning — or, you might say, self-computing. He felt a sense of loss.
Wanting... Irene...
Korosten.
"Rita, I have a question I'd like to ask." Fu Hua looked at the Rita who was leading the way.
"Please go ahead, Lord Fu Hua." Rita turned her head back and smiled at Fu Hua. "Was there still something you were uncertain about?"
"Just now, I sensed an aura of Taixuan Sword Qi." Fu Hua looked at Rita. If it had been someone in the immediate vicinity, there was no way it could be kept hidden from Rita.
Rita pondered for a moment: "I believe what Lord Fu Hua is referring to is probably the one we've newly promoted — well, I suppose 'new' isn't quite right either — our new S-Rank Valkyrie."
"S-Rank Valkyrie?" Rita's words drew the attention of everyone in the group. How was it that they didn't know Schicksal had added another S-Rank Valkyrie to its ranks?
"She's a young lady by the name of Li Sushang. From the look of her attire, she should be a Shenzhou native." A smile remained on Rita's face as she went on with a more detailed introduction.
"This Valkyrie suddenly appeared in Korosten. Lord Durandal and I don't know much about her — we've only met her a handful of times, after all. As for the day-to-day contact with her, the Lord Overseer doesn't seem to have any intention of letting us get involved."
"Mm, what Rita said is correct. I did once ask the Overseer about it. But the answer the Overseer gave me was that this Miss Li is an old friend of his, who has come specifically this time to attend his curtain call."
"An old friend of Otto's, suddenly appearing, a Shenzhou native..."
Fu Hua felt a bit of a headache coming on. Although it was unlikely, if his guess wasn't off, this Li Sushang was — nine times out of ten — that... grand-disciple he had once met.
This would also explain why he had picked up on that aura that was both familiar and unfamiliar. Familiar, because he had met her; unfamiliar, because it had been so long ago that he really had forgotten.
Although he had now begun to gradually recover his memories, his memories really were too vast in number. Even with his Hyperthymesia, when it came to things from too far back, there were still a few he couldn't remember all that clearly.
"Hmph, I knew that wretched disciple's own disciple wouldn't be up to anything good. Sure enough — the moment she shows up, she lines up on Otto's side."
Little Senti let out a soft snort, indignant. He had some impression of this grand-disciple, too.
As is well known, five hundred years ago, Fu Hua had once been betrayed and killed by his seven disciples, his Sword Heart shattered; and it had taken a very long time before he had recovered by relying on Garuda's life force.
Although Fu Hua himself no longer cared about that past, for Little Senti, the so-called Seven Disciples were detestable in the extreme. And by extension, his impression of this grand-disciple — whom he hadn't seen many times — had also taken a turn for the worse.
"Little Senti, that past is already past. This Li Sushang isn't necessarily the one I'm remembering — and even if she is, I don't hold any prejudice against her."
Fu Hua tugged at Little Senti and let out a sigh. The events of that time really were impossible to put into clear words. Just let that past affair stay in the past. Li Sushang hadn't been involved in that matter, so it wouldn't do to vent any anger on her.
"Oh really? Do you even believe what you're saying?" Little Senti looked at Fu Hua, his fur seeming to bristle. "Pulling stunts like dragging her five hundred years into the future — that bastard Otto is absolutely capable of pulling that kind of thing."
"Sigh... I know Little Senti, you're standing up for me on this..." Fu Hua shook his head, trying to smooth Little Senti's ruffled feathers. "But what's past is past. There's no need to be like this."
"Who, who's standing up for you?! I just can't stand the sight of that bunch of master-betraying, ancestor-defying types, that's all." Little Senti's trademark tsundere-type act made the previously somewhat heavy atmosphere lighten up for a moment, turning rather cheerful.
But then Little Senti looked at Fu Hua again with a touch of concern: "Still — are you going to go see her? That fellow is spying on us. I'm afraid she's up to no good."
"I'll go see her." Fu Hua nodded. "No matter what, she still counts as a disciple. In the end... I'll have to go see her. And besides, I'd also like to know what attitude she's taking right now."
No matter what angle one looked at it from, there was a need to go see her. First, to figure out why she had awoken at this particular point in time; second, perhaps she knew something about Otto.
And also — at the time, because of his amnesia, there were some things he hadn't been able to get answers to from Li Sushang. Perhaps now was the right moment.
"Tch, fine — then I'm coming with you." Little Senti pursed his lips, but his body was very honest about it. "When the time comes, you'd better not get talked into some pit. I'm not at ease about it."
"Alright."
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