Chapter 242: Go for It, Great Inventor
The massive train slammed straight into Otto, and the Honkai energy gathered on its surface became the final straw that crushed the surrounding space. Space shattered completely, forming a golden void.
Then the front of the train, together with Otto, plunged into that golden void.
"Was that just now the Cosmic Juggernaut?" Durandal recognized that locomotive from before — but how had it suddenly activated, and who had been on board?
"Wait, so did that actually win or not?" Sirin was suddenly a bit confused about the situation. Could that just now have been a contingency Otto had left for himself? He'd slipped away.
No, that's not right. That impact just now — sure, it definitely couldn't compare to the furious blow he'd just landed, but it shouldn't have been something Otto could simply shrug off either.
"Are you all still in there?" Einstein's voice came through the two of them's earpieces. "I imagine you've already seen that, um, Cosmic Juggernaut, right?"
"Mm, yes." Durandal nodded. "Mm, in fact, it's right in front of us. Is it support that you sent over from your side, Miss Einstein?"
"It's not." Einstein shook her head, her voice clearly sounding a little pained. "It's Miss Irene. We just made contact with Miss Ningguang, and learned that it was Miss Irene who drove the Cosmic Juggernaut out there."
"Sister Irene?" Sirin seemed to let out a sigh of relief. As long as it wasn't some contingency that bastard Otto had left behind, he could accept it. What he'd feared was that it was a contingency of Otto's that had sent him off somewhere else.
"Is that guy over there with you?" Theresa's voice broke into the channel. "I need to have a good talk with him. Call him out for me — I want to talk to him about this business of withholding information."
"And about aiding the enemy, too." There was a touch of resentment in Little Senti's voice as well — after all, Irene's enemy-aiding had directly produced a Binding.
For them, the people of the Previous Era, the Tragedy of Binding was simply the collective PTSD of every last one of them. The old fossil didn't say anything, but Little Senti was still gearing up to give an earful.
"Mm, Sister Irene, she doesn't seem to have come out yet." Sirin blinked, turning his head to look at the Cosmic Juggernaut hanging in the air. "Hold on a sec."
Sirin climbed aboard the train and knocked on the door: "Sister Irene, Sister Irene, are you in here? Principal Theresa is looking for you."
He knocked for a while, but no response came from inside the train, so Sirin simply used spatial teleportation and warped directly inside. At this kind of distance, he didn't even need any coordinates.
Inside the train there was nothing at all — not a single person.
Meanwhile, on the other side.
In the void, only an indescribable radiance kept this expanse from sinking into total darkness, and far off in the distance, an enormous, towering tree grew across the boundless space.
It brought to this boundless void a radiance no one could tear their eyes away from.
On an endless blood-red desert stood only a few black cubes assembled into structures of no discernible shape, along with the front half of a locomotive poking out of a void, and Otto pinned beneath the train.
Irene came out of the Cosmic Juggernaut, looked at Otto pinned under the train, and stretched out her hand: "Need a hand?"
"If you would, thank you." Otto reached out his hand without any hesitation, and Irene pulled Otto straight out from under the train.
"Thank you, Miss Irene, for being willing to lend me a hand earlier." Otto patted the dust off himself, his expression utterly at ease, the smile on his face genuinely heartfelt.
"I just want you to hurry up and go where you need to go." Irene shrugged, not bothering to conceal in the slightest that her every word was steeped in the wish for him to hurry up and die.
"Haha, Miss Irene really is blunt and straightforward." Otto wasn't annoyed — on the contrary, he found this temperament of Irene's rather nice, at least far better than a hypocrite like himself. And although Irene said she wished he'd hurry up and die, she hadn't skimped on a single thing she was supposed to help him with. This mode of getting along, Otto felt, suited him quite well.
"That said, Miss Irene did help me after all, so this word of thanks should be acceptable, no?"
Irene nodded, looking toward the Imaginary Tree. She understood: that was not the true body of the Imaginary Tree, only a phantom — it barely even qualified as a single branch.
But for Otto, it was already enough.
"Anything else you want to say?" Irene turned back to look at Otto. "I don't want to wait here for you too long — otherwise, Theresa is going to get very angry."
"I know, I know. Look, this isn't something I can control either, right?" Otto nodded, genuinely thinking now about whether there was anything else he needed to convey.
But after thinking for a while, Otto shook his head: "Never mind, there's nothing I need to convey. Everything I've done, Miss Irene should already know what it's all for."
"Mm, if I really had to say something to convey," Otto looked at Irene, "well, I'm afraid it would still be Theresa. Miss Irene, when you're looking after Theresa later, you must remember to make her eat more vegetables — anything other than bitter melon, that is."
"Don't go indulging him every single day. Later on he's going to be the Grand Overseer — he needs to take care of his own health. Miss Irene, you'll have to put in a bit more effort too."
"Of course I know." Irene nodded. "Your granddaughter is mine from now on, and I'll definitely take good care of her then."
"That phrasing really is strange — Miss Irene's hair is clearly white." Naturally Otto understood what Irene meant. If nothing else, over these 500 years Otto had basically watched civilization develop to where it is now.
And besides, from the way this guy spent all day messing around with figurines, you could tell he wasn't all that proper in his daily life either, so it was no surprise he could catch Irene's meaning.
"Mm, as for other things... I imagine Joyce and the others really don't need to hear any apology from me, do they?" Otto shook his head. This time he wasn't actually being sarcastic.
In fact, he truly understood that whether it was Joyce, Welt, or Sirin, none of them wanted any apology from him — what they wanted more was to see him dead.
So once Irene told them he was dead, they'd naturally be glad. His apology was superfluous to them anyway, so why make things hard on himself?
"Let's leave it at that, Miss Irene." After thinking it over, Otto decided he really had nothing left to say, and prepared to drag his wounded body off in that direction.
Irene watched Otto turn around, and after pondering for a moment, called out to stop him: "Hold on — is there really nothing else you want to say? About my Kallen, for instance."
Otto stopped where he was, silent for a moment, then shook his head: "There's nothing to say. I'm sorry — after all, I've done far too many things that wronged Kallen."
"If I really had to say something, it would just be that I hope Kallen won't grieve. I don't regret my choice."
In Otto's eyes was a nostalgia for the past — that bright, sunlit afternoon, when he was not yet the radiant, all-glorious Grand Overseer, but merely a youngest son unloved by his family.
Back then he only liked to tinker with a bit of woodwork, until one day, his wooden airplane was thrown out the window by him.
And just as he was about to go outside to look for it, Kallen, like a ball of light, climbed over the wall with a brilliant smile, and asked him whether he'd like to go save the world together.
It was at that very moment that he — the unwanted one — met the salvation of his entire life.
"As long as you yourself feel you don't regret it, that's fine." Irene nodded. Otto turned his head back, gave Irene a smile, and then continued walking toward the phantom of that giant tree.
"Of course I don't regret it." Otto shook his head, then with unwavering resolve dragged his wounded body toward the destination that belonged to him. "After all, I'm only a fool, and this is merely the most selfish thing a single person can do."
"You big idiot!" Just as Otto kept walking forward, a familiar furious shout suddenly came from behind him, and then a handful of sand seemed to be thrown right at the back of his head.
Otto turned around with a wry smile, looking at Kallen, who now stood there in Irene's place: "Is this really necessary, Miss Irene? Calling Kallen out at a time like this — I just wanted to look cool."
"You idiot!" Kallen stood there with her hands on her hips, tears in her eyes as she looked at Otto. "Do I really have the right to make you do this?"
"Of course you do, Kallen." Otto nodded, looking at Kallen in silence for a moment before saying with a smile, "Since you've come, could you give me your blessing?"
"..." Looking at the silent Kallen, Otto smiled and didn't ask for anything more. He turned to walk back in his original direction — this was just a small interlude.
But before he'd gone more than a few steps, Otto heard Kallen shout after him: "Go for it, my great inventor!!!"
Otto's steps paused for a moment, but he didn't look back. He could only feel that his body, which had seemed weary from his grievous wounds, now stood with its spine straight.
He couldn't very well look too sorry in front of Kallen.
"Where's Irene, isn't she here?" Only after calling out for quite a while did everyone realize the situation seemed a little off. Though they didn't know when Irene had sneakily slipped back.
But since Irene had made her move, that meant the matter was settled — so why hadn't she come out by now, and why couldn't they even get through to her on the phone anymore?
Everyone gathered in front of the Cosmic Juggernaut hanging in the air, looking at the locomotive still wedged in that golden void, and a sudden bad feeling rose in their hearts. Irene wouldn't have made a slip-up and rammed both herself and Otto to death, would she?
"Sirin, can you really not get across?" Theresa stood tensely behind Sirin, who was crouched beside the void inspecting it. "Aren't you the Herrscher of the Void?"
"I am the Herrscher of the Void, but the other side of this void has absolutely no coordinates at all." Sirin nodded, astonishment in his eyes. Having taken the full-force bombardment of two waves of Void Authority, it was as if the very structure of space had been pulverized.
The other side of the void was not the Sea of Quanta, nor even Imaginary Space, but a place where coordinates simply could not be perceived at all — where nothing whatsoever could be sensed.
"Even so, we still have to go find her." Theresa looked at the void; if the coordinates couldn't be sensed, then they'd just go straight in. Her eyes were full of anxiety.
But just as everyone was anxious beyond measure and even about to charge straight in, a hand reached out from the void, and then the entire train began to back out.
As it retreated, Irene's figure emerged from the far side of the void. Seeing everyone gathered before her, Irene paused slightly, then gave them what seemed like an awkward greeting.
"Hello — why's everyone gathered here?"
The moment she said this, Theresa abruptly leapt up and brought a fist down right on Irene's head: "Idiot! Of course it's because of you. That stunt just now had us worried sick."
"Ow, that hurt." Irene scratched her head. "I know, that stunt of mine just now was a bit scary, but you have to know I always have everything under control."
"I couldn't bear to leave you all."
"Don't think sweet talk is going to make me forget — it was precisely because of your grandfather that the Binding got created." Theresa seemed to suddenly find her fire again, reaching out to grab Irene by the ear.
"So, Irene, have you figured out how you're going to explain this business of aiding the enemy and withholding information?"
"Didn't I already say? There were reasons behind all of that." Irene bent at the waist, going along with Theresa's tug. "Even if I hadn't helped him, Otto would definitely have done it anyway."
"So all I did was give it a little push, in the hope of resolving things in a more peaceful way — and besides, didn't I come back to help?"
"And what's more, Theresa, it's exactly as you say — it really was because of me that Overseer Otto came to have the Binding." Irene looked at Theresa. "But conversely, it was also because of me that the Binding appeared under controllable circumstances, wasn't it?"
"Controllable circumstances?" The moment Irene said this, Theresa let go of Irene's ear. "Wait, what do you mean? What do you mean by controllable circumstances?"
"The literal meaning, of course." Irene looked at Theresa. "If Overseer Otto hadn't obtained the power of Binding here, Theresa, just think — what kind of consequences would have played out?"
Before Theresa could even reply, Einstein, off to the side, understood Irene's meaning: "It would have erupted in any one of the possible cities, and by then the death toll would likely have been incalculable."
"And because we wouldn't have reacted in time, it would even have caused far more Valkyrie casualties."
"Exactly. And the Binding at that point wouldn't have gone easy the way Otto did," Irene nodded. "As for that, you can go ask Cecilia."
"In his world, Otto didn't obtain the power of Binding, and then the Binding immediately started throwing up a barrier while flinging chains around, attacking on its own initiative."
Everyone immediately understood Irene's meaning — a Binding that would actively throw up a barrier to defend against any possible pinpoint strike, and would actively sweep away and defend against every offensive, was a truly terrifying enemy.
To put it most simply: how had they dealt with the Barrier of Binding? By relying on the three of them — Joyce, Welt, and Bronya. But if it had been the kind of Binding that attacks on its own initiative—
There was no way the three of them could have so easily conjured fourteen Moonlight Thrones out there; they'd definitely have been schooled by the Binding lashing back with its chains.
"And besides, it's not as if I came back from this trip empty-handed." Irene tossed the Herrscher of the Legion Core she'd taken from Otto's hands over to Theresa, then looked toward Joyce.
She turned her palm over, and that golden cube appeared in Irene's hand.
"I think this should suit Mr. Joyce quite well."
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