Chapter 244: A Time of Calm
"Whoa, lying down already?" Irene cradled a heap of documents and set them gently on the desk, looking at Theresa slumped over the table as though she were retching out her very soul.
Irene raised her hand, a faint crackle of electricity dancing at her fingertips, and lightly tapped it against Theresa's head. As the electric current spread, Theresa's body sprang up like a coiled spring, and she shot straight upright into a sitting position.
"Irene, you might as well have just let me pass out." Even after being subjected to Active Polarization, Theresa still looked rather worn out—it seemed processing documents really was an extremely brain-draining job.
"That won't do—you've still got plenty of work to get through." A demonic voice issued from Irene's mouth. "Grand Overseer, you've still got a great deal of work to do, so you can't rest, hm?"
"Nooo." Theresa clutched her head and shook it hard. Anti-Entropy's workload was utterly incomparable to Schicksal's in the first place—especially now that Schicksal and Anti-Entropy had merged.
"All right, all right." Irene patted Theresa's head. "I did bring you a helper, as it happens—she's been bored out of her mind lately."
"Huh?" Theresa lifted her head and looked at Irene, her eyes a little dazed. "Bored out of her mind—who? Can she handle paperwork?"
In fact, there were already people helping her now—take Amber, for instance. Earlier, Amber had helped Otto deal with some documents that weren't of all that high importance.
But Amber's processing efficiency was limited too; more often than not, it still came down to Otto.
And when it came to politics, who could possibly outdo Otto? This guy could genuinely wrap things up at the fastest possible speed and then go off to slack.
What's more, to keep all sorts of weird idiots from cropping up, Otto had basically turned it into a one-man-rule system, which meant Schicksal's workload now was simply astronomical.
Even if Theresa gave it everything she had, she could only handle a portion of it—but luckily Schicksal wouldn't just collapse the moment a batch of documents went unprocessed, since Amber would always sort the documents by priority.
Still, Theresa only needed a bit of time to get into shape. Otto had long since handed over all the necessary knowledge to her beforehand; it was just that Theresa was so used to being a slacker, which was why she found herself stretched a little thin.
Of course, judging by the later Overseer-Theresa, if it weren't for her MANTIS physique holding things up, Theresa would probably have ascended to godhood from all the all-nighters.
"Of course I can." Irene nodded and beckoned toward the doorway, and the several Kleins who had long been waiting outside the door filed in one after another, raising their hands in greeting toward Theresa.
"Eh?!" Theresa stared at the Kleins before her. "Why are there so many Miss Kleins?"
"Because of the Herrscher of the Legion Core, of course." Irene walked over to the water cooler and poured herself a cup. "Although I could originally have constructed a Herrscher of the Legion Core through Mirror Sync for Klein to use."
"But that would've been a touch inconvenient. When it comes down to it, a Herrscher Core is on the same tier as me—it burns a lot of Honkai energy, and it wouldn't last very long either."
"So we got our hands on a Herrscher of the Legion Core, and since she's a Herrscher of the Legion without a Herrscher of the Legion Core, we might as well let her use it for now."
Of course, there were other ways to solve it too—namely, Irene handing over their Role Cards for them to hold themselves. After all, those Role Cards were them, and there was no reason they couldn't use their own abilities.
But they said it would be better to just let Irene keep holding onto them for now. They weren't in any hurry to take the field and fight, and if it did come to fighting, Irene could simply sync them out anyway.
Kept on Irene's person, they could broaden Irene's combat range, which was a bit better than keeping them on themselves.
Irene, too, had grown used to syncing out someone's weapon anytime, anywhere, running through a combo string and then swapping to the next—especially swinging Kallen's Judah, which really gave an inexplicable thrill.
No wonder Kallen wielded Judah like a meteor hammer every single day; that feeling of sweeping all before her really was an inexplicable kind of joy.
So naturally she hadn't refused.
And now that they'd obtained a Herrscher of the Legion Core, they had a different sort of plan for the Core—but now wasn't the time for it yet, since a great many things still hadn't been sorted out, so they let Klein hold it for the time being.
And once Klein got it, she set about her old line of work—namely, working overtime. But all at once she'd split into too many, and the whole of Haiyuan City didn't have that much overtime to offer, which only left them even more idle.
And there you had it—ever since Theresa took office, she'd been run off her feet here every single day, while over on this side a workaholic couldn't find any work. Wasn't that a perfect match?
So Irene had brought a whole bunch of Kleins along to lend Theresa a hand.
Naturally, she'd tested Klein's abilities first and confirmed they were capable of handling paperwork. As for where this ability came from, Klein said it was from all the overtime she'd put in back in the day.
Especially after Dr. MEI came to power, she'd followed along and helped handle a bit of administrative work, and over time she'd picked up a little capability—not a lot, but enough to get by.
On top of that, there were so many of her, so she found it fairly easy to manage.
Still, Irene had made it clear to them that the main goal was still to train Theresa, so they would only be responsible for handling a portion of the work, keeping it to a level that just stopped short of leaving Theresa utterly drained.
Theresa hopped down from the Overseer's seat and trotted over beside Irene, reaching up to grab Irene's shoulders and hauling herself up, then hugging Irene and murmuring softly into her ear.
"Irene, isn't Miss Klein a doctor under Mobius? Can she really handle it properly?"
"She's got at least a little paperwork ability, more or less. The bulk of it is still your responsibility, but it's better than nothing, right?" Irene reached out and patted Theresa's head.
"I asked Amber too—there's nothing urgent going on lately, so how about heading back to Haiyuan City to rest a bit? Just take it as a two-day holiday. As it happens, Haiyuan City is celebrating a few things over there too."
Hearing that she could take a holiday, Theresa immediately nodded vigorously, her eyes shining. After everything had wrapped up, Theresa's rise to power could be described as lightning-fast, without the slightest obstruction.
Otto had long since put all the procedures and arrangements in place before Theresa's ascension; every troublemaker had been cleared out ahead of time. He could keep them in line, but with Theresa only just taking over, that wasn't necessarily a given.
As for substitute candidates, a Schicksal this vast wouldn't be rendered completely unable to function just by losing those few. Before long the system would grow a brand-new gear of its own to fill the gap.
And by that point, Theresa would have a grasp of the whole of Schicksal and be able to keep driving this massive machine onward.
So Theresa's ascension could be called swift and seamless. As for the official information on Otto's resignation, at the time it hadn't been stated that Otto had died.
Otto's funeral and memorial service were both held in secret, circulated only within the Immortal Blades squad—this too was to ensure stability, since Otto's tyrannical might didn't just hold Anti-Entropy in check.
Once the problem of the Honkai was truly resolved, they could simply hold a proper ceremony for Otto then.
These matters had all been mentioned in the "Overseer Theresa Quick-Start Manual" that Otto had prepared in advance. It even contained suggestions addressed to Theresa, noting that if needed she could go and make use of one of his bodies anytime.
Although it couldn't help with any actual work, putting on a show of borrowed authority driven by AI was still doable.
That's right—what Otto had left for Theresa wasn't just that Overseer's scarf; there really was a thing called the "Overseer Theresa Quick-Start Manual."
Inside, it told Theresa in almost exhaustive detail how to quickly establish her authority after taking office, how to maintain order within Schicksal, and the methods for dealing with any troublemakers he hadn't had time to clear out.
Including but not limited to handing the name over to Rita, and handing it to Rita, or handing it to Rita, and so on.
It also included methods such as concealing his own death and, when necessary, borrowing his body to put on a show of borrowed authority—all written down in there.
When Irene saw this thing, she was downright astonished. So Otto had left behind something like this? It had never once been mentioned in the storyline.
That said, as for how useful this thing actually was to Theresa—well, it amounted to just those few emergency-handling methods. As for the earlier few methods on quickly establishing authority, those weren't really suited to Theresa.
That sort of approach only suited a ruthless, cold-blooded fellow like Otto. Besides, Theresa had Irene by her side, along with Kiana and a whole bunch of Herrschers—that level of strength was already more than enough for Theresa to overawe any pack of petty wretches.
As long as Theresa didn't go messing things up herself, this seat could be held securely.
"But still, Miss Klein..." As the excitement of finally getting two days' rest slowly faded, Theresa immediately grew concerned about the Klein who'd be taking over her work.
"It's quite all right, Overseer Theresa." The Kleins moved desks and chairs into place for themselves and began carving up the documents on the table. "This level of work, we can still handle just fine."
"As for overtime, we've long since gotten used to it—we feel we still need our overtime."
After obtaining the Herrscher of the Legion Core and being staunchly protected by Mobius, the split Klein had gone all over the place helping handle work; back then she'd been pulling overtime throughout the Fire Moth, across every level.
And later still, after MEI came to power, she'd formally taken over the work of the Fire Moth, which had already begun to seriously lack talent—and this level was still nowhere near her limit.
You have to understand that, among all the Role Cards, the skills in a Role Card's skill slot are the core of a given character, even symbolic of a certain identity.
Only Klein's Role Card had that one Overtime Omnipotence in its skill slot, which was proof enough of just how strong Klein's overtime capability truly was.
And even the System couldn't help but acknowledge Klein's purity when it came to overtime—after all, Klein's title on her Role Card was none other than One Person, Thousand Minds · The Vacationless One!
This current level of overtime—the purity was still far too low.
"Oh, mm." Seeing that Klein, though looking weary, wore a certain confidence on her face, Theresa nodded hesitantly. "But do mind your rest as well."
"I understand." Klein nodded. After Irene reached out and patted Theresa's head, she hoisted Theresa onto her back and turned to leave the office.
But as she left, she didn't forget to remind Klein over the psionic channel.
[Don't actually finish all the work—leave a portion. The main objective is still to train Theresa, you know?]
[Mm, I know.] Klein nodded obediently in reply. Seeing Klein answer like this, Irene carried Theresa off, ready to head back to Haiyuan City for a bit of rest.
And on the way, Theresa seemed to finally catch on. Sprawled across Irene's back, she looked at Irene: "Come to think of it, Irene, there aren't any holidays lately, are there? How come Haiyuan City suddenly has some kind of event going on?"
"Mm, there actually is one." Irene scratched her cheek. "Though it was actually Tesla's suggestion—you know how it is, Mr. Welt Joyce and the others have a bit of, well, a blood feud with Overseer Otto."
At this, Theresa understood what Irene meant. "Blood feud" was putting it far too delicately; now that Grandpa was dead, they really did seem like they ought to celebrate a little.
"Mm, let's not worry about the reason for throwing a celebration." Irene patted Theresa's head. "Just treat it as a simple gathering—a little victory party, just to be happy."
"I'll just treat it as eating at Grandpa's funeral banquet, then." Theresa's gaze drifted. She couldn't very well stop it either—after all, that whole Anti-Entropy crowd had a rather deep grudge against Otto.
Now that Grandpa was truly dead, and seemingly even left without a corpse or bones, if it weren't for Irene vouching for it, Einstein and the others would probably have to spend another stretch of time fretting in fear.
In any case, the great enemy on their minds was dead, and if people wanted to happily hold a victory party and throw a banquet, Theresa really couldn't bring herself to stop it—even if that great enemy was her own grandfather.
So what else could she do? She could only do as Irene said: treat it as an ordinary banquet, be happy for a while, and ease the exhaustion she'd worked up from all the overtime these past few days.
Theresa followed Irene as they slipped into the sea and very quickly dove straight down to the location of Haiyuan City. On the surface, Haiyuan City still maintained its placid state; quite a few employees, in their off-hours, were even grumbling about how it had so suddenly merged with Schicksal.
But upon seeing Irene and Theresa, they still greeted the two of them amicably, and Theresa and Irene returned the courtesy in kind.
After passing through several corridors, Irene pushed open the door to a function hall, and then Theresa heard the cheerful laughter coming from inside—the one laughing most happily was Tesla.
Irene turned to look, and saw none other than Dr. Tesla chugging a beer straight from the bottle, looking as though she'd already had quite a bit to drink.
"It's rare to see Tesla drink this much." Seeing Irene and Theresa come in, Einstein walked over. "But today really is a happy occasion, so let's just let her be."
"Mm." Irene nodded and smiled at Einstein. "All the Herrschers that needed fighting have already been fought—it's about time to relax a little."
"Hm?" Einstein looked at Irene, a little puzzled. "That's not right, is it? Shouldn't there still be a thirteenth Herrscher? Why say all the Herrschers that needed fighting have been fought?"
"As for that." Irene turned to look at the Flame-Chaser group who'd come over to join in the fun. "It's because the thirteenth Herrscher doesn't exist at all. As for the reason, I'll explain it later."
"As for today—let's just celebrate properly."
Einstein raised an eyebrow slightly and cast her gaze onto the Flame-Chaser group as well, a thoughtful look in her eyes. "Mm, then let's do as Miss Irene says—today truly is a moment worth being happy about."
Irene and Theresa walked into the hall and shut the door. Though the hall was somewhat lively, this too was a hard-won calm before the storm.
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