"What?! They want to transfer my Seele to Fire Moth's Australian branch?! I just promoted my little Seele to be my chief lab assistant!"
"Are these people seriously thinking they can just snap their fingers and take away my most capable helper?"
"And what about all the work I have piling up right now? Do these armchair critics have some magical way to get someone else to finish it for me, with the same quality and on time?"
Lunelle, who was currently being held down on her wife's lap while trying to work, suddenly heard her snake-wife shout those words at the messenger, Elysia.
The poor, gentle Lunelle was nearly scared to tears!
After all, the body Lunelle was using in this simulation belonged to her beloved wife, Seele.
Even this version of Seele from the previous era seemed to have inherited the famously low tear threshold of the Seele line.
Feeling the adorable little one in her arms trembling pitifully from the scare, the snake—who had more choice words for the higher-ups—had to hold back her urge to continue ranting, for little Seele's sake.
"Now, now, Dr. Mobius~ No matter how loudly you yell at me, I'm just a cute, pitiful messenger girl, you know? And shouting at a beautiful girl like this really isn't very nice!"
Elysia, quite accustomed to Mobius using her as a dumping ground for negative emotions whenever she was upset, quickly filtered out the complaints about the higher-ups, letting them go in one ear and out the other.
Seeing Elysia acting like the same "punching bag" she'd been since they first met, Mobius felt a mix of exasperation and resignation.
Back when Elysia first used the flimsy excuse that Mobius matched her ideal of a beautiful girl to befriend her—this "demon" in others' eyes—and made her one of the few people in the organization she trusted, Mobius had already started this habit of venting her frustrations on Elysia whenever she felt like it.
At first, Mobius naturally scoffed at such a transparently fake reason.
Having witnessed the darker side of human nature since childhood, she was convinced Elysia must have some ulterior motive for getting close to her.
She even suspected Elysia was a smiling tiger with countless hidden agendas—someone whose words you couldn't trust, unless you wanted to end up dead without knowing why.
But as time passed, even the skeptical Mobius had to admit, oddly enough, that Elysia—the one she'd initially labeled as untrustworthy—seemed to genuinely mean what she said.
That she really just wanted to be friends because she found Mobius beautiful.
After all, this annoying woman kept dropping by uninvited, always wearing that smile that initially felt utterly insincere, but later somehow began to seem… sincere.
She'd just stare straight at Mobius's face, day after day, trying to get closer.
If not for knowing that Elysia actually had plenty of combat missions—she just completed them with remarkable efficiency—Mobius might have wondered if she was just some idle wanderer with too much time on her hands.
Yet, Elysia's behavior did seem consistent with what she'd said during their first encounter: that boring reason about finding Mobius pretty was truly why she kept coming back, never tiring of disturbing her.
And each time Elysia left, she never made any unreasonable demands.
At first, Mobius tried using her sharp tongue to drive away the ever-persistent Elysia, but after dozens, even hundreds of attempts, she gradually gave up.
If words couldn't chase Elysia away, how could she, a mere researcher, expect to fight Elysia—a combat specialist and a known leader among the girls?
Besides, while Mobius acted cold and sarcastic toward everyone, her judgment of character was actually quite accurate.
Even if she had indeed seen through Elysia's true nature, as the Herrscher of Stubbornness—whose stubbornness could easily overshadow even Dark Seele's—expecting the snake to ever swallow her pride and apologize to Elysia…
Well, that seemed about as likely as expecting the soft, adorable Lunelle to suddenly grow bold enough to get handsy with her wives!
But just as Mobius had seen through Elysia over time, Elysia too had gradually come to understand the unique, hidden tenderness beneath Mobius's "demon" facade.
So while on the surface their relationship seemed rocky, through Elysia's one-sided persistence, they had somehow forged a peculiar friendship in private.
Yet, just as Mobius was quietly starting to accept Elysia as a friend, she never expected Elysia's betrayal to come so suddenly—and so shockingly!
The first time Elysia ever did something to cross her, she had publicly taken a stand to protect a Herrscher—without even consulting Mobius first!
Honestly, when Mobius first found out, even she was stunned by this staggering betrayal, left questioning life itself just a "tiny" bit.
In the world of Honkai, openly taking a stance that indirectly sheltered a Herrscher was a precarious move that could easily make you an enemy of the entire world.
And Mobius had been dragged onto this shaky, about-to-capsize "dangerous ship" by Elysia, completely without her knowledge.
Anyone suddenly betrayed so severely would likely issue a statement reaffirming their true position, or even take the moral high ground to condemn Elysia's audacity in making decisions on their behalf.
But Mobius, known for her terrible temper, merely rushed to confront Elysia face-to-face.
And after realizing Elysia's firm determination to protect little Seele, though she never voiced agreement, Mobius silently took action—stepping onto that "dangerous ship" that risked turning the whole world against her.
Elysia, too, knew perfectly well how terribly she had wronged Mobius this once in her life.
And since she couldn't bring herself to do anything harsh to a beautiful girl like Mobius, she could only play the wronged card when scolded, pleading innocence.
Though Elysia took the brunt of Mobius's furious tirade, seemingly taking the fall for Fire Moth's higher-ups who made the decision…
Since their orders didn't explicitly end Elysia's surveillance mission, it also meant that for Lunelle's "exile" to Australia, Miss Elysia could continue her duty of monitoring the Herrscher—sticking by little Seele's side every step of the way, all the time~
And right now, Mobius was grumbling precisely because she had more or less guessed that Elysia had landed herself an absolute steal.
So while she cursed out the Fire Moth higher-ups over their decisions, she conveniently pointed a finger at Elysia's nose and dragged her into the scolding as well.
"Elysia! Since you're going with Seele to Australia, if anything happens to my little Seele on the way, you know what the consequences will be, don't you?"
After venting her frustration a little, Mobius—who knew full well she wasn't in a position to openly defy the higher-ups yet—puffed up her cheeks and once again asked Elysia to take good care of her precious, adorable little Seele.
After all, now that little Seele was wearing a Honkai Energy restraint device, she no longer had Herrscher-level power, at least on the surface.
But even though the organization's leadership wasn't targeting little Seele as much as before…
Those radical hardliners, those damn mules, were probably still scheming to "pluck the weeds and tear out the roots," and might pull off some kind of terrorist attack.
So for now, Mobius could only turn to the one person she trusted—Elysia—and ask her to protect the little one's safety.
Though, the way Mobius made this so-called "request" didn't sound much like pleading at all.
Still, as she said it, thinking of Elysia's obvious designs on her little Seele…
Mobius couldn't shake the feeling that she was practically handing her own darling wife over to that "neighbor Elysia" right before her own eyes.
"Hehe, even if you hadn't said anything, Mobius, I'd definitely keep Seele safe on the way to the Australia branch!"
"After all, I've been doing things like this all along, haven't I?~"
Hearing Mobius's request, Elysia smiled and assured her she understood.
"Hmph! You'd better!"
But in the eyes of Mobius, who had an intensely possessive streak when it came to her little Seele, Elysia's habitually sweet smile looked exactly like she was saying, "I'll take care of your wife, don't you worry about a thing!"
Having been forced more than once by these so-called higher-up decisions to do things she didn't want to do, Mobius—a researcher at heart—found herself longing, for the first time, for something called "power."
After all, if Mobius had strength on the level of Elysia's…
If those mule-brained higher-ups ever had the nerve to make trouble for her without good reason—
With her explosive temper, Mobius wouldn't think twice about storming right over to their doors and repeating every nasty thing they'd only dared say in front of Elysia, right to their faces!
It's just too bad that Elysia, that top-tier les—who had a particular soft spot for beautiful girls—clearly had the power to be willful and disobedient…
Yet she just loved playing the loyal hound, letting the Fire Moth higher-ups order her around as they pleased!
Mobius once wondered whether Elysia might have some terrible secret held against her by Fire Moth, forcing her to sacrifice herself and obey their every command.
But as she gradually came to understand Elysia, Mobius realized: this annoyingly consistent woman…
Seemed to keep compromising, time and again, all for the sake of that laughably naive idea—'for the future of human civilization.'
'Tsk. Looks like it's time to move that project onto the agenda, huh?'
Feeling deeply powerless, Mobius grew even more determined in her heart to proceed with a certain forbidden experiment.
Even if merging human genes with those of high-level Honkai Beasts was inhumane…
If a weak researcher like her wanted power strong enough to stand up to the higher-ups, this seemed like the only method worth trying!
After all, through some private, discreet testing, Mobius had accidentally discovered that her own genes showed extremely high compatibility with the genes of a certain Judgement-class Honkai Beast—one with an immortality trait—recently collected.
But as the saying goes, physicians can't heal themselves.
Although Mobius had no problem using herself as the test subject for this MANTIS experiment…
This forbidden technology was still only theoretically viable.
Without a few clinical trials to work out the kinks, she couldn't just dive straight in and apply it to herself based on theoretical knowledge alone.
Moreover, as the only one who'd secretly mastered this forbidden tech so far, Mobius clearly didn't have the skill to operate on herself.
So, to advance the progress of this experiment on fusing with high-level Honkai Beast genes, Mobius now needed to find someone who could "join her in the muck"—someone capable of performing the surgery on her behalf.
Mobius had even considered whether she should just let her adorable and "capable" little Seele do the operation.
After all, Seele had such great research talent, and her knowledge in biological sciences had already reached a level comparable to Mobius's own.
But then she thought of her little Seele's overly kind, gentle, and soft-hearted nature…
Even if Seele truly had the skill, if she were really asked to do it…
The dear girl would probably never agree to take on a forbidden experiment that had a high chance of killing her.
So the only person she could really count on… seemed to be just one individual!
Soon, Mobius thought of Mei—that rising star who had recently been climbing swiftly within the organization's conservative faction.
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 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.