Honkai: Fire Moth Herrschers

"Whump!"

Mikael casually tossed a large bundle of firewood onto the ground, then lightly waved his hand. The firewood was split by an unseen force, then sent into the fireplace by another invisible hand…

Okay, Mikael didn't actually know how a fireplace was supposed to be used, but the important thing was to get the wood burning, right?

Under Hua's expectant gaze, Mikael snapped his fingers. Flames quickly danced on the firewood, which had somehow already been soaked in oil, and then…

Then a suffocating cloud of smoke instantly filled the entire room. Hua kicked open the door in the darkness, and the two of them coughed as they scooped up snow to wipe the soot from their faces.

"Looks like… I messed up…"

Mikael scratched his nose sheepishly, meeting Hua's slightly speechless gaze, which made him feel a little embarrassed.

Luckily, there was a chance to fix it. When he looked up again, he had a golden gem clutched in his hand, and he began muttering:

"Spirits and demons, go away, spirits and demons, go away..."

Hua pursed her lips, but the corners of her mouth couldn't help but quirk upwards silently.

But then her eyes widened, and her mouth naturally formed an "O" shape.

As Mikael chanted, the black smoke that had taken over the entire room, and was attempting to surge out through the door, was suddenly gathered by an invisible force, slowly shrinking back. Soon after, straight plumes of gray smoke began to rise from the chimney on the roof of the wooden house.

"What kind of power is that now?"

Hua looked at Mikael, puzzled. The longer she spent with him, the thicker the fog around him seemed to become.

Putting everything else aside, just the sheer variety of his abilities was something she hadn't seen in anyone else, even the equally mysterious Elysia. In terms of the breadth of abilities alone, she couldn't even compare to Mikael.

And Mikael didn't seem to have any desire to explain things to her. He let go of his hand, straightened himself, and pulled Hua up as well. "Let's go, we can go inside and rest now."

Hua glanced at the wispy gray smoke. As the sunset irreversibly dipped below the horizon, the wisp of gray gradually merged into the vast night, no longer clearly visible.

Actually, dinner should have started at this time, but the village elder suddenly said that the snow had stopped and the wind was calm, making it a perfect time for a village bonfire party. It could also be seen as a welcome feast for the guests.

So, he asked his wife to make more pies and mumbled about getting some wine. He even ransacked the storage room, finding a rusty barbecue grill… Anyway, he told Mikael and Hua to rest first. Once everything was ready, someone would naturally come to notify them.

"Is it really possible to prepare all this in such a short time...?" Mikael couldn't help but feel a little strange.

He sat beside the stove, the heat of the fire gently caressing his body. He unscrewed the lid of his water bottle and took a small sip, suppressing the unease in his heart.

He took out his phone. As expected, there was no signal.

The room fell silent, broken only by the occasional crackling of the fire.

This silence made Mikael uncomfortable. Upon reflection, he realized that it wasn't the silence itself that he disliked, but the lack of Elysia's constant chatter in his ear.

"Speaking of which, what's Ellie doing now? She should have contacted Eden by now, right?"

Yes, just as Hua had suspected, this journey wasn't a vacation at all.

It was the largest… no, it should be the first member recruitment plan since the formation of an organization that Mikael hadn't even named yet.

The entire organization was divided into three groups. Ellie and Pardofelis were in one group, tasked with finding wealthy… tasked with persuading (scratch that) convincing Eden to invest in the organization.

Of course, the best result would be to directly develop Eden into a member.

Another group was the research group. Two women who couldn't stand each other were working themselves to death: one with Divine Keys, the other with hyper-evolution surgery...

Of course, there was also Sakura, who was essentially a bodyguard, but was actually looking after Rin...

The third group was, naturally, Mikael and Hua. Their actual mission was: to recruit a man with an American-style, shapely behind.

There were unavoidable reasons why they didn't start the mission until six months later.

When Fire Moth discovered that Mobius, along with three Herrscher cores, had disappeared, and that Fifth Squad's Elysia and Sakura had left one after another, leaving behind a letter criticizing Lucien's retrograde actions, it was already the next morning.

Fire Moth's reaction to this extremely egregious act of desertion was to play dead.

They did not issue a wanted notice for any of them and even occasionally published papers in major magazines under Mobius's name--although Mobius could tell at a glance that they were ghostwritten by a one-armed man.

But according to an anonymous new leader of Fire Moth, Lucien, who always prided himself on being a gentleman, had beaten a clerk named "Island Old Eight" to a pulp at headquarters that noon.

Afterward, he used his influence to issue an internal wanted notice through the United Government.

The United Government's wanted notices were completely different from Fire Moth's. Fire Moth was still just a military organization, while the United Government could mobilize resources from all aspects, especially network and communications resources, making them afraid to use their phones for a long time.

So, for the past six months, they had really only done three things: run, run, and run.

Oh, no, Vill-V did a fourth thing: Whatever Mikael didn't understand, but somehow, they could now use most electronic devices normally.

As long as they didn't use facial recognition payments, everything was fine.

When Mikael replayed the events of the past six months in his mind, he realized that he had unconsciously entered a string of numbers. He could have dialed it with just one tap.

Although there was no network signal, Vill-V's modified phone could use satellite communications, so making calls wasn't a problem.

But Mikael glanced at the fire, then at the girl staring blankly at the flames, and silently deleted the long string of numbers.

He suddenly spread his fingers and waved them in front of Hua's eyes. "Hey, hey, what are you thinking about?"

"Ah—"

Hua let out a short cry of surprise.

Seeing this, Mikael understood...

"Still thinking about that?"

"…"

Hua took a deep breath but couldn't find the words to speak.

Mikael stared at her, dumbfounded. The girl was obviously much younger than him, yet her furrowed brow was identical to his.

Her eyes were empty and unfocused, somewhat like the village elder's wife.

"Hua..."

Mikael had only said one syllable before he was interrupted. "Mikael, I think… I'm not really sad about my father or the destruction of the small town where I was born... No, rather than that, it's more like I'm just feeling... about the facts I've mentioned before..."

"Lost? Unable to forgive yourself?" Mikael asked.

Hua nodded lightly.

Of course, she wasn't completely without sadness, but that insignificant grief was completely different from the kind of... the hysterical pain and wailing she had imagined from losing a loved one and a hometown.

The only sadness she acknowledged was the two tears that quietly slipped down her cheeks at night.

"Hua, I don't think I've ever told you about Elysia and my hometown."

"Huh?"

"Elysia and I are both orphans from the orphanage in Vostok-51."

"Mmm…" Hua first habitually gave a soft "mmm" as usual, then froze--the name Vostok sounded very familiar to her. After thinking carefully, it took little effort to find the relevant information.

[The city of Vostok was destroyed by a silver bullet launched by a Herrscher during the Third Honkai Impact. The hundreds of surrounding towns were also within the radiation range and were all destroyed, with almost no survivors.]

"..."

"So, the thing that's bothering you might also be bothering Elysia and me. I sometimes think of gentle Ms. Celia, and the other kids at the orphanage. But maybe it's because I left so early… ha, isn't that also an excuse? Anyway, it's impossible to be that sad."

"I often wonder, what's the greatest disaster the Honkai has brought to people? Is it death? No, death is never the scariest thing. The scariest thing is that we've grown used to death, so used to it that we've become numb."

Hua silently lowered her head.

Perhaps, perhaps the moment she witnessed the destruction of the entire Shanghai City, when she witnessed only a few hundred survivors out of more than twenty million people, she had become numb.

"But Hua, the reason why you feel your grief hasn't met your expectations, I believe, is not entirely due to this numbness. I think it's more likely because you're too introverted, so introverted that not many people have been able to enter your heart and become your everything."

"Or to put it simply: those who are extremely sad have lost many things. But you're different. You had very little from the beginning, so your grief is so plain."

Hua breathed a long sigh and asked, "Are you like that too, Mikael?"

"Probably… yes?"

"But I don't feel that you're very lost… I'm sorry, I don't know how to describe it. I can feel that you're lost a lot of the time, but you always manage to quickly pull yourself together... I feel that you always have a goal and motivation to do something, and it's very different from me."

"Oh, that."

The heat from the fire was a bit too high. Mikael took off his coat, letting it slide to the floor. Hua raised an eyebrow and silently picked up the coat, hanging it on a hook on the wall.

"I don't have much either, but Hua, there are always a few people in each person's heart who mean more than everything else. Like Elysia, if something happened to her, I think I would go crazy! So, for her, for those few people, I'm motivated to overcome my bewilderment again and again... and Hua, you just haven't found them yet."

"…"

"Knock, knock, knock!"

The wooden door was knocked.

The village elder's wife pushed the door open and walked straight in.

Two streaks of bright red blood were smeared on her forehead.