Otto’s personal research laboratory sat nestled deep within the Helheim Institute at Schicksal Headquarters.
Out in the institute’s expansive courtyard, a luxurious, old-fashioned locomotive rested entirely out of place, looking for all the world like an eccentric piece of oversized garden decor.
Rita, trailing a half-step behind the group, eyed the train with a complicated expression.
“Overseer, we always assumed this was simply parked here to satisfy your…
unique aesthetic tastes.”
“How could that be?” Otto waved a hand, laughing the accusation away.
“It’s just that I don’t visit this particular facility very often, and the other researchers lack the necessary security clearance to enter.
Lately, however, I’ve been coming quite frequently.
I’ve been adapting events from other worlds into scripts and having you all film them, after all.”
As expected of you, Overseer.
The four of them boarded the Cosmic Juggernaut.
The interior carriages didn’t look much different from a standard luxury train, but when Otto led them into the central car, the illusion shattered.
A massive, heavily modified instrument dominated the space, featuring four thick mechanical arms aimed directly at a raised central platform.
Otto dropped into the control console’s leather chair, his fingers dancing across the keys.
“I occasionally dabble in side research.
I found that the Cosmic Juggernaut possesses the ability to manipulate space, observe parallel worlds, and even open direct channels to the Sea of Quanta.
Naturally, I made some modifications.
Exploring the Sea of Quanta in person is still rather dangerous, but salvaging things from it?
That’s perfectly safe.”
As he spoke, he threw a heavy switch.
The instrument hummed to life.
The four mechanical arms simultaneously fired concentrated lasers toward the center, slowly tearing open a swirling, luminescent vortex.
Otto leaned back, looking rather proud of himself.
“Just last time, I successfully salvaged a skateboard.”
Rita’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.
Her tone was dangerously faint.
“Yes.
And then you rode that skateboard directly off the headquarters’ roof, crashing straight through the Golden Hall’s skylight.
Fortunately, there were no performances scheduled that day, so we avoided mass casualties.”
“But I was injured,” Otto pointed out defensively.
“Your Soulium body is vastly more expensive than the repair costs for the Golden Hall.”
Otto decisively shut his mouth.
The three guests turned their attention back to the platform.
The vortex flared.
First, a pair of round-toed leather shoes materialized out of the quantum light, followed by pure cream-white silk stockings clinging to a pair of slender calves.
The light faded, leaving a young girl standing on the metal platform.
Her beautiful little face was completely drained of color, her eyes wide with absolute panic.
“U-um, I…
I’m sorry for the intrusion!”
The girl’s voice was a timid squeak, trembling like a startled fawn caught in the headlights.
Kiana blinked, leaning forward curiously.
Why did you turn into a fun-sized version?”
Seele clutched her hands to her chest, looking entirely lost.
“Th-this big sister…
do you know Seele?”
“Of course I do.” Kiana tilted her head, her tone turning strange.
“I actually know three of them.”
“I know her too,” Frez chimed in, a dry smile touching his lips.
“We all know her, it seems.” Rita folded her hands over her apron, her polite smile returning.
Otto peered over the console, genuinely surprised.
“I actually fished out a living person this time?”
Seele still hadn’t processed her reality.
Ever since her body had quantumized, she had been hopelessly adrift in the Sea of Quanta, trapped in a closed spatial loop before being swept into a fragmented World Bubble, constantly repeating endless cycles.
Then, without warning, a massive suction force had ripped her away and dumped her onto this metal floor.
“H-hello, everyone,” she stammered, hurriedly bowing to the strangers sizing her up.
“I am Seele Vollerei.”
Her voice was soft, practically vibrating with fear under the weight of their collective stares.
“Overseer Otto, can you send her back to her previous world?” Frez asked, breaking the tension.
“This girl might be from the same universe as Himeko.”
Seele’s head snapped up.
Send Seele back?
A spark of desperate hope ignited in her chest.
She didn’t fully understand the mechanics of what had just happened, but it was obvious these people had pulled her out by accident.
If they were planning to send her home…
if that was actually possible…
“I can’t,” Otto said, casually spreading his hands.
“I’ve only built a salvage device so far.
To find her specific world, I’d need a localized beacon, and then I’d have to engineer a reverse transmission device from scratch.
I need to observe other worlds, write scripts, and direct movies.
I simply don’t have the time.”
Otto’s heart and soul were entirely dedicated to his cinematic universe.
He wanted to create a multimedia IP that would completely crush the Homu franchise.
He had attempted it once before with the Kallen Fantasy series, but it had flopped at the box office.
The Honkai series was his current magnum opus.
Everything else was secondary.
The light in Seele’s eyes instantly died.
Seeing the adorable girl droop like a wilted flower, Rita immediately stepped forward, placing a gentle, comforting hand on her shoulder.
Rita shot her boss a withering glare.
“Overseer, you could at least refuse in a more tactful manner.
That wasn’t very gentlemanly.”
“Fine, fine, my mistake.
Because my schedule is tight and the artistic burden is heavy, I cannot manufacture the device.”
How incredibly perfunctory.
Miss Seele is welcome to rest here for a while.” Otto spun his chair around, lazily kicking his legs back and forth across the floorboards.
“Since you’re already here, you might as well make yourself comfortable.”
Frez stroked his chin, analyzing the machine.
“If you can salvage things, can you reverse the polarity to create a push function?”
“That would just be an exile program,” Otto replied, pausing his spinning.
“For someone like Miss Seele, who was dragged here blindly by my salvage beam, exiling her wouldn’t send her back the way she came.
Without fixed spatial coordinates, I have no idea where she’d end up.
It would be a completely random exile; her destination would depend entirely on her luck.
I could debug it right now, actually.
I’ve salvaged some rather strange, dangerous anomalies before, so I just exiled them right back into the void.”
Kiana crossed her arms, unimpressed.
“In that case, I might as well just punch a hole into the Sea of Quanta myself.
Are you even reliable, old man?”
“What do you mean I’m not reliable?” Otto bristled, exceptionally offended.
“I am the Overseer of Schicksal!”
“But didn’t you stop wanting that job centuries ago?”
“Listen here!
Back then, if I hadn’t failed to outrun my second sister and the rest of my siblings, I would have taken Kallen to the countryside to live in peaceful seclusion as a village priest long ago!”
“…So your position as Overseer was just something you picked up by default?” Kiana deadpanned.
Otto sighed, his mind drifting back to events from five hundred years ago.
It had been a warm, sunny afternoon.
He had already packed his bags, fully intending to elope into the countryside with Kallen.
However, his father had led an armed detail to surround his residence, had him physically tied to a chair, and then he and his mother had personally jammed the crown symbolizing the Overseer onto his head.
He was later informed that his older brothers and sisters, upon learning that a new Overseer needed to be chosen, had fled the estate at terminal velocity.
None of them wanted to sit in a chair that required working all day.
After forcibly passing the title to his youngest son, the old man had immediately skipped town with his wife, conveniently dumping the sacred relic guarded by the Apocalypse family for generations into Otto’s lap—the Void Archives.
With his natural brilliance, Otto had successfully activated it.
The Void Archives informed him that it was a Divine Key born from the Honkai, designed to guide the world toward a better future.
It promised that as long as Otto was willing to assist its mission, it would grant Otto and his beloved wife permanent companionship.
And Otto believed it.
The Void Archives had indeed allowed them to achieve eternal life, living peacefully all the way to the modern era.
He had also fulfilled the Void Archives’ expectations, turning this world into a relatively beautiful, stable place.
Even though he had been periodically beaten up by Welt Joyce, Dr.
Schrodinger, and occasionally his own subordinates over the centuries, Otto was genuinely a good person in this universe.
He possessed a terrifyingly accommodating temper.
However, none of that could hide the obvious fact that he had devolved into an absolute pervert obsessed with making movies.
Amidst the heavy silence following Otto’s historical rant, Seele tugged nervously at her skirt.
“U-um,” she whispered in a tiny voice.
“Everyone…
can you still help Seele go home?”
[Akarin’s Note:
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