A day and a half had passed since the massacre of Belarus.
Seiya was trudging across the icy roads in a semi-straight line toward the towering building in the distance.
He had been walking for a long time.
Seiya wasn’t in an extreme hurry to arrive at Babylon Towers just yet.
According to the official timeline, Sirin was set to awaken in six months’ time—the two-year anniversary of his arrival in the Honkai world.
Strapped to his chest with a torn piece of cloth was the food Sirin had prepared.
He kept it warm by pressing it against his abdomen.
He hadn’t eaten any of it yet, intending to conserve the food for when he lost motivation for the journey.
In the meantime, he had eaten a rabbit he’d captured and then used the fire axe attached to his back to obtain dry wood to cook it over.
It had been bland, but it kept him alive.
In Belarus, after every adult had died and every child had been taken, most of the mercenaries returned.
A single team of two had been left behind to do the grunt work of destroying the town to make it seem as though a natural disaster had wiped everyone out.
There would be no meteorological reports to contradict it.
A backwater town didn’t get meteorologists, nor was anyone interested in what the weather would be tomorrow.
[The answer is snowy.]
The wind carried the sound of a rolling engine.
He stiffened.
He had assumed every one of those bastards had left Belarus by now.
Although he wasn’t too attached to the people there—and still considered the city of his previous life his true home—he still felt anger at the slaughter of innocents.
So, when he looked back toward the road, he didn’t notice the Stigmata of Wind glowing faintly on his left arm.
He and Sirin had remained constrained to the outskirts, rarely going into town except for monthly grocery runs and for Seiya to sell firewood.
They had been more than content with just each other’s presence.
Thus, the bonds Sirin may have developed never formed due to his intervention.
At least, that was Seiya’s assumption.
There had been no mention of Sirin having any friends before ending up at Babylon.
Seemingly, all her bonds had been forged in the face of the rigorous, cruel torture and trauma they endured in the name of science.
At the sound of the approaching vehicle, Seiya threw himself into a ditch, carefully covering his bright purple hair with snow.
As fate would have it, the off-roading vehicle broke down precisely in front of where Seiya was huddled.
The Schicksal emblem gleamed arrogantly on the back of the truck, and anger filled Seiya.
He took a deep breath and forced the emotion back down.
‘Being angry now won’t help anything.
What’s more important is killing these people and getting the car.’
Seiya wasn’t a fool.
He didn’t expect himself to be able to walk all the way to Babylon Labs through the sub-zero temperatures of Siberia.
Thus, when one of the two men in the jeep exited to fix the engine, Seiya bided his time.
He let them repair the engine.
It served two purposes: tiring one of them out to make him easier to kill, and ensuring the engine would actually function so Seiya could use the vehicle afterward.
And so, the sun crossed its meridians across the sky, and the uniformed man—both of them having taken off their armour since it wasn’t comfortable to travel in—wiped his forehead clean of nonexistent sweat.
He’d have to ask for a bonus for this one, he thought.
He was a mercenary, not some ruddy watchmaker.
But his stinking old man had taught him this before he’d gone completely haywire from drink.
The thought soured his mood.
Consumed by it, he told the other agent in the car to turn the engine on and see if the repairs had worked.
The other man lowered his head to put the key back into the ignition.
That was when Seiya struck.
He swung the fire axe directly at the standing man’s neck.
Fatigue slowed the mercenary’s reaction time, and that hesitation cost him his life.
He fell quietly, his body thumping against the exoskeleton of the car before collapsing onto the snow.
The other agent—a younger man in his early twenties—was still hunched down, fiddling nervously with the settings and keys.
He was clearly unused to driving.
He bent his head even lower, embarrassment tinting his ears red, and didn’t bother looking up at the sound behind him.
He assumed the older mercenary was annoyed at his incompetence, and therefore had no desire whatsoever to meet his gaze.
A grumpy old man who’d just spent an hour repairing an engine in the freezing cold?
No thanks.
Thus, when the door opened, he merely tensed his shoulders, his head still bowed in shame.
Seiya blinked, raising his fire axe.
Well.
He wouldn’t complain about small miracles like these.
Shrugging internally, he grabbed the man and yanked him out of the vehicle.
The sudden jolt drew a sheepish yelp from the mercenary before Seiya buried the axe blade into his skull.
Flicking blood from the weapon, Seiya glanced inside the truck.
If they had been anyone other than Schicksal mercenaries, perhaps he would have felt some remorse.
But these men were the lowest kind of scum—committing genocide for money.
So Seiya wasn’t particularly troubled by their deaths.
‘A tragedy, truly.
I’ll have to give them a proper funeral.’
The sarcasm was almost tangible.
To his credit, he did intend to bury them.
Even if only to hide the evidence of their deaths.
But it’s the result that counts, right?
Seiya nodded in satisfaction at the amount of fuel left.
‘Seventy percent.
Good.
Considering there’s no fuel station in Belarus, they probably used thirty percent to get there and back.
This should be more than enough for whatever I want to do.’
He heard muffled noises from the back seat.
Blinking, he turned his head and caught three pairs of eyes staring fearfully at him.
Scratch that.
Two fearful pairs.
One pair was filled with…admiration?
Ah.
That was Bella.
Seiya blinked.
Going by that logic, the other two were Agata and Galina.
Unnamed NPCs surely couldn’t have hair colours this unique—white and orange respectively.
He chided himself for still thinking of them as game characters.
This was real.
Bending the seat forward, he stretched an arm toward the back of the vehicle.
The two girls on the sides flinched violently, while Bella—sitting in the centre—leaned forward eagerly, presenting the ropes binding her wrists.
Seiya untied her, and she gave him a small, teary nod of thanks.
The sixteen-year-old looked overwhelmingly grateful.
“Untie the other two, please,” Seiya said with a kind smile meant to reassure her.
Bella beamed and immediately set to work.
Then she blushed in embarrassment when she couldn’t figure out the knots.
Seiya sighed and carefully cut the ropes with his fire axe instead.
Agata and Galina clutched their wrists where the ropes had rubbed their skin raw.
“How do you know who I am?” Bella asked, blinking.
“It’d be difficult not to know you if you lived in Belarus, Sir Seiya.
You stood out a lot with your eyes and cool purple hair.
Thank you for saving us!” Bella beamed with star-struck eyes.
She was surprisingly expressive when she wasn’t a dragon-shaped Honkai Beast, Seiya idly noted, a small chuckle escaping his lips.
Bella tilted her head curiously.
Seiya waved a hand dismissively before turning to the other two girls, who were younger and currently hiding behind Bella.
Fourteen, perhaps?
They appeared older than Sirin, but younger than Bella.
He hadn’t exactly paid attention to every minor detail while playing through the story in his previous life.
“And what’re your names, little ones~?” Seiya asked teasingly with the same warm smile he used whenever he praised Sirin.
The ephemeral gentleness of that expression, combined with the merciless efficiency with which he’d killed the men outside, made him seem like an angel of death to Agata and Galina.
Naturally, with blood still staining part of his face, they were thoroughly intimidated.
Bella noticed immediately.
Reaching up, she wiped the blood from Seiya’s cheek with the back of her hand before turning toward the two girls behind her.
A strange sense of camaraderie had already formed between them during their brief captivity.
“It’s fine,” Bella encouraged softly.
“Introduce yourselves to Sir Seiya.
He’s our saviour, isn’t he?
Don’t be rude.”
Embarrassment coloured their faces as they turned toward Seiya, who had already started fiddling with the dashboard controls.
“M-My name is Galina.”
“A-And I’m Agata…”
At their timid introductions, Seiya nodded absently.
Without even looking back, his hand reached behind him on reflex to pat their heads—the motion something he had grown completely accustomed to after doing it to Sirin so often.
The two girls squeaked softly, blushing.
[Eep!]
Bella frowned.
Then, very slowly, she nudged Agata’s head out of the way and inserted herself beneath Seiya’s hand instead.
Her expression immediately melted into bliss.
She could hardly believe her luck.
Of all people to save them, it had been Seiya.
She had often watched him from afar in Belarus, feeling an inexplicable pull toward him.
But Bella had always been too shy to actually speak to him, despite her mother’s constant insistence that she should “go make friends already.”
With his ethereal looks, he had basically been the town idol.
Bella had already been fond of him before.
Even more so after learning he raised his little sister entirely on his own despite barely being twenty himself.
She doubted she’d be capable of something like that even in three years.
A growl emerged from Galina’s stomach.
The girl immediately blushed and recoiled in horror.
Feeling the loss of contact beneath his hand, Seiya finally looked back.
The single rumble triggered a chain reaction, and the other two girls’ stomachs growled as well.
Their faces burned with embarrassment.
Seiya giggled softly at their reactions.
Bella, especially, looked absolutely mortified as she buried her face in her hands.
Oh God!
The subject of her admiration heard her stomach rumble!
She’d just lost all dignity in front of him!
After a brief pause, Seiya reached into the cloth bundle strapped to his chest and handed each of them an onigiri.
The girls accepted them with grateful gasps.
The other two warmed up to him almost instantly.
In fact, they seemed to view him as some sort of divine being sent to rescue them, judging by the reverent awe in their eyes.
Bella was slightly more realistic.
She considered him her saviour.
And she intended to repay him somehow, even if she currently had nothing to offer.
All three girls spoke at once.
“Thank you, Lord Seiya!”
Seiya’s head filled with one singular thought, at them eating the little rice balls ravenously.
His head filled with bliss upon seeing the cute noms from the girls.
‘Ah~More cute little angels~ Must protect!’
Haiii~!
Did you miss me~?
There was no chapter yesterday, so as an apology, there’s one about double the usual size today~!
Thank you five thousand views.
I know it says 3 chapters a week, but that wasn’t accounting for how much fun I’d have writing and seeing the numbers go up!
Should I change that description?
Add a bit of talk about Seiya too.
Aside from that’s enjoy the chapter.