Perhaps it was because the Ms.
Herta that Kazuki was portraying was just too OOC, but Asta finally couldn’t help but expose him.
“Enough, stop using Ms.
Herta’s puppet face to flirt with me!” Asta suddenly raised her weapon, the Astral Projection Device, and shouted at him, both angry and annoyed.
Kazuki hadn’t intended to keep hiding his identity anyway.
The smile on his face didn’t change at all as he took half a step back, putting a safe distance between them.
“The Herta Space Station is currently under attack!
State your origin and identity immediately!
You are absolutely not Ms.
Herta!” Asta’s palms were slick with sweat.
Even though there wasn’t a single guard around her at the moment, she still forced herself to maintain a defensive stance against the threat.
“Of course I’m not Ms.
Herta~” Asta was completely choked up, never expecting him to admit it so openly.
Thinking about how she had been blushing, heart pounding, and unable to speak properly just a moment ago because of him, a flash of embarrassment and anger crossed her eyes beneath her pink hair.
“But does it matter whether I am Ms.
Herta or not?” He swayed his small body and reached out with his fair, tender little hands.
“I am very cute, please give me money.
Rich lady, I’m hungry, I want food.” With his small stature and sassy tone, yet speaking words of coquettish begging for money, the sense of contrast was maxed out.
Asta looked at the adorable face in front of her, cold and demanding money, and couldn’t help but swallow.
Looking closely, this puppet was the spitting image of a battle-damaged Ms.
Herta—the crown, the black veil, the purple markings…
that fragile yet alluring vibe hit all of her aesthetic preferences.
In an instant, her tense combat stance collapsed.
Like a defeated rooster, she couldn’t help but sigh and rub her forehead.
Now, she was even more inclined to believe that this was just another one of Ms.
Herta’s puppets that had gone rogue—after all, this wasn’t the first time it had happened.
“Sigh~ My money is all managed by Arlan.” Leaning on her Astral Projection Device, she gave a perfunctory reply and turned to walk toward the center of the Master Control Zone.
In fact, before she came looking for him, she had already received news: the Trailblazers had already regrouped with Arlan, and the Antimatter Legion had been mostly cleared out.
There was a pile of things to handle later, and as a competent station master, she couldn’t afford to keep wasting time here.
“Then give me a Long-Range Remote Sensor; in exchange, I’ll tell you a secret about Ms.
Herta.” Before she had walked two steps, the voice drifted over from behind.
Surviving in this Honkai: Star Rail universe, you can be poor enough to eat dirt, but two things are absolutely essential: one is a Synesthesia Beacon, which allows you to understand the languages of all races in the universe; the other is a Long-Range Remote Sensor, used for sending messages across star systems, which looks exactly like a mobile phone.
When Kazuki transmigrated, the system automatically enabled the Synesthesia Beacon function for him, but it didn’t provide a Long-Range Remote Sensor.
A look of hesitation appeared on Asta’s face.
After pondering for two seconds, she compromised and pulled a white mobile phone out of her storage space.
This was the latest model from the Intelligentsia Guild, a hard-to-get item specially supplied to board members, which 99.99% of people in the universe would never even get to touch.
She did have several on hand, and this white one was a spare.
She didn’t really like the style, so she decided to trade it for the secret.
Kazuki took the phone, winked at her mischievously, and instantly activated the ability of [Black Tomb Puppet].
His scarlet eyes dimmed, and an invisible neural network directly invaded the phone, rewriting the firewall and the entire program in a flash.
Within two seconds, a new message popped up on Asta’s private mobile phone.
She looked down and saw it was from someone saved as “Suian”: “Hello.” “A deal is a deal, I won’t go back on my word.” “I’ll tell you a secret: Ms.
Herta is a top-tier kitchen killer, and she especially loves using Curios to cook.” [Image] Memory Wheel and the jellyfish on the stairs [Image] Super-Ultimate Spinning Top [Image] Space-Time Prism and Scented Cheese [Image] Dream-Entry Can [Image] Punklorde Greeting [Image] Bag of Knowledge [Image] Buried Soil and Turned to Dust [Image] Overnutrition Asta looked up abruptly, but in those few seconds, the shadow of the puppet was already gone.
She quickly clicked on “Suian’s” profile and saw a line of text in the bio: [Follow the flow and be at peace; whoever meets me will be at peace.] Asta darted her eyes around.
Seeing no one was around, she casually liked his profile, sent him one billion Credits, and added a caption: “Let me see your legs.” The next second, a gray, dusty image loaded, where the shape of legs could be vaguely seen.
Asta clicked to open it and found only a few words inside: [You little pervert ദ ് ദ ി ( ⩌ ᴗ ⩌ )] She put her phone away, feeling somewhat dejected.
…On the other side, Kazuki cleared out the sporadic Void Rangers along the way, slicing through them like chopping vegetables, and finally managed to reach the staff dormitory area.
He kicked open several empty rooms one after another until he finally found some clothes that fit, and then reverted to his original form.
Kazuki had just come out of the shower, a trail of steam following him, wrapped in loose clothes like a layer of faint mist.
He leaned in front of the mirror and wiped away the steam, freezing on the spot—his facial features still carried a trace of his original self, but it was no longer the face from before his transmigration.
The person in the mirror was tall and upright, with a naturally refreshing aura.
His face was like finely carved jade, with sharp brows and a pair of dark eyes as deep as a pool of water.
Every time he lifted or blinked his eyes, a heroic spirit radiated outward, so handsome it was dazzling.
Even with the lazy vibe from just having showered, that temperament couldn’t be hidden.
At a single glance, it was clear he was no ordinary person.
His white hair looked like a layer of frost and snow, soft and very bright, hanging loosely.
A few damp strands stuck to his neck and chin, making his skin look blindingly fair.
What was most special was that hidden within the white hair were three strands of different colors—red, chestnut brown, and pink, corresponding exactly to Himeko, Ms.
Herta, and Asta.
A flawed Xianzhou General’s destiny?
Kazuki casually rubbed his white hair, glanced at the three cards in his system space, and suddenly realized what it was.
“Wait, what is this?” He tugged at the strand of pink hair and bared his teeth at the mirror.
“It’s one thing that my hair turned white, but you dyed three strands for me on purpose?
System, come out and give me an explanation!” As a result, the system didn’t give any response at all, playing dead completely.
Kazuki pondered for two seconds, and suddenly Griseo from Honkai Impact 3rd popped into his mind—the little girl who would be stained by others’ “colors,” causing her own personality to change along with them.
Thinking about it this way, when he was acting as the Black Tomb Puppet earlier, there really was an uncontrollable surge of violent energy, though it hadn’t disrupted his mind; and just now when he was teasing Asta, that stubborn, tsundere vibe was exactly like it had been carved from the same mold as Ms.
Herta.
Kazuki took a deep breath.
Indeed, everything in the world demands balance; so this was the price for bearing others’ lives.
So where should he go from here?
Should he follow the Astral Express, become a Trailblazer, join the main cast on a grand, roaring adventure, and earn everyone’s attention?
Or should he be a lone wolf, carving out his own path in the gaps of the main storyline and living out his own legend?
He leaned against the sink, twisting that strand of red hair between his fingertips, the two thoughts turning back and forth.
Following the Astral Express was naturally the safest option.
With the main cast as a safety net, he might be able to smoothly travel the entire universe along the main storyline, pulling whoever’s card he wanted and living as a formidable character in everyone’s eyes.
But the moment his fingertips touched that strand of different-colored hair, he suddenly laughed and shook his head.
No.
He could borrow others’ identities, bear others’ lives, and be stained by others’ colors, but if he kept walking in others’ footprints, living in others’ stories, sooner or later, he would be completely submerged by the colors of countless people, forgetting what Kazuki was originally like, and forgetting why he was standing here in the first place.
The Astral Express has its destination, and the Trailblazers have their journey to complete, but his path should not be tied to anyone else’s wheels.
He raised his hand to wipe his damp hair, his gaze completely settled.
He would be a lone wolf.
The reason was very simple, yet heavy enough to ring true: “I can pretend to be countless people, but I must never lose myself.”