Honkai Impact: Become Their Hero

Although Mei firmly believed that her father, Raiden Ryoma, had been framed, the unfortunate truth was that he really did embezzle 3.4 billion U.S. dollars.

His goal was to fund weapon research in an attempt to prevent Mei from becoming a Herrscher in the future and save her.

One of the most well-known results of this research was the Plasma Kagehide, a katana said to be capable of freezing a Herrscher.

Elias, however, didn't buy it at all.

No way Herrschers were that weak. Not every Herrscher could be knocked unconscious by three Titan mechs, like the Herrscher of Wind. If this thing really worked, it would be nothing short of a miracle.

"Honestly, what a painfully dumb move. Father-in-law, if you hadn't embezzled that money, Cocolia wouldn't have had any leverage against you, you wouldn't have ended up in prison, and Mei wouldn't be in this miserable situation right now."

"In fact, you sped up her transformation into the Herrscher of Thunder instead."

And in the end, those weapons turned out to be useless.

They never even appeared in the entire storyline… 3.4 billion dollars—wasted, just like that. What a reckless waste of money!

"And don't even get me started on that damn Cocolia—she's completely useless at everything except causing civil wars. This woman is the goddess of internal conflicts, and just thinking about her raises my blood pressure."

Images of Cocolia's endless meddling flashed through Elias's mind, and before he knew it, he had crushed part of his binoculars in frustration.

Mentally, he added her to his list of future revenge targets.

One day, when the opportunity arose, he would slam that scheming fox into the ground and beat her senseless!

Just because she was good-looking didn't mean she could get away with everything!

X-10 Experiment, Nagazora City's Honkai Eruption, the cloned Welt Joyce, the brutalization of Wendy, and if you really stretch it, even Kevin's return—Cocolia had a hand in all of it.

Her disaster-causing abilities were already on par with Otto Apocalypse—except her competence was an entire solar system lower than his.

At least Otto knew what he was doing, even if he deserved to die.

Meanwhile, Cocolia was a bronze-ranked player acting like she was the king of the battlefield.

Elias considered himself a civilized person—even when cursing someone out, he wouldn't go too far.

But Cocolia?

Even if she ran off to Star Rail, she would still be a walking disaster.

[Exactly! To prevent this woman from causing even more chaos, dear Host, I suggest capturing her and locking her up in a dark room, where you can train her as a 'hot weapon' for day and night use.]

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Is this really a system, or some kind of adult-rated software? And even if I wanted to, I couldn't take her down right now."

"I'll have plenty of chances in the future, so for now, the priority is figuring out how to get into ME Corp and grab some gear."

Raiden Ryoma's research wasn't limited to Plasma Kagehide—otherwise, Elias had every reason to believe that most of that 3.4 billion dollars had been embezzled.

After thinking up more than a dozen different plans—

Elias decided to just go home and sleep.

Right now, he was just an ordinary person.

Trying to infiltrate an ME Corp division controlled by Cocolia?

That was something better left until a certain paramecium finally showed up.

For now, the best thing he could do was protect Raiden Mei from school bullying.

Herrscher transformation requires more than just the absorption of massive amounts of Honkai energy—it also demands that the host carries a significant amount of negative emotions.

Whether in the Previous Era or the Current Era, almost every Herrscher has been born after experiencing extreme mistreatment—being used as a test subject in human experiments, suffering from school bullying, or being ostracized and hated by those around them, and so on.

…Well, except for a certain pink elf lady.

Elysia is perfect!

Elias couldn't help but think.

"If these terrible things never happened—if humanity treated its own kind with kindness, if everyone lived in harmony and helped one another—would Herrschers have never come into existence?"

[Dear Host, it's still broad daylight. Why are you dreaming?]

"Screw you."

Of course, it was just a passing thought.

Elias believed in the existence of goodness in this world, but he wasn't naïve enough to think it could prevail so easily.

After all, just remembering his past life—where every few days a new 'Herrscher of Dominance' would pop up in the comment section—it was clear that some things would never change.

The next day, at Chiba Academy.

"Hey, good morning, Raiden."

"Ah, good morning to you too, Elias."

"By the way, here's your bento box. It was delicious—thanks!"

Handing the bento box back to Mei, Elias let out a yawn and returned to his seat to catch up on sleep.

Yesterday, still excited about his transmigration, Elias had spent a few hours surfing the web before finally falling asleep.

As expected, all information related to Honkai and Herrschers was completely locked down—he couldn't find a single trace of it anywhere.

Other than that, this world felt almost exactly like his previous one.

The top trending topics were still celebrity gossip, meme videos, and news that looked important but probably wasn't.

Honestly, Elias felt right at home.

"Now this is my vibe. Just looking at these dumb internet users makes me feel like I've returned home."

For the first two periods of the morning, he completely slept through class.

Since most of the students here were rich kids, the teachers didn't dare to say anything and simply pretended not to notice.

If only they had half that level of responsibility, Mei wouldn't be suffering from bullying so badly.

The last two periods of the morning were P.E.

As expected of a Far East school, swimming was part of the curriculum—so Elias took full advantage and swam to his heart's content.

However, when lunchtime arrived—

Just as Elias was thinking up an excuse to mooch another meal off the cooking lady, he suddenly realized—

Raiden Mei was nowhere to be found.

"Did she go to the rooftop again?"

[Dear Host, Raiden Mei is not there. Her current location is the girls' locker room in the gymnasium.]

"Huh? If someone's getting bullied, aren't they supposed to eat on the rooftop or in the bathroom? What the hell is she doing in the girls' locker room?"

Just as Elias was puzzling over it,

the same group of girls who bullied Mei yesterday strutted back into the classroom, looking smug.

Even though lunch break was noisy, Elias's sharp hearing still picked up a few disturbing phrases—

"Take her clothes."

"Don't let her out."

"This time, no one's going to save her."

"Make sure this fraudster's daughter never dares to come to school again."

Elias: "…F*ck!!!"

In the next second, he bolted out of the classroom.