Honkai: Man(Sludge) From Future

'What in the world?!'

Sirin had to hand it to them.

Three people, two rooms. One was a twin room, the other a king suite.

And the room with two beds was occupied by her alone. What was the point of Rita booking this room with her?

Sirin suspected the two of them never intended to include her at all. If it weren't for her being the Herrscher of the Void, they probably would have just tossed her aside.

How could such irresponsible people exist in this world?

What happened to teaching her civil engineering?

What happened to taking her out to have fun?

These two didn't look like they were up to anything wholesome.

Sirin had been whipped now, too. Did she not know the effect of Noldrei's lash? Aside from someone with Kiana's special constitution, it didn't matter if you were male or female, young or old—no one could escape the power of that whip.

Sirin even considered pressing her ear to the wall to eavesdrop.

She was filled with regret. So much regret. Why did she ever use her Herrscher powers to create a body identical to a human female? Now she knew a pleasure she was never meant to know.

Her once clear, innocent eyes were now tinged with a hint of lewdness.

And don't even get started on a bad woman like Rita, especially when Noldrei was using Durandal to tempt her.

Was this something she could just endure?

No, she couldn't. Rita simply didn't come back to the room at night anymore.

Only after recovering her strength would she change into clean clothes and return to sleep.

As everyone knew, Sirin had been abused as a child. After becoming a Herrscher, she was simply an arrogant fighter. She'd had few opportunities to interact with others since then. The amount of conversation she'd had in the past two years was probably more than she'd had in her entire thirty-odd years of existence.

The Herrscher of the Void had developed the habit of being a light sleeper. The moment the door opened, Rita would inevitably wake her.

She had tried to pretend she didn't notice, but after it happened once, then twice, Sirin couldn't take it anymore.

Seeing a rosy-cheeked Rita return, Sirin sat up and asked, "Why don't you just book your own room? Then you wouldn't have to come back and wake me up."

Rita didn't answer. She just fluffed her pillow a couple of times, adjusted its position, and leaned back on the bed.

It had to be said, compared to Sirin's petite frame, Rita's figure was far more alluring.

"Mm, we were discussing important matters," Rita explained briefly.

"Enough! If you were really discussing important matters, that would be one thing. But look at you now, changing clothes, taking a shower... Don't think I'm some naive child who doesn't understand anything!"

Sirin had been fooled once before. This time, she couldn't stand Rita's dismissive attitude.

Rita smiled. "Sirin, you already know, don't you? Why are you even asking me? I just went to the Director to help me relax. It's not like it was some overly intimate encounter. Besides, the Director even transforms into Lady Durandal to keep me company. Is there anything wrong with that?"

Sirin couldn't believe how shameless this wicked woman was. At first, she had pretended to refuse, but then she went on her own initiative.

"You shouldn't think of the Director as some scary man, or even a not-so-typical woman. Just think of him as... um... a high-quality friend who can help you relax and adjust?"

Rita wasn't a promiscuous woman. She just knew that Noldrei's tentacles could indeed induce a sense of pleasure that reversed sexual repression through whipping. It wasn't as if he was asking her to have sex with him, so Rita quickly came to view these whippings as something akin to a "spa treatment."

It just so happened that the treatment included satisfying certain sexual needs.

"Friend?" Sirin suspected she had misunderstood the meaning of the word. This evil woman was deliberately defiling the concept of friendship, wasn't she?

"Oh, I've already told you. You wouldn't understand, Sirin. Just think about it for a moment, and you'll get it. In the new world the Director is building, there's no distinction between men and women. And besides that, my status makes it difficult for me to find a suitable person to marry. If I were to grow old alone, it wouldn't be a big deal. Keeping Lady Durandal company would be nice, too."

As Rita said this, she gave Sirin a look filled with meaning.

"But that's not the real issue. With the current state of biotechnology in the Academy City, we will most likely live for a very, very long time. And with such a long life, how should I live? If I find someone I like, that's one thing. But is there really someone out there who is both suitable for you and whom you like?"

"So, I think the Director is indeed a good 'person.' Since I'll never have the chance to find a man who can truly move my heart, why not just settle for the Director?"

Sirin had once thought Elysia was a bad woman, but now it seemed Rita was a cut above.

"Are you insane?"

"Am I insane? Is that possible?" Rita thought about the things she had done in the past. When she was cleaning up messes for Overseer Otto, wasn't that a form of madness?

Even a young girl like Sirin had once been one of the messes she had to clean up.

In comparison, Noldrei's pure goodness was almost unbelievable.

"Did you know? I like flowers and plants. But in reality, those flowers and plants are all cultivated by people. We control their genes, their blooming times, their various changes. Plants, of course, have no consciousness or mind, so they always let me manipulate them, presenting beautiful flowers to customers, and then..."

Rita sighed. "And then, I give the flowers I created to those who need them. Perhaps this is some kind of karma, just like how I used to ignore the things the Overseer did. I admit I'm not a good person. But my resolve has never wavered..."

Her feelings were incredibly complex. It was also because Noldrei's methods had forcibly controlled Sirin, making these Herrschers obey his commands.

The situation was completely different from what Rita had imagined. These Herrschers were not simply flowers manipulated by genes; they bore no resemblance to them. Their hatred for humanity always stemmed from the suffering born within human society.

This meant that Rita's previous belief, her obedience to the Overseer's orders under the assumption that only Schicksal could save humanity and protect its billions, was completely wrong.

The suffering created by humanity was simply returning to them in the form of Honkai Herrschers. If Schicksal's existence was initially to fight the Honkai, it had been twisted by the endless sacrifices of Valkyries and Otto's countless experiments into something Rita found unbearable.

When a better path appeared before her, she realized that everything she had done in the past would one day be brought to account.

And at that time, Rita herself might become one of the flowers cultivated in another florist's shop.