Lucius suppressed the smile threatening to break across his face, ignoring her gaze as he continued:
"This is Mei. You need to become her partner. She will be one of your firmest anchors for accepting Herrscher power in the future."
"A mysterious organization has recently set their sights on her. I need you to protect her."
Kevin had actually already wanted to agree, but she still couldn't help asking, "Aren't we supposed to be saving the world? Why are we becoming someone's bodyguard?"
"Because this Miss Mei possesses incredible scientific research talent and world-shaking wisdom that even Honkai must take notice of."
"She plays a crucial role in whether we can ultimately defeat Honkai."
"I have no more questions." Kevin agreed to the request.
Then she stood up, looking at Lucius with a resentful gaze. "But right now, I need to go home and recover."
Just as Kevin was about to turn and leave, Lucius called out to her again.
"Wait, you can't leave yet."
Lucius then stuffed a piece of clothing into her arms.
Kevin looked down and found it was actually a set of clothes. Although they looked quite conservative, there was no doubt these were girls' clothes.
Kevin looked up, staring at Lucius.
"Don't look at me like that." Lucius pointed at her chest. "You're not planning to go out dressed like that, are you?"
Kevin followed Lucius's finger and looked down, discovering that her original clothes hung loosely on her body, exposing the faintly visible white skin at her neckline.
Her face immediately turned red.
Just as she was about to get angry, she found that Lucius had already circled behind her, pressing on her shoulders and pushing her toward an empty room.
"Go change your clothes quickly."
...
When Kevin emerged from the room again, her appearance had completely changed.
Tight jeans paired with women's sneakers, a black form-fitting top outlining her slender abdomen's defined lines, and on the outside, a blue jacket.
The very image of an energetic, athletic high school girl.
Lucius looked Kevin up and down. He felt this outfit was still missing something, until he saw her waist-length white hair casually draped behind her, and suddenly understood.
So under Kevin's confused gaze, Lucius somehow produced two hair clips and held them out in front of Kevin.
"Which of these two do you think looks better?"
Kevin was about to refuse, but thinking that having her hair just hanging down like this was indeed a problem, she focused her attention on the two hair clips in Lucius's hands.
One had star decorations, the other had chameleon decorations.
"Don't you have anything else? Both of these are too... girly."
"You're an honest child." So Lucius stuffed both hair clips into Kevin's hands.
Kevin didn't refuse and put them away before preparing to leave.
But just as she took a step, Lucius's voice came again.
"Wait, there's one more thing."
Ignoring the speechlessness in Kevin's eyes, Lucius turned around and casually pulled open the living room bookshelf, revealing a hidden compartment.
When she saw what was inside, Kevin couldn't help but widen her eyes.
Pistols, rifles, sniper rifles, grenades, long knives, daggers... Was that thing that looked even longer than her current height a single-soldier rocket launcher?
"You actually have an entire armory hidden in your house!" But then she felt it wasn't so surprising. "Though compared to your identity as a regressor, I guess it's not that shocking."
Lucius took out two pistols with a silver metallic luster and stuffed them into Kevin's hands.
"MK215 pistols produced by East Asia Heavy Industries."
"Unlike the standard models circulating on the market, these are special internal versions from Fire Moth, powered by Honkai energy, with much greater power than normal firearms."
"At least they're enough for dealing with early-stage zombies and weaker Honkai beasts."
Feeling the cold touch of the firearms in her hands, Kevin's eyes sparkled.
After all, what boy wouldn't love these little toys?
It was just that she had never learned firearms shooting before, but fortunately Lucius had anticipated this.
"Don't worry about usage. I'll find you an instructor in a while who will systematically teach you combat techniques."
"An instructor... What kind of person would be chosen as an instructor by you, someone who no longer knows what heaven and earth are?"
Kevin complained, trying to forget the sadness constantly welling up from losing her brother.
"Since that's the case, I'm heading home. Even though Dad and Mom are out on their honeymoon and I'm the only one home right now."
"But I still need to figure out how to explain to them that the son they raised has become a daughter."
"Oh, you don't need to worry about that for now." Lucius somehow produced several cards and a stack of documents. "Anyway, for a long time from now on, you won't be Kevin anymore."
"What do you mean?"
Kevin pulled out the documents Lucius handed her and found they were about a girl who looked extremely—or rather, very—similar to her current appearance.
The information displayed showed:
[Kiana, mysterious girl who emerged from Siberia, suspected to be the daughter of a prominent European family.]
[Sexual orientation: female. Possesses exceptional martial skills, superior intuition, and physical abilities beyond ordinary humans, along with a strong sense of simple justice.]
[Came to the Far East searching for her father Siegfried, and through chance entered Chiba Academy to hide her identity.]
[...]
[Her identity may conceal even greater secrets, subsequent identity to be supplemented (I haven't thought of it yet)]
"What is this?"
"A completely verifiable identity file, and also the new persona prepared for you."
"From now on, you are Kiana."
"After all, you can't continue living with Kevin's identity in your current state, can you?"
Kevin hesitated. Although her gender had changed, having her give up her current identity like this was still quite repulsive to her.
But this was extremely important to Lucius—one could even say he had made all these dumplings just for this filling.
So he made his move again.
"Saving the world isn't a good living. You will—or rather, you definitely will—be targeted by others."
"To avoid implicating your relatives, I suggest you put on a mask."
Lucius's words seemed to carry a demonic power of persuasion.
"Kevin, you wouldn't want your friends and family to be put in danger because of this, would you?"
Kevin fell silent and sighed inwardly. She truly couldn't let her relatives be put in danger.
"I... agree." She felt she had been completely controlled by Lucius.
'Kiana' nodded and walked toward the door, her back carrying desolation and... a will to live no more.
Fortunately, Lucius didn't call out to her again this time.
It wasn't until 'Kiana' completely left his sight that Lucius casually closed the door.
At the same time, a voice rang out in his mind.
[Mission: Witness Kiana's enrollment at Chiba Academy. Reward: A-rank Stigmata Selection Box x1, Crystals x300]
[Mission Status: Check-in complete.]
[Reward can be claimed.]
[Mission: Witness ME Corp's young miss Raiden Mei's enrollment at Chiba Academy. Reward: A-rank Stigmata Selection Box x1, Crystals x300]
[Mission Status: Key character Raiden Mei not detected]
"Hehe..."
Lucius covered his mouth, forcibly suppressing the smile at the corners of his lips.
"Can't laugh, can't laugh."
"But how can I not laugh at such a delightful thing?"
"Hehehehe..."
That's right—the whole regressor thing was all lies to fool Kevin. He wasn't any regressor at all.
He was just an ordinary transmigrator.
And the reason he had done all this was because of this unreliable system that came fifty thousand years too early!
The system's function was simple and brutal—a check-in system where you could advance just by lying down.
One could say the future looked bright... if only this broken system hadn't gotten the timing wrong.
Just glancing at the system missions made Lucius's vision go dark.
What do you mean "check in at Escaping Nagazora"?
What do you mean "check in at Queen's Descent"?
What do you mean "check in at The Last Lesson"?
System, do you know where I am now?
I'm in the Previous Era! The Previous Era that serves as a background board in the main storyline!
Lucius felt like laughing from anger.
The current time point was at least fifty thousand years before the main storyline began. Was he supposed to hibernate through the Previous Era first and wait fifty thousand years before activating the system?
But the problem was, if he had the confidence to survive the entire Previous Era from start to finish, what would he need this flying dance system for?
In this era destined to be erased by Finality, of the seven billion people in total, fewer than one hundred thousand would be left alive in the end.
Those who could survive to fifty thousand years later were even fewer.
The survival rate was less than one in a million!
How confident would he have to be to gamble on this one-in-a-million survival probability?
So, driven by a powerful will to survive, he activated his world-shaking wisdom to find a way out for himself.
And as they say, when people are pushed to the limit, they can accomplish anything.
After some contemplation, Lucius actually came up with an idea that might just work.
Since he couldn't travel to the main storyline fifty thousand years later to activate the system.
Why not make the main storyline happen in this era, and then check in?
As everyone knows, this world controlled by the Cocoon of Finality has something called "cycles."
The previous and later civilizations are almost mirror images of each other, and you can even find many people similar to those fifty thousand years later in the Previous Era—or rather, counterparts.
And Lucius discovered that counterparts could actually be recognized as the characters themselves by the system when they met the relevant character background settings!
So if I have Mei play the role of Mei, Kevin play the role of Kiana, and then find this era's Bronya counterpart, wouldn't the Big Three be assembled?
He already had leads on Otto and Theresa's counterparts, and Hua was already in this era.
Then he could poach Himeko from Fire Moth, and the scripts for Queen's Descent and The Last Lesson would be complete too.
Once all the actors were assembled and the stage built, he could check in fifty thousand years early through the system.
By then, the Herrscher of Finality?
Hmph! I'll make sure she never returns!
Only after finalizing the plan did the first problem arise during implementation—the system wouldn't approve the determination that 'Kevin is Kiana's counterpart.'
Although this system was artificially unintelligent, at least its eyes weren't blind—it could still tell whether Kiana was male or female.
So in order to complete the check-in, he had no choice but to trouble Kevin.
Thinking of this, Lucius couldn't help but feel angry on behalf of his good brother.
"Unreliable flying dance system—it's all your fault for making my good brother lose his brother!"
"I despise you!"
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