Honkai Impact 3rd, what should an ordinary player do at the start?

Perhaps it could be called divine torture, designed to prolong the suffering humans experience indefinitely—if there truly is a God in this world.

Happy moments are extremely fleeting in our subjective consciousness, while terrible things are slowed down infinitely, and a mere instant feels like an eternity.

A literary work once argued that, before the arrival of the ultimate savior, the only known way for humanity to combat disaster is through waiting and hope.

But where in the world can you find so much hope? Without hope, suffering becomes the only theme, and the waiting time is stretched out indefinitely, almost eternal. Every point in time is too fragile. One's spirit either becomes worn down and numb over time, reduced to a plaything of others, utterly miserable, or it is completely enraged and detonated, turning itself into a raging fire that burns everything.

What will it turn out to be?

If things continue like this, what will become of the girl named Yae Sakura?

"There's no need to worry anymore."

As far as the eye could see, there was a strange young man.

"No reason is needed, I will solve this problem."

This place, untouched by human hands, has been invaded for the first time.

By him.

The specific appearance is still not clear.

Perhaps it was because the afternoon sunlight was rather blurry.

It's not as intense as midday, nor as bright as morning.

The sun was gradually setting, revealing an orange hue that was difficult to penetrate even through the branches of the lush trees. The light was divided into countless spots by the barriers formed by the leaves, some bright, some dark, some light, some faint, and they fell on the person not far away. He slightly raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight, but instead cast a shadow.

He slowly walked over, gently pushing aside the willow branches. His black, tousled hair was swept up by the green leaves, a strand of it rising and then falling back to his forehead with the force of gravity. Only that touch of cherry blossom color was the sole dominant element in this natural orange-yellow and emerald green landscape.

He walked up to him, to the person so close he could see everything about him clearly.

Reach out.

The person is reaching out.

Towards the girl whose sadness has been stirred.

"The sadness hidden in your heart doesn't mean it's not there. In short, I don't care what you think, but since you've asked me to wait a bit, you must also be unable to accept the outcome that Rin will die."

……

……

……

No sound can be made.

The person in front of me is clearly an enemy.

The person in front of him still managed to slash him.

His body, however, was completely immobile, as if he were dead.

The only thing this seemingly wooden body could do was suddenly raise its head, wanting to see more clearly the color on his face—a color that was difficult to describe in simple words. The upturned lips, the corners of his eyes, every expression on his face seemed to show a condescending indifference, but deep within those pink pupils lay a familiar calmness and…

I don't know how to say it.

I don’t know how to explain it.

The girl, who had never known or experienced any of these things before, saw in those cherry-colored eyes a gentleness that could embrace everything, like a lake filled with fallen cherry blossoms—such a magnanimous color was reflected in those clear, blue eyes.

He appeared perfectly normal in every way, with nothing particularly noteworthy about him, and he himself was quite ordinary...

But no matter what, I couldn't help but want to take another look.

“I know all of this is too hard for you to accept.”

—His voice arrived once again.

It's inexplicably grand.

Clearly exceptional.

……

Chapter 71 The Witch and the Merciless Jiangcheng

"But I believe that when you clearly heard that your sister had been chosen as a sacrifice, it must have been even harder for you to accept than what I am saying now. Since you can endure something like that, why can't you get through this little hurdle? You can't be so incompetent as to start deceiving yourself, can you?"

Don't be so sad anymore—that's all the words you can see on the boy's face, even his seemingly intense words revolve around these few words.

Why do I say that?

Why use this method?

At this moment, what lingered in the girl's heart was incomprehension—she couldn't understand the kind-hearted boy who was so close to her, despite his wealth and status.

Ahhh...

You clearly understand my thoughts, so why are you pretending not to understand?

……

……

……

It's probably some kind of hobby.

That's the only explanation.

Because the girl had never forgotten that her current identity was perhaps closer to that of a prisoner—a prisoner who attacked others but was killed in return. In this situation, even the people in the village would not have the face to rescue her or ransom her... Just looking at the ornateness of that knife, you could tell it was impossible.

The ritual objects mentioned by the village elders were so exquisite that even the entire village combined couldn't buy just one, let alone the knife in the young man's hand, which was even more precious and sharper than those things.

So listen.

Anyway, I'm a prisoner.

They have no right to disobey the people who arrested them.

As a prisoner, she couldn't defeat him, so she could only stay here and be slaughtered—that's the reason the pink-clad shrine maiden used to decide to stay where she was. In her self-talk, she completely ignored the fact that she was still looking for a weapon when she first woke up, and instead began to patiently listen to everything the strange boy had to say.

All the emotions I feel right now, the reason for this incomprehensible sadness, and the rituals, Rin... Even though this boy in front of me is a stranger, he seems to understand me better than I do.

I have a better understanding of everything around me, including many things that I can't explain or see through, like being in a dense forest where I can't see where I am or what color the sky covered by layers of green is.

He can even express in detail many of his own emotions that are only in his own heart and that he himself finds difficult to understand.

So few. Ling Mengyi Ling even had the illusion that she was not the owner of this body, and that the boy in front of her was the one who should be the owner of this body.

I know it very well.

Too clear.

All the confusion and unease accumulated over the long past period, including the loneliness that seemed to be savored alone like the wind, could be quickly resolved in just one afternoon.

Yae Sakura was even somewhat addicted to it—to being able to talk to the boy in front of her.

It felt like going back to my childhood, playing with my younger sister.

Back then, I always felt like we could talk forever. Even though we had been chatting for a long, long time, we would still start talking again if I just pointed at something.

……

……

……

“I don’t know about Rin, but if you want to stay here, I can prepare a room for you.”

The girl, who was not good with words, seemed more reserved and burdened with more shackles and rules than the Herrscher of Lightning.

Even after being fully empathized with and understood, and even provided with solutions, the only choice made in the end is still to avoid it, to escape the precipice in front of them, as if they would not know that there is a precipice in front of them if they just closed their eyes.

At this moment, the boy had no intention of giving up—his cherry-colored gaze never softened its outward intensity.

"Do you want to watch Rin die?"

"Are the rules more important than Rin's?"

Do not……

No!

He couldn't even utter those two words.

The girl who could draw her sword without hesitation when facing an enemy, wanting to subdue her without causing harm—that valiant warrior could only lower her head at this moment, burying her chin and her entire head in her chest, too ashamed to look directly into that potentially disappointing gaze.

"I can give you some time, but no later than the day Rin is to be sacrificed, I will not hesitate to end this ugliness."

"There's no need to prepare a room for me. I'm too lazy to see your father. Just bring me two blankets without drawing attention."

The still hesitant girl unconsciously raised her head, the words of dissuasion she instinctively wanted to say stuck in her throat—the boy in those clear, watery eyes was becoming more and more distant, and at this moment he was turning around, half-back to her, his profile bathed in light, even the lines of his face became soft, the scene at this moment was as if he was looking directly at a god, the light flowing past him, the dark-toned hair dyed with a touch of light yellow.

It seemed as if the gods in the sky had calculated it all out, and even the halo of light became just right at this moment, as if the aftereffects of yesterday's drizzle had not yet completely dissipated, and the refracted light was just scattered by the boy onto the world.

But all that remains of this scene is a fleeting moment; before you can even blink, the boy is gone, leaving only his back view.

In those pupils, all that remained was a silhouette blurring in the twilight.

As witnessed at the beginning, the blurry passage through the willow branches that divide the sunlight into patches of light.

"me……"

Where can I see you?

Unable to restrain herself any longer, the girl staggered to her feet and even subconsciously reached out her hand, as if trying to grasp that shadow, that fleeting moment of light and shadow, wanting to hold onto that sliver of hope that had never appeared before. However, she could only helplessly let the fading light flow out from between her fingers.

In the end, the only response the boy could give was...

"right here."

“I’ve always been here.”

……

……

……

"I've always been here, you can come find me anytime"—the weight of those words remained until the girl ran home like a madwoman, avoiding everyone's gaze along the way, staying away from where her father was, secretly taking out the tatami mat she herself was reluctant to use from the cupboard, and once again running back following her memory, breathing heavily as she searched for the direction of that person.

The emptiness of being deceived—the feeling of not being able to find anyone hadn't even come with the exhaustion from running so hard, and he hadn't even felt the icy shiver as the wind dried the sweat on his back, when that figure appeared from the sunset.

The strange man who called himself Jiangcheng appeared once again in the familiar spot. In the corner of his hair, which was being blown by the wind, his eyes still shone brightly.

The last scene reflected in those misty, lake-like eyes was the boy who stabbed the knife back into his waistband and turned to wave.

"You came pretty quickly, thank you."

……

what……

Really...

It's actually true!

……

The stagnant heart was stirred into turmoil, as countless huge stones and mud were thrown into it, causing the ocean, which seemed about to be completely filled, to churn up huge waves. The dark clouds were torn apart by the boy's palm, revealing the brilliance of the sun.

Perhaps it was just a ray of sunlight piercing a weak spot in the clouds, or perhaps it was just a pebble thrown out of nowhere that stirred up waves in a numb heart.

As the sun sets, she will once again take up her sword and become a priestess, and this world will still be filled with loneliness from whom no one can understand her.

never mind.

already……

There's no need to think about it so much.

That kind of thing is not something prisoners should be thinking about.

At this moment, what could be the answer I could give, the words I could say to the boy's eyes and face?

"Do not……"

"You're welcome……"

Slender fingers gently pressed against her full chest, and soft whispers escaped from her rosy lips—meeting her cherry-pink eyes was a blue light, as if illuminated by a beam of light, as radiant as a spring stream brimming with stars.

……

What a wonderful encounter!