"Ling, was the output of Jizo Mitama too high during that last experiment?"
After leaving the private island—a friendly provision from Kevin that apparently belonged to a certain World Serpent cadre—Li Zihan boarded the helicopter. As he prepared to return to St. Freya Academy, he lowered his head and spoke to the tachi at his waist.
"Is that even a question?"
The voice of Ling, the Herrscher of Erosion, came from within Jizo Mitama, its tone impolite.
"After activating the Zeroth Power, I used my resonance with Jizo Mitama to force it into Overload Mode, then drained all the power from the Herrscher Gem to push the output to its maximum."
"It'd be weirder if the output wasn't high!!"
To ensure one hundred percent control over the Herrscher of Wind, Jizo Mitama, Fenghuang Down, and the two other gems had been completely drained.
If the power of these two Divine Keys in Overload Mode had been unleashed on human society instead of the Gem of Desire, it would have immediately triggered Infinite Tsukuyomi and a Skynet invasion, making human civilization type "GG" in minutes.
"But this isn't a bad thing for you, is it?"
Ling, who had always thought of Li Zihan as the type of guy doomed to be single for life, spoke up.
"Because Jizo Mitama's power seriously overflowed, when it terminated the Herrscher personality of that Valkyrie named Wendy, it also affected her human personality as a side effect."
"Considering you're as handsome as a rogue, it's easy for any girl seeing you for the first time to get a good impression. When that good impression gets amplified several times by the backlash from Jizo Mitama, the probability of her falling for you at first sight is pretty high."
Thinking of this, Ling paused.
She suddenly felt that her ability, in Li Zihan's hands, had taken on a strange flavor.
It completely lacked the dignity of a Divine Apostle's authority, and instead felt more like one of the H-abilities mentioned in the shameful manga she had accidentally flipped through back in school.
How is his direction for developing abilities so bizarre?
Ling, who had used the power of erosion in her past life to corrupt electronic systems and humans, clicked her tongue.
Feeling that a certain fellow was like the male lead of a hentai anime, a chill ran down Ling's spine.
If things developed according to a hentai plot, then she, as the true master of the power of erosion, would absolutely not be able to escape the role of a hentai female lead.
In the future, I should try to keep Sakura and myself at a distance from this guy.
Ling thought, having considered the situation according to hentai logic and feeling that her chastity might be in danger.
Having made this decision, she continued to speak to Li Zihan.
"As long as you show her a little bit of affection or love, that Valkyrie named Wendy will probably give herself to you completely."
"You should thank me. I've solved your problem of being single for life."
So this is the full power of Jizo Mitama?
It can even deal with a Herrscher directly.
Li Zihan was a little shaken.
Although he knew that Jizo Mitama combined with Fenghuang Down would be amazing at full power, to directly lead to this kind of development was too... impressive, ahem, shameless.
Thinking of this, he suddenly thought of Seele and Mei.
And then, he couldn't help but frown.
"It looks like I'll have to lower the power output when I implant the Herrscher gems in Seele and Mei."
"Why?"
Ling, who felt that Herrscher Cores were super difficult to erode, voiced her question.
Without going all out like that, there was no one-hundred-percent guarantee of erasing the Herrscher personality.
"Think about it. A girl I've only known for a short while, whose affection for me was 'friendly' at best, gets hit with a combo from the Overload Mode Divine Keys and falls for me at first sight."
"So what do you think would happen to girls who already have feelings for me, whose affection level is already extremely high, if they get hit with the same combo?"
Li Zihan rolled his eyes as he spoke.
The answer was yandere.
"My current strength isn't weak, but it's only 'not weak'."
The young man, who knew very well that the so-called Herrschers, once they started using their brains, could reach a level where they could cleanse the surface of the planet in minutes, had a very serious expression.
"Giving girls who already like me power on par with a Lostbelt King from the Moon World, and then turning them into yanderes... how much of a death wish would I need for that?"
"Do I look like someone who has a death wish and thinks they've lived too long?"
The Three-God Garment, formed from the cycle of Creation-Balance-Destruction, was nowhere near complete.
The two Herrscher of Reason cores were in the hands of Welt and Otto respectively, and he hadn't obtained them.
The experiment to wait for the end of the world and observe the Root of the Vortex would take hundreds of years and could only be done in the Moon World.
All his planned enhancement routes were still in their infancy, or hadn't even started. Under these circumstances, turning his lovers into yanderes with explosive combat power...
What kind of person with a death wish would do something like that?!
"To be worried about this kind of problem, you really are scum enough."
Ling's voice from within Jizo Mitama was filled with severe disdain, like the Knights of the Round Table evaluating Fou.
"Whether I'm scum or not doesn't have much to do with you, does it?"
Li Zihan rolled his eyes and retorted.
"Tch."
Ling made a sound of displeasure.
For a guy who would flirt with any pretty girl he saw to see her and then directly express his lack of interest, her pride was a little hurt.
"Alright, let's not talk about this anymore."
Li Zihan spoke up.
"Are you interested in going to see the past?"
"Is it that whatchamacallit Chaldea Paradise plan of yours?"
Ling, who had heard of the so-called Chaldea but hadn't paid much attention, paused and got the name of Chaldeas wrong.
"It's the Human Order Incineration Organization, Chaldeas."
Li Zihan corrected the error in Ling's words.
"Interested in participating?"
Spiritron Transfer required a special aptitude. Even in the Moon World, with its large number of magi, not many people met the conditions for Spiritron Transfer.
And in the Honkai world, where the species known as "magus" didn't even exist, finding a character with the aptitude for Spiritron Transfer, aside from Seele and Schrödinger who were already in a quantum state, was impossible among the living.
So if he wanted to find characters who could undergo Spiritron Transfer in the Honkai world, he could only look among the dead.
For example, Ling. For example, Yae Sakura.
Of course, if Otto, that guy who had already embarked on the path of mechanical ascension, was willing to extract his consciousness from the Soulium, he could probably make do.
But that guy, whose IQ dropped to zero whenever Kallen was involved and who could pull god-knows-what kind of stunt, was clearly not suitable to be brought back five hundred years.
"Not interested!!"
Ling, who knew very well that if she agreed, her role would definitely be that of a weapon spirit inside Jizo Mitama, gave her answer swiftly.
Li Zihan was stunned. He hadn't expected Ling's answer to be so direct.
"Are you really not going to consider it?"
The young man, who actually wanted to take a Herrscher-fied Seele sightseeing and then casually have someone collect Yae Rin's and Kallen's souls when they kicked the bucket, had an uncertain glint in his eyes.
He lowered his head and spoke to Ling again, continuing to ask.
"Are you really treating me like free labor?!"
Ling, who had no desire to participate in the so-called Artificial Herrscher project but was still dragged to the experimental area and became a ruthless buffing machine for Jizo Mitama, reacted fiercely.
"Tch—"
Li Zihan, failing to continue getting free labor from Ling, made a sound of considerable displeasure.
But that was fine. Yae Sakura was still on the list of potential tools.
At this thought, Li Zihan's smile became cheerful again.
If Ling didn't agree, he would just have Yae Sakura do the work.
"And don't you even think about making my older sister do hard labor."
Almost the instant he saw Li Zihan's smile, that voice came from within Jizo Mitama.
"Hey, hey, hey, it's one thing for you to refuse to work, but you won't even let me find someone else to do it?"
Hearing Ling's words, Li Zihan raised an eyebrow and spoke to the entity hidden within Jizo Mitama.
"....."
Ling fell silent, like a Dokutah.
After a long moment, vaguely remembering parts of Li Zihan's plan, she finally spoke.
"To minimize the impact on the future, your plan is actually to act as an observer, watch the targets die, take their souls, and then return their souls to this era and place them in dolls, right?"
This idea wasn't hard for Ling to figure out.
Because she and Yae Sakura had survived in exactly this way.
If Li Zihan wanted to resurrect Yae Rin and Kallen, it was highly likely he would adopt this method, which would have almost no impact on the future.
"Is there a problem with that?"
Li Zihan, who was indeed thinking along those lines, asked.
A butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest can cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later.
This was the widely known butterfly effect.
If he did something major five hundred years in the past, it could easily lead to a completely different future.
If in that future, Mei and Seele were never born, wouldn't that mean he traded his lovers for Otto's goddess?
That would be more than just a disastrous loss!!
"Yae Rin is my older sister's biological younger sister, and Kallen was my older sister's spiritual support. Do you really think it's a good idea to make her watch them die again?"
Ling's voice was filled with obvious worry.
This was also why she didn't want to enter Chaldeas. She didn't want to watch her past self control Yae Sakura, slaughter Yae Village, and then be sealed away with her.
Watching such things unfold would be truly heartbreaking.
"What a hassle."
The young man, roughly guessing Ling's worries, sighed.
"In the end, do I, the Director, have to go into the field myself?"
"Sorry."
Ling, who knew that Li Zihan himself didn't really want to deal with these matters, felt a sense of relief in her heart after hearing his answer.
Li Zihan didn't insist on making her older sister return to the past.
This guy wasn't as cruel as she had imagined in her worst-case scenarios.
Towards those close to him, he was even a little gentle.
For a rare moment, Ling, who had been beaten up badly by Li Zihan and his people before, had a slight change of opinion about him.
"As compensation, I'll treat you to some kitsune udon later."
The fox girl, who loved to eat fried tofu, extended an invitation to the Director of Chaldea.
Author's Note: PS: Come to think of it, the job of Chaldea Director seems, uh, kind of dangerous.