The gentle fluorescent light fell from above, illuminating the plain white room.
It was followed by a young man's very gentle voice.
"How do you feel?"
As if suddenly waking from a dream, her slumbering consciousness returned to her body.
The girl named Wendy opened her eyes.
What came into view was a young man with a crimson tachi hanging from his waist and crimson feathers dancing beside him.
He was a very handsome boy.
His slightly long black hair had the faint luster of obsidian.
His somewhat pale skin was reminiscent of white porcelain.
His facial features were exquisitely beautiful, and his striking red eyes seemed to burn like flames.
Who is he?
The girl's face flushed red. Her own Herrscher personality had taken a direct hit from the Overload Mode of the Key of Consciousness, Fenghuang Down. She had been caught in the backlash, and her memory was a little hazy.
She shook her head, trying to clear it, and then diligently searched her memories.
She remembered.
He was the initiator of the Artificial Herrscher project, the doctor who had summoned her to St. Freya Academy and implanted the Gem of Desire into her body.
She had been nervous at the time and hadn't paid much attention to his appearance. Looking closely now, he was really, really handsome.
For some reason, the girl's thoughts were in a bit of a jumble, feeling that the young man before her was truly a bit... charming.
Her attention instantly shifted from recalling the past to observing the doctor.
No, this isn't right.
Feeling that her reaction was truly a bit off, the girl patted her cheeks, forcing herself to continue remembering.
Afterward, he had taken her to a small island.
Among those who went with them was a squinty-eyed man who looked incredibly powerful.
And then—
They had artificially triggered a Honkai Eruption, activating the power of the Gem of Desire implanted in her body, turning her into the Third Herrscher—the Herrscher of Wind.
She wasn't very clear on what happened after that.
Her body had been taken over by the Herrscher personality.
However, since her human personality was able to wake up now, the experiment must have been a success.
With this thought, Wendy sat up in bed, then moved to the edge. Her fair, delicate calves extended from under the blanket.
Her feet were tender and slender, her long, rounded toes small and lovely, like captivating gems that drew the eye.
Her calves and feet dangled over the edge of the bed, swinging back and forth.
The Honkai God must be a pervert.
Li Zihan thought aimlessly. In his memory, aside from the Herrscher of Reason and a certain Herrscher of Rock who was very suited to take over as the Schicksal Overseer, all the other Herrschers were super beautiful girls.
However, he didn't start panting like a foot fetishist from the Far East language.
Alice's, Aoko's, and Bronya's legs were all fantastic. He had seen plenty, so his immunity was naturally quite high.
The girl, whose senses were primarily focused on the unprecedented power flowing through her body and who hadn't noticed a certain person's gaze just now, stretched out her hand.
The surrounding air currents began to flow according to her will.
No, it wasn't just the surrounding air currents.
The airflow covering an entire country was now within her dominion.
The very air had become her apostle. The girl felt that if she wished, she could command the gales and easily stir up tsunamis and hurricanes.
It was a success.
This thought rose in Wendy's heart.
Among her abilities as a Valkyrie, there was no control over the wind.
The source of this power was the Divine Apostle that had been born from her body and then silently perished.
As test subject number one, she had seized the position of the Divine Apostle, usurping Its power.
"Director, I..."
Wendy, who had actually been prepared to sacrifice herself for the experiment, looked towards the young man who had already put away the crimson feathers that were apparently called Fenghuang Down.
"You have obtained the authority of the Herrscher of Wind—the power to create an ideal fluid that ignores diffusive properties like fluid viscosity, thermal conduction, and mass diffusion."
The young man, who wasn't exactly a pioneer in science but was at least not an uneducated fool, sat down on the edge of the hospital bed and began to explain the power of the Herrscher of Wind.
What is that?
The girl, who had been raised as a Valkyrie since childhood with her major subject being practical combat, had a rather pathetic level of general education. Her expression was somewhat lost.
"Huh? You don't understand?"
The young man, who was about to go back and recharge Jizo Mitama, Fenghuang Down, and the Gems of Serenity and Conquest, seemed to sense that the girl's reaction was a bit off. He paused, then turned his head in her direction.
So close!
Feeling the young man's face suddenly very close to her own, the girl's pretty little face was instantly covered in an alluring flush.
After becoming a Herrscher, one's physical constitution is greatly enhanced. Theoretically, one might not even need something like a heartbeat.
But Wendy felt that her heart was now beating faster than it ever had before.
"N-not really."
The girl, who truly didn't understand things like "ideal fluid," which only physics nerds would know and geniuses would study, spoke in a very low, stammering voice.
"Is that so?"
The young man, who was contemplating whether to implant a gem in Seele or Mei next, looked at the girl who seemed to have inherited the Honkai 3rd Herrschers' tradition of being uneducated, his expression troubled.
"A fluid is a substance that can flow. It's an object that deforms continuously under the action of any minute shear force, a general term for liquids and gases."
"And your ability is to command fluids, granting them properties like being incompressible and having zero viscosity."
"Understand now?"
Li Zihan, who wasn't very good at physics himself, did his best to explain this authority, which, with enough output, could slice through a star or even a black hole like cutting through tofu.
"Um... I... still don't get it."
The girl, who was clearly illiterate in physics, was still a bit lost.
"...Just think of it as controlling gases and liquids."
Li Zihan, feeling that the Honkai consciousness might have added "low education level" as a condition when selecting Herrschers, fell silent for a moment before speaking.
The Herrscher of Thunder, whose power was to control electromagnetic fields and could even reduce matter to its constituent atoms, only knew how to discharge electricity.
The Herrscher of Wind, whose power was to overcome numerous physical laws and create ideal fluids, only knew how to shoot wind blades and stir up tornadoes like some Wind Wolf King from an early-era novel.
The Herrscher of Ice, who could theoretically control all inorganic matter, only knew how to unleash cold waves...
The authorities that symbolized the pinnacle of physics became basically trash in the hands of this bunch of Herrschers.
Honestly, Li Zihan felt that if one were to take a survey of the Herrschers' education levels, Welt's Ph.D. would probably be dragged down to a middle school graduate level by this disgraceful bunch.
"Um, Director, can you explain it to me in more detail?"
The girl named Wendy, seeming to have caught a hint of disdain in the young man's eyes, became a little dejected.
"Well, although I'd love to give you a remedial lesson... I still have other experiments to conduct."
He still had two more Herrscher-fication experiments to perform, and the matter of Chaldea's Spiritron Transfer.
"Is that so?"
The girl named Wendy looked a little disappointed, and even the ahoge on her head seemed to droop.
"However, I might be a little more free in a while. When that time comes, you can find me at St. Freya Academy."
Author's Note: PS: I originally didn't want to write Wendy's plotline, but I just saw some comments mentioning Wendy, and then flipped through the manga... I'm being honest.