The next day, Lynelle slowly opened her eyes in bed, thoroughly "exhausted" from the night before, and glanced at the disastrous state of the sheets.
With a gloomy sigh, she pressed a hand to her cheek, which still bore traces of unexplained dampness.
She had to admit, she'd somewhat underestimated Stelle's stamina. Her own endurance was pathetically lacking—there was really a "slight gap" between her and Stelle's staying power.
At the beginning of the night, she'd had the upper hand, taking advantage of Stelle's inexperience to toy with her effortlessly.
But before two hours had passed, Lynelle started to sense something was off.
Stelle, who had initially been completely at her mercy, began to grow curiously eager even while Lynelle dominated… and it wasn't long before she displayed that trademark "trailblazing" spirit of hers.
Well, Lynelle was the one being trailblazed.
In the end, despite Lynelle's absolute head start and informational advantage, last night's battle had ended in a stalemate. She couldn't help but fall into self-doubt.
'Am I really that much of a bottom?'
"Darn it…"
Lynelle abruptly sat up in bed.
"Next time—I'll win!"
"Hmm?"
A drowsy Stelle rubbed her eyes and instinctively nuzzled against Lynelle's soft chest.
"Lynelle, is it time for breakfast?"
"Goethe Hotel should serve meals, right… Is something wrong?"
"N-No, nothing…"
Stelle averted her gaze, slightly embarrassed. "It's just… I feel like I need to replenish some fluids."
"Let's go down and grab a bite together, then."
Lynelle stretched, her silhouette tracing a lovely arc in the morning light. "Luckily, I wasn't transported to another world last night… so I'll have to use the hibernation pod to travel there on purpose."
After freshening up a bit—washing off those strange traces—and restoring her energy under the stunned gaze of the restaurant kitchen staff, Lynelle lay back down in the hibernation pod.
"Kiana-chan, Kiana-chan, how much time has passed in the Honkai world this time?"
A full day had gone by since the last transmission. When she'd left, it was around April over there.
Optimistically speaking, Lynelle felt she should still make it back before the main events kicked off.
[Don't worry, after the last spacetime turbulence, I've figured out a way to shield against it… There might still be similar incidents in the future, but lapses of a year or several years shouldn't happen again.]
[As for this time… I'd say less than a month passed over there?]
"So about twenty days or so, huh… That's a relief."
Lynelle let out a sigh. "If the time gap were too large, it'd be tough to handle Wendy's situation… After all, her change in mindset didn't happen overnight in December."
[Uh…]
Customer service Kiana-chan went silent for a moment.
[Actually… never mind. You'll understand once you talk to Mr. Welt, so I won't spoil it.]
[If there's nothing else, I'll start transferring the stored memories from this session? Not that there's much worth noting anyway.]
"Wait, wait, I still have a question!"
Lynelle hurriedly stopped her.
"How's Sirin doing? Wasn't she supposed to wake up in a few months? It's been way longer than that by now, right?"
[…Silly Lynelle, the time that passed during the turbulence doesn't count.]
[Otherwise, with over a decade gone since the Second Honkai War and you obtaining the souls of Cecilia and Sirin, they'd have woken up ages ago, wouldn't they?]
"So…"
Lynelle counted carefully. "After I woke up, I stayed at St. Freya for almost four or five months… So Sirin should be waking up soon too?"
[Exactly. Without external stimulation, she'll wake up within a month at most. With stimulation, it could be even sooner.]
"Then let's not stimulate Sirin for now. With Otto showing his face every now and then, if Sirin's awakening causes too much of a stir, Otto might catch on to something."
Lynelle nodded. "I'm ready—start syncing the memories."
--+--
A few minutes later, inside an Anti-Entropy base in North America, Lynelle opened her eyes.
"Hmm… It really does seem like nothing major happened."
Skimming through the memories, she found the world had been unusually peaceful during that period.
Anti-Entropy's restructuring was progressing steadily, and while in custodial mode, her main task had been assisting with Cecilia's resurrection.
After all, as Otto had pointed out, although the God-Slaying Project was still underway, the idea of mass-producing holy blood by cloning Cecilia had been proven a complete failure.
In a way, the Cecilia clones beneath St. Freya were just like the 422 bodies before K-423—all defective products, lacking consciousness and abilities.
So Lynelle's initial idea of simply giving Cecilia a clone body was completely unworkable.
Not only would that Cecilia be extremely weak, with almost no combat ability, but the clone's lifespan probably wouldn't last long either.
Instead, Anti-Entropy's solution was to use Otto's experimental data to "custom-build" a body for Cecilia.
Welt himself had made a trip to Manila earlier precisely to gather genetic information from direct descendants of the Schariac family.
Thanks to collaboration from various parties, the experiment had made significant progress. Based on the memories Lynelle received, Cecilia might begin adapting to her new body as early as October.
Of course, the trade-off was that, even though Lynelle planned to lay low in Oceania, she'd still have to make time each month to return to the Far East for routine experimental verification.
"All in all… it's not too bad a price to pay. Senior Cecilia, it looks like you'll soon be able to walk in this world again."
"But I'm still far from being able to help properly…"
Cecilia sighed. "After all, the memories in my soul can't replace the muscle memory from years of training, and this new body might not fully awaken the Schariac family's Stigmata…"
"Who knows, maybe I won't even be a match for Lixue and the others now. I suppose they've reached S-rank Valkyrie levels by this point?"
"Take it step by step. We've got time…"
Lynelle reassured her with a smile.
--+--
Meanwhile, aboard a direct flight from New Zealand to the Far East.
"So, you're saying…"
Kiana, having just completed her mission in New Zealand, closed her eyes and communicated with the voice that had suddenly appeared after her contact with the Gem of Serenity.
"Your name is Sirin, and you're… my sister?"
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.