A deathlike silence was broken only by the class bell ringing from the distant Academic Building.
As if summoned back to consciousness by the crisp bell, Kallen stiffly turned her head. The girl seemed to hear the strange cracking sound of the Miss Saintess's neck in front of her.
"Um... Miss Kallen? Miss Kallen?! Are you okay?"
"Ah? Ah... I think I might need some quiet..."
For Miss Kallen Kaslana, a pure young lady from the Middle Ages, getting pregnant before marriage would be a tremendous shock.
But to have two children without even getting pregnant... and one of those children was actually more than twenty years older than herself... After all, one could only say she had traveled through time and space to come here...
This caused a subtle shift in Kallen's mindset, especially regarding her attitude toward her fiancé, Otto Apocalypse, which underwent a transformation akin to a secondary conversion.
"...So, I am already a mother of two daughters?"
Miss Kallen Kaslana slapped her own cheeks hard, trying to calm herself down, before stubbornly asking the young girl in front of her again.
"Ah, that's right. You are already a mother who has not yet met her two daughters."
The blonde girl's definitive reply completely shattered Kallen's last remaining illusions, forcing her to face this slightly absurd reality.
"Then I have another question... Where are those two children now? Where is Otto Apocalypse?!"
"Wait, you said this Academy was founded by one of my children?!"
Just as Kallen was about to storm off to settle scores with a certain Overseer who was still writing his farewell poem in the Apocalypse family's ancient castle, she suddenly remembered a passing remark made by the god before her.
"Yes, yes, yes. The founder of St. Freya Academy, Theresa Apocalypse, is Otto Apocalypse's nominal granddaughter. She is actually a clone created for the purpose of resurrecting you, Miss Kallen, fused with the genes of a Honkai Beast and Kallen Kaslana."
"Yes, she's probably on a similar level to those three MANTIS you saw earlier... Kevin Kaslana, the ancestor of the Kaslanas, the Mad King Kalpas, and finally Miss Sakura, who looks very similar to Yae Sakura..."
"But in terms of actual strength... They could probably rub her into the ground with one hand...?"
Recalling how a certain Headmaster seemed to have made no progress in her combat power all these years, Snow immediately rolled her eyes.
"So you mean... This child only has my genes, not Otto's?"
"That's right. Originally, he just wanted to clone a Kallen out... That is, a resurrection in the purest physical sense."
"But he failed. All the clones rapidly underwent self-disintegration shortly after taking shape, and he found another method... adding the genes of Honkai Beasts to stabilize the clones' condition."
"As for the side effects..."
"There are side effects too?? Is that child...?"
Hearing that her nominal child seemed to have some other problems, Kallen immediately became worried and anxious—
"Whoa, don't be nervous. She just can't grow tall... Yes, she just can't grow tall. It's not dwarfism or any kind of developmental disorder. The effect of the Honkai Beast genes is obvious: they stabilized the clone's physical form, but... they also stabilized her height... That Headmaster's body is permanently stuck at its factory settings."
"Um... 145 centimeters... Pfft—"
Thinking of Theresa, who is older than anyone yet shorter than everyone, only able to rage impotently, the girl's expression finally broke, and she burst out laughing...
"Mocking someone's height is... Mocking someone's innate flaws is bad behavior, you know?"
Seeing the girl laugh out loud, Kallen tried to correct this bad behavior...
"No... I'm not mocking her... Miss Kallen... You haven't seen that Ms. Theresa Apocalypse... Um... When no one is around, she always carves a notch into a special pillar at the Academy to mark her own height..."
"Ah—it's this pillar..."
The two, having walked out of the monument, unknowingly arrived in a garden. The blonde girl seemed to have found something and pointed to a Roman pillar within it.
"Look... This is the scratch. It's already been visibly carved in... Don't you think Miss Headmaster is starting to look a bit cute now??"
"....Is she really that concerned about her height???"
Kallen's mouth twitched as she looked at the carving that was deeply etched into the wall...
"After all, she's already over forty, an age where she could be considered a family elder. Yet she spends every single day being lifted high by people two generations younger than her, and getting her head patted and whatnot..."
"This already counts as psychological damage—"
Snow Apocalypse shrugged, wearing an expression of pure sympathy.
"So... Does that mean I can still hold her in my arms?"
Not knowing which circuit had shorted in her mind, Kallen instinctively asked a follow-up question...
"Yes, yes—and since you're her beloved mommy, she absolutely wouldn't dare resist~ Besides, it seems Schicksal has never tried doing something like hugging Headmaster Theresa in one's arms~"
Snow paused for a moment, then started nodding vigorously in instigation.
"I see, I understand—So, Miss God, can you tell me who the other child is? Could it be someone just like this child named Theresa?"
"..."
Silence fell over the scene once more. The blonde girl looked at Kallen Kaslana with a half-smile, as if calculating what kind of explanation would keep the Saintess's blood pressure and heart rate within a stable range.
After a brief moment of thought, the girl's brow furrowed as she realized how troublesome an explanation would be. She immediately abandoned the wisdom of the Apocalypse family, threw herself into the intellectual darkness of the Kaslana family, and delivered an invisible "heavy blow" directly to Kallen—
"The other child? Haven't you already met her?"
"Huh? I've already met her...?"
Kallen froze at the reply.
"Her name isn't Odin, nor is it Othinus—and she's standing right in front of you."
The Schicksal Overseer's formal attire now covered Snow Apocalypse's original clothes. Before Kallen's mind could even begin to process the information, the girl revealed the final piece of the puzzle.
"Good day, Miss Kallen Kaslana—Saintess Kallen, Holy Mother Kallen... which title do you prefer, Mother?"
"Does this really make any sense???"
Kallen's voice echoed with the same indignation as Cangxuan and Nuwa.
"The Overseer plus the Saintess equals a Holy Child who is a God. I think that's perfectly reasonable."