"Hmph..." Though equally rare, Yama actually smiled more than Lin. After thinking for a few minutes, she gave a low, cold laugh. "A multiple-choice question?"
A choice between the people beside her and the greater number of people. It was the oldest of old clichés: the Trolley Problem.
"Why can't I have both?"
"Have both?" Lin never expected to hear this conclusion from Yama mouth. His first thought was: Is that a valid cheat option?
"You can't..."
"So I'm asking you, why can't I have both?" Yama interrupted Lin unceremoniously. Although her voice and face showed no emotional expression, her words were filled with disdain. "I find it very strange. Why do you question-setters always make us choose one from two? Why must there be an imperfect ending?"
"Because... you can only save one of them."
"Who decided that?"
"..."
Her legs were crossed, and her eyes seemed to be glowing. Perhaps it was Lin illusion, but perhaps...
"There will always be people who tirelessly say that this is reality. Reality is always cruel; you can't just save whoever you want. Wishful thinking can't make everything perfect."
Two slender hands that looked like they couldn't hold anything were crossed on her lap. She turned her head, looking out the window. The deep starry sky sparkled in the depths of her eyes.
"Does anyone not know that? We experience reality every second. Every second we can feel the cruelty of reality. But we still welcome tomorrow."
"But what does that have to do with how we act?"
"Why must we face an imperfect ending? Why must the trolley kill one of the parties? Why can I only choose, instead of changing it?"
Using a tone completely different from before, yet announcing seriously: "Even if it's called foolish... giving up one side for the sake of the other... I, absolutely refuse."
Lin watched her silently. After a long, long time, he turned his head and looked in another direction.
.............
"Guh..."
A dry, raspy sound that was unrecognizable as any language came from her throat. A consciousness filled with the desire for destruction ran wild in her mind.
Who... am I? What... am I doing?
The lost self returned to this body after half a year. Like a soul bound by chains, she was finally liberated. She didn't want that destructive will to gain the upper hand. She engaged in a long struggle with it. After experiencing a duration of time that felt like countless ages, when her will was scarred and on the verge of collapse, the suppression of that absolute and powerful will suddenly weakened. She finally drove it into a corner of her consciousness.
There were still many people waiting for her to return... She had to protect everyone. She had to protect Griseo, who had lost her parents. She had to protect Eden, who could no longer sing. She had to protect Pardo, who couldn't fight. She had to protect Kevin. She had to protect Mei. She had to protect...
And that person too...
She possessed power now. She could feel that she could use the Herrscher's authority with ease. As long as she reclaimed her body, she would never have to fear the Honkai again. All tragedy would be reversed here.
She—
"Lin... I proved it to you..."
She looked at everything before her eyes in a daze. There was no hope. There was no future. There was only blood. Corpses. Death. There were people she knew, and people she didn't. Their only common point was that they were all dead now. In a world that had lost its color, a pink light smiled at her precariously. A piercing crimson brushed gently across her face.
Then, her face deformed, twisted, and became hideous. She reached out to grab that light. But the light went out in the world covered by dark clouds.
"Elysia..."
She stood in a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, holding her head, screaming, crazed, struggling. Finally, she was awake and numb. She murmured.
"Someone... save me..."
..........
"Is Teacher Lin just not coming to class today?"
After whisperring sweet nothings with Mei, Kevin struck up a conversation with Yama, who sat in front of him.
"Who knows." Yama was doing her own thing as usual. Perhaps because his arm was injured, Lin had unexpectedly done nothing last night or this morning, allowing her sharply rising blood pressure to drop back down.
Bang!
...What was that sound? Yama seemed to hear some noise, but when she tilted her ear to find the source, she heard nothing. It must have been a mistake.
Bang!
It was no mistake.
The bullets were all blocked. Lin estimated the distance from the opponent and retreated rapidly backward to prevent being captured by that strange gravity manipulation ability. The handgun magazine was empty. Lin dropped the pistol and pulled an AR-15 with a round in the chamber from behind his back.
Although he had no weapons, this world was almost identical to the original world. Lin could get some military firearms and ammunition through many channels. He had prepared weapons early on to deal with the Herrscher that might come. As expected, the moment he stepped into the school today, he received a warm welcome from the Herrscher. A "warm" welcome with eighteen cannons.
However, although she was a Herrscher, her use of abilities lacked the usual grand scale of a Herrscher—who could destroy a city with a flick of a finger. She was precisely hunting him alone.
While firing with one hand, Lin bit the pin of a grenade at his neck. The moment the bullets ran out, he tore the grenade off and threw it.
Boom!
From the soaring flames, the undamaged Herrscher slowly stepped out into the air, looking down with disdain at the mortal struggling in vain. They had arrived at an abandoned housing area. Lin threw out the remaining grenades and rushed into one of the houses. The Herrscher couldn't harm other people or things, but her vision could still be obstructed.
Casually opening a grenade, the Herrscher swept in like a hurricane. The poor roof didn't hold for even a second before being overturned. But on the empty, broken ground, no one existed.
At this moment, the Herrscher was slightly confused about where Lin had gone. In this moment of pause, from a gap in a floor tile on the ground, two pull-wires connected to grenade pins were pulled.
Click.
The crisp pulling sound made the Herrscher react, but it was too late. Two explosions erupted from her sides, covering her entire figure. Attacks of this level couldn't hurt a Herrscher; at most, they obscured her vision. However...
Screech—
The Herrscher looked down. That floor tile was opened, and Lin, hidden inside, was aiming a rocket launcher at her.
Boom!
At the same time he pulled the trigger, Lin pulled three other wires. Three rocket launchers hidden in this dilapidated housing area fired simultaneously, converging on the Herrscher's position!
Rumble—
The soaring fireworks bloomed against Lin stern face.