Amber was busy. There was a great deal she had to handle, because she had an unreliable superior.
Her superior idled all day and shoved all the work onto her, his poor secretary.
And despite that, Amber still adored Overseer Otto just as much as ever.
"Lady Amber."
Amber was sitting in her office handling official business when a hurried knock came at the door.
Amber had her own office, even her own little secretary.
Otto wasn't some kind of devil. He often shoved work onto Amber, yes, but he'd also given her a proper team.
Schicksal's minor matters were handled by Amber and the others. The major ones still needed to go through Otto.
In Schicksal, only a small number of people ranked above Amber, and even S-rank Valkyries like Durandal and Rita showed Amber due respect.
She'd served Lord Overseer for many years, and plenty of Valkyries had grown up under her eye.
But now her own little secretary came running into the office, panic written all over her face.
"What happened?"
Amber set down the pen in her hand. She'd been planning out where to place the orphanage children. Though she'd wanted to set up an orphanage, Otto hadn't agreed, so she was handling it under Schicksal's standard personnel arrangements instead.
This batch of orphans all had very good aptitude. Cocolia may originally have taken them in out of kindness, but the daily training and experiments had given them all excellent Honkai adaptability, which meant they were very suited to becoming Valkyries.
But before Lord Overseer said anything, Amber wouldn't take any action regarding these orphans.
"Lady Amber, Schicksal's database has been breached!"
Her little secretary's words made Amber frown. If the database had been breached, then the obvious move was to counter-hack, find out who did it, and arrest them.
They should have been very familiar with that process by now.
Could it be a full-scale Anti-Entropy incursion? Had Lord Overseer's recent actions pushed them into launching a war against Schicksal?
"Anti-Entropy?"
But the little secretary shook her head.
"We've already traced it. The breach came from inside Schicksal." Amber's gaze sharpened. If it came from inside Schicksal, then that meant Schicksal had produced a traitor.
She knew Lord Overseer's temperament. Lord Overseer would never let a traitor go.
Unless they had backing as solid as Siegfried's mother. The first time Siegfried left Schicksal, his mother had come to plead at Otto's knees, and because Lord Overseer had watched Siegfried's mother grow up, he'd let Siegfried go.
"Arrest them. Interrogate them harshly." Amber gave the order, but then noticed her little secretary hesitating, wanting to speak but not daring to.
Could it be a traitor among the higher-ups? Those people, kept around as mascots by Lord Overseer, presuming to lay hands on Lord Overseer's Schicksal?
At that thought, Amber's expression turned fully serious.
"Who is it? Who dares breach our database?"
Amber demanded sharply. The little secretary was frightened by how serious she looked, but soon stammered out an answer anyway.
"I-it's Lord Overseer! We traced the breach back to Lord Overseer's side of the system!"
Amber's mind produced nothing.
Lord Overseer… what are you doing?
After getting the answer, Amber put down her work and went alone to Otto's room. She stopped at the door and didn't barge in directly.
By now, seven or eight hours had passed since the last time she'd come out of Lord Overseer's room.
Seven or eight hours. Lord Overseer ought to have finished the real business by now, right?
If she suddenly went in, would she interrupt Lord Overseer's enjoyment?
But thinking of the database intrusion, Amber still knocked on the door.
"Lord Overseer, it's me."
"Come in." Otto's voice came very quickly. Amber couldn't hear any panting or fatigue in Lord Overseer's voice. Instead, there was only an unhurried ease to it.
Clearly, Lord Overseer had already finished the battle that belonged to him and entered sage mode — no worldly desires remained.
Since that was the case, Amber didn't fuss over it. She simply opened the door and walked in.
The moment she entered, Amber saw Otto sitting upright in the chair, leisurely as always.
But unlike usual, there was now a small girl sitting in Otto's lap.
The girl Lord Overseer had brought back had both hands on the keyboard, typing rapidly, eyes fixed in concentration, like a teamfight had just kicked off.
"Lord Overseer." Amber gave a slight bow. Otto's lower body was hidden behind the desk, so only his upper half could be seen.
Amber couldn't help thinking — could it be that Lord Overseer was still connected to this girl right now? After all, most of their bodies were hidden by the chair.
She immediately stopped where she was.
Her gaze passed over the bed without meaning to. The bed was in disorder, and on the white sheets there was a patch of blood that couldn't be ignored.
Amber had heard of this sort of bloodstain before.
This was the fallen red — the mark of a maiden's end.
But since that trace was there, then it meant this girl called Bronya had still been untouched before.
Untouched, with a cute face — this girl barely qualified to serve Lord Overseer.
Amber's nose twitched slightly, but she didn't smell anything suspicious. Maybe the room had simply been well ventilated.
Then her gaze fell on Bronya. The silver-haired girl sat in Otto's lap, staring at the computer screen without blinking.
And according to the information that had just come from the database side, it was this computer that was carrying out the intrusion.
So Bronya was hammering the keyboard because she was breaching Schicksal's database, while the master of Schicksal sat there with her in his lap, watching his own database get breached with a delighted expression.
Lord Overseer, please get down to business!
But the alert had already been lifted. As long as there was no traitor inside Schicksal, that was enough.
Even so, Amber still asked, "Lord Overseer, what is this?"
Watching his own house get robbed while he looked this pleased — Amber couldn't understand Lord Overseer's quirks.
"I just wanted to see what she could do."
Otto said this, and with that explanation Amber understood.
As expected, Lord Overseer hadn't devoured this girl just because she was pretty. Her abilities were part of the reason too.
To break through the outer layer of Schicksal's database defenses alone with a single computer — this girl had genuine talent.
Otto actually hadn't known Bronya had that ability. He'd only heard Bronya say she was good at hacking, so he told her to show him what she could do.
But what he hadn't expected was that she could actually break into Schicksal's database and pull up some materials.
Otto didn't have the memories of his future self. He didn't know the account name or password for entering the database, but Bronya's skill showed him there was a way to view these materials without needing an account or password.
As long as he used "testing Bronya's skills" as the excuse, wouldn't that be enough to crack open a route to those materials?
Otto couldn't help feeling pleased with his own cleverness, and Amber stopped bothering with this self-satisfied Lord Overseer. She went to the bedside to help tidy up the bedding.
And while she was at it, check how the battle had gone.
Her gaze slipped, without leaving a trace, across the bag by the head of the bed, and Amber counted silently in her heart.
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…
One box was missing.