Honkai Impact: My Power Grows When Valkyries Fall For Me — Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Boy Who Could Be My Mother

“So this is… Senba Academy.”

A cool morning breeze rustled through the trees as a plainly dressed, jet-black-haired boy stood before the school gates, a suitcase resting by his side. He adjusted his sunglasses, and beneath the dark lenses, a pair of deep purple eyes gazed at the electronic student ID glowing on his phone screen.

【Lucian Ragnvindr】

【Age: 17】

【Senba Academy First-Year Student】

‘This fake identity isn’t entirely fake,’he mused, a faint smile touching his lips.’Except for the surname, of course.’

His name was Lucian, and he had no family name to speak of. He was a man living his second life, having had the strange fortune of being reborn into the world of a game he once played—Honkai Impact 3rd—after his previous death.

It had been, to put it mildly, a disastrous start. The very moment he arrived in this new world, he materialized directly inside Otto Apocalypse’s private bathhouse and was promptly captured.

What followed was even more surreal. After discovering Lucian was, for all intents and purposes, an ordinary human, the Schicksal Overseer didn’t silence him. Instead, in a move that defied all logic, Otto recruited him.

And so, Lucian—a supposedly ordinary person with no special abilities, save for a slightly higher-than-average resistance to Honkai Energy—had struggled, climbed, and clawed his way up the ranks to become one of Schicksal’s A-rank intelligence agents.

Just a few days ago, he had been personally assigned a new mission by the Overseer himself.

Go to Senba Academy and monitor the Second Herrscher.

“Kiana… We can finally meet.”

Others might be oblivious, but how could Lucian, a transmigrator who knew the plot, not understand the true weight of that directive?

Although Kiana didn’t know him yet, he knew her all too well. He still had a faint, phantom ache from the memory of being kicked off the Hyperion by her every single day in the game.

‘Still, I need to plan our first meeting carefully.’

Lucian looked up at the clear sky, thoughtfully pondering how to engineer the perfect encounter. It was then that a somewhat urgent shout sliced through the morning air from behind him.

“Hey! Please move!”

The voice was rapidly getting closer. Lucian began to react, but by the time he turned, a bicycle was already bearing down on him.

On the bike, a white-haired girl with a slice of toast clamped in her mouth wore a look of pure panic. Her brakes had clearly failed. The speed wasn’t life-threatening, but the out-of-control bicycle was undeniably on a collision course with him.

Lucian instinctively took a sharp step back, neatly avoiding the impact. The girl, however, swerved hard in her haste to dodge him and ended up crashing spectacularly.

“Ouch!”

She hit the pavement with a comical thud, landing hard enough to make her yelp. Her backpack flew open, scattering textbooks and, curiously, a baseball bat across the ground.

“Uh…”

The corner of Lucian’s mouth twitched. He stepped forward to help the girl up, then crouched down, patiently gathering the scattered books and the bat and tucking them securely back into her bag.

She rubbed her backside, slowly getting to her feet with a wince.

“Um… sorry…” Lucian began, a little awkwardly, unsure of what to say.

Before he could finish, the girl flashed a bright, carefree smile, completely unbothered.

“It’s fine, I’m tough! Oh no! I’m going to be late! Goodbye!”

With that, she hastily took the backpack Lucian handed her, grabbed her bicycle, and sprinted off, leaving behind only a single slice of toast with one bite taken out of it, lying forlornly on the ground.

Watching the girl’s retreating figure as she pushed her bike, the expression in Lucian’s eyes, hidden behind his sunglasses, grew dark and complex. He truly hadn’t expected to meet her here, like this.

Kiana Kaslana.

“Kiana… So this is how our first meeting goes.”

He watched until she disappeared into the distance, then let out a soft sigh. The encounter had come far more abruptly than he’d planned, but he knew that not everything in this world could be perfectly orchestrated.

They would meet again soon enough. Lucian wasn’t in a hurry.

After picking up his own suitcase, he gave the entrance to Senba Academy a final glance. Then, with a moment’s thought, he turned directly away from the school gate and began walking down the street.

——————

After a series of unfortunate setbacks, Kiana finally stepped through the familiar classroom door, a place she somewhat dreaded.

As if her luck wasn’t bad enough already, she happened to run right into the homeroom teacher with the shortest fuse—the math teacher.

The teacher’s sharp gaze swept to the door, and the moment it landed on the tardy Kiana, the girl knew her fate was sealed. She was going to be standing through this class again.

“Kiana! Every time it’s my class, you’re either late or asleep. Stand for this lesson!”

“Sigh…”

Letting out a quiet sigh, Kiana trudged silently to her seat in the last row. She placed her backpack down, took out her math book, pushed the chair neatly under the desk, and leaned against the wall, obediently preparing to stand for the period.

It wasn’t that she deliberately wanted to be late. On her way to school, she’d stumbled upon some bullies harassing people and had to intervene, which cost her precious time.

But there was no point explaining that to the teacher. Even if she was believed, it wouldn’t earn her any points and might just cause more trouble.

‘It’s fine. I just need to be an unknown hero! That’s super cool!’

Kiana’s thoughts began to drift into a heroic daydream, but just then, a sharp knock on the door plunged the entire classroom into silence.

“Come in.”

The teacher on the podium put down her textbook and looked toward the door. A moment later, a man in his forties with a bulging belly walked in.

Kiana recognized him. It was the principal of Senba Academy, a man she had only ever seen once before, on stage during a school assembly.

“…Principal? What brings you here?”

The homeroom teacher was startled and immediately straightened her posture. The principal scanned the classroom, then waved her over, signaling for her to follow him outside.

The teacher nodded, turned to the students, and announced, “Kiana, you can go back to your seat for now. Everyone else, self-study.” With that, she hurriedly left the classroom.

A low murmur immediately rippled through the room.

“What’s going on? Something big must have happened.”

“No idea…”

The classroom buzzed with chatter, but Kiana wasn’t interested. She was, however, quite pleased about being allowed to sit down.

“Hmm… so sleepy…”

Successfully back in her seat, Kiana let out a long sigh and slumped onto her desk. But before she could drift off, the entire class suddenly fell silent again.

Looking up, she saw the homeroom teacher had returned with surprising speed.

“Ahem. The principal just discussed something with me. It’s nothing major. It’s just that our class will be getting a new student.”

The teacher said this, then looked toward the classroom door and nodded with a smile. A figure walked into the classroom, and the previously noisy room became utterly still.

The newcomer had jet-black, short-cropped hair and wore a simple white shirt. He carried a single-strap backpack and sported a pair of sunglasses, exuding an aura of calm maturity that seemed out of place in a high school classroom.

He walked to the podium, gave the teacher a slight nod, then picked up a piece of chalk. Turning to the blackboard, he wrote his name in clean, steady strokes.

【Lucian Ragnvindr】

“Hello, everyone. My name is Lucian Ragnvindr. I’m seventeen years old, from North America. My hobby is studying firearms, and I don’t have any particular talents. For the coming semester, I look forward to spending time with you all as a friend. Thank you.”

Lucian gave a polite bow. The teacher deliberately chimed in, “Alright, everyone, let’s give him a round of applause!”

Spurred on by their teacher, the classroom erupted into applause. Next came the part everyone was waiting for: seat selection.

“Well, Lucian, you can sit…”

The teacher scanned the classroom, but her expression tightened. If she excluded the empty seat next to that troublesome Kiana in the very last row, there were no other open spots.

She didn’t want to be discriminatory, but when the principal had pulled her aside, he had personally informed her of this young man’s identity. He was someone who could, with a single word, replace the mayor of this entire Far East branch. Placing such a formidable figure next to Kiana felt like a disastrously unwise move.

As the teacher hesitated, Lucian took the initiative. He walked calmly to the empty seat beside Kiana and sat down.

“Teacher, there aren’t any other seats. I’ll sit here.”

The teacher was taken aback, wanting to protest. But remembering Lucian’s status, she could only nod reluctantly.

“Alright then. If you can’t see the blackboard from there, just let me know anytime.”

With that, she picked up her textbook and resumed the lesson.

Lucian settled into his seat and offered Kiana a small smile. Kiana, for her part, had already realized he was the person she had almost run over that morning.

‘What a coincidence…’ she thought, awkwardly propping up her arm and turning her head away, trying to shrink into herself and become invisible.

So much for catching up on sleep.

‘What’s this guy’s deal, anyway?’Kiana wondered, her curiosity piqued.’The teacher would never be this accommodating for a normal student…’

She stealthily shifted her arm, trying to peek at him from the corner of her eye.

But she found that Lucian was already facing her, the corner of his mouth turned up in a slight, knowing smile. His deep eyes, even from behind the sunglasses, were gazing at her without any attempt to hide it.

“!”

Kiana was startled, but not because he was looking at her. It was his expression, his entire presence.

‘Is this really a guy?’

His features were delicate, his smile perfectly gentle. It was a smile that made her feel an inexplicable urge to rely on him, a sense of deep safety. She had a strange thought that if he took off the sunglasses, this feeling—like that of a warm, dependable parent—would probably reach its peak.

Looking at Lucian’s face and that inexplicably comforting smile, Kiana’s internal defenses crumbled, and her favorability toward him skyrocketed.

They stared at each other, neither speaking. The teacher continued to drone on, oblivious, until the bell finally rang, snapping Kiana out of her trance.

“Eep!”

As the familiar bell chimed, Kiana realized her lapse in composure and shot up from her chair. But before she could react further, a calm voice cut through her panic.

“You’ve been staring at me for a while now. Is there something you want to say?”

Lucian spoke. The gentle smile he had maintained for half the lesson was gone, replaced by a teasing, amused look.

“…”

Seeing this new expression, Kiana frowned for some reason. She took a breath, calmed herself, and slowly sat back down.

“…Why do you wear sunglasses?” she asked, pointing at his face.

Lucian shrugged. “I was born with pupils that are larger than normal. I can’t handle bright light very well, so I wear sunglasses to alleviate the strain.”

Kiana nodded thoughtfully. Then, she turned around, reached for the curtain behind her, and pulled it shut, casting their corner of the room in shadow. She turned back to Lucian, her expression unreadable.

“I closed the curtain. Can you take off the sunglasses and show me that smile from earlier again?”

“…”

Looking at Kiana’s earnest face, the corner of Lucian’s mouth twitched. This white-haired girl was certainly cute, but her requests were… something else.

‘It must be that the maternal radiance I’m projecting is too strong,’ he thought with a hint of dry amusement.

“Alright, alright.”

Lucian nodded, a helpless but fond look on his face. He hooked a finger on the frame and slid the sunglasses off, revealing a pair of deep, captivating purple eyes.

Then, looking directly at Kiana, he curved his lips slightly, once again gracing her with that impossibly tender, gentle smile.

“…”

A flush crept up the girl’s face. For a moment, the world around her seemed to fade into a hazy blur, leaving only the deep, silent happiness of that smile.

Seeing the glistening moisture that was gradually forming at the corners of Kiana’s eyes, Lucian smiled helplessly. He reached into his single-strap backpack and took out a sandwich neatly wrapped in a plastic bag.

“Here.”

His voice was soft. “You didn’t eat this morning, right? You were rushing to school, and the toast you had for breakfast fell on the ground. Eat this. It should fill you up.”

Lucian’s smile was as gentle as water, and it seemed to pour into the empty, lonely corners of Kiana’s heart, filling them with warmth.

She stared at the sandwich in his hand. In that single, overwhelming instant, all of Kiana’s rational thought evaporated completely.

“Mommy…”