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ArabicHonkai: Star Rail: I Can Fix This Gender-Bent World — Chapter 55
Chapter 55: Origin
Bronya’s silence stretched on, longer this time, heavy with unspoken thoughts.
He stared at the gray-haired girl before him, the one who claimed to have amnesia. That face… it was like looking at a reflection in a distorted mirror, the image familiar yet shrouded in an unsettling mist of otherness.
Seele’s words echoed in his mind. “Have we met before?”
The question felt like a sharp needle, pricking a corner of his heart he had never dared to explore. His past as an orphan, the hazy blur of his childhood, the questions about his own bloodline that he had buried deep within… they were all being stirred to the surface by this girl’s face and her story of lost memories.
While Lord Bronya was still adrift in the currents of his thoughts, the tavern’s wooden door, which had only just recovered from a standoff and a spray of gunfire, was pushed open once more.
The first to enter was Dan Heng. Her expression was a mask of calm as her sharp eyes swept across the room, absorbing the entire situation in a single, fluid glance. Close behind her, March 7th poked his head in, his face a comical mixture of curiosity and worry.
His eyes first landed on Bronya and Seele, still locked in the center of the tense atmosphere. Then, his gaze darted to the corner and fixed upon the gray-haired girl.
March 7th’s mouth opened, the name “Chen” almost bursting from his lips.
Fortunately, Dan Heng seemed to possess eyes in the back of her head. With a subtle, almost imperceptible shift of her body, she moved to block his line of sight, simultaneously flashing him a look that screamed danger.
Remember, you’re supposed to be Bronya, her eyes silently conveyed.
On their way to the tavern, she had given March 7th and Caelus a quick rundown of Chen’s new disguise and her temporary identity.
The warning snapped March 7th back to reality. He choked back the exclamation, but his control over his facial expressions immediately went haywire. His face cycled from shock, to forced composure, to a desperate struggle to squeeze out a natural-looking smile. The rapid-fire changes made his small, handsome face look utterly ridiculous.
The last to enter was Caelus. As usual, she followed quietly in their wake, her face impassive.
“Bronya,” Dan Heng’s voice cut through the tension, laced with a hint of concern. “Didn’t I tell you to wait for us near the clinic?”
Her gaze swept over the tavern patrons who hadn’t fully dispersed, their expressions still unfriendly, and then settled on the lingering friction between Bronya and Seele.
“How did you end up here all by yourself? And…” she trailed off, letting the implication hang in the air, “…get caught up in trouble?”
Chen’s reaction was instantaneous. She seized the opening Dan Heng had provided as if it were a lifeline. Her eyes lit up, as though she’d just spotted a long-lost relative, and she pitched her voice low and apologetic.
“Sister Dan Heng… I’m so sorry. I heard a noise and got curious for a moment… I never expected it would turn into this.”
March 7th, having finally wrestled his expression into a semblance of normalcy, hopped over in a few quick steps. He grabbed Chen’s hand, his tone exaggeratedly fretful.
“Bronya! You scared us to death! We agreed to just look around the area, and in the blink of an eye, you were gone!” he complained. “The Underworld is so chaotic! It’s far too dangerous for someone dressed like you to be wandering around alone!”
“March, I was wrong…” Chen immediately followed his lead, admitting her mistake with a suitably downcast look.
“Are you her companions?” Bronya finally spoke, his gaze focused primarily on the composed Dan Heng.
“Yes,” Dan Heng admitted without hesitation.
Bronya’s gaze moved from Dan Heng’s calm face to March 7th’s lively, yet guarded expression, and finally swept past Caelus’s placid eyes.
His father’s orders echoed in his mind. Arrest the outsiders and their associates… They will disrupt the only Order remaining in Belobog and interfere with our great cause of fighting the Eternal Freeze and the Fragmentum.
The Supreme Guardian’s orders were absolute. They were not to be questioned.
And yet, almost at the same time, another set of images forced their way into his thoughts.
It was Seele, standing atop a wooden crate, clutching a red silk scarf, her voice hoarse but powerful enough to ignite the very fires of the earth’s core.
It was the gallery of ragged faces surrounding her, their eyes rekindled with a hope that had long been extinguished.
It was Oleg’s calm, heart-piercing questions.
It was the air of despair that had permeated this tavern, accumulating for who knows how many years.
Are these… the people I am supposed to maintain Order over? Or perhaps, even… purge?
An unmatched sense of fragmentation tore through him. His father’s orders were for the survival of Belobog, to combat the existential threat of the Eternal Freeze. But if the Order that guaranteed that survival was built upon such deep injustice and suffering… if it was built on ignoring the pain of an entire segment of his fellow citizens… then what meaning did this Order, this survival, truly have?
Was that Order… really… right?
Would they truly disrupt the only Order remaining in Belobog?
Once the thought took root, it spread like a stubborn crack in ice. Fine fissures spiderwebbed across the once rock-solid foundation of his conviction.
Bronya considered this for a long moment, and finally, an answer began to form in his heart.
“I am the commander of Belobog’s Silvermane Guards, Bronya Rand,” he said slowly, his voice steady, but now imbued with a nuance that hadn’t been there before. “And you are all outsiders, are you not?”
“…Yes.” Dan Heng had no intention of hiding their origins. She met Bronya’s gaze frankly. “We are from the Astral Express, a vessel that travels the universe. We are passing through Jarilo-VI and have been temporarily stranded due to… abnormal factors.”
“Astral Express?”
The term stirred a small ripple of blank confusion among the tavern patrons, but it was quickly swallowed by a thick, bewildered silence.
“Universe? What universe?” a half-drunk miner muttered, scratching his head.
“You’re just bragging, aren’t you? At least make up something believable!” another voice called out, dripping with undisguised skepticism.
“Exactly! A train? We barely see any Geomarrow vehicles that can still run down here!”
Aside from Bronya, almost no one in the tavern could truly grasp the meaning of the word “universe.” For them, life was confined to the isolated island of Belobog. The chasm between the Overworld and the Underworld constituted their entire world.
“Look! Look if you don’t believe us!” March 7th couldn’t stand their skepticism. He rummaged in his bag and triumphantly produced several photographs.
Some showed a sea of stars so dazzling it made one dizzy, with unfamiliar star systems rotating in slow, majestic spirals.
Others presented magnificent planetary landscapes completely alien to the frozen terrain of Jarilo-VI. There was a crimson land where rivers flowed like molten gold, and islands that floated serenely in the clouds. There were even pictures of bustling space station ports filled with beings of various, unknown races.
“Here! These were taken in some of the places we’ve passed through!” March 7th’s voice swelled with pride as he pointed to the photos, launching into a guided tour. “This is the mobile city-state of Salso.”
“This is… a trading port… and look at this one! It’s completely covered in plants! It’s called Lush Dream!”
A collective gasp echoed through the tavern. These people, mired in subterranean cold and the daily struggle for survival, had never even dreamed of such fantastical sights. Even the patrons who had been full of doubt, ready to watch the show unfold, now stood with their eyes wide and mouths agape, utterly speechless. This was so far beyond their scope of understanding that it didn’t seem like something that could even be faked.
Bronya stared intently at the photographs. As a commander, he had access to far more information than the average citizen. He knew that the world beyond the sky was not mere fiction; ancient records and certain excavated relics all pointed to an existence beyond the starry expanse.
He was inclined to believe the photos were authentic.
The scales in his heart tipped another degree. These people were, in all likelihood, truly from the universe.
He withdrew his gaze from the photos and looked again at the other Bronya, the girl being held onto by March 7th.
“So,” Bronya’s voice lowered, a hint of regret coloring his tone, “she isn’t from Belobog either?”
Dan Heng’s heart tightened. This was the crucial question. If she answered poorly, all their previous groundwork could be for naught.
“That’s not it.”
A new voice rang out, interrupting Dan Heng’s train of thought and drawing everyone’s attention.
Chen looked up, an expression of trying-to-remember blankness in her silver-gray eyes—eyes that were so hauntingly similar to Bronya’s own.
She shook her head gently.
“I… I don’t remember if I’m from here or not,” she said, her voice soft, laced with just the right amount of confusion and uncertainty. “When I woke up, I was in a very strange place.”
“There was nothing around me but the cold and… some wreckage from old machines.”
“It was Sister Dan Heng, March, and the others who found me. They gave me clothes and food.” She tugged at the Silvermane Guard uniform she was wearing. “This outfit… Sister Dan Heng lent it to me, too. She said my original clothes were too tattered…”
“Right, right, right!” March 7th immediately picked up the thread, nodding his head like a chicken pecking at grain as his expression became animated. He began to exercise his less-than-superb storytelling skills.
“Oh boy, you have no idea!” he exclaimed. “When we found Bronya on this planet, it was a real tragedy!”
“Her little face was blue from the cold, she was huddled up in a pile of scrap metal, shivering so hard she couldn’t even speak properly! She only had a few rags hanging off her!”
He grew more excited as he spoke, his gestures becoming more and more exaggerated, looking as if he were about to describe Chen as a victim of human trafficking.
“March!”
Chen interrupted him softly at the perfect moment, a faint blush creeping onto her cheeks. She seemed embarrassed, as if his over-the-top description was making her feel awkward. She quietly tugged on his sleeve and whispered, “…Stop it. It wasn’t that exaggerated.”
March 7th stopped mid-gesture, blinking.
He saw Chen’s “pleading” look and, deep within it, a flash of a clear warning: You’re overacting, stop!
He immediately shut his mouth obediently, settling for nodding vigorously to indicate that yes, it was really, really tragic.