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ArabicHonkai Star Rail: Saving the World with a Mobile Game — Chapter 40
Chapter 40: Madam Herta is Like This, Tsunderes are Like This
‘Is she starting to think I’m some kind of pervert?’Ash wondered, keeping his expression perfectly neutral.’Why does everyone automatically assume I’ve installed hidden cameras in their homes?’
Admittedly, he had pushed the envelope a bit too far this time. He had casually broadcasted highly classified information that, by all logical metrics, he had absolutely no business knowing.
Herta studied him through the holographic projection. Her gaze was unnervingly calm, yet her eyes—striking, flawless purple gems—shone with a dangerous, calculating brilliance. It was the look of a Genius capable of piercing through the superficial layers of reality, dissecting and mastering the core essence of all things.
Yet, after a long, stretching silence that hung heavy in the air, Herta ultimately chose not to press the issue.
It was exactly like their first encounter on Amphoreus. She hadn’t demanded to know why Ash had disembarked from the Astral Express prematurely, nor had she interrogated him on how he miraculously stumbled upon the divine scepter. She had simply accepted the variables and even assisted him in the grueling battle against Iron Tomb.
Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Ash smoothly pivoted the conversation. “I prepared those two promotional short films for the upcoming release.”
“If we’re strictly discussing the unauthorized use of my likeness,” Herta replied, her tone cool and measured, “shouldn’t that be considered a net positive for your little project?”
The video quality was exceptionally high, and the player base was already losing their minds over it. It certainly wasn’t character assassination.
Herta fell silent for two seconds, her brilliant mind whirring through calculations he couldn’t begin to fathom. Finally, she gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. “Barely acceptable.”
Then, her eyes narrowed. “But there is still the matter of Nous. That is not a trivial subject. What exactly do you have to say for yourself?”
Even if Ash had packaged the narrative under the convenient guise of a fan-made project, and even if the general player base treated it as mere fiction… certain entities would not be so easily fooled.
Using the Aeon of Erudition to generate cheap marketing hype was crossing a massive, glowing red line. It was genuinely rare to see Herta maintain her composure in the face of such blatant disrespect to her Aeon.
Ash knew the risks perfectly well, but the overarching plot demanded it. He couldn’t just rewrite the fundamental lore of the universe.
So, he offered the only currency a Genius cared about: compensation.
“Regarding your ongoing research into the Simulated Universe,” Ash said, his voice dropping to a more serious register. “I’ve recently acquired a few… unique capabilities. They might prove highly beneficial to your work.”
He offered a faint smile. “Maybe we can collaborate on a new DLC expansion?”
Without waiting for her approval, Ash casually opened his right hand.
A dense cluster of ethereal, blindingly white energy bloomed to life above his palm, twisting and folding in on itself with vigorous intensity.
Herta’s interrogative glare faltered. She leaned closer to the holographic lens, a flicker of genuine surprise breaking through her icy facade.
Ash didn’t hold back the demonstration. Grabbing the only prop within reach—a standard mobile phone—he bathed it in the white light.
In the span of a single breath, the sleek device rapidly oxidized. The metal casing rusted into brittle flakes, the internal components decayed into useless slag, and the glass screen shattered into a spiderweb of cracks. It was a dead, scrapped lump of iron.
Then, in the very next blink!
The decay reversed. The rust vanished, the glass fused back together, and the phone sat in Ash’s palm, utterly pristine and fully functional.
Herta practically pressed her face against the projection, her purple eyes tracking the device. “Hmm? What exactly did you do to it? Some form of cellular rejuvenation or molecular restructuring?”
Restoring a broken object was child’s play for someone of Herta’s caliber, so the act itself wasn’t what caught her attention. It was the underlying mechanism.
Ash chuckled, spreading his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I didn’t do a single thing to it, Madam.”
“I merely gave its internal clock a light flick. The clock governing its personal time.”
This wasn’t a physical repair or a localized mending of matter. It was a pure, conceptual regression.
The phone was still the exact same phone. No new parts had been synthesized, no broken circuits had been soldered. Ash had simply picked the object up and placed it at a different coordinate along its own temporal axis.
Hearing this explanation, Herta stared at the fading white light in Ash’s hand, her expression unreadable.
Then, as if a complex equation had finally clicked into place, the corner of her lips curved into a faint, elegant smile.
She shifted her gaze back to his face, her tone laced with a sudden, playful edge. “How strange. Every single time I find myself on the verge of losing interest in you, you miraculously manage to pull a new trick out of your sleeve.”
“You aren’t doing this on purpose, are you? You certainly know how to keep a girl entertained.”
With a dismissive wave of her hand, Herta turned away from the camera.
“Forget it. I won’t hold the Nous incident against you, considering you’ve just volunteered to work for me free of charge for the foreseeable future.”
“But there is one thing I must remind you of.”
Herta’s voice lost its playful lilt, dropping into a tone of absolute, chilling seriousness. “Regardless of whether your grand scheme to elevate Amphoreus succeeds or fails…”
“That little pink-haired girl hovering around you—well, the big pink-haired girl, you know exactly who I mean—she will not change. The elevation of this world won’t alter her fundamental state.”
Ash blinked, his expression sobering.
He actually possessed more meta-knowledge regarding the situation than Herta did, so he understood perfectly well that she was offering him a genuine, albeit veiled, warning.
After all, the current temporal closed loop belonging to Iron Tomb was actively being deceived by the Path of Enigmata.
Ash gave a slow nod, signaling that he understood the gravity of her words.
But since they were clearing the air, he figured he might as well dump his PR nightmare onto her lap. “By the way, the IPC and the Space Station are probably going to organize a massive boycott against the game.”
It wasn’t a world-ending crisis, but since Herta was already on the line, she was the perfect candidate to squash it. The game itself wasn’t at risk of a server shutdown. However, if malicious rumors continued to fester in the outside galaxy, terrifying the player base into closing their wallets, his revenue stream would tank. That was the real problem.
Herta slowly turned her head back toward the camera. She stared at Ash, her face a mask of utter, deep speechlessness.
She pressed slender fingers against her forehead, massaging her temples. “You… ugh, forget it. I will contact Asta remotely later and have her handle the corporate fallout.”
“Thank you,” Ash replied, his tone dripping with absolute sincerity.
Herta: “…”
She parted her lips, clearly intending to deliver a scathing remark, but paused. Finally, she just let out a long, exhausted sigh.
“Oh, right.”
Just as the holographic connection began to destabilize, signaling the end of their communication window, Herta offered one last, wicked smirk. “You had better pray Ruan Mei never lays eyes on that little short film of yours. I guarantee she will dissect you into very thin slices just to see how your brain works.”
“That is all.”
With those final, comforting words, the projection shattered into pixels, and Herta’s figure vanished completely from the room.
Ash sat there, staring at the empty space. He still had half a dozen critical things to discuss; he hadn’t expected her to pull the plug so abruptly.
Recalling her parting threat about Ruan Mei, he could only offer a helpless shrug to the empty room.
Sigh. Madam Herta is just like this.
In truth, based on Ash’s careful observations, the moment he had explained that using her likeness and spreading rumors about Nous was a necessary step to trigger the rebirth of Amphoreus… her genuine anger had evaporated.
Her subsequent interrogation had been nothing more than a habitual display of dominance. An act.
After all, wouldn’t it severely damage a Genius Society member’s pristine pride to simply roll over and say, ‘Sure, use my face however you like’?
Madam Herta was like this.
Tsunderes were like this.
It was exactly like how she had agreed to help save Amphoreus and throw down against a Lord Ravager like Iron Tomb without demanding a twenty-page thesis on the ‘why’.
She constantly preached about the supreme importance of raw intelligence and the gaze of Nous, yet the second she heard it was for the salvation and rebirth of a dying world, she dropped the subject entirely.
She paraded herself as a cold, indifferent Genius who couldn’t care less about the trivial struggles of the universe, but the moment Iron Tomb threatened the galactic balance, she had thrown herself into the fray without a second thought.
“I’m genuinely moved by Madam Herta,” Ash murmured, shaking his head with a fond smile.
Naturally, obliterating Iron Tomb had also saved Herta from having to tank a lethal blow on his behalf, but the sentiment remained.
Still, Ash really did have more to say. It was the entire reason he had spent the last few days desperately trying to establish a connection with her.
Pulling out his phone, he tapped the screen.
[Ash: Madam Herta, are you still there?]
[Madam Herta:?]
[Your friend has come online…]
[Madam Herta: Wait a minute. You can contact me via standard mobile text?]
[Madam Herta: Then why did I just…]
[Ash: Uh…]
Right. Ash had completely forgotten to mention that minor detail.
Unless a face-to-face holographic meeting was strictly necessary for the dramatic tension, Amphoreus’s local mobile signal was currently strong enough to pierce the planetary blockade and reach the outside network.
But he figured it was best to let Herta process the situation in peace for a little while. After all, they were rapidly approaching a massive, foundational event.
Theoretically, in the true, real-time progression of the universe, Mr. Yang should have already departed to seek out Herta’s assistance. Meanwhile, Dan Heng, Stelle, and March 7th were still hopelessly trapped on Amphoreus, completely cut off from all outside communication.
But which Amphoreus?
To put it awkwardly, the Astral Express crew was most likely stranded on the Amphoreus of the past timeline—the exact same temporal cycle that Cyrene had originally walked into.
The sheer number of paradoxes and bugs this created was staggering. It directly interfered with Elio’s carefully crafted script and tangled with the very birth of Fuli, the Aeon of Remembrance.
Ash had known for a while now that a complete, flawless correction was absolutely mandatory. If he didn’t fix the timeline, the future of the entire galaxy would collapse into utter chaos!
However, the divine scepter was long gone, and Iron Tomb had already been blown to spectacular pieces.
The conventional methods were exhausted. There was no other way.
He hadn’t wanted to resort to a stunt of this magnitude, but after running the simulations in his head, only one viable move remained on the board.
“It’s time for the Path of Enigmata to truly flex its power!”
Ash’s eyes hardened with resolve. He was going to follow the original, pre-ordained storyline. He would fabricate the events in reality, reenacting the tragedy and the triumph flawlessly, weaving a lie so dense and perfect that the Astral Express—and the entire observing galaxy—would believe it was the absolute truth!
And to pull off a deception of that scale, he naturally needed Herta’s active participation.
Meanwhile.
On the surface of Amphoreus, trapped within another timeline.
The desolate wind howled past the massive, metallic wreckage of the crashed Astral Express.
Stelle stood amidst the debris, her golden eyes shifting from Dan Heng’s exhausted face to the distant horizon. There, the towering, mechanical monstrosity known as the Cephalo Colossus was violently flickering in and out of the gloom, strobing like a faulty, apocalyptic lightbulb.
She rubbed her chin, her expression deadpan but thoroughly thoughtful.
“Hey, Dan Heng,” Stelle drawled, pointing a thumb at the glitching mechanical titan. “Is Amphoreus running a bit short on electricity, or what?”
Dan Heng closed his eyes, letting out a long, deeply tired sigh. “Uh…”