"Burp! Not bad, not bad—just as expected of the Herrscher of Cooking's bento. Delicious!"
Feeling completely satisfied after finishing Mei's lunch, Elias patted his stomach and wore a look of pure contentment.
He felt that this transmigration was already worth it—after all, he had the privilege of tasting a homemade meal from the Herrscher of Cooking, something usually reserved for the main cast of St. Freya High.
At this point, he was already considering whether there was a way to turn this girl into his long-term meal ticket. Though Elias could cook, his skills were still far inferior to Mei's.
[As long as you have the intention, dear Host, this should be an extremely simple task. In fact, after your heroic rescue just now, Raiden Mei's affection level has already skyrocketed.]
"Huh? That easy?"
[Obviously. I didn't expect you to be such a seasoned expert at winning girls over, Host. You acted at just the right moment, with zero hesitation.]
"Seasoned my ass! I've never even dated anyone in two lifetimes—are you mocking me, System?"
[…Uh, fine. I initially thought your rescue was a well-calculated move, but it turns out you really didn't put any thought into it. Host, your personality is even more 'impulsive' than I expected.]
Elias rolled his eyes at the system's evaluation.
But he was self-aware enough to know that he wasn't the most rational person—he was emotional and acted on impulse.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have turned back to push that little girl out of the way of an oncoming car, all because he heard a mother's desperate cry, despite having already dodged to safety.
Still, Elias had never regretted it.
If anything, it was like the saying, "Good deeds bring good rewards." Thanks to that incident, he ended up transmigrating into this world—which wasn't a bad deal at all.
"Alright, no point dwelling on it now. After school, I should go explore the city a bit. This disaster-prone Nagazora City isn't going to be around much longer."
Elias dusted off his pants and stood up. Since his uniform was soaked, he went to pick up a replacement and also borrowed the swim club's shower room to freshen up.
However, even after school ended in the afternoon—
He could still faintly sense a gaze on him.
Raiden Mei's gaze.
"Uh, seriously? There's no way she's that easy, right? If we're talking about the biggest 'white-giver' in Honkai Impact, isn't that always the Schariac family?"
At this rate, he might max out Mei's affection level before Kiana even shows up.
...
After school.
Elias wasted no time and left Chiba Academy immediately, heading straight to the place assigned to him by the system—a small villa in the center of Nagazora City.
"Sure, my system didn't give me any cheats, but it did give me a house and a car… Still, damn, this feels so low-rank! Other systems let people start as gods, but when it's my turn, I still have to work hard?! I really don't want to work hard~"
With the Third Honkai Eruption just around the corner, Elias couldn't help but wonder—when Mei transforms into the Herrscher of Thunder and the great catastrophe strikes, will this house even survive?
Elias: "Why is my villa flying?"
Once the Herrscher of Thunder's electromagnetic storm descends, will his little villa still be standing? Elias really didn't want to end up like a certain island-exploding raven—pacing back and forth, rolling on the ground, crying his heart out, and then dramatically declaring, 'No matter the cost, humanity will triumph over Honkai!'
So, even if it was just for the sake of protecting his villa, Elias swore that he must stop the Third Honkai Eruption!
...
After taking enough money from home, Elias went out for some shopping. Fortunately, the system had assigned him the identity of a wealthy individual, saving him a lot of trouble.
After all, when Elias transmigrated, the only things he had were the clothes on his back, a phone, and a single banknote.
His phone had no network access—not even mobile data worked. As for the banknote, it was completely useless.
So, he had turned it into a good luck charm, treating it as a memento from his past world.
...Several hours later...
"Ah~ The technology in the Honkai world is way ahead of Earth. I ended up impulse-buying a ton of stuff."
Even though Otto Apocalypse had deliberately suppressed technological advancement to prevent civilization from progressing too far, modern technology in this world was still far more advanced than in Elias' original world.
He bought a smartphone, a laptop, and a headset—the first for daily use, the second for gaming, and the third purely for fun.
While his old phone was practically useless, he could still try extracting data from its local storage. Not that it contained anything particularly valuable—just the tens of thousands of songs he had downloaded before transmigrating.
His four great passions in life: eating, sleeping, gaming, and listening to music.
Elias had an especially deep love for music.
As he put it, he was extremely picky about sound quality—whether it was classical or pop music, he loved them all. He had even taught himself how to play most instruments.
If he were to transmigrate into the Previous Era,
Elias was fully confident he could challenge Eden to a musical duel…
…And then get absolutely destroyed!
But despite spending the entire afternoon shopping, it wasn't as if he had completely ignored serious matters.
For instance—right now, he was hiding inside an abandoned building, peering through binoculars, spying on ME Corp from a distance.
"Tch, just as I thought—Cocolia's people have taken over. There's a lot of valuable stuff in there. Hopefully, it hasn't all been moved yet."