After stopping Theresa, Jun'an promised to treat her to bitter gourd juice, which finally calmed her down a bit.
"Who wrote that ridiculous formula book anyway?" Theresa complained while drinking her bitter gourd juice. "They don't even know my bust size and just wrote whatever they wanted!"
If only she were actually that size... but the problem was, she wasn't!
"Calm down, don't take it too seriously," Jun'an said helplessly. "Look, at least you got third place. I only got sixth place, not even a consolation prize."
Jun'an was also quite curious about that formula book, wondering if there was anything about himself in it. Given the chance, he really wanted to get his hands on a copy to see how it described the other Valkyries.
After Theresa calmed down, Jun'an went around the comic convention with her. Although it was a collaborative convention, it wasn't limited to just Destiny's Valkyries—there were other anime characters too, with many people collecting photos and striking poses.
Theresa got lots of photo requests because she looked exactly like her character, while Jun'an, cosplaying as the Captain without the usual handsome appearance, barely got any attention.
Instead, Jun'an attracted people purely through his looks and "sickly" aura, mostly big sisters who wanted to dote on a child. But they were all scared away by Theresa's frightening glares.
Those big sisters were probably just there to play around though—even after being glared at by Theresa, they weren't angry at all. They found Theresa and Jun'an's innocent relationship cute, and some even hugged Jun'an just to tease Theresa.
Probably because of the recent "chest size doesn't match the rumors" incident, Theresa became especially angry when she saw those girls pressing their chests against the Captain, particularly those cosplayers wearing revealing outfits!
"Captain, stop staying here, come with me!"
Theresa noticed that whenever she took photos with others, women would seize the opportunity to chat with the Captain. Once, they almost got separated when he was pulled into a crowd!
The Captain was even younger than Mei, a whole year younger! What if some bad woman took advantage of him?
As Theresa's imagination ran wild with worry, she immediately dragged him to the women's restroom. Jun'an became alert the moment he saw the restroom sign, but it was too late.
Fortunately, there were plenty of crossdressers at the convention, both male-to-female and female-to-male, so Jun'an wasn't discovered. However, Theresa forcefully put him into "sage mode," ensuring that even if someone tried to kidnap him, nothing could happen.
After about fifteen minutes, Jun'an waited another fifteen minutes until there were fewer people in the restroom before daring to leave separately from Theresa. Otherwise, people would know what was going on if they left the same restroom together.
After leaving the restroom, Jun'an was still trembling, looking at Theresa with exasperation. "Hey, could you not be so sudden with these things?"
"What's the problem? Captain, you enjoyed it too, didn't you?"
Theresa rinsed her mouth with bitter gourd juice before swallowing, then said: "You were even pushing my head down earlier. Captain, are you an S?"
"Do you know what would have happened if you made any noise just now?"
Jun'an complained: "Even if you're jealous, there are limits, you know?"
Jun'an didn't mind this kind of play, but the problem was who it was with. If it were with Himeko, he wouldn't be worried—she would just be envious at most. But the problem was that it was with Theresa!
Her body type was set as around twelve years old, just slightly taller than Bronya when she first enrolled. Jun'an was afraid of going to jail.
Fortunately, the convention center's restrooms were spacious with many stalls. When there were fewer people, no one was queuing, so Jun'an and Theresa both managed to leave the women's restroom without incident.
"What are you afraid of? We can just have Himeko bail us out if anything happens?"
Theresa, wielding great authority, didn't seem concerned. After all, the Far East used to be her territory and was now Himeko's. As long as no one deliberately made a big deal out of it, she wouldn't worry too much.
"Besides, even if things get out of hand and everyone finds out, we can just use our ultimate secret weapon."
Seeing Theresa's confident expression, Jun'an couldn't help but be curious. "What's this ultimate secret weapon you're talking about?"
"Of course, it's the great Herrscher of Sentience, our dear Senti!"
Theresa casually replied: "If anyone spreads rumors to the point where we can't contain it, we can just use the Herrscher of Sentience's powers, right?"
"That's not something the Principal of Destiny should say!"
Jun'an couldn't help but retort, "You weren't like this before. Weren't you the one with the strongest principles among all of us?"
In the fight against the Honkai, Theresa and Himeko, as everyone's guardians, had always led by example. This was why she was one of the spiritual leaders of the entire Far East branch, guiding everyone in the right direction.
Theresa gave Jun'an an exasperated look and countered: "Well, Captain, guess who I learned it from?"
"Definitely not from me." Jun'an turned away. Among the spiritual leaders, he was the most unprincipled one, to the point where he couldn't even be properly written about in textbooks.
They tacitly agreed to drop the subject and went to explore the convention together, with Jun'an purposefully looking for doujinshi.
"Theresa, let me ask you something—what would you do if you found doujinshi about yourself?" Jun'an asked curiously while looking at the various stalls.
Theresa gave Jun'an a side-eye and asked in return: "Well, what would Captain do if you found BL doujinshi about yourself?"
"Uh, I'd say it violates my portrait rights and demand they stop selling it," Jun'an suddenly became serious. "Who's being so unproductive? Drawing cute girls is one thing, but what's the point of making doujinshi about a guy like me?"
"It's just hypothetical,"
Theresa shrugged and said: "Actually, I feel the same as the Captain—I'd ban it immediately. By the way, Captain, don't underestimate yourself. You're a great hero who fought against the Honkai, and you actually have quite a lot of doujinshi. AI-chan investigated and found that about one-third are BL."
Jun'an's face immediately darkened upon hearing this. "What about the other two-thirds?"
When Theresa heard this, her face also darkened. "They're the kind of 'the hero is dead' stories meant to make me cry, especially some about the daily life between the Destiny Principal—that's me—and you, Captain. But in the end, it turns out it was all just my imagination... I really wanted to catch those artists and give them a good beating."
Theresa spoke through gritted teeth, and after her brief tantrum, she immediately grabbed Jun'an's hand, holding it tighter than usual.
Seeing Theresa like this, Jun'an's interest was immediately piqued. He quickly searched online and really found some free, wholesome short comics, which often paired him with various characters.
They started with very heartwarming scenes, but would suddenly take a turn at the end to reveal—the Captain was dead, each one more tragic than the last.
It was clear that some artists had conscience, but not many.
While browsing, Jun'an suddenly discovered a popular "what-if" manga where he had been revived, and curiously showed it to Theresa.
"Oh, I've seen this one."
Theresa replied, still somewhat unhappy: "Although this one does have a conscience, for us who are actually involved, it doesn't really change anything. Looking at too many of these just makes us sad."
Even knowing it would hurt, Theresa still couldn't resist looking. She could only blame herself for seeking out things that would pain her.
"Actually, Himeko and I really did try to revive the Captain," Theresa suddenly said.
"Oh?"
Jun'an became interested. "And then? Don't tell me it was just wishful thinking?"
"Of course not,"
Theresa nodded and explained: "We tried to do like the Captain did—go to the Imaginary Tree, search for the Captain in past timelines, and bring the past Captain to the present at the moment of death through a form of fake death."
"And then?" Jun'an asked, already knowing the answer.
As a transmigrator, Jun'an was extremely special—unpredictable, unbound by cause and effect, outside the cycle of reincarnation. These special qualities were precisely what made him a transmigrator.
"Of course it failed, otherwise the Captain would be able to see versions of himself from different spacetimes."
Theresa poked his cheek disapprovingly and continued: "Basically, there were three main difficulties in reviving the Captain. First, although the Second Divine Key could observe information from that exact moment in the past, it couldn't capture any information related to the Captain, so we couldn't reach that point."
Otto had used the Second Divine Key's beacon to pinpoint the exact moment of the Herrscher of Death's death five hundred years ago, which was why the timing was neither too early nor too late.
Since Jun'an was unpredictable, similarly he couldn't be observed in the past. When they used the Thousand Horizons to observe "the past" from "the present," they naturally couldn't capture any information about Jun'an.
"Second was the power and method of rescue. To block a star-destroying level attack, the safest option would be Kiana with her star-destroying power, but she has to stay on the moon. Until the Captain's Moonlight Throne blueprint is completed, she needs to remain up there."
Jun'an had seen the story progression, so he naturally left contingencies for Kiana who couldn't easily leave the moon, but without Jun'an's power, that plan was currently difficult to complete.
And Theresa was ultimately kind-hearted—she wouldn't risk the whole world by having Kiana leave the moon just for Jun'an's sake. That could bring unpredictable consequences, so Theresa naturally wouldn't do such a thing.
"Third was the problem of how to return. After Grandfather created a new world, he never thought about coming back. And because of your departure, we had almost no clues about how to return without affecting the past, so we couldn't risk it."
If they went and couldn't return, or if they caused various butterfly effects by disrupting the timeline in order to return, leading to an even worse outcome than what they had achieved through such hardship—that was something no one wanted to see.
"But now that you're back, Captain, those attempts aren't necessary anymore."
Theresa moved behind the bench and hugged Jun'an. "Don't worry, this time I won't easily let the Captain leave us again, no matter what the cost."
Jun'an felt suffocated, both emotionally and physically. He couldn't help but wonder if Theresa had been under too much work pressure during the year he was gone, causing her to develop yandere tendencies?
—System.
[I'm here.]
—Help me add points, put all the points from these few days into recovery.
[...]
End of chapter