Honkai Star Rail: The Archiver

A few minutes after Yuuto's brief confrontation with the two strangers on the street, he walked out of the store and crumbled the paper bag in his hands.

"I didn't think I would encounter such overbearing people during my first time being alone." Throwing the paper into the trash he recalled the people who had wings on their backs.

"But they seem to be here to quickly get some supplies for their camp."

As he walked, Yuuto twirled his finger around and two bright fragments danced around his hand which contained short instances of movement within them.

During the confrontation Yuuto subconsciously accessed the [Nexus] of the two winged people and was able to grasp just a few of their [Surface Memories] during those quick few seconds. 

"I see, so taking [Memories] that are lit up are fine but the dim ones are not. They didn't move out of place after getting them, so I must have copied them instead of directly taking them."

Still playing with the fragments, he recalled how some of the [Surface Memories] he saw were dimmed out while the ones he had gotten shined brightly.

Yuuto always wanted to test more on his power to manipulate memories like how that Cremator did but he felt wrong to do so with the people on the Express, thinking that he may accidentally damage them in some way.

But meeting with those two brought a brief chance for him to test out his power on another person who he didn't feel guilty about, making him strangely fascinated.

"Maybe I can meet them again and experiment a bit more."

Yuuto curiously thought as an unknown glint appeared in his eyes.

"Enough of that I wonder what other street food this area has."

Licking his lips to remember the taste of the food he had gotten from the stall from before, he continued to scan around the area and noticed a stall from across the street.

Crossing the street to try the stall out he eventually had to pass by a crowd of people but one individual in particular made him do a double take as he didn't expect this person to be here.

'Luocha?' 

Long blonde hair, green eyes and a white coat embellished with green and golden accents. Even if Yuuto didn't notice this, the large coffin that was behind him would have been a dead give away.

Yuuto watched as Luocha repeatedly looked at his phone before lifting his head up again to scan his surroundings and repeating continued this cycle.

'I wonder what he's doing here.'

Reaching the stall that he was eyeing and which was coincidentally near Luocha, Yuuto curiously kept Luocha at the corner of his vision while he ordered the food that was at the stall.

"Excuse me miss but I only ordered one portion." Yuuto spoke to the old lady as he noticed that there was an extra potion in the container he received. 

"Take it as a bonus that's on the house."

"...I'm grateful for this but may I ask why?"

"Let's say it's a kind gesture for a local towards a visitor."

The old lady gave him a small smile as she kept urging him to take the extra portion.

Following the old lady's urging, Yuuto took the food. "How did you guess that I was a visitor?" Tasting the skewer in his hands, his eyes shone at the taste.

"Well one of them is the way you look at your surroundings. It's like a child walking into a candy store for the first time."

"Ahem, these skewers are pretty good…. I wonder what you did to make them taste this good."

"So quick to gloss past my words? I find it very encouraging to see visitors react the same way as you do, you know."

The old lady chuckled as she saw Yuuto give off a small cough in an attempt to change the subject but a hint of satisfaction was seen within her eyes.

"This place or planet I could say, has flourished a lot thanks to the conjoined collaboration between the Klimt Republica and IPC."

The old lady spoke out loud as she continued to grill the skewers in front of her.

"Thanks to that I was able to finally see a drastic change from the usual blazing heat I have always been accustomed to since I was a child."

"Blazing heat since you were a child?"

"Oh? It looks like you didn't know that this planet was considered a dead one until just a couple of years ago."

The old lady looked at Yuuto before she spoke on what her words meant previously.

"A massive drought had engulfed the planet for years far longer than I have lived due to something called a 'Stelleron' I think is what the IPC called them."

"Stelleron…"

Hearing a familiar word come out of her mouth, Yuuto's interest had been caught as he didn't know that this planet had a history with a Stelleron.

"Food was impossible to grow and a minuscule amount of water was only obtained through the plants that grew in the heat so it was pretty hard to maintain our livelihood."

"That was until members of the Klimt Republica arrived on our planet and after communicating with the remaining people, which was my clan. We agreed to join under their banner and after a few years, changes we couldn't have imagined started to occur."

"Like rain suddenly appearing or the temperature getting lower?" 

Yuuto asked as he wondered how long it took for the Stelleron's influence to weaken after the interruption of the Klimt Republica.

"It usually depends on how long the Stelleron has been on the planet."

To his surprise the answer didn't come from the old lady but from a voice behind him.

"Sorry for suddenly speaking out but I just overheard your conversation and I found it pretty intriguing." 

"It's alright, the origin of this planet was slowly being forgotten after seeing it flourishing for a long time but having a few people know is not a bad thing."

Luocha who Yuuto forgot about, suddenly approached the stand where he was and had a faint smile as he spoke to the old lady.

"I hope you didn't mind."

"It's fine. She just started talking about the history of this place on her own so anyone could have joined."

"You're making it sound like I was just running my mouth you brat."

The old lady felt her eyebrows twitch after hearing Yuuto's words.

"For my words from before, taking into account the collaboration between the Klimt and the IPC I would say the Stelleron must have only been here for a maximum of 400 years."

"It seems like you know your stuff."

"I'm what you consider a traveling merchant so I have some knowledge from the travels I have been on."

Luocha modestly replied as he briefly looked at his phone before putting it away.

The three of them conversed for a while as Yuuto bought more skewers to quill his hunger and listened carefully to the conversation between the three of them.

However, through some instances Yuuto was able to spot Luocha putting his attention onto his phone and wondered what was happening.

"You look like you're searching for something. Is something wrong?" Yuuto said to Luocha as he noticed that he was still doing those actions he saw previously.

"I was actually trying to figure out my acquaintance's location as she said that she wanted some alone time but I can't seem to understand what she's saying."

"Did she say a specific location?"

"She just said [near bookstore]. I sent her a message to clarify but I still haven't gotten anything back."

Luocha gave a troubled look as he began to ask the old lady for her opinion while Yuuto remembered the image of the bookstore he's been to before.

"There's a bookstore that's down the street a few blocks down."

"Is there? I guess I can check it out."

"I can lead you since I'm familiar with where it is."

Yuuto offered as he still felt curious as to why Luocha was here on this planet. 'Maybe this is the place where he stayed before going onto the Luofu…'

"You guys are leaving already? Are you sure you don't want any more skewers?" The old lady looked at Yuuto to which he shook his head.

"I feel stuffed already so I'll pass."

"I see. Well I hope you enjoy your visit here! Ah and also be sure to come to my stall again."

"I understand."

Yuuto smiled as he waved to the old lady and led Luocha towards the bookstore.

"Do you mind describing what your acquaintance looks like just in case we see her around the bookstore?"

Yuuto asked as he absently walked through the group of people.

"Hmm… She has long pale hair and her appearance would be considered eye-catching since she wears a blind fold to cover her eyes.

"...A blind fold you say…"

Hearing Luocha's description, one person came to Yuuto's mind straight away and he felt his hair rise slightly.

'..That has to be Jingliu doesn't it…? I just hope someone doesn't tick her off or else we'll have a crazy ice lady on the loose…'

Adding a bit more speed to his steps, Yuuto finally made it to the bookstore and had Luocha to scan the area a bit.

"It looks like Dan Heng left." He peeked inside the bookstore and mumbled to himself after seeing that Dan Heng was gone.

"Hmm… I wonder if she wandered somewhere else."

"Maybe sh—"

Yuuto suddenly stopped his words as he felt a deep chill and suddenly turned his head towards what seemed to be an open park. 

Near the ground he was able to see a faint mist as it looked like people were starting to walk out of its area.

"I think I might know where your acquaintance is…"

"Really?"

Luocha looked at Yuuto as he replied to his words and began to follow him towards the park.

"It seems like she found them ahead of schedule…." Luocha quietly mumbled as he quickly followed Yuuto towards the park.

***

As they walked deeper into the park the amount of people began to decrease as well until Yuuto noticed that his breath began to fog up.

"You do realize that we waited for such a long time!? So does that merchant have our supplies or not?"

"....."

A loud voice began to echo from beyond the trees and as the two began to go closer, the sight of two winged people and one lady gradually entered their view.

"Are you some sort of mute?"

"...."

"Can I lop her head off now, she's getting on my nerves.

The shorter winged person wore a deep frown as the lady in front of him just stood still and kept quiet despite him yelling at her.

"It took you quite a bit of time to finally get here."

"It was hard for me to decipher Miss Jingliu's message so I had quite a bit of trouble."

Speaking with her back facing Yuuto and Luocha, Jingliu ignored the two winged people in front of her and turned around to approach the two.

Her long pale hair that was tied by a ribbon flowed through the wind as she walked with a smooth gait in her step. Allowing her dark blue dress to move alongside her steady gestures.

"This person."

"His name is Yuuto and he was the one who helped me find you."

Jingliu noticed that one more person was with Luocha and looked at him. Despite wearing a blindfold, Yuuto was able to feel her eyes land onto his body as she looked at him.

"You."

"Yes?"

"Your scent is strange."

"Huh."