While his heart was filled with doubts, Siegfried didn't forget to raise his hand to cover his face.
He still remembered how Shu had stopped and started observing his expression in a stress response just because he had frowned before.
Although he thought that his obviously chuuni expression had concealed the fact that he was distracted very well, in reality, it was just a futile attempt to cover it up. His guilty look was no different from when he was secretly eating cheap instant noodles behind Cecilia's back.
Kiana secretly eating cheap instant noodles and Siegfried right now were exactly the same. But this time, Shu acted as if he hadn't noticed that Siegfried was distracted at all and continued to speak on his own.
"After entering Sapphire City, we first looked for weapons to defend ourselves. Otto had already marked the location for us on the train, so we quickly found a place with weapons.
"We successfully found some weapons at the place Otto had marked..." As he spoke, Shu suddenly paused, seeming to be organizing his thoughts.
This pause brought Siegfried back to his senses. He asked, imitating Shu's previous manner, "And then?"
Then, they should have encountered the enemy in the tavern where they had found the weapons, and the four of them had worked together to defeat those two enemies, right?
This was, of course, the version from Kiana's mouth. The two Honkai Zombies with similar decorations but completely different fighting styles made Siegfried inevitably think of the "twin stars" characteristic that often appeared in anime and tokusatsu works.
"Then... we left with the weapons..." Shu said with some hesitation. He frowned slightly, but he didn't want to make Siegfried wait too long, so he could only tentatively say what he remembered.
Was that the process during that time? They had left that place, which was probably a tavern, with weapons, then met that female singer, and then entered the shelter in Sapphire City...
And then... was it when he had lied about being from Fire Moth?
No, no, something seems a little off...
Shu's frown deepened. It wasn't that he couldn't remember those memories. It was just that his past recollections of that period were mostly of replaying his battle with that pair of Honkai Zombies.
So every time he started to recall, his memory would always deviate to the blade light in the hands of the Honkai Zombies. This made it impossible for Shu to properly recall the other processes.
Now, Shu could only concentrate and push forward his memories of that experience bit by bit to ensure that his memories wouldn't suddenly jump to the battle interface with the Honkai Zombies.
Siegfried's reaction was thus ignored by the concentrating Shu.
Something's different again... Siegfried sighed in his heart. However, he didn't know whether Shu had ignored that battle or had really forgotten it. Due to the previous precedents, Siegfried was more inclined to believe that Shu had once again subconsciously ignored his own role.
And at this time, Shu had inevitably fallen into the battle with that pair of Honkai Zombie sisters. But this time, it wasn't a jump. It was following the process to that time period.
Hmm... it seems the process isn't quite right...
In his memory, watching himself fall with the second Honkai Zombie as if they were taking each other down, and then being finished off by a passing Chariot-class, Shu calmly recalled the subsequent developments, without reacting at all to his "yet another" death.
This slow recollection was too gentle for him, so gentle that even Shu's tense nerves had relaxed a little.
In his memory, there were no longer the blade lights and sword shadows of a battle replay, nor was there the unforgettable pain. There were no longer those racking thoughts, the analysis of the enemy's moves, the judgment of his own responses...
None of these were present.
He just needed to be like a bystander, calmly watching again the smiles and frowns, the words and actions of everyone he had once seen.
["Shu, the guns! There are really guns inside!"]
["Mei, what's wrong with Shu? Is there something on my face?"]
["How strange. It can't be that Shu just activated some kind of superpower and suffered a backlash, right?"]
Hmm? Why is Kiana's appearance rate so high?
Shu had thought that everyone's role in his memories should be more or less the same. At most, Bronya, Mei, and Kiana would have a lot more screen time than others.
After all, he had done the most things with the three of them.
It was only now that he recalled that Kiana had really been around him all the time... no.
It seemed that he had been around Kiana all the time?
Forget it, I'll just continue telling the story to Siegfried.
"Ahem..." Shu, who had neglected Siegfried for a full two seconds, finally continued to speak after a light cough.
He followed the place where he had just been talking, skipped the part where he had replayed the experience, and started narrating directly from the second playthrough.
As for that pair of Honkai Zombie sisters... he just skipped them. Anyway, there was nothing important.
"Then we met the survivors of Sapphire City. Under their guidance, we came to the temporary shelter in Sapphire City and saw the one hundred and forty-seven survivors there."
As they spoke, the attitudes of both Shu and Siegfried changed slightly.
"One hundred and forty-seven survivors were struggling to hold on in that basement. They had no water, no food, and even the place that sheltered them was so simple. Their safety depended entirely on the Honkai Zombies and Honkai Beasts ignoring them...
"All I felt there was despair... despair so deep that it seemed to drag me into the abyss."
Siegfried slowly nodded. After the Great Honkai, as "survivors" who had not suffered any casualties, the Snow Wolf Squad had begun to provide support to various parts of the world on the first day of the Great Honkai.
The Great Honkai had taken away many lives, but there were always tenacious seeds left behind in the cracks of the towns, struggling to survive.
Siegfried remembered that he had been to every so-called "shelter." Those haggard, frightened faces were deeply imprinted in Siegfried's mind, and he had not forgotten a single one.
He knew very well what kind of "despair that would drag one into the abyss" Shu was talking about.
And similarly, he also knew how the hope that burst forth from despair was when these people heard the name of the "Snow Wolf Squad."
But... they were ultimately just one "Snow Wolf Squad," a squad destined to rush to various places, a squad that could only shine its faint light on one place.
And Shu had chosen to do the same as him, but had taken a step that he had never dared to imagine!
["I am the acting captain of the First Pioneer Squad of the official anti-Honkai organization—Fire Moth!"]