Trapped in Honkai: Integrated Strategies [21]

“My dear Kiana-san, if you keep sleeping during self-study, I’ll have to restrict your gaming time at night, you know?”

“Oh, wait, no—that’s just treating the symptoms, not the root cause. How about this then: when the time comes, I’ll team up with Bronya-san. No matter what game you’re playing, we’ll both make smurf accounts and snipe you until you have no gaming experience left at all. How about it?”

Standing beside Kiana’s desk, Lyra reached out and ruthlessly ruffled the snowy-haired lump sprawled over the table.

“Wahhh, Lyra-neesan, are you a devil? You must be a devil!” Kiana’s head was completely at Lyra’s mercy, and she didn’t even dare resist. All she could do was wail miserably into the desk: “I won’t sleep, I won’t sleep anymore, is that okay? Lyra-neesan, please don’t ruin my gaming experience!”

“Hmph. With your level of skill, even without us sniping you, you don’t have any gaming experience to begin with.”

Finally letting go of the smooth strands of Kiana’s white hair, Lyra rapped on the desk. “Hurry up and read a bit. School’s almost over, and you’re still napping.”

“Fine, fine…”

Watching Kiana reluctantly pull out a book and start reviewing, Lyra nodded in satisfaction and slowly walked back to the podium.

Without her noticing, four days of her teaching-assistant life had already passed.

The teachers at St. Freya were all remarkably dependable. In these four days, not a single one had asked Lyra to substitute for a class.

Which meant, during this time, the only moments she appeared in the classroom were the self-study session before dismissal each afternoon, and the break period at noon.

Even though she didn’t show up all that often, the impression she left on the students was deep. Very deep.

Besides keeping Kiana under high-intensity surveillance every day, her pathfinding-disaster attribute had been exposed without a doubt over these few days.

And the very first victim of this was, of course, our ever-reliable Fu Hua.

In four days, this diligent class monitor had pointed out the way to the office for Lyra five times—and out of those, personally escorted her there three times.

Other students too had more or less experienced the scene of Lyra randomly “respawning” in some corner of the campus and immediately asking for directions.

It wasn’t until Bronya, unable to stand it anymore, risked breaking school rules and secretly modified the navigation function on Lyra’s teacher terminal, that the phenomenon eased a little.

But as for Lyra’s “dignity”? Probably not coming back. (Tragic.)

Still, for Lyra, today was a long-awaited day.

Because once midnight struck tonight, it would mark seven full days since her last trial.

Which meant, tonight, she would once again set foot on the road of trial.

Of course, if it were just the trial, it wouldn’t be enough to make Lyra this excited.

What really gave her a huge surge of motivation was the compensation she’d received three days ago after the system upgrade completed.

In her system mailbox, besides the 6 [Originium Ingots] from the newbie pack, there had been a long, apologetic letter and a compensation bundle.

And in that bundle, lay the thing that made Lyra’s eyes shine.

[Advanced Senior Operator Special Training Invitation]

[You may select one obtained character card and directly promote it to Elite 2.]

This thing wasn’t unfamiliar to Lyra. Back in her previous life’s Arknights packs, the drop rate of this item wasn’t particularly low.

But for her current situation, it was incomparably precious.

Just hitting E1 had already given an ordinary human like Lyra enough power to go toe-to-toe with a B-rank Valkyrie. She didn’t even dare imagine what kind of strength a 6★ at E2 would bring her.

At the very least, she’d be able to arm-wrestle with Himeko-neesan, right?

That way, at least in the early stages of the story, she’d actually have the capital to show up.

And now, she only needed five more [Originium Ingots] to get her hands on the half-price 6★ voucher in the shop.

After asking the system, Lyra had learned that clearing the third floor of the trial gave a total reward of 6 [Originium Ingots], 2 Hope, and one random collectible.

Wasn’t that just perfect? Exactly enough.

So Lyra was brimming with confidence, ready to lock horns with the mini-boss on floor three.

...

Night soon arrived.

Seeing Lyra suddenly log off early, Kiana gave her a suspicious look. Lyra waved it off with the excuse that she’d stayed up too late the night before and was exhausted, then slipped back to her room.

“Early,” in this case, meant almost midnight.

After showering ahead of time and returning to her room, she did just as she claimed—laying down early and closing her eyes.

“System, quick, quick, quick—I can’t wait anymore, bring me the new trial already!”

The moment she entered the system space, Lyra couldn’t help but call out eagerly.

[Alright, alright, I know already. Host, you’re in such a rush—careful or you’ll get ambushed at the door, you know?]

“Pfft, what’s there to be afraid of? I’ll just kill, kill, kill! Worst case, I restart.”

Hands on her hips, Lyra was full of confidence.

[Let’s see if you can still be that confident when you’re being chased around by a mob.]

The system muttered, then began loading the trial.

[Please select difficulty.]

“Challenge Natural-1.”

[Difficulty selected: Challenge Natural-1. Enemy difficulty +0, Foldartal modifier chance 0%, stable environment.]

[Cultural comparison buff level: 43.]

[Please select squad.]

“Logistics squad.”

Starting with Logistics—that was the method Lyra had discovered after reaching E1.

Now that she was E1, she could fight through most normal combat nodes on her own, and she could always just bail during emergency battles. So that old tactic she used right after transmigrating—skipping floors by stacking three [Foldartals]—was no longer suitable.

And since she still had no other characters, all those tactical squads were basically useless.

So her only choice was Logistics.

That way she could gamble for a collectible on the first floor to power herself up. Even if she didn’t hit the jackpot, she could save currency instead. Facing a money system that never bugged out, Lyra’s efficiency in saving was still pretty high.

【Please select recruitment pool.】

“Follow the Heart.”

Because of the special nature of her weapon, the system could categorize Lyra as Guard, Sniper, or Specialist—any of the three. So most of the time she just chose [Follow the Heart]. If all three draws somehow turned out useless, she could just restart.

On the glowing screen before her, three recruitment tickets slowly materialized: Advanced Defender, Guard, Medic.

Lyra smoothly tapped the Guard ticket and selected herself. Just as she was about to proceed to the next step, the system suddenly stopped her.

[Wait, Host, don’t be in such a rush.]

[Look closely—see how the “Support Recruitment” option on your ticket is lit up?]

“!” Lyra hurriedly tapped the Advanced Defender ticket. Sure enough, in the upper right corner of the screen, the Support Recruitment option had shifted from a dull gray to a bright orange.

[Because you’ve already formed bonds in the real world. Anyone who truly regards you as a friend in their heart… will appear in your Support Recruitment pool.]

“Whoa, is this the legendary True Feelings Detector?” Lyra’s eyes lit up, a little eager. “But hey, System… what if I open it and there’s nobody inside? Wouldn’t that be way too awkward?”

[You need more confidence in yourself, Host. It’s not like what you’re thinking. Why don’t you just open it and see?]

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T/N: names here are uhhh def wrong, i just couldnt be bothered :sob: i just translated the literal translations uhhhh prob not gonna update more until I know theres someone who will correct me >:)

This is a fan translation of 人在崩坏，但是集成战略启动 by 想做饭的饭之律者 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!