"Yes, Lord Bishop." Reanna Brigantia's voice carried a trace of joy. If she did not have to personally slaughter yesterday's friends, that would be for the best.
After Reanna Brigantia left to arrange the visit, Otto looked at Vill-V with an expression that suggested everything was under control. He smiled with evident satisfaction.
"Well? Are you pleased with my arrangements?"
"Huh?" Vill-V had no idea what he was referring to.
"You mean... the trap laid for Anti-Entropy, or the trap laid for me?"
"Hahaha, don't worry." Otto did not deny the existence of a trap. Holding his wineglass, he rose and walked to Vill-V's side. Then he pulled out the chair beside her and sat down in front of her with elegant composure.
"There is no need for disguises here. I sincerely wish to become your friend, Miss Vill-V."
Otto's features softened, his tone earnest—like an old acquaintance of many years.
"I believe you truly come from the future. Which means... you know everything about me. Am I correct?"
As everyone knew, when Otto spoke like this, he already had a certain degree of confidence. Otherwise, he would not ask a question whose answer he supposedly already knew.
Vill-V blinked, then nodded. "Yes. That's right."
"Hahaha... good... very good..."
Otto laughed heartily. He suddenly lifted his glass and poured all the red wine down his throat in one go. Then, in a flamboyant gesture, he wiped the droplets from his lips with his sleeve and looked at Vill-V with a gaze she found difficult to describe.
The eyes were the windows to the soul.
And Otto no longer concealed the emotions within his heart.
Affection, pain, despair, confusion, madness, anticipation... a storm of emotions flickered through those hollow emerald eyes in a single instant.
At that moment, he became more emotionally expressive than any dramatist.
No one could contain so many emotions in a single glance.
If someone could...
Then that person could only be a madman.
And not just any madman.
A madman with faith. With emotions. With reason.
...
If Reanna Brigantia had been present, she would have been astonished. She had never seen the Bishop in such a state.
Even Vill-V felt a faint stir at that gaze.
So this is the look in the eyes of a five-hundred-year-old man... Tsk. Impressive.
Of course, Vill-V would not abandon verbal probing simply because Otto's eyes had changed.
"Hey, d-don't look at me like that... I'll get shy..."
After all, Vill-V was merely an eighteen-year-old girl. How could she withstand the intensity of a five-hundred-year-old man's stare?
Otto remained unmoved. Perhaps five hundred years ago, his gaze might have softened. But now, his heart had long since hardened into unyielding stone.
The atmosphere grew heavy, pressing down like a massive weight. Even the air seemed to congeal within Otto's words.
"Tell me. Otto's plan... did it succeed?"
An imitation Fenghuang Down condensed above Vill-V's head and slowly drifted downward...
...
"Did Otto's plan succeed?"
To someone like Reanna Brigantia, the Bishop's trusted Valkyrie, "success" might have meant defeating the Honkai or saving humanity.
That misunderstanding would not have been her fault.
Ever since Kallen's death, Otto had never again opened his hollow heart to anyone.
For those who truly understood the man named Otto, there had always been only one answer capable of filling that void—resurrecting his beloved, resurrecting the people's Saint, resurrecting Kallen Kaslana.
But merely understanding this was not enough.
If it were another transmigrator standing here, they might already be playing the prophet—claiming that Otto would succeed, revealing fragments of the future to win his trust.
But Vill-V was different.
Once a devoted fan, she understood Otto.
And precisely because she understood him too well, she knew... the damn dog Otto had just drawn his blade.
You just said you sincerely wanted to be my friend, and now you're already pulling a knife. So for Otto, a friend is just a sheath for the blade, huh?
The crux of the question was not its phrasing.
Otto was serious.
And Otto was not shallow.
He did not ask how to save her.
He asked whether the plan had succeeded.
That single difference concealed a massive pitfall.
What exactly was Otto's plan?
In the future, Otto would naturally have his plan to climb the Imaginary Tree—and he would succeed.
But what about Otto now?
The Otto of the present... had no concrete plan at all.
So whether she answered yes or no, both would be wrong.
Did she think she could win Otto's trust by answering a trap question?
What a pipe dream.
That would not make her Otto's friend.
That would make her Otto's pawn.
First of all, Otto was no longer the courteous, Valkyrie-protecting young man from five hundred years ago. Nor was he the priest who had adopted special orphans on that small Venetian island turned cemetery.
Since the Saint's children—Otto's students—had departed from this world, this man had never touched the light again.
On the day Kallen died, the last thread binding Otto to ordinary life was buried alongside her—together with his gentleness.
Five centuries of obsession and madness had allowed the darkness and malice suppressed within him to spill forth completely. Until the day Theresa set off firecrackers in Schicksal's arsenal, he would not change.
Secondly, Otto knew very well that from the very beginning, his path was a dead end. That was the source of his darkness and madness.
He had once told his own deceased conscience:
"I have waded two feet deep into a pool of blood. If I do not continue forward through the blood, then turning back would be equally repulsive."
And so he transcended all reason, dismissed all doubt, and clung to his impossible hope.
That was why he advanced blindly and despairingly.
He did not believe in souls.
He did not believe in miracles.
Even if countless innocents and those who trusted him were dragged down with him, he continued onward—simply to deny the fact of Kallen's death.
Which was to say...
This question...
Was not merely a trap.
It was a death sentence.
Not a trap—yet deadlier than one.
Arrogant Otto longed to know the answer to this question, yet simultaneously disdained it.
Because in the eyes of this man forged by obsession, there could only ever be one answer—Kallen would inevitably be resurrected. Nothing more.
To answer the question meant either boarding Otto's pirate ship—becoming his accomplice...
Or waiting to be crushed beneath him.
Regardless of whether the answer was correct or not, Otto would continue down his path without hesitation.
He might even kill someone who knew the plan—just to amuse himself.