Honkai Impact 3: Noah's Ark

16: 《Village》

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《Monday, 3: 15 PM》

The boy shouldn't have been surprised at the speed in which the airship had flown towards their destination. The moment they took off, the boy only remembered spending a few moments inspecting his equipment and glancing outside the window, and before he knew it, the sight of a village atop a small plateau greeted him and the VTOL had started to descend.

He looked at the last member of their four-man group that he hadn't inspected. Katheryn Hill was a Valkyrie that suited herself fully in red BRACE armor, a piece of equipment similar to his Flow in that it absorbs impacts and expels it in a different way to reduce the damage being dealt to the body as much as it can. BRACE was a heavy armor that converted kinetic energy into heat, and he could see that the armor was hooked to her black zweihander, which had exhausts at the guard.

Yes, he was sure now. This woman probably fought in the same way as Major Himeko.

Her eyes caught his and she raised a brow. "What are you looking at?"

You, the boy was about to say, but he stopped. There had been many times where he was asked an innocuous question by Kiana, and when he'd reply honestly, she'd get angry and avoid him for the rest of the day. This had felt like one of those moments, though the emotion felt more like guilt rather than a realization.

Instead, he turned upwards and grabbed onto the rails as the VTOL landed on the grass with a thump. There was a two minute wait for the thrusters to shut down and cool enough so that they don't get blasted with hot air as soon as they stepped outside. The team filed out one-by-one except for Sora.

"You guys can leave me here," he said, not looking over from his seat on the cockpit. "I'll stay in watch."

"Ara, then what are you going to do about food?" Nadeshiko-san asked.

"There's lots of food her. I know where to find them all."

She frowned. "Alright then." Then she turned her back towards him and started towards Tengu village, her pace quite a bit faster than before. Noah nearly had to jog to keep up.

Tengu village appeared to be a well-off farming and lumber settlement that enjoyed a fair bit of import. It was almost big enough to be counted as a town, but wasn't due to the lack of major government buildings like a court and a station. The valley around it was filled with a tall and black-barked breed of yew; one of the new species that emerged after the Third Eruption that was known to be almost as good as a building material as teak, oak, or Narra. The area immediately around it was taken up by rice fields and a few patches of untilled land that still sported the stumps of the black yew.

At the gates, they were greeted by a girl who was also just a little older than Noah. Her straight black hair was tied into a hasty ponytail and beads of sweat were found on her otherwise peach skin. Behind her was a policeman that didn't bother his wild brown hair under a hat.

The girl gave a forced smile as the team approached. "We-welcome, Valkyries," she said, mostly to Ms. Nadeshiko. "I...Kotoge Hana. Tengu no mura e yokoso."

Their team leader opened her mouth and spoke in kind, bringing relief to the nervous girl's expression. Noah still couldn't follow despite his improved Japanese and felt grateful to their Ms. Nadeshiko. The girl named Hana invited them past the gate and guided them through the village.

The settlement was structured in a T-shape following the main road. The modest main administrative building sat at the forefront of the intersection, the market occupied a small channel that started from the gate, and the rest of the town was a collection of mostly two-story traditional houses and specialty stores. Though despite the simplicity of all the architecture, Noah felt that the technology present was far too advanced (i.e. the automatic doors of the hospital, the A.I.-handled counters of the administrative buildings visible through the glass façade) for a remote village.