That head made of precise machinery turned in silence.
The moment Bai Qian finished seeing the image, it vanished like a mirage—along with the surrounding starry sky—leaving nothing behind.
Bai Qian looked like he was still alive. In reality, his soul had already left the building for a while.
He felt… deflated.
Isekai Navigator, as the name suggested, was an app that could take you into someone's heart-Palace.
Once activated, you'd enter a twisted inner world formed by an intense desire.
Defeat that person's distorted heart within it, and their warped desire would disappear.
Bai Qian had always felt this thing could be used as a hypnosis app.
When Pointy-Hat Lady fell into trouble, the app popped a warning, and Bai Qian realized it might be even more capable than he'd thought—so he'd already mentally prepared for "transmigration" happening again.
Transmigration was fine.
But swapping bodies—what the hell was that?
He'd gone from a male body… stuffed into a female one?
Still, compared to cursed-image jumpscare transmigration and battling false gods, this almost felt more reasonable.
Bai Qian was used to weirdness. A few deep breaths later, he calmed down.
That machine-head from earlier also looked vaguely familiar—like something terrifying from a game he'd played before.
It was gone now. The surrounding space seemed safe. So first things first: confirm the body he was in.
He raised his hand.
A hand so pale it was almost translucent; long, slender fingers; nails trimmed smooth and rounded, lacquered in a beautiful purple.
These were not the hands of a man who brewed coffee, played games, and occasionally moonlit as a Phantom Thief.
He looked down.
He wore a complex purple-black robe made of sleek fabric. A faint coolness brushed his chest. A white sash cinched his waist to an absurdly narrow line.
Below that were black pantyhose hugging his legs all the way into a pair of uniquely shaped boots.
Everything about him screamed: I cost a fortune.
Yeah… the outfit felt familiar, but he couldn't place it.
He guided the body into a seated position. The movement was surprisingly smooth—no awkwardness at all.
Sitting on the ground, he could finally get a better look at his legs.
Long. Straight. Proportions too perfect to look human.
The black pantyhose wrapped every inch of skin tightly, displaying the full curve of those legs without mercy.
The thighs were the most eye-catching. A pale black garter ring sat snugly against them. Even through the fabric, the softness felt like it could push through the weave—one light press and the touch came back plush yet springy, like the finest mousse cake, the imprint taking a moment to bounce back.
The knees were small and round. The calves tapered into smooth lines, gathering at slender ankles.
"…I remember now. These legs belong to Big Herta."
The instant he saw them, Bai Qian recognized whose body this was.
He might call himself a galgame master, but he played everything—gacha games included. He'd touched plenty of them.
He wasn't a settings nerd, and he didn't keep playing long-term, but he'd seen bits of the story—just not memorized it.
Sigh… he hadn't recognized Pointy-Hat Lady, hadn't recognized the machine-head, but the moment he saw familiar legs, he remembered.
And the way he recognized her…
Bai Qian decided he should probably set aside time to "fix his own heart" someday.
Hopefully, when he entered his own Palace, it wouldn't be full of scantily dressed characters surrounding some grotesque, twisted version of him.
"So I'm in Herta's body from before heading to Amphoreus? And Black Swan already gave coordinates?"
The priority was understanding what was going on.
He thought of that strange chat group.
"Chat group… chat group…"
He muttered while searching pockets in the skirt. He pulled out a phone.
It was kind of funny. The tech tree over in the Honkai: Star Rail side was absurdly high, yet they still used something as mundane as a smartphone.
Who knew how Herta managed to connect to the group in the first place.
He unlocked it, found the group chat icon, and focused on the screen.
[Pointy-Hat Lady]: …Why did I suddenly end up in a man's body? Anyway, the problem's temporarily solved.
[Pointy-Hat Lady]: @Phantom Thieves' Lao Da Was that your doing?
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: Coffee shop? Got anything good?
[Dragon Sis Is Dragon]: Is it safe?
[AAA Customer Service Xiao Xiang]: Eh? Are you okay?!
[Pointy-Hat Lady]: …You guys aren't actually Masked Fools, are you? Why is the first question "is the coffee good"?!
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: You already said the problem's solved, so I figured no need to say it twice. Pretty smart, right?
[Pointy-Hat Lady]: Truly, great wisdom looks like stupidity… @Phantom Thieves' Lao Da How are you? You okay?
Coffee shop… Herta lowered her head to look.
Faded blue jeans. A white T-shirt. Simple from head to toe, with a faint coffee scent clinging to him.
A tall male body.
She'd prepared for months to meet the machine-head and ask something important.
She got her answer… but when the machine-head began calculating, Herta gradually realized the result had nothing to do with what she'd asked.
The more intense the calculation became, the more her instincts screamed at her not to look.
Herta always treated her instincts as sudden flashes of insight. She didn't blindly trust them, but she always found something in them.
This time, she felt like the machine-head had set her up.
If she saw what it calculated, her fate would slide into the abyss with time.
She might die.
If death was the price for the truth she sought, she wouldn't care that much.
But dying inside the machine-head's scheme? Herta preferred to live a bit longer.
And yet… she was so curious what the machine-head was calculating.
Reason and desire tangled together, and Herta made a choice that didn't feel like her.
She tossed the dice and let the dice decide her life.
The cry for help in the group chat—that was the die she'd thrown.
For her, curiosity was no less precious than life itself.
If no one interrupted, she'd accept fate.
If someone did interrupt… she'd ask later.
But that machine-head… damn it. It absolutely knew she wouldn't be able to resist!
Nous was screwing with her!
"Machine-head, you're setting me up! Fine—then I'll hit back hard!"
Herta fumed.
Sooner or later, she'd dismantle that pretentious, dead-playing, occasionally-awake machine-head.
She'd remember this grudge!
After venting furiously at Nous in her mind, Herta returned her attention to the chat.
From the very beginning, she'd suspected the Masked Fools were the ones who pulled her into this group.
Chats that spanned planets existed everywhere, but this one couldn't be traced by any instrument—so she'd gotten curious and occasionally spoke up.
She hadn't expected the group to actually help her this time.
So the group members weren't enemies wishing for each other's deaths… they were benefactors!
"…Ah."
Bai Qian stared at her message and fell silent.
His method?
He didn't even know he had the ability to swap bodies.
Forget it.
He sighed. This wasn't the time to argue.
[Phantom Thieves' Lao Da]: You're fine now. You should've swapped bodies with me.
[Pointy-Hat Lady]: Good. Wait—don't tell me what you saw over there.
[Want Campus Springtime With Mei]: Explain in detail. What do you mean, "swap bodies"?
[Dragon Sis Is Dragon]: Swap bodies… weird sense of déjà vu.
[AAA Customer Service Xiao Xiang]: Kimi no na wa?
"Good. As long as he's okay."
Seeing Bai Qian reply, Herta finally relaxed.
Dragging an ordinary person into this kind of thing wasn't something a genius should do.
Thinking that, she typed again:
[Pointy-Hat Lady]: Then how do we swap back?
The chat fell into a long silence. Maybe everyone understood how serious this was; the others didn't speak.
Time dragged until Herta started to panic.
[Phantom Thieves' Lao Da]: We can't swap back.
[Pointy-Hat Lady]: ?
Herta stared at the message—and for once, she couldn't even think of what to say.
What do you mean you swapped bodies with me… and we can't swap back?
-------
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