Honkai: Star Rail – Banner Character, Delivering Knives to the Player [3]

Different world. Different timeline.

Ah Xian breezed through the prologue tutorial.

Familiar steps: pick the Trailblazer, say goodbye to Kafka, and fast-forward all the way to the banner unlock.

Which brought her to the scene where the little gray-hair meets Himeko and Asta for the first time.

“Looks like the launch build didn’t change much. Not surprising, considering how polished the paid beta already was.”

She pressed F3 to open the banner page, covered the QR code area, and instantly dumped ten 648-yuan top-ups into pulls.

“You can’t go soft at launch. Time for an E6S5 Seele. To everyone who wins, contact a mod in the group chat to claim your prize. The doujin’ll have to wait for now.”

[Filthy rich behavior!]
[Rig seven banners already! Go, go!]
[Seven’s not enough — rig the weapon banner two or three times too! Kekeke~]
[Chat is actual demons.]
[Fast pulls, no hesitation = guaranteed bad luck!]

A lot of streamers would pad their runtime for drama — watching the full animation every pull, clicking each card individually, claiming it was about “ritual” or “anticipation.”

Ah Xian did none of that. Her pulls were lightning-fast click + skip animation. Straight to the ten-pull results.

And her first ten-pull? She hit Seele — the launch-banner unit.

For a moment, the chat was just rolling lines of question marks.

[Was that really Ah Xian?]
[Impossible. Absolutely impossible.]

“Thanks for all the love, fam~ Keep the max-pity blessings coming. I can take it.”

[She’s faking it! Fake humble streamer alert!]

Unfortunately, her luck didn’t last. She hit soft pity and got Yanqing instead. Then full hard pity before Seele #2 finally arrived.

[Now that’s justice!]
[Lmao.]
[Who was just asking for full pity, again?]
[Smiling through my screen now.]

Seeing all the salt-bait in chat, Ah Xian rolled her eyes.

She lifted her water glass with one hand and kept pulling with the other.

She didn’t skip the animation this time. While the tickets flew across the screen, no telltale red glow appeared.

No five-star.

Unbothered, she clicked to end the animation.

Just as she was about to close the results screen and move on—

She froze.

In the purple box that marked a four-star pull… was a silhouetted character. A jet-black figure.

“Huh? What the hell is this?”

“A new character?”

She clicked the box instinctively, and the screen shifted to the character info page.

In the center: a humanoid shadow, features obscured.

All details were listed as question marks.

Path: Unknown.
Element: Unknown.
Abilities: Unknown.

Judging by the height, she guessed hesitantly:

“Young man...? No—adult male?”

“But that outline doesn’t match any known four-star male character…”

There were only three four-star male characters at launch.

Dan Heng from the starting trio, Arlan from the Space Station, and Sampo from Belobog.

That was it.

If she was confused, the chat — most of whom hadn’t even touched beta — were completely lost.

Ah Xian opened her inventory, found a Nihility Light Cone, and zoomed in on the red-haired character in the art to compare.

“Doesn’t look like this guy from behind either. Weird…”

[Bugged, maybe?]
[Could be a future four-star that accidentally got patched into launch files.]
[Wouldn’t be the first time.]
[This is great. First day and we’ve got a mystery.]
[Let the bugs rain down! Maybe we’ll get a ten-pull as compensation.]
[No complaints from me.]

Scratching her head, Ah Xian went to the official wiki to cross-check.

And froze again when she saw the same silhouette listed under the four-star character tab.

This unknown character… actually existed.

She tried to click for details, but a note popped up instead:

[Character information unlocks automatically upon player encounter during story.]

“What the hell is this? Hiding a four-star like it’s some top-secret boss? What’s your problem?”

“Still… I take back what I said earlier.”

“There is something new in the launch version. A brand-new character means the story must’ve changed, too.”

“But seriously, who knows where in the plot he shows up?”

“The beta only went up to early Xianzhou. If he appears later, that’s a long way off.”

“Mysterious, huh? Well, I hope he at least looks good.”

Shaking it off, Ah Xian went back to her gacha grind.

...

A few minutes later—

She slumped in her chair, utterly defeated, and clicked her final ten-pull.

It was a trainwreck.

Seele’s last Eidolon — full 160 pulls to max pity.

As if that wasn’t enough, her bad luck continued: no Bailu, no Gepard. Not a single one of them.

Only silver lining? She got Bronya’s E2.

“Ugh… Guess I’ll have to rely on Natasha and March 7th to get by for now…”

An E6S5 Seele, and not even a five-star survival unit to back her up.

Sure, brute force could carry most content, but if you could win comfortably, who in their right mind would choose to suffer?

“And look who shows up again. The mystery boy — he really likes me. Fifth copy, huh?”

“…Wait, no. Different silhouette. Oh — it’s a Light Cone.”

Ah Xian's forehead darkened with cartoonish stress lines.

“Seriously? Now even the Light Cone art’s hidden? …Wait, no — the stats aren’t!”

[Dependable and Proper Hobbies]

Level: 1/80
Base HP: 43
Base ATK: 19
Base DEF: 18
Applies only to the [Abundance] Path

Shadowstep I
Joy in Motion
Increases wearer’s healing output by 12%.
When triggering a follow-up attack that inflicts a debuff, restore 2% Energy to other allies.

“Follow-up attacks?”

Ah Xian frowned, thinking it through.

There were only two Abundance characters in the launch version.

Natasha (freebie), and Bailu (standard pool jackpot).

Neither had follow-ups in their kits.

This Light Cone not only required follow-up attacks, it also required those attacks to inflict debuffs.

Completely niche. Absolutely unusable by anyone else.

Which meant it probably belonged to that mysterious character.

So he was Abundance, too?

A healer/support unit who could follow up and apply debuffs?

Weird combo.

Even the name was strange:

“Dependable and Proper Hobbies”?

She opened the flavor text.

“What are your hobbies?”
“Watching the faces of people who realize they can’t beat me — and feel even worse for trying.”
“…Isn’t that a bit sadistic?”
“Kidding. I’m a perfectly respectable, upstanding adult...”
“…Fine. One, two, three — cheese~”

“…Okay, is that normal? Can I get a live translator? Every possible reading sounds like he just enjoys emotionally torturing people.”

And the girl with pink hair in the conversation — was that March 7th? Or Asta?

[Seems fine to me.]
[I main top-lane Zilean. Checks out.]
[Jungle suicide-clown here, also feel seen.]
[5k Shaco matches reporting in. Pure vibes.]
[Bro… why are so many of you actual chaos players. Please go touch grass.]

Ah Xian’s face darkened.

Of course her chat would drag up every champ that had ever tilted her in Summoner’s Rift.

She ignored the chaos and pushed on with the story.

She had to admit, this mysterious four-star had her hooked.

What kind of kit did he have? What kind of personality?

---

T/N: hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm

This is a fan translation of 崩铁：卡池角色，给玩家发刀 by 三十度幻. 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!