HI3: Starting from the Previous Civilization

(This story is purely fictional; any resemblance to actual events is purely coincidental. Also this is translation)

(All characters depicted are of legal age.)

"I… Who am I? Where am I? And what am I doing?" Inside a villa, a young man woke up.

Looking at his surroundings—familiar yet strange.

Just this one room alone was bigger than his entire place back home.

"How did my cramped little dump of a room become… this?"

Right when he tried to think more about it, the memories from his previous life started resurfacing. Suddenly, a fragment of memory rushed into his mind.

He remembered heading out for a meal. A large truck suddenly screeched onto the road. At the time, he assumed he was done for, so he pulled out his phone at lightning speed. Through remote control, he wiped the 200GB hard drive on his computer back home…

Then he threw his phone under the truck's wheels. And in that split second, the truck actually stopped right in front of him.

Chen Fan thought he'd just narrowly escaped death. He sighed in relief—until he remembered he'd tossed his phone under the truck. Imagining his phone all smashed to pieces nearly brought him to tears.

But while he was moping over his phone, the truck transformed—a super shape-shifting form. It punched him in the face without any warning.

After that, everything went blank.

"Don't tell me… was I targeted by that Isekai Alliance Trucker? Looks like it. But why does this place feel both strange and familiar?"

'Wait, am I reborn from the womb, or is this just a soul transfer? If it's a soul transfer, why don't I sense any lingering attachments from this body? Did the Isekai Alliance just build me a brand-new body and stuck me in it?'

Chen Fan rubbed his chin in thought.

[system] "Ding! The host's memories have fully awakened. System rebooting."

"∑(;°Д°) Whoa, so I'm not a soul-transfer but a womb-transfer!"

Scratching his chin, Chen Fan wondered, "Wait a minute, where did all my memories for these past years go?"

While thinking, yet another wave of memories flooded his mind.

After about twenty minutes, he had accepted all the memories of these sixteen years. His head didn't hurt that much—just felt a little swollen.

Holding his head, Chen Fan got the gist of his current situation.

Just like that saying online: both parents are gone, but there's a house and a car.

He'd inherited a huge fortune, with a variety of different companies in which his parents held shares. Their will transferred all those shares into his name.

Apparently, his dad had some side investments in a few stable businesses, so Chen Fan could just eat, play around, and live in luxury for hundreds of lifetimes.

Every year, multiple companies would share dividends. He'd basically never run out of money, no matter what. He could earn while lying down—his little dream from his previous life was fulfilled.

Of course, with such a massive inheritance, there would be plenty of people trying to get a cut. But his parents seemed to have anticipated this, and they handled it all beforehand.

During his sixteen years without complete memories, it seemed his mind was slowly awakening piece by piece. In his dreams, he always saw some catastrophic scene. He never told anyone, just kept hearing a voice urging him to study, to work hard.

Everyone around kept saying to their kids, "Look at him—why aren't you like that family's kid?"

…

In this life, his name was still basically the same. A single character, Fan. But he still went by Chen Fan. He found the naming style oddly familiar.

Currently, he was a sixteen-year-old high schooler living in the wealthy district of the Mu Continent.

"Hold on—Mu Continent?"

'No way, no way… Is the world I traveled to the previous civilization from Honkai? That's a major problem for guys, especially if it's the Honkai 2 timeline. Please no…'

Right when Chen Fan was hoping he hadn't ended up in the Honkai world's previous civilization—praying he hadn't stepped into that male-unfriendly universe—the system's announcement crushed his hopes.

[system] "Host, you're correct. You're now in Honkai Impact 3's previous era."

"Aw man, let it all be destroyed… I'm exhausted." Hearing the system confirm it, Chen Fan slumped back onto his bed like a deflated balloon.

But after a moment, he jumped up again. "I've got a system! Even if I can't beat 'em, I can hide in the Sea of Quanta, right?"

Rubbing his hands together like a schemer, Chen Fan smiled into the empty air. "Mighty System, you must have some newbie gift pack for me, right?"

[system] "Host, would you like to open your newbie gift pack? You have a Newbie Ten-Draw available."

Hearing that it was a ten-draw, Chen Fan froze. Then he flopped right back down onto the bed, depressed.

"That's it, I'm doomed. Guess I'll just focus on surviving till the next civilization."

Ever since he was a kid, his luck was horrible. If he wasn't stepping in dog poop, someone in the apartment above was dumping water right onto his head. He'd survived multiple falling-object mishaps. Somehow, he always ended up fine, but just barely.

He remembered going back to the countryside for a bathroom break once. A troublemaking kid blew up the latrine. Because of too much waste, a lot of methane had built up. People in the countryside usually cover the pit with a board, so the gas had nowhere to go.

He'd just finished squatting, about to get up, when suddenly boom—the whole thing collapsed. He was buried right there.

Luckily, people dug him out and rushed him to the ICU.

While both families were talking outside—his folks and the troublemaker's parents—the kid snuck into the ward and unplugged Chen Fan's oxygen tube. The nurses and doctors rushed in just in time to plug it back in.

After that, his life was one big table of misfortunes—cups and bowls everywhere, basically a disaster.

Looking for work was no different. Every time he landed somewhere, that company went under. Not his fault, though. They were the ones dodging taxes.

He singlehandedly brought down a Fortune 500 corporation. That CEO must've been terrified—either of him or of their own shady dealings.

Later, someone posted a bounty on the dark web for his assassination. Each time, though, Chen Fan narrowly escaped, and the assassins died in bizarre ways: some got killed by falling flowerpots, some accidentally shot themselves, one even got hit by a glass marble from a random kid dropping objects from above—perfectly striking the assassin in the back of the head.

Nothing's impossible, only the more impossible.

Over time, a few stubborn hitmen still tried. Until one of them survived the botched assassination and uploaded his terrifying experience, after which no one dared accept the job.

How did Chen Fan even know about all this? Because whenever someone accepted the job, a certain government department would show up, insisting on protecting him around the clock. At first, it scared him, but after so many times, he just got used to it.

From then on, each month, anonymous payments started rolling into his account, with notes attached: "Use this money to just stay home and don't look for a job—and preferably don't go anywhere at all."

Eventually, he gave up and lazed around, since he didn't have to worry about food or rent. Then he got hooked on games. Whenever he tried gacha pulls, it was always the worst luck—he could only get his desired character at the pity counter.

The day he got run over by that truck, he'd just done a ten-pull and drawn ten gold items at once, which made him think his luck had finally turned around. That's why he went out to celebrate…

'Wait… that's it, isn't it? That's probably why I ended up here.'

Moments later, echoing throughout the villa were all sorts of censored words. "I (beep~)… You (beep~) …"

He swore up a storm, then sighed.

No matter how he cursed, going back was impossible. He was already here. Might as well do something.

But then he remembered his weird brand of luck.

'Forget it. Let's not think about that yet. First, figure out how to survive until the next civilization.'

"System, let's do the lottery."

A big roulette wheel appeared before him.

Chen Fan didn't bother eyeing the grand prize—he knew better. He just wanted to see the guaranteed consolation prize.

When he saw that the guarantee was Honkai Resistance, he breathed a sigh of relief.

'As long as I've got a bare minimum of Honkai Resistance, at least I won't suddenly burn to ashes in this world. Others from the novels who end up here always risk random deaths from Honkai infection.'

Soon, the wheel spun ten times. Ten light spheres floated before him: two gold, three purple, four blue, and one white.

"Whoa, ∑(;°Д°)!!!"

"Did I seriously just luck out?"

"Two gold, three purple, four blue, and one white. My previous gacha draws were always just a sea of blues and whites!"

But after checking the rewards, Chen Fan's excited face instantly soured.

He forced a laugh that was uglier than crying. "Hahaha… so my luck hasn't really changed after all."