ELF

**ELF** is the 0.02nd volume of the *Honkai Impact 3rd* manga.

### Summary

Schrodinger roams the Sea of Quanta. In her journey, she lands in a bubble world with tiny humanoid robots called ELFs. The little ELFs are agape at her presence, not used to seeing someone so big before. One of them (Jingwei's Wings) asks her if she's human, to which the surrounding ELFs act confused about. They shrug Schrodinger off as fake and continue on their way, despite Jingwei's Wings's (JW) insistence.

Schrodinger analyzes the remaining ELF, much to its annoyance, and it rants about how it tried to teach other ELFs about humans-- even building a human replica to try and show them one (it promptly blew up). She notices a big tree and asks JW about it. It happily shows her around.

Apparently, this place was called Mu before the humans went extinct.

JW leads her to a temple with an old computer inside. Obviously, it doesn't know what it is, and asks Schrodinger to uncover the "riddle" (the password), since she's a human.

Schrodinger figures out the password and a message is played back to her.

In it, a scientist named EINSTEIN details the progress and development of Project **E.L.F.** (**E**quipment: **L**iving **F**orm).

It turns out this scientist is from the Previous Era, and started Project ELF in an attempt to lower casualty rates of human soldiers, as demanded by her superiors. In this stage of the Previous Era, life was the most precious resource they had, thus the need for another method of combat.

The ELFs themselves were combat droids designed to be capable of independent action. Each of them were furnished with a Pseudo-Core, which was built using Soulium with pre-scripted programs. They also inherit combat data, thus making them veterans as soon as they are born.

They were imprinted with 3 directives in their programming:

* Regard any Honkai as a hostile and defeat them.
* Do not harm humans
* Survive (added specifically by EINSTEIN)

Their minds were also linked, thus making it easy for them to learn from each other.

The survival directive proved to make their decisions smarter-- as they tried to get through battles with the least amount of casualties possible. Project ELF was a huge success. They managed to push back Honkai for quite some time, but the victory left a bitter taste in their mouths. Due to their directives, and their partnership with one another, they began to form a higher intelligence-- thus realizing they did not want a life of war. Because humans ordered them to fight Honkai, which resulted in death for some units, they found humanity indirectly at fault.

They started rejecting human orders.

Soon enough, they approached the humans in forms of protest. Humans didn't care much for what they thought, however, and conflict sparked between the two groups. It got to the point where negotiation was necessary, so the government sent out EINSTEIN. She decided that since they were clearly sentient, they should be owed the rights owed to humans. The freedom to decide one's path and actions was installed as a new directive. Satisfied, the ELF resistance ceased.

But then the 9th Herrscher, Herrscher of Earth, was born a year later. It released a black hole that threatened the entirety of the Mu continent with extinction. EINSTEIN created a portal to the Sea of Quanta, and Mu, along with its peoples, became one of the bubble worlds drifting in the Sea. The survivors thought they won, but they soon realized the continent had been so brutalized that Honkai energy was seeping into the soul.

The humans would not be able to survive.

EINSTEIN notes in the recording the irony of it all, but says she is proud of her creation. Without the threat of Honkai, and no humans, they would now truly be free. They would be able to be at peace. And she was glad for that.

The recording ends, and Schrodinger deletes all data related to humans. She breaks the CD containing the information.

JW comes back and asks her if she had any luck, to which Schrodinger lies and says she hasn't. JW was disappointed, but said it would try to unearth it itself. It leads Schrodinger around to see more of the place.

### Side Notes

For some reason, the official manga station does not show the complete manga. (I would suggest manga//dex// but it is down at the moment.)

The Previous Era called "Herrscher of Stars" by "Herrscher of Earth". The Current Era renamed it to the former.

ELFs in game are not representative of canon ELFs, which are still on Mu.