Whether Durandal had picked up on it remained a mystery, but Elysia, who carried a flicker of memory from her time within Fire Moth, caught the subtext instantly.
She didn't breathe a word of warning, though. No matter how Durandal chose to handle it, Elysia was behind her all the way.
Besides, even if Durandal fumbled the response, what of it? In its current state, Fire Moth was reduced to playing these sorts of pathetic, underhanded games.
As long as Schicksal remained the world's most effective shield against the Honkai, no amount of mudslinging from the outside would ever stick.
In truth, this was the same fundamental reason why Fire Moth had managed to endure until the bitter end in the original timeline, despite their constant, self-destructive blunders.
Furthermore, Elysia kept her silence to drive home a point: within Schicksal, Durandal was the only one who called the shots. No one else was going to step in or speak over her.
If they tried to explain to the Fire Moth crowd that Schicksal practiced flat management—where anyone could bring their ideas directly to Durandal—Elysia figured their brains would probably short-circuit.
People like that only believed what they wanted to believe. And right now, they wanted to believe Schicksal was a dictatorship under Durandal's thumb.
"Miyuki."
Her smile fading, Durandal reached out through that unique, wordless connection she shared with the girl, summoning her.
A moment later, Miyuki arrived, riding the literal arc of a lightning bolt.
Her sudden appearance sent a shockwave through the Fire Moth delegation.
It wasn't that they recognized her as a survivor of those human experiments; rather, it was because the Honkai energy detectors carried by several members began to let out a shrill, "screeching" alarm.
"Is this... a Herrscher reaction?"
Speaker Eren looked at Durandal, his face a mask of shock. "Schicksal is actually harboring a Herrscher in its ranks?!"
To be fair, Eren was genuinely stunned, but a man of his calculated depth wouldn't normally let it show so plainly.
This display was a performance—he was grabbing for the moral high ground, ready to launch a judicial offensive against Durandal and her organization.
He had been fretting over how to handle the rivalry between Fire Moth and Schicksal, and here the opponent was, handing him live ammunition on a silver platter. If the setting weren't so formal, he might have burst out laughing.
"Miyuki, that man is the mastermind behind the human experiments. I'm leaving him to you," Durandal said, completely ignoring Eren as she spoke to the girl who had just manifested. "But remember—don't kill him. He still needs to face a legal trial."
Upon hearing this, Miyuki's dark eyes flashed with the jagged glare of a thunderstorm.
The air around them grew heavy with static, leaving the Fire Moth group feeling a numb, prickling sensation all over their skin. By the time they shook off the lethargy, both Miyuki and the targeted councilman had vanished into thin air.
"Miss Durandal, don't you think a reasonable explanation is in order regarding the Herrscher living within Schicksal? Otherwise, we will be forced to conclude that these Honkai outbreaks might just be a conspiracy cooked up by your organization!"
Speaker Eren was brimming with confidence.
Among his entourage, someone was specifically tasked with a hidden camera to record every second of this meeting, hoping to edit together something "interesting" later.
He hadn't expected Schicksal to hand him such a massive self-inflicted wound before he even made his move. He was certain that with this leverage, Schicksal would have no choice but to back down if they didn't want to become public enemy number one.
However, Durandal only spared him a frigid glance. "First of all, Miyuki is a victim of those human experiments. Second, even if she is a Herrscher, so what? Do you have proof?"
"Of course, we—"
Eren started to brag about the video recording being transmitted in real-time back to Fire Moth headquarters—his ultimate ace in the hole.
Without that security, he never would have dared to speak so boldly to a woman with Durandal's terrifying combat prowess.
But Durandal only offered him a thin, knowing smirk. "Speaker Eren, have you ever heard of electromagnetic interference? It's a very common tactic in modern warfare. Two sides clash, and the first thing they do is jam the signals to paralyze any unprotected electronic equipment."
She didn't spell it out, but the implication was deafening.
Sure enough, Eren's face went pale. He spun around to the staff member carrying the camera, only to see the man staring down at his equipment in a panic.
The aide tried to contact headquarters to see how much data had actually made it through, but when he pulled out his communication device, he found it was completely fried.
Another staffer, the one holding the Honkai detector, turned to Eren with a ghost-white face. The detector was dead, and the stored data was unrecoverable.
"It seems your equipment has malfunctioned. Would you like to borrow one of ours to call your headquarters?" Durandal asked, the corners of her mouth curling upward.
Eren's expression turned leaden.
His trump card had been neutralized in a single breath, leaving him with a hollow sense of powerlessness.
In the face of absolute strength, schemes and plots often withered away—a lesson Eren was currently learning the hard way.
"Heh... it seems there's been a misunderstanding. Lady Durandal, we came here primarily to learn from Schicksal's advanced experiences."
Eren was a veteran politician through and through; it took him only a moment to adjust his mask. He flashed a perfectly polite smile, and his address shifted instantly from "Miss Durandal" to "Lady Durandal."
Durandal, however, was finished wasting her breath.
Catching sight of Connie finishing her meeting with Hayato and the others out of the corner of her eye, she immediately pawned Eren and his group off on her.
Then, she took Elysia by the hand and made her exit as if she were fleeing a plague.
Back in the office, Elysia looked at Durandal's expression—which looked like she had just swallowed a fly—and leaned in to comfort her.
"Alright, don't let those party-poopers get to you. Didn't you say you wanted to head to the Sundown Alley? I've already contacted the pharmaceutical plant; they've churned out a batch of Honkai suppressants and loaded them onto the airship. We're just waiting on your word to set sail."
"Sundown Alley?"
Durandal's expression shifted slightly before she nodded. "I'm planning to bring Eden along this time. It'll be a good chance to settle the details of the songs with her on the ship."
"Besides, Sundown Alley deals with a lot of poverty issues, and Connie won't be able to get away for a few days. With Eden's knack for business, she might be able to suggest some real solutions for them."
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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL