After a brief silence, the account Haven't Been a Girl Boss in Months was the first to recover.
"Nothing to do with me~ I'm just a heartless copy-paste machine!"
Don't Disturb My Sleep: "(Same.)" +1
Making a Hua Figurine Right Now: "(Same.)" +1
Hua: "I even tried to stop you!"
Snek: "Hehe, Elysia, you'd better brace yourself~~~"
Sweet and Spicy Girl: "...sneakily testing the waters.jpg"
Sweet and Spicy Girl: "I was wrong~"
Sweet and Spicy Girl: "muttering under my breath.jpg"
--+--
Three messages popped up almost at once. Durandal merely shook her head without saying anything, then handed the phone back to Elysia.
"You didn't delete the photo?"
Elysia took her phone back. She hadn't been able to see what Durandal was doing just now, but she was certain deleting the photo hadn't been part of it.
At the same time, an ominous feeling crept into her heart, and she hurriedly looked at the screen. The group chat was still open, and messages were flooding across it. Both of those facts made Elysia's heart tighten.
She quickly scrolled upward and soon found the message Durandal had written and sent from her account.
We're doomed.jpg.
Mobius's prediction had really come true.
Durandal had used Elysia's social media account to post a message like that. What did that imply? Aside from Durandal and Elysia herself, she didn't even dare imagine what everyone else was picturing right now.
Great. Elysia was certain someone in the group would screenshot that message today and turn it into a reaction image to tease her with for years to come.
Durandal's embarrassing-history counter had gone up by one, and now Elysia's had happily gone up by one too.
What did you call this?
Wives in perfect sync!
Elysia could've cried.
And Durandal wasn't finished.
Seeing Elysia's wonderfully complicated expression, which was every bit as dramatic as Durandal's own face when she'd seen that photo of herself holding a megaphone and telling stories, filled Durandal with deep satisfaction.
She swept Elysia up around the waist, instantly switched into her Bright Knight: Excelsis battlesuit, activated stealth mode, and took to the air toward their hotel.
"That was only the interest."
Even through the roaring wind, Elysia heard Durandal's words with perfect clarity.
"Then I'll be looking forward to the rest!?"
If nothing else, Elysia refused to lose the battle of nerve.
"I hope your voice is still that lovely in a little while."
As she spoke, Durandal landed with Elysia on the balcony of their room.
--+--
Durandal and Elysia had vanished without warning, and Durandal's expression had turned awful halfway through telling her story.
For a while, Aponia and Pardofelis thought something serious had happened within Schicksal, so they kept trying to fish for answers from Eden.
Eden, for her part, hadn't figured out what had happened right away. She'd been engrossed in Durandal's story too, and she hadn't marked the group chat for priority notifications, so new messages didn't alert her.
It wasn't until someone with the nickname Haven't Been a Girl Boss in Years, saved in her contacts as Connie, sent her a private message that she noticed anything.
"Check the group! Then come back and tell me what's happening there! I need my ship fuel.jpg"
Eden hurried into the group and started from the first unread message. Once she'd seen Elysia's two posts and everyone's reactions, she immediately understood what had happened.
Naturally, Eden didn't explain any of this to Aponia or Pardofelis. She simply let them assume some confidential matter had come up that she wasn't allowed to discuss.
After all, while Aponia had already joined Schicksal, she still hadn't been added to the group chat. Pardofelis hadn't even joined the organization yet.
If those two learned the embarrassing secrets of the leader and deputy leader during this little gap, both women would instantly know who'd leaked them.
Eden had no desire to put herself in danger.
She did, however, reply to Connie.
"It's exactly what you think."
After that, Eden received no further messages from her. Apparently, Connie had already overdosed on ship fuel.
"Pardofelis, you wouldn't mind taking me to your home for a visit, would you?"
Setting the leader and deputy leader aside, what Eden cared about most right now was recruiting Pardofelis into the organization. So while the goodwill from sharing a bed last night and going clothes shopping together that morning was still fresh, she made her request.
Pardofelis froze. She wanted to refuse, because there truly wasn't anything worth seeing at her tiny place, especially for a rich young woman like Eden.
But then she saw the hopeful look on Eden's face and glanced at the piles of shopping bags sitting beside them. Eden had sent her away when it was time to pay, but Pardofelis wasn't stupid. She didn't even need to look at the price tags in those stores to know the clothes had cost a fortune.
The reason she hadn't complained was simple. She'd already decided she'd repay Eden with something of equal value.
And now, while she was still feeling indebted to her, how could Pardofelis possibly bring herself to say no?
Still, she made one last desperate attempt.
"My place... it's really dirty and messy. You won't like it, Eden!"
"Why wouldn't I? I don't think you're someone who neglects her hygiene or refuses to clean her room."
Eden shook her head, refusing to accept Pardofelis's excuse. She understood what the girl really meant. Pardofelis probably wasn't describing the inside of her home at all, but the neighborhood around it.
Given Pardofelis's background, even if she'd been lucky enough to find somewhere with a roof over her head, it was most likely tucked away somewhere in the slums.
"Besides, I've got these!"
Eden suddenly pulled a pair of pistols from one of her shopping bags and showed them to Pardofelis.
"You don't have to worry about safety along the way. I might not be as strong as the leader or deputy leader, but I'm hardly a helpless girl either. When it comes to shooting, I'm quite confident."
"Those guns..."
Pardofelis stared at the old-fashioned flintlock pistols in Eden's hands and hesitated.
Eden could tell exactly what she was thinking. Almost everyone who saw her draw those weapons reacted the same way.
"The appearance was custom-made at my request," Eden explained. "But as for their actual power... they might even outperform a sniper rifle."
After all, what those guns fired wasn't bullets.
It was Honkai energy.
Eden left that part unsaid.
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL