Sitting on the barren wasteland, Talulah stared up at the lingering Catastrophe clouds in the sky, silently lamenting how utterly cursed her luck had been throughout this trip. Just how much bad luck was one person expected to endure?
Not long ago, she had been working tirelessly in Chernobog day in and day out to help build and stabilize the city. Then, rumors reached them that Infected in Victoria were seeking assistance from Reunion. The scouts sent ahead reported back that the local situation was far too tangled for them to resolve alone.
Following a series of intense discussions, Talulah decided to hand temporary administrative duties to the leadership council while she personally traveled to Victoria to inspect the situation.
Naturally, she wasn't without her own quiet personal motives. Deep down, she wanted to see Victoria with her own eyes—to catch a glimpse of the ancestral lands where her forebears had once walked.
While the departure of a leader was no small matter, Reunion was stable enough that granting its figurehead a modest leave was hardly unreasonable. With capable commanders managing the city and Fafnir—a literal dragon—returning to safeguard the territory, the motion had passed through council without much resistance.
Yet the moment Talulah stepped out of Chernobog, misfortune clung to her like a shadow!
First, she ran headfirst into a massive swarm of rabid Originium Slugs. Then, a sudden Catastrophe blocked her path, forcing her to abandon her planned route through Leithanien and Siracusa and take a long, agonizing detour.
And now, a localized Catastrophe storm had literally flipped her transport upside down in the middle of nowhere!
At this point, "unlucky" didn't even begin to cover it. Talulah genuinely wondered if she had committed some unspeakable crime to earn such divine retribution from the heavens.
Sighing, she took a bitter bite from a hard ration biscuit, trying to figure out her next move. There were no nearby settlements capable of repairing a ruined transport. Even if a workshop existed somewhere over the horizon, hauling a multi-ton frame across the wasteland on her back was completely out of the question.
Right then, a low mechanical rumble echoed across the quiet plain.
Someone is actually driving through the wilderness right after a Catastrophe storm? Talulah thought, bewildered. Only a reckless idiot with no sense of self-preservation would do something that foolish!
Still, a spark of relief flared in her chest. If the driver proved reasonable, perhaps they could offer her a ride to the nearest town. So long as she could reach a communications relay to contact Reunion, she would be immensely grateful.
Of course, if they turned out to be bandits seeking an easy mark, that was even better. Convincing criminals with her fists was a task she found far more straightforward than polite negotiation.
Her real concern was encountering a stubborn, uncooperative traveler. If they refused to grant her a lift, she could hardly resort to violence against an innocent bystander. The thought made her sigh in frustration.
Shrinking back near the overturned wreck, Talulah slid her heavy broadsword behind the metal frame to hide it. She watched the incoming vehicle come to a halt and observed the driver stepping out to inspect the area.
She was just preparing a polite opening line when—
She threw every piece of manners straight out the window.
The moment she recognized the driver's face, Talulah didn't care whether this person was willing to offer her a ride. In a single, explosive leap, she pounced forward, tackling the figure directly into the dirt and pinning her down with a cold, triumphant smirk.
"So you finally remembered how to return home!" Talulah growled, leaning down like a bandit terrorizing an unsuspecting traveler. "You vanished for months without a trace! I thought you ran off with someone! If Rhodes Island hadn't sent word a while back, I would have assumed you were stupid enough to get tricked and sold off into hard labor somewhere!"
Talulah ground the girl into the dirt, venting every drop of accumulated anxiety and frustration that had built up during her long absence.
Pinned beneath her, Jeanne showed zero panic at the sudden ambush. She squirmed furiously, trying to push herself off the ground, but having been caught completely off guard, breaking Talulah's grip proved exceptionally difficult.
Jeanne certainly hadn't expected to run into her friend out in the middle of nowhere. According to the latest intelligence, shouldn't Talulah be sitting in Chernobog managing city affairs? Why was she wandering through the wilderness? Had the council finally grown tired of her temper and thrown her out?
Setting those absurd thoughts aside, Jeanne decided to neutralize her attacker first. Reaching up, she grabbed both of Talulah's dragon horns, digging in her heels to wage a relentless wrestling match against her friend!
The two tussled in the dirt like petty children for a long time until both were completely out of breath.
Finally, they sat side by side on the cold ground, panting heavy gusts of air into the wind. Holding her aching lower back, Jeanne glared sideways and complained, "Your temper keeps getting worse! This isn't the snowy tundra of Ursus—do you have any idea how much it hurt when you slammed me into these sharp rocks?!"
While Jeanne voiced her grievances, Talulah silently nursed her own sore tail, feeling a throbbing ache near the base. That idiot's grip strength is downright terrifying!
"You have the nerve to complain to me?!" Talulah snapped back, her sharp eyes glaring at Jeanne. "You disappeared for months on end! First you claimed you were making a quick trip to Laterano to ask a few questions, then you ran off to Iberia, and only now do you bother showing your face..."
Though her voice was filled with exasperation, Jeanne could hear the underlying warmth in her sister's tone. Talulah had simply missed her deeply, and having no other way to express that worry, she had converted it into a thorough physical walloping.
"It wasn't intentional—I ran into some major crises!" Jeanne offered a apologetic smile as she shuffled closer. "I was tied up by one disaster after another. The moment things settled down, didn't I rush straight back to see you all?"
Despite making a show of looking disgusted as Jeanne leaned against her shoulder, Talulah didn't push her away. She simply leaned back against her friend, taking a moment to catch her breath before settling the score properly.
Subduing Jeanne was no easy task. Even with neither of them using their Arts or full physical strength, holding Jeanne down for that long had pushed Talulah to her limit.
Exhausted, Talulah lacked even the energy to stop Jeanne, who was now casually playing with the tip of her dragon tail to pass the time. She simply let her be; she was used to her friend's antics by now anyway.
Holding the familiar, scaled tail in her hands, Jeanne began detailing everything she had experienced during her journey. She spoke of attending the grand funeral in Laterano, traveling south to Iberia to witness the horror of the Seaborn firsthand, surviving the chaotic events along the coast, and finally attending the continental summit convened by Pope Yvangelista.
Talulah listened quietly. While they had discussed brief snippets over long-range communications earlier, Jeanne hadn't gone into full detail at the time. Hearing the complete story now, Talulah was stunned by the sheer, horrific scale of the oceanic threat!
Jeanne felt the dragon tail in her grip suddenly go rigid. It was obvious that the reality of the threat had shaken Talulah to her core, taking her a long moment to process the revelation.
"If anyone else had told me this, I would have assumed they suffered a mental breakdown and lost their sanity," Talulah murmured softly after a long silence. She finally understood why Jeanne hadn't been able to return home sooner; facing a threat of that magnitude left no room for personal detours.
"As for that grand summit... we heard rumors that a multinational conference was taking place," Talulah added. "But none of us imagined the topics discussed were so monumental."
"See? You have to believe me now!" Jeanne boasted, turning her head with a triumphant grin. "I was genuinely busy saving the world! So... could you please let go of my hair now?"
Both girls shifted their gazes upward.
Talulah was currently pinching Jeanne's single ahoge tightly between two fingers—her retaliation for Jeanne playing with her tail.
"No chance," Talulah replied stubbornly, her eyes narrowing. "Unless you release my tail first, I'm not letting go."
"Suit yourself," Jeanne scoffed, her expression making it crystal clear she had no intention of backing down. "I'm not losing anything here anyway!"
The two sat anchored in place, waiting to see who would break first.
"By the way," Jeanne suddenly asked, remembering their strange surroundings, "what are you even doing out here in the middle of nowhere?"
The moment the question left Jeanne's lips, Talulah's tail went completely stiff once more. The memories of her recent string of absurdly unlucky misadventures came flooding back.
Sighing heavily, the Draco leader began recounting her unluckiest, most scientifically defying journey to date—and the exact reasons why she had left the city.