Just as Elysia had promised, she truly took her duties as a "dedicated maid" to heart over the following days. From the moment Durandal opened her eyes in the morning until she closed them at night, every little detail of her life was managed by Elysia's hands.
It was the kind of life where one doesn't have to lift a finger for food or clothing—a luxury Durandal "enjoyed" for exactly one day before she couldn't take it anymore.
Unfortunately, her body was still incredibly weak. She wanted to protest, but she simply didn't have the strength to resist.
She couldn't help but think this was Elysia's unique way of getting revenge. After all, the decision Durandal had made at the final moment had clearly upset her.
However, Durandal hadn't expected Elysia's retaliation to go quite this far.
On the second night after they arrived on the island, just as Durandal was on the verge of recovering her strength... [There should be a spicy scene here].
Ahem. Anyway, while Durandal should have been fully recovered by the third day, the two of them ended up staying on that deserted island for a full seven days before finally returning to Nagazora City.
Upon their return, their first move was to rush to the temporary office.
They were met with total silence.
The temporary office didn't even have a guard at the door. Where had everyone gone?
Just as Durandal was about to call Connie, Elysia spotted a sticky note at the front desk. It said that if Durandal and Elysia returned, they should head to the Schicksal Headquarters; the base construction was officially complete.
Durandal and Elysia exchanged a look of surprise. They hadn't expected Vill-V to finish the Schicksal Headquarters in a mere six months. It seemed that entrusting the massive project to her had been the right call.
Though the turnaround time was unexpectedly short, neither of them worried that a base personally overseen by Vill-V would be a shoddy piece of work.
After reading the note, they headed for the headquarters without a moment's pause.
The moment they left, a small robot's eyes flickered with a red light. It encoded the video it had just recorded into data and transmitted it.
"They're back."
A voice crackled through the broadcast system of an underground space. Suddenly, everyone stopped what they were doing and began preparing according to their secret plan.
Half an hour later, Durandal and Elysia finally reached the site of the Schicksal Headquarters.
The site had originally been a human experimentation facility built by a corrupt member of the Fire Moth Council for personal gain, hidden beneath an abandoned warehouse.
Now, the dilapidated warehouse was gone, replaced by a bright, magnificent building.
The structure wasn't tall—only three stories. The first floor was a reception hall, the second held offices, and the third was for meeting rooms.
This was the "public face" of the Schicksal organization, where they would handle various affairs. Unlike Fire Moth, Schicksal didn't lean into obsessive secrecy; they intended to keep their interactions with the outside world as transparent as possible.
Of course, beneath this public facade lay the subterranean levels.
The hollowed-out earth had been transformed by Vill-V into a home for every member of Schicksal—a hub for research, training, and daily life.
To be honest, Vill-V had done a beautiful job. However, compared to an underground base, Durandal personally preferred the design of the Schicksal Floating HQ from her memories.
Still, there was no rush. It wasn't impossible to move the headquarters into the sky later on.
With that thought in mind, Durandal and Elysia stepped into the first-floor reception hall.
From the outside, the hall had looked as empty as the temporary office, but the moment they stepped inside, their senses were suddenly flooded with a roar of voices.
They were greeted by dozens of familiar faces, all beaming with smiles. Holding party poppers, they showered Durandal and Elysia—the greatest heroes who had resolved the Third Honkai Eruption—with overwhelming enthusiasm.
In an instant, the two were covered in streamers, glitter, and colorful flower petals.
It turned out Vill-V had set up a bit of an optical illusion. Although it was the first time Durandal and Elysia had experienced such a large-scale "magic trick" firsthand, they had heard of such things and recovered their composure immediately without losing their cool.
They returned the warmth of the greeting and eventually made their way to the third-floor meeting room, surrounded by the cheering crowd.
Since joining Schicksal, information regarding the Honkai had been made available to every member.
It was precisely because of this transparency that Schicksal's performance during the Third Eruption had been so brilliant.
Everyone knew the impact the first two Eruptions had on human civilization, with casualties reaching into the millions.
In contrast, the casualties of the Third Eruption in Nagazora City hovered only in the triple digits. Most of those were troublemakers who had ignored warnings and refused to evacuate early. Furthermore, Nagazora City had not been turned into a dead zone after the outbreak.
Only seven days had passed, yet the majority of Nagazora's citizens had already returned. The city seemed to have come back to life, appearing even more prosperous than during the months of martial law before the eruption, when private cars were banned from the streets.
Everything was progressing in an incredibly positive direction, and it was all thanks to Durandal and Elysia.
Indeed, Elysia had also done her part at the very end to convert the excess Honkai energy, taking a massive risk in the process. Vill-V had already made these details public to the members of Schicksal.
Thus, everyone knew that Durandal wasn't the only hero.
When Durandal stood at the podium in the meeting room, she told everyone that the title of "hero" didn't belong to just her and Elysia.
The Schicksal members who had patrolled Nagazora and the neighboring Sapphire City to eliminate Honkai beasts; the officials who had directed the orderly evacuation; and the citizens who had followed instructions—they were all heroes.
It was true that Durandal and Elysia had dealt with the root cause of the Third Eruption, but the aftermath was handled by the collective effort of every Schicksal member.
The fact that casualties were kept to triple digits was also due to the dedication of the two cities' governments and the cooperation of the people.
If any link in that chain had failed, Nagazora City could not have restored its functions so quickly, nor would the death toll have been so small.
To the people of this era—and even to those living fifty thousand years in the future—Durandal's words would have sounded move than a little profound.
After all, this was a world where Honkai energy existed, a world where absolute power was usually concentrated in the hands of a single individual.
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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL