"I already told you, I won't say a single word about what I saw! Can you two just let me off the hook this once?"
FrostNova sat inside Talulah's office, staring blankly at the two women before her. She had a sneaking suspicion they were actively brainstorming ways to wipe her memory clean.
Given how frantic they looked, it probably wasn't just a suspicion.
"That's why I said you're totally misunderstanding the situation!" Talulah hastily rushed to defend her innocence, desperately wanting to nip any rumors in the bud.
If word got out that she and Jeanne were getting handsy in the middle of her office, her reputation as Chernobog's stern leader would be toast. Talulah felt an urgent need to set the record straight with the white-furred Cautus—who looked outwardly aloof but was secretly just as chaotic as the rest of the Yeti Squadron—before she walked out of that door and started spreading wild stories.
"You aren't denying your relationship with Jeanne at all, just emphasizing that nothing happened between you two right here and right now? Got it. Crystal clear. I'll make sure to keep your secrets safe."
FrostNova blinked her grey eyes with earnest sincerity, her deadpan expression making it agonizingly difficult to tell if she actually believed them. Talulah let out a long, shuddering sigh of resignation.
As for whatever relationship people assumed she had with Jeanne, Talulah decided she simply didn't care anymore. Let them talk. Even she had to admit that whenever she looked back on their history, it gave her a strange, inexplicable feeling.
Perhaps the bond between her, Jeanne, and Alina had long since transcended ordinary friendship. But honestly? What did it even matter?
"Anyway, the way Jeanne dragged me into the office earlier was definitely spotted by my patrol squad. By now, it's probably already making the rounds through the Yeti Squadron. You know how they are... they love their gossip."
FrostNova's subordinates were notoriously terrible at keeping secrets, though ironically, they were usually the last to know when a real piece of news dropped because they never read their internal group chats.
Talulah fell silent. She knew the Yeti Squadron inside and out, and the mere thought of those troublemakers gave her an instant, splitting headache.
"Don't worry about it too much. They're always spouting nonsense anyway, so everyone just treats whatever they say as baseless rumors. It won't affect you," FrostNova added, offering a rare defense of her squad. Her idiots were already embarrassing enough; she couldn't let them drag her down any further.
"Putting that aside, didn't you guys do a proper sweep when you brought everyone back? Even just within my sector, my team flagged a bunch of suspicious individuals."
FrostNova tossed a dossier of suspected agitators onto the desk before Jeanne and Talulah. It was a compilation of weirdos the Yeti Squadron had flagged over the past twenty-four hours, and flipping through it revealed a surprisingly long list of names.
"Can we confirm all these people are actually hostile?" Jeanne and Talulah pulled the files closer, inspecting the profiles. The suspects came from all walks of life, each looking like a remarkably qualified professional in their respective fields.
Yet, having so many suspicious characters pop up all at once felt deeply unnatural. Rather than a coordinated cell of high-level intelligence agents dispatched by foreign nobility, Talulah suspected someone was orchestrating a massive, deliberate smokescreen.
"We can't say for sure yet. The sheer volume of names makes it hard to verify quickly, so the team is still running background checks," FrostNova explained, casting a subtle glance toward Jeanne. Her unstated intention was crystal clear: she was secretly hoping Talulah would dispatch Jeanne to hunt down the culprits.
"Count me out. You can't keep relying on me every time something happens," Jeanne waved her hands, flatly rejecting the silent plea. Her intuition whispered that these people weren't dangerous masterminds. In fact, whether they were actual spies remained a massive question mark.
Unlike hardened, deeply trained operatives, these suspects felt more like ordinary Victorians who had been handed a modest sum of cash to jot down notes about their daily lives—people who hadn't even received basic tradecraft training, let alone espionage instruction.
"In that case, let's just handle it ourselves," FrostNova said, visibly relieved. As long as these interlopers weren't planning to blow up Chernobog, everything else was manageable.
"Let's just monitor the situation for now," Talulah decided, setting the Victorian suspect files aside with a grimace. Though she had anticipated a flood of intelligence assets sneaking in with the refugees, every time she looked at the paperwork, her temples throbbed. "For the ones whose covers are already blown, round them up and keep them contained in a single designated sector. As for the rest... leave them be until they actually make a move."
FrostNova nodded in acknowledgment. Then, as if recalling a casual detail, she added, "Oh, by the way, when we were debating how to handle these interlopers yesterday, the old man said the exact same thing."
"Patriot is still inside the city?" Jeanne asked, blinking in surprise. She hadn't expected the veteran to be lounging around urban quarters; that felt entirely out of character.
According to Patriot himself, he struggled to adjust to the cramped, concrete environment of a mobile city. Of course, Fafnir wouldn't buy that excuse for a single second.
In reality, the elderly warrior was simply playing it safe, patrolling the surrounding perimeter with a detachment of guerrillas to ensure the city's safety and extend a helping hand to any stragglers trudging across the wasteland toward sanctuary.
Once the first wave of migrants sent word back to their hometowns about Chernobog's revival, countless desperate souls packed their belongings and headed north to start anew.
After all, no matter how harsh life under Reunion might seem, it couldn't possibly be worse than starving in the ruins of Victoria. At the very least, this city wouldn't snatch the last crust of bread out of a starving child's hands.
Yet that steady influx of travelers also attracted opportunistic scavenger gangs and raiders who prowled the outskirts. To protect the refugees and the city alike, Patriot spent the vast majority of his time deployed outside the walls.
For a man who practically lived on the front lines to suddenly return to the inner city without warning made Jeanne instantly suspicious. Had something gone wrong out in the wasteland?
"You don't need to finish that sentence," Talulah interjected, catching the exact moment Jeanne's expression shifted into one of dramatic panic. Knowing Jeanne's track record for verbal hexes, Talulah immediately slammed the brakes on whatever disaster scenario was forming in her friend's head.
"I am not a jinx, and you certainly can't stop me from voicing my logical deductions!" Jeanne protested, immediately launching into her role as a self-proclaimed dragon-tamer.
She lunged forward, grabbing both of Talulah's draconic horns and rocking them back and forth. To protect her cervical vertebrae from snapping, Talulah had no choice but to bob her head in rhythm with Jeanne's aggressive shaking.
Not one to take an attack lying down, Talulah searched desperately for a countermeasure. Within seconds, she found Jeanne's absolute, undeniable weak point and locked her fingers onto it—the defiant, wind-swept cowlick sprouting from the top of Jeanne's head!
Unlike normal hair, this legendary ahoge had proven its tensile strength across numerous combat scenarios. It was practically a structural load-bearing pillar!
Talulah had occasionally harbored dark suspicions that the stray lock of hair was physically anchored directly into Jeanne's skull.
Yet, today, that very symbol of Jeanne's bouncy charm had been weaponized against her. Locked in mortal combat, the two women grappled fiercely, each holding onto the other's fatal weakness.
FrostNova stood quietly to the side, watching the two pillars of authority bicker like children. Some things, no matter how much time passed or how much the world changed, truly never altered.
Without missing a beat, FrostNova quietly pulled out her terminal, switched it to video mode, and recorded a crisp, high-definition clip of the two wrestling idiots.
This would make excellent blackmail material to distribute among her gossiping subordinates tonight.
If she handed this over, those nosey hounds would finally stop prying into her personal life and redirect all their chaotic curiosity toward decoding Jeanne and Talulah's complicated dynamic. Granted, anyone with eyes could tell there was something deeply weird about those two, so it wasn't even classified information.