Durandal woke early the next morning, right on cue with her body clock. Elysia still slept beside her, a trace of fatigue on her face. The sight softened Durandal's heart, and she reached out to brush her cheek.
Gentle as the touch was, it still stirred Elysia awake. She opened her eyes in a sleepy haze and found Durandal propped up beside her, staring. A faint, smug smile crossed her lips.
"Staring so hard first thing in the morning? Am I really that pretty?"
Elysia slipped an arm around Durandal's waist and nestled against her. Before long, her slow, even breaths filled the room again.
"Looks like last night wore you out."
Durandal felt a pang of regret for keeping her up so late. Faced with Elysia's clear wish to stay in bed, she let out a soft breath and gave herself an excuse.
"We got enough exercise yesterday. Missing one morning workout won't hurt."
With that quiet remark, Durandal lay back down and drifted off beside her. Neither woke again until noon, when hunger finally roused them.
After washing up, they left their room and found the door next door locked. They knocked, but no one answered.
"Did Eden stay out all night?"
Surprise crossed Durandal's face, though she wasn't worried that something had happened to her. Even without a gun, Eden could hold her own in a fight. Her fame and dislike of combat just made people assume she couldn't.
"She's probably at Pardo's place. Eden did seem quite fond of that girl, after all."
Still half asleep, Elysia leaned on Durandal as they stood outside the door. It saved her the effort of holding herself up.
"One call will tell us."
Durandal took out her phone and called Eden, who answered almost at once. Once she'd confirmed Elysia's guess, Eden learned they hadn't eaten lunch and invited them over. Neither Durandal nor Elysia needed much coaxing when someone offered them a meal, so they set off for the location Eden sent.
--+--
The people in Sundown Alley's slums were starting to feel numb to it all. One well-dressed woman had shown up yesterday, and now two more had come today. What next? Would three turn up tomorrow?
Of course, a few still refused to learn. This time, they tried theft instead of robbery, but their self-styled master thieves couldn't slip past Durandal and Elysia. Another round of beatings followed.
Once they'd dealt with those eager volunteers for a thrashing, Durandal sighed. In a place as full of "honest, friendly folk" as Sundown Alley, paying the local gangs a visit was far from enough.
Tracking down every thief who worked alone so she could "talk some sense into them" wasn't much of an option, either.
For all sorts of reasons, this world had plenty of places like Sundown Alley. Durandal already felt a headache coming on at the thought of how to govern them in the future. And cities weren't the only problem; some rural areas clung to even worse forms of ignorance.
Take the village near the place where Kalpas had landed around the time of the Fifth Honkai Eruption. He'd protected the villagers from Honkai Beasts, yet they'd repaid him with cruel abuse. Somehow, they'd convinced themselves that his body held the secret to resisting the Honkai.
Did a village like that really belong to a world with such advanced science? It sounded more like some isolated tribe, though Durandal knew that probably wasn't the case. A Honkai outbreak was unlikely to strike a place like that; at the very least, the village must've had ties to a major city.
That only made the problem worse. Still, perhaps the village had been so close to the Fifth Honkai Eruption that the dense Honkai energy had warped the villagers' minds. Things might not have been as bleak as Durandal feared.
As she mulled it over, Eden appeared at the far end of the alley and came to meet them. She offered an explanation as soon as she reached them.
"The last stretch is a bit of a maze. Felis says no one's come to update the map in years, and quite a few makeshift houses have gone up since then. You might not find her home if you follow the directions on your phone, so come with me."
Eden turned and led the way. Durandal and Elysia followed, both struck by the same odd feeling. They hadn't seen her for a day, yet she already acted like Pardo's home was her own.
Then again, Pardo was only fifteen. It made sense that Eden would want to look after her, and neither doubted that she'd take good care of the girl.
--+--
Eden had no idea what her two superiors were thinking. Her ease came from something simple: she'd stayed with Pardofelis for two nights, and the girl had begun to show both trust and a growing wish to lean on her.
Before she knew it, Eden had slipped into the role of an older family member, and it showed in the way she acted.
As Eden had warned, the last stretch to Pardofelis's home involved a lot of turns. The distance wasn't far, which only made the route feel more like a maze. At last, they reached the red-brick house where she lived, and Eden knocked on the wooden door.
A moment later, Pardofelis opened it with an apron tied around her waist and a spatula gripped in one hand. She looked ready for a fight. Once she saw who'd come, she let out a breath and hastily hid the spatula behind her back.
Clearly, the slums weren't a safe place. She'd asked Eden to go and fetch the others, but that didn't mean she knew who stood outside when the knock came. Her caution made perfect sense.
"Dudu! Elysia! You're here!"
Pardofelis greeted them and seemed about to say more. Then her nose twitched, and her face changed. She spun around and raced toward the source of the smell.
--+--
T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL