--- Volume XIII: Interlude — The Approaching Future---
My name is Susannah.
Member of Fire-Moth's Second Trailblazing Squad: The Immortal Blades. Loyal subordinate to the magnificent Lady Durandal. The future star handpicked by Lady Rita. The trusted partner of Lady Li Sushang. And the shining hope of the entire City of Sighs within Fire-Moth—
Waaaaah! Grandpa, the City of Sighs is going to be completely ruined in my hands!!
Ever since she passed Lady Durandal's assessment half a month ago and officially joined the Immortal Blades, Susannah had become painfully aware of the massive gap between herself and the rest of the squad.
Take Lady Durandal, real name Bianca Kaslana Ataegina.
As Fire-Moth's one and only MANTIS, her combat prowess was an absolute Tier-0, second only to one! Susannah didn't know who would win in a fight between her and Senior Kiana, but Senior Fu Hua had personally admitted that Lady Durandal was stronger than her.
Therefore...
The super-rare holographic Lady Durandal card she had hoarded from the Fire-Moth Power Scalers trading set just spiked in value again!!
The very first thing she did upon waking up was open the Spark Forum on her phone. Seeing her limited-edition holo card jump up a full six percent, Susannah closed her eyes with a satisfied smile.
Of course, she didn't care about the card's actual monetary value. Even if scalpers drove the price up to a million Contribution Points, Susannah absolutely wouldn't sell it! After all, she was far from broke.
Her grandfather, Tafira, used to be the undisputed ruler of the City of Sighs. Susannah wasn't naive; she knew her grandfather and all her uncles and aunties were top-tier mobsters before the Great Eruption.
But they had always treated her like a princess. Growing up in the City of Sighs, she was completely sheltered from all the grime and bloodshed, leaving her moral compass perfectly intact. Didn't that count for something?
She might read a lot of manga, constantly daydreaming about being a world-saving hero or a beloved otome protagonist, but she wasn't about to go on some hot-blooded crusade to execute her own family in the name of justice.
Ultimately, Tafira and her relatives sacrificed themselves to fight the Honkai. Grandpa claimed that Fire-Moth would never accept them, and that becoming necessary casualties was their only real way out...
But to Susannah, her grandfather and her aunts and uncles were heroes. And she wanted to be a hero, too!
Fire-Moth didn't let their sacrifice go to waste. Not only did they successfully defeat that terrifying Herrscher, but they also issued incredibly generous pensions to the surviving families—namely, Susannah and her parents.
Apparently, the dozens of high-ranking executives in the City of Sighs had signed some sort of ironclad agreement with Rita's group. The final payout completely bypassed Susannah's parents and was wired entirely into her personal account.
They left her a nest egg large enough to fund a lifetime of reckless spending within Fire-Moth. So no, Susannah wasn't hurting for cash; she was a bona fide rich girl.
Plus, her parents were no slouches either. They had taken a tiny fraction of her assets to launch a startup inside Fire-Moth, and rumor had it they had already found some success and doubled the principal.
Money was no object. Her obsession with the card's rising value wasn't about the profit—it was about seeing everyone else recognize Bianca's worth. She felt honored just by association.
She did a few excited barrel rolls across her mattress, knelt to solemnly bow to the Bianca poster above her headboard, and then sprang out of bed to nimbly get dressed.
Today is going to be another energetic day!
She wondered what kind of commission Lady Durandal and Lady Rita would pick up today. Could it be that, after barely two weeks on the job, she was already going to take on a mission straight from Bishop Otto alongside her seniors?
Wait. If it was a super important mission, what if she completely botched it? Would Lady Durandal think she was dead weight? Would Lady Rita...
Susannah began to violently shiver.
Actually, it looks like today is going to be another terrible day...