Before long, Lirian came back as well to let me know that Richard will be over soon to give his report of everything.

I took note of it and then told both of them to enter the office.

"Frian, you likely overheard it earlier, but I'm repeating it now for both of you.

"Each of you will get 50 Qi Refinement Cultivators assigned to you. They will serve as your own independent squads within the Clan. Feel free to assign them tasks and be prepared to take them on missions.

"I will expect both of you to take this seriously and build a proper relationship with the members of your squad.

"If there are problems in your squad, then I expect you to handle it—but only to a point. At the end of the day, all of you are members of my Clan and thus nothing major happens without my input.

"Of course, there will also be some caveats. I trust the both of you, but both of you are fairly young. I will assign one of the older members of the Clan to help. But to be clear—these are your squads.

"But this means responsibility, boys. If things go wrong with your squads because of your orders, there can be consequences.

"Don't worry, I expect there to be some learning involved because I myself am still learning about everything.

"What do you both think? Feel free to be honest."

Frian looked a bit nervous, but he spoke up first.

"I am excited about the responsibility, and I won't let you down, Patriarch!"

"If you say so, Frian, I'll trust you on it. And you, Lirian?"

"Patriarch… I've never been in command of anyone before, but I will try my best and won't let you down!"

"That's all I need from you both. Try your best, make good decisions, and if all else fails, call me."

Knock Knock

I assumed this would be Richard or one of the members of the Ash Guard, but I was somewhat surprised when Elder Zal's voice came from the other side.

"This is Elder Zal."

Elder Zal was knocking? That's a first. In fact, it feels more like a prank than anything else. She usually just pops up without notice or teleports me away when I least expect it.

"Please enter, Elder Zal."

The door opened, and she calmly walked in.

"I greet the Eternal Flame."

Her attitude has changed since I woke up. I wonder what caused it. Did her Matriarch tell her to chill or something? Or maybe after what happened vs. the Vamp, I might've crossed some type of growth point in her mind.

Anyway, I nodded at her, and she took that as her cue to speak.

"Forgive my interruption, but I have a suggestion."

"Please."

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"I will handle the training of the boys and how to run their respective squads. This will involve also training their respective squads. Is this agreeable?"

I see no reason to refuse—in fact, this is the best option I could hope for in this situation.

"That's perfectly fine with me, Elder Zal. I appreciate your help."

She nodded back to me and walked out.

I guess that's all she wanted… hm.

"Well, you heard her. Be ready for training once your squads have been chosen."

"Yes, Patriarch!"

Knock Knock

A lot of knocks today.

"Mr. Richard is downstairs, Sir."

That was the voice of one of the members of the Ash Guard. I believe his name was Johnny.

"Send him up, please."

"Yes, Sir."

"Alright boys, go wait for me by the camp."

The boys left, and a moment or two later Richard walked in.

"Glad to see you back up and running there, Raizen. You've been gone for a while."

"Yeah, I know. It's not easy saving the Planet."

"Heh, sure sure, if you say so. But really, glad you're awake and looking good again—the City missed you."

"Speaking of the City, how is everything? Are people adjusting well?"

"Well, it took a week or two for things to get back into motion, but so far things are looking alright. If there are any problems, it's that Miss Greja mentioned her shop may be closing down soon, and thus a big inventory of things we don't have or understand here will be lost.

"Even her connection to the other shops will be gone. And it's not just her—but some of the things we were able to purchase from the Mavelia Merchant Union will be going away as well. Actually, I should specify and say that they are already gone.

"That's a lot of resources going away, Raizen."

"Yeah, I heard about it. I'll do something about it, don't worry. Now what about our dead? Were they properly taken care of and their families, if they had any, compensated?"

"Yes. Everything there is in order. A small burial at sea for a funeral was held in your absence."

"I see… well, that's good then."

"Apart from that, the people are working and money is still being circulated. Though there were a couple of complaints last night… some really loud shouting, and then your… flames kind of invaded the City."

"Ah, I apologize for that on both fronts. I'll be sure to try not to disturb anyone in the future."

"Well, it's your City. I would just say try not to do it at night time."

"Sounds good to me."

After that initial greeting, Richard and I proceeded to discuss a few more things relating to the City. Salaries, paid taxes, unpaid taxes, setting up a proper prison, and many more things that he's been handling or delaying until I could give input.

I signed off on a few things, rejected others, and pushed some other things off to future discussions.

I also didn't forget to inform him that the 6,000-plus Infernals outside the West Gate will be permanent additions to the City.

Which brought up the question of where to put them.

The easy answer was just to give them houses in the City, but for some reason it felt odd.

For some reason, I think all of them would probably prefer some type of Infernal District. Or maybe it's just me. It just felt right. Of course, they wouldn't be barred from the rest of the City, but that is where they would be primarily housed, and where they would conduct training, and the rest of the City wouldn't have to worry about noise levels anymore.

Yeah, I like that idea.

And thus a building project was scheduled… the only question was where.

One to figure out later.

But that pretty much wrapped up our discussion.

"Raizen, there's one more thing."

"Hm? What is it?"

"It's Irene."

Irene… I hadn't really gotten a chance to talk to her after I came back from seclusion since the war kind of kicked off right then and there.

I hope she's alright.

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she managed to survive the war. But… she moved."

"Moved?"

"Yeah, she moved. She decided to live in the New Earth Union. She met someone while you were gone, and they are apparently pretty serious. She wanted to tell you herself, but you never got the chance to visit her, I guess, and she completed the move last week."

Hm.

"Thanks for telling me, Richard. I appreciate it."

"…No problem. Well, I'm going to get a team of builders ready for when we decide to start the project."

"Sounds good."

"Oh wait, I almost forgot. There's a few people waiting to meet you to say goodbye or something along those lines. What should I do with them?"

I genuinely don't care all that much about all these factions running away and wanting to pay respects to me.

Well, Matriarch Arainian said we do whatever we want—so I'll do just that.

"Tell them to leave, and I wish them well."

"Sure?"

"Positive."

"Got it."

So my first breakup in the apocalypse, huh.

Though I guess it shouldn't be considered a breakup since we weren't really together.

I suppose it's only right she moved on then.

We hadn't spoken a word to each other in over 8 months.

Welp.

I wish her well.

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