With the Midnight Syndicate's invasion taken care of, the girls and I headed back to Amane's place to discuss our next steps. The survivors suffered no casualties at all and barely even any injuries, leading to a great boost in morale overall and an increase in loyalty towards me. I left Xiang Peng in charge of them though, since she wanted to do it anyway.
Unlike Amane, she had no intention of adventuring with me again, seeing as how I already had way too many girls around me. Not that I blamed her—sometimes, it was better to just have a distant friend rather than a close lover. I respected her as a friend, but never once thought of her as a girl I loved, like the others. She seemed to be alright with that too, and we both agreed to just think of all the flirtatious actions she made towards me in the past as merely teasing with no heartfelt emotions behind them.