The next day, I had awoken feeling much better than yesterday. I had thankfully had a dreamless night. It was about 7:00 am, just a bit after sunrise. Xiangling and I had already eaten breakfast.
This lively Genshin had made my morning with her introduction and barrage of questions, easily making me forget everything else.
Arye had also woken up but was currently brushing her teeth.
I found myself packing up my things quickly. I remembered how Diluc mentioned the Knights were looking for us. Thankfully, he hadn't revealed us to them.
It took me about 50 minutes to check through everything—my own and Arye's stuff—as I hadn't been able to take inventory prior to our departure.
It was good that I did, as I managed to discover a few things that might work as gifts for Diluc and Xiangling.
Actually, I have a lot of gifts that work for Diluc especially.
Let's see here, let's see here… put some of this, introduce this to him, oh tell him about Dottore's plans, maybe add the Delusion factory, some info on Signora, oh and a book of all of Teyvat's recipes because why not!
Ah—I'm sure he is going to be happy with this present—
Anyway, now that I have put down all of the gifts in the room, as well as a letter and information he might like—
I leave the room, close the door, and lock it.
The cleaning staff don't normally have access to the room keys so nobody can steal or misuse them.
Now that I take a moment, my mind having calmed down, I walk up to the railing and look down onto the second floor. The winery is busy.
People carrying barrels, doing paperwork, taking inventory—a whole lot is happening. From what I was told by my mom, this was the time when merchants and nobles visited to get the best batches of wine from this and previous years.
I watch the scene, slightly lost in my thoughts about what I plan to do next, when in the corner of my eye something catches my attention.
Right! I completely forgot! The camera that butterfly had merged with was still there. It was recording?
Damn… I didn't turn off the recording function, did I? Wait, this is 8K quality…? How the hell does it have the storage to do that?!
I check through the menu to look at the storage and only 0.2% was used…
Le the fuck?!
You know what, I am in too good a mood to worry about that. I finally press the button to stop the recording and start looking through the videos.
I don't notice it, but below me the scene is practically frozen. Everything moves slowly… very slowly.
It takes me a while to look through everything. Holy shit, there was a lot of footage, even at like ×20 speed!
Honestly I don't have the energy to look over it right now. I decide to check the editing section so I know what I'm dealing with later. The interface is pretty good, very intuitive, and there is, for some reason, a chatbot named SK that can answer questions.
I chat with SK a bit about the functions before it suggests I describe roughly what I want in the edited videos and that it could auto-edit them for me.
Sick! I can be a lazy bum, hell yeah!
I take a while to give the instructions, but more or less SK summarizes it as "cool moments, comedy, and sarcasm" while removing the more boring stuff. We did disagree on whether the bandit scene should be kept, but I eventually agreed for it to try and make it interesting.
Anyway, I close the interface as SK starts doing its thing. It states that it should take roughly 3–4 hours, which was honestly really damn fast, so I was slightly concerned about quality but chose to trust the process.
I mean, worst case I just contact an editor from Earth and have them slave away at it for a while.
As long as I pay enough I could probably even have a movie crew work on it.
Plus, considering the absurd capital I have managed to accumulate, I will most certainly have the advantage in picking what I want done.
Now that I think about it, with the amount of mora I have gotten lately I might be able to buy that floating stone from Ningguang for my home.
That way my home would be anywhere in Teyvat I want it to be!
Then again I might just prefer several homes… meh, we shall see.
"Hey! You're Sane, right? Master Diluc just told me to bring you to see him. It is urgent!" a winery maid explains quite frantically. It seems she had been running around a lot before finding me.
Surprised, I just nod and follow her as she leads me through several rooms full of wine barrels.
As we reach the room she was bringing me to, I notice Arye and Xiangling are already there. Diluc was also there, standing and waiting.
I am then given a quick summary: the Knights were here again searching for us, but now with documentation to search the property. Diluc had decided to let us leave through a secret entrance mainly because I was a friend and because he did not want his reputation ruined by harboring someone at this time.
To his surprise, I mentioned that I had already packed and even left him a gift in the room I was staying in. Soon we heard armored footsteps above us, so it was a quick goodbye as we left through a tunnel that would lead us across the lake.
The tunnel was dark, thankfully ventilated, and pretty moist due to the lake right above our heads. Now that I think about it, it is a very deep tunnel considering we had to go down about ten floors of stairs.
It took a good hour, but eventually we managed to climb out of the tunnel.
We emerged in a ravine passage that Xiangling was familiar with, as it was the road she used to get to Mondstadt.
Funnily enough there was an awkward moment when she realized she herself had no reason to run, but taking it in stride she chose to guide us up to Dihua Marsh since there were several confusing splits in the path that didn't really go anywhere.
The walk is fairly mild. No hilichurls, no bandits, no problems.
Not even slimes.
Wait… that ain't right.
With that realization I suddenly hear something falling from straight above us and, grabbing Xiangling and Arye, I jump back roughly six meters only to be met with a whole lot of boulders falling where we just were.
Looking up, I spot a group of…?
Fatui!
I look to the other side of the cliff…
No, not a group.
A damn legion.
The hell are there 50 Fatui doing here?!
"Holy fucking shit."
What did we just stumble into? Some mass operation of some sort?!
"Oh, sorry about that~ It just so happens we had orders to not let you leave Mondstadt alive~"
From behind us a sultry voice sounds. When I look, it just had to be a Cicin Mage with several Debt Collectors behind her.
Just great.
"Cifera, the ones above please."
With that single command I charge the mage and the Debt Collectors. To my surprise they manage to react to me, able to see my movements.
Unfortunately for them, not fast enough to stop them.
My fist slams into the Cicin Mage's stomach, sending her straight into two Debt Collectors. The other two immediately charge me.
Damn, well that wasn't fun. And talk about a commotion. I should take Arye and Xiangling out of here as soon as possible.
Having just finished the fairly long fight, I am a bit out of breath but, putting behind me the fact I killed more people, I steel myself because I realize the Knights of Favonius are already likely on their way.
Cifera, who I'd just summoned mid-air while she was sleeping, was startled and angry but acted quickly. The Fatui grunts above us had either been pushed off, had jumped off, or died trying to escape. There was one survivor, but only because Cifera thought her too young to die here. It was obvious she was a new recruit.
Arye had chosen to participate as well, managing to shoot two of the grunts down. She was currently slightly horrified with herself, but there isn't time to deal with that.
"This fight was too loud! We need to go before the Knights catch up to us, let's move!"
"Right!"
Xiangling, who was defending Arye, reacted quickly, shaking mom out of it. She got her moving around the boulders which slightly blocked the path.
It didn't take long, but we finally saw the opening to Dihua Marsh.
Unfortunately, right in front of us was a group of the Knights of Favonius…
Led by Jean.
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to tired to do proper a/n so have good day and gimme powerstones