You know, if looks could kill, I think I would be dead right now.
This woman was giving me one of the most intense death glares I’ve ever seen before.
“Wilhelm?!” Venti called out to me, surprised to see me here.
“Hey there, Venti. Did you hire a stripper? Did I interrupt something?” I asked, and he immediately squawked at that.
“How dare you!” The woman hissed, and the temperature dropped immediately. She reached out and grabbed my arm. “Insolent worm!”
She tried to freeze me.
Her ice powers were impressive; I could honestly feel the ice starting to creep onto my skin, which…considering my magic resistance…spoke volumes.
“Oh, that’s chilly.” I stomped on the ground, and the ice around me shattered, and the cold air dispersed.
She took a step back in startlement.
Venti coughed as he stood up. Ice was wrapped around his legs a few moments ago, and it was now gone. “Hah, I didn’t think I'd see you here!”
“Well, you still owe me payment.”
“I-I’m good for it!”
The woman was staring at me now, chillingly.
Heh.
Ice pun.
"So…I wasn’t interrupting, was I? I saw her stepping on you, and that kind of thing can cost a lot of money, which I know you don’t have.”
Venti let out a cough. “It wasn’t like that!”
“Listen, I won’t judge.”
“I think she will, though.”
A wave of cold air hit us as I held my hand up, warding it off.
“Who are you to interfere in my matters?!” Her voice carried on the cold wind.
Without waiting for me to answer, it was like an avalanche spawned out of nowhere, surging towards us.
I put a hand on my divine sword, but I shifted it to the Lion’s Roar instead and drew it, slashing it in one fluid motion.
The oncoming avalanche of ice and snow was cut through with a surge of lightning arcing across the blade and through the air.
Thunder roared across the courtyard with the vanishing snow and ice.
I looked back at the other people; I saw two more of those masked, cloaked people holding down someone else who broke free and punched one another.
"Who' that?” I pointed at them.
“That’s the Traveler.” Venti told me.
I noted that away.
A blonde-haired kid that looked younger than me, but… I don’t know. Didn't he feel young? His choice of clothes was interesting, and there was a floating fairy at his side.
Curious.
“And who’s the stripper?” I asked.
Venti nearly choked again. “That’s one of the Fatui Harbingers.”
"..."
“Right, I forgot you don’t…” Venti sighed. “I’ll explain it later.”
Helpful.
Very thin, almost imperceptible, blades of ice shifted through the air; I swung my sword to match each one, ice shattering on contact.
The woman stood opposite of me, a little strange thing floating above her hand.
Some kind of magical focus?
Some mystic code of sorts.
“I am La Signora, the Eighth of the Fatui Harbingers!” Her words were laced with venom. “And I will delightfully rip your tongue from your mouth after taking back the Gnosis!”
I relaxed, not because I wasn’t taking her seriously. My instincts told me that she was holding back quite a bit of power underneath.
But because someone else stepped in.
A familiar greatsword flew past her as she twisted her body, and it imbedded itself in the side of the cathedral.
“Excuse me, I believe I misheard you.” Artoria stepped forward. “Did you just voice your intent to harm my boyfriend?”
Sometimes, I step in to deal with something when my girls are targeted.
Sometimes, they too liked to step in front of me.
Protective Artoria made me feel good.
The woman scowled. “A little girl coming to interfere now too?” Her lips curled up mockingly. “How precious! This little bug is your boyfriend?” She raised her hand towards Artoria. “Then let’s see how he feels when you’ve turned into an ice sculpture.”
An intense blast of cold air erupted from her hand, turning everything in its path to pure ice.
Artoria just stepped forward, armor shimmering around her as she gripped an invisible blade between her hands.
“Strike Air: Hammer of the Wind King.”
The wind sword that acted as a sheath around her true blade had released its bindings and equally erupted forward, like a hurricane focused towards a singular point outwards.
The two opposing forces collided for a brief moment before the wind pushed through the air and La Signora found herself having to hold her arms up to protect herself.
Her feet dug up the cobblestone ground, the tiles and stones shattering beneath her heels. She caught herself from falling down, her nails dug into the stone as she braced herself.
I think Artoria took exception to the little girl comment.
I noticed Venti was staring at Artoria’s sword.
Almost like he was transfixed.
I wonder what he was seeing from his point of view. As a God of Wind, could he see what was underneath?
“That’s enough!” A voice called out, and a body went sliding across the ground. I recognized one of those Fatui people, and Kaeya walked over, clearly having just been in a fight because there was another one of those guys over his shoulder.
La Signora looked at her, then at us, and clicked her tongue. “Retreat.” She ordered, and those Fatui people sunk into the shadows as La Signore herself got up and turned around but glanced our way. “I’ll remember you, you both," she spat out before she leapt over the side of the balcony that overlooked the city.
I looked back, and that traveler had been dealing with a handful of Fatui as well, and they began to retreat just the same.
“Not going after her?” I looked towards Kaeya.
He shook his head. “It’s enough that I caught them in the act. If I really tried to stop her…the Fatui Harbingers aren’t so simple. A fight would cause destruction and death within the city like this.”
Ah, I could understand his standpoint.
He didn’t ask me; I didn’t offer.
It’s not really my place; I was just a tourist here.
“I hope we don’t get billed for the damage caused.” I scratched my cheek.
Kaeya chuckled good-naturedly despite the situation. “Don’t worry, I’ll put in a good word. Traveler, are you alright as well?”
“I’m fine.” The guy called out, waving his hand.
“I’m sorry I can’t act more politely, but I need to go report this to the Grandmaster. This is a severe overstep by the Fatui, and by extension, Snezhnaya has a lot to answer for now.”
“Handle your affair then, Ser Knight.” Artoria spoke.
Kaeya gave a polite bow of his head before quickly heading off.
No one could fault him for not sticking around to make sure everyone was okay. At a glance, we were all standing without any major wounds or harm. And from the sounds of it, another entire Kingdom just acted within their sovereign borders, or something like that.
“Tone-Deaf Bard, are you okay?” The little fairy came floating over with the blonde-haired kid at her side.
“Haha, I’m fine, I’m fine.” Venti held his hands up. “Looks like you got hit hard too, Traveler.”
He smiled in response. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”
"Hello." I waved over Venti’s head. “Little fairy person and this traveler I heard about.”
“Paimon isn’t a fairy! "Paimon is Paimon!” the little fairy answered.
“Your name is Paimon?” I repeated.
The little fairy puffed up. “That’s my name!”
…Well, alright then, that doesn’t sound ominous.
I guess demonic names here are common?
“I am pleased to see you are unharmed, Venti.” Artoria had pulled her greatsword free from the side of the cathedral before walking over. “However, I am confused. Why did you not defend yourself?”
“I-I was taken off guard!”
Uh huh, he doesn’t sound too convincing.
“Hey Traveler, come here! I want to introduce you to a fellow traveler from outside Teyvat!” He changed the subject, something I wasn’t oblivious to.
The blonde-haired kid did a double take. “Outside Teyvat? You’re not from this world either?”
“Wow, you’re just like Traveler!” The little fairy exclaimed.
“Just stopped over for a trip, to see the sights. Calling it a vacation wouldn’t be incorrect either.” I smiled. “Wilhelm Henry Schweinorg, at your service. And this is my girlfriend, Artoria Pendragon.”
She gave a polite nod.
“I’m Aether.” He returned. “I’m actually looking for my sister. I don’t know if you’ve happened to see her?”
“Sorry, I just arrived here literally yesterday," I said helplessly. “But your sister is missing? How did that happen?” The fact that he said that so abruptly, in first meeting, meant something, I suppose.
“Well…” He scratched his cheek. “I’m not entirely sure. I remember trying to run away from someone calling themselves the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles, and my sister and I got separated. I woke up near Mondstadt and met Paimon there.”
I noticed that Venti flinched slightly at that name.
“First time hearing that name, or title, too.” I felt a little bad because his shoulders slumped with a sigh.
“You’re from a different world, like the Traveler?” The little fairy got up really close to me.
“More or less.”
“What’s your home like? Is it big like Paimon’s?”
“Big, blue, and green. Lots of land, lots of water. Not too dissimilar from what I’ve seen so far," I said briefly. “I’m curious…what exactly happened here?”
Aether awkwardly shrugged. “We were walking out of the cathedral when we were ambushed all of a sudden.”
All eyes landed on Venti.
“Someone else coming after you about a debt?”
Venti choked again. “W-well, not entirely wrong there. Let’s just say the Tsaritsa and I don’t have that good of a relationship.”
“Uh huh.”
“...can I have that back now?” He pointed at the thing still in my hand.
“This?” I held up the chess piece-looking thing.
I would have to be daft to not notice some of its peculiarities. It felt like an authority in crystallized form.
“Is that what that mean lady attacked us for!?” Paimon asked. “Tone-Deaf Bard, what is that?”
Venti sighed. “I guess since you’re involved, you have the right to know. It’s my gnosis; it’s proof of my authority bestowed by Celestia as the Anemo Archon.”
I looked at the chess piece in my hand. “This is your Divine Authority.”
Venti nodded; maybe he wasn’t used to that terminology.
“They know about your identity?” Artoria asked, maybe a tad rhetorically at this point.
“That’s right! Tone-Deaf Bard said not to mention it to anyone else. Did they know too!?” Paimon blurted out.
“Hehe~, they found out pretty quickly for…certain reasons.” Venti coughed into his fist. “Please don’t spread it around; I don’t want everyone to start worshipping me when I’m just being Venti.”
I wasn’t ignoring Aether over there; I had quite a few questions for him, and I think he wanted to ask me things too.
But at the moment, I figured it was best to know what was going on because I just stuck my hand into something I didn’t intend to.
“All Seven Archons possess a Gnosis. If one of the Fatui Harbingers wanted to take mine, that means Annie is really making a move.”
“Annie?”
“Ah, um…the Cryo Archon, I think her full name these days is Anastasya Feodorovna Snezhnaya. I don’t think she’d like me calling her by her nickname anymore.” Venti said softly. “We had a falling out about 500 years ago, and she cut ties with the others too.”
Hmm.
“Well, it’s none of our concern, I suppose," I decided on. “Except, why exactly were you letting her step on you? Was it just your preference? I mean…I understand.”
Paimon let out a high-pitched noise while Aether snorted, holding back a laugh.
“It wasn’t on purpose!” Venti whined. “I just…. I’m not really as strong as I used to be. An Archon draws strength from the worship of their people. I don’t really show myself or participate in public or have everyone worship me like the others do.”
I flipped his hat off his head. “Please, you have more than enough power to defend yourself if you wanted. Either you wanted her to step on you, or you were letting her take this thing.”
“C-Can I have that back?”
“No, it’s mine now.” I firmly refused him.
He was very lackluster about wanting it returned.
“Give it back!” He reached for it, but I held it out of his reach; he was fairly short.
He kept trying to grab at it, and I finally put a hand on his head to keep him away.
“It’s important; I need it back!”
“Then you shouldn’t have lost it!”
“It wasn’t on purpose!”
“Yeah, then if you were really overpowered, then good luck taking it back from me! Either admit that you wanted her to step on you or that you were letting her take it!”
Artoria let out a sigh at our antics. “Forgive him, he means well.”
“It’s alright, it looks like they get along well.” Aether replied.
“Where’s my payment, Venti?!"
“I have it; I brought some stuff with me! Give me my Gnosis back and I’ll let you pick something extra out of my stuff, alright?!”
“Should have said that beforehand.” I released him. “Treasures, show me your treasures.” I said excitedly.
“Tone-Deaf Bard has treasures? But he’s also poor and trying to get people to buy him drinks.” Paimon titled her little head.
Venti slumped his shoulders. “I’m a performer; I make my money through performances! I like to travel and earn my way through my music! So it’s normal that I don’t have a lot of money on me.”
“I’m sure you are very talented.” Artoria tried to placate him, but I think it just made Venti even more depressed.
“Fine, here’s what I brought.” He waved his hand through the air, and a gust of wind rolled in, dropping several things onto the ground.
Right, you couldn’t do anything, right Venti?
You were powerless, weren’t you, Venti?
You couldn’t stop her from stepping on you, could you, Venti?
“You know, it’s okay to have preferences—"
“I didn’t let her step on me!” Venti looked like he was about to start crying.
I ignored him for now and looked down at what he brought.
As he said before, there were some paintings, works of art that I was genuinely appreciative of. I wasn’t an artist; I wasn’t someone who could create something like this, but I appreciated the talent that went into such things.
“Is that Stormterror?” I pointed at a painting that depicted a boy and a dragon.
“Dvalin.” Venti corrected me. “The people here started calling him Stormterror after he got corrupted by the Abyss.”
I looked up at Aether. “And you stopped him?”
“With the help of Venti.” He nodded. “He was bigger in person.”
"...really couldn’t stop her, huh, Venti?”
The look of utter defeat on his face said it all.
I wasn’t kink shaming.
I was lying shamefully.
There was a difference.
I understood completely; look at Salem. That woman had the same look that Salem sometimes has and…it admittedly does things for me.
Despite appreciating the artwork he brought and some other interesting trinkets, I already knew what drew my attention.
There were a handful of weapons on the ground.
I subconsciously reached out and grabbed a sword that immediately caught my eye.
“That’s a good one; it’s called Skyward Blade. I blessed it a long time ago at the height of my strength. It’s imbued with the divine power of wind." Venti explained the sword I just picked up.
It had a somewhat short handle, and the guard was wide with ethereal, feather-like constructs protruding out of it.
The blade itself was a longsword, about two and a half fingers in width, that faintly glowed.
It was a good sword, a very good sword.
It didn’t lose out to my other swords either.
Leagues above the Lion’s Roar on my hip that I was just using for fun.
I picked it up and held it in my hand. It was light, extremely light. I could barely feel I was holding something in my hands.
Of course, I gave it a light swing, and it practically sang through the air. It wasn’t that it cut through the air either; it was that the wind just seemingly made way for it, reducing any kind of resistance.
Fast, it was really fast.
I could feel it with a few stabs and slashes; the power of this sword lay in its speed overall.
My first thought was, how fast would it be if I sent it flying through the air?
My hoarding instincts were kicking in.
I wanted it; I wanted it bad.
I had to force myself to set it back down.
Because there was another sword among his stuff that caught my eye.
“What is this?” I asked, touching the second one. “Is it made of stone or metal?”
“That’s an interesting one. It was made by Morax, the Geo Archon over in Liyue.” Venti smiled. “I won it in a bet from him a few centuries ago. I kept it around just to tease him with. Like my Skyward Sword, this was imbued with his power of the earth. It has the nifty ability to increase its weight, making it somewhat hard to use.”
It was hard to describe its actual shape.
It was like someone took a piece of ore that was embedded in a rock and carved it all up, smelted it, and reforged all of it into a weapon. Yet, it retained jagged lines and sharp edges but was also meticulously crafted.
“Does it have a name?”
“Summit Shaper. Morax told me how its previous wielder once used it to cut off the peak of a mountain.” Venti chuckled.
I picked it up, and it was significantly heavier.
At its base, it was heavier than my other swords. Not anywhere close to being unwieldy, especially to someone like me, but it was enough that the observation was noteworthy.
And it could increase its weight?
Was there a limit?
Imagine a sword weighing tens of thousands of pounds coming flying through the air at you.
I could tell this one too was no less than my other swords.
Divine even.
Perhaps not a divine construct, but created by a god? That put it leagues above any kind of normal weapon just from that alone.
I kind of wanted to keep this little chess piece thing of his just to lord it over him. But god damn, I lost all desire to keep messing with him after seeing what he actually had.
And his treasures didn’t just end at those two swords; he had a bunch of other things.
I saw a bow that didn’t lose to the sword; it even had the same style to it.
A spear as well.
It looks like he created a bunch of different weapons with his own blessing.
“One for payment, and one in return for your little trinket?” I held his, what did he call it, his Gnosis? I held it up for him.
“Deal.” Venti snatched it from my hand before I could offer any kind of rebuttal.
Fuck it, I don’t care anymore.
I grabbed my two swords.
"Hey, Traveler.” Venti called out to Aether, who was standing there silently, looking over the stuff that he brought as well. “Since I went through the effort, you want to pick something out too? Since you helped me with Dvalin, I felt like it was the least I could do.”
Aether’s eyes shined.
I recognized a fellow loot goblin when I saw one.
Hot damn though.
I’ve been here two days, and now I already have two new amazing swords!
Best vacation ever.
And it’s not like I was getting involved in whatever nonsense that was. I doubt I’ll run into what's-her-name again, or whatever Fatui they’re called since we’re just here to sightsee and enjoy some peace and quiet.
Artoria put her arm around me and smiled at me as I excitedly held up my two new swords.
Yup, I was sure it was going to be a pleasantly peaceful adventure.
@***@
A/N
Wilhelm acquires treasure; Wilhelm is pleased.
Had those two swords been planned from the beginning of the story's start, it wouldn't have just been like a random thing.
And of course, as Wilhelm arrives, it’s tradition that he severely derail the main story of whatever world he arrives in.
As I said before, I don’t plan on Wilhelm usurping the Traveler’s whole role or identity or w/e; he’s still weak at this point, so it makes it look like Wilhelm was sort of dunking on him with the Signora thing, but he gets strong fairly quickly.
Also worth noting, Signora is significantly stronger than that; she just didn’t want to start a fight in the middle of Mondstadt for the Knights to swarm her either, so she chose to retreat once a Knight found out what she was doing in their kingdom. For those who don’t know Genshin, the details will be explained more in the next chapter, where Wilhelm gets a better rundown of the world.
Sorry for the late chapters; as I mentioned earlier this week, I’m a bit slower than normal, but these are still Sunday's chapters, albeit 8 hours late :p.
I’ll include pictures with the chapter of his new swords.