7 Festering Desire 2

"You defeated an Abyss mage?!"

Barbara was acting a bit hysterical for some reason. I didn't eat with them during break time so I didn't get to tell them about the battle earlier, so I decided to tell them at dismissal hence the situation now. Of course, Mona already knows.

"Are you okay?!" asked Barbara.

"Did you get hurt?!" asked Fischl and Noelled in unison. Amber wasn't with them today. They said she went home early.

They checked me all over and it was getting kinda uncomfortable. Luckily, I was saved by Albedo.

"Aether, can you come with me for today? Oh, you can bring them with you."

I nodded. I already knew what it was, he already told me earlier. Although, I am gonna miss my commissions today. Well, he did say he'll pay me today. The four tilted their heads seemingly clueless of what was about to happen. Yes, I didn't even tell Mona about this. I mean, it did include me using the Festering Desire. I thought that I should let Albedo explain it first. And so he did.

"...Is it really okay for him to use a sword like that?" asked Fischl.

"Yeah, we don't even know what that thing is capable of… and fighting a Mitachurl right off the bat with it," said Barbara.

Yes, I was going to fight something known as a Mitachurl. It was just basically a large Hilichurl. Even I was nervous. Barbara was even squishing Bob so hard. She was scared of him at first, but she got comfortable really quickly.

"It's okay, I'll help him a bit," said Albedo as he created a small golden transparent flower. It was the Geo element. I wonder what I can do with that.

"Paimon is here as well!"

"...What is that?"

Oh right, Paimon didn't come out earlier. I should tell her that it's okay now.

"This is my companion, Paimon. Also, it's okay for you to stay out now Paimon. I mean, people already saw me with a slime.

"Really?! Yey!" she raised her fists up in celebration. I looked at Albedo and he was holding his chin in thought.

"Amazing. What exactly is this child? Is she connected to you?"

"No! Why would you think that?!" Paimon was hostile. Wow, the neutral mob became hostile.

I bopped Paimon on the head and we proceeded to go out of the city. I didn't really know why but a sense of danger washed over me as soon as we stepped out of the city. I lived out here before so I can safely say that this feeling is something that never happened before. It was like someone was watching me. Better be wary.

"Why do you look tense? I've never seen you look this tense before," said Paimon. Was it showing on my face? I should really not let it show that much. I looked to my side and saw that the four girls all looked worried. Not good, not good. I smiled at them and this time, that smile didn't feel tiring.

"It's okay. Maybe it was just because we came back out here again."

We continued on walking north for a few minutes and still found nothing. What were we looking for? A Hilichurl camp of course… Wait a second.

"I didn't come across any of these camps before…"

"Wait, what? Which way did you come from?" asked Albedo.

"From south of Mondstadt."

"No wonder, the camps there have been cleared out by the last expedition a few weeks ago."

A few weeks ago… Oh, I was just resting that day near the shore and as far as I could remember, I needed to climb a small slope before I could get out of that shore.

A few more minutes later, we finally found one. There were five Hilichurls wielding clubs and one axe wielding Mitachurl. As soon as we were just about 5 meters away, they began to aggro.

"Here we go." said Albedo as he placed a white and golden flower to the ground. A golden circular field that has a circumference of 5 meters came out from below the flower.

"Go on." said Albedo nonchalantly. C'mon, at least show some concern. Just then, I felt a tug at my sleeve. I looked beside me and saw Barbara wearing a worried expression on her face. I smiled and patted her on the head. I also patted the other three and even Bob.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine."

As I said that, her grip loosened and her expression became calmer. I then turned into air and appeared right in front of the Hilichurls and Mitachurl.

"?!"

I summoned my new sword and imbued it with Anemo. I slashed at the Hilichurls first. A golden flower appeared and exploded when I hit the Hilichurls. When I confirmed that they all turned to dust I then twisted around to dodge the axe that was just about to hit me. I hopped and dodged the other slashed that was aimed at where my neck was earlier. I used Air Walk to stand in the air and bait the Mitachurl. Once it took the bait, I disappeared once more and appeared behind it. I was going to stab, however I stumbled a bit when the ground shook. I turned into air by instinct and backed away 3 meters.

I looked and saw that the Mitachurl had it's right hand buried in the ground. Moments later, it pulls out a slime made of the Pyro element. This is going to be problematic.

It imbued its axe with Pyro using the slime then proceeded to throw the slime at me. I dodged the slime, but that was a bait. The Mitachurl jumped to the air and smashed its axe down. I managed to dodge that. However, flames came out of the ground and hit me. I managed to block in time. So that's how it is huh.

I took a stance and swung. A green streak of light came out of my blade and headed straight toward the Mitachurl. It was about to block it. It took the bait.

I appeared behind it looking like I just teleported and stabbed it. The golden flower appeared and exploded again. It wasn't enough though. I created a vortex right at the tip of my sword and made it explode. The Mitachurl fell down with a thump.

It was all over just like that. Well that was tiring. The others came running over. The first one to get here was Mona. She turned to water and was moving very quickly. She popped out and just stood there.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Oh, it's just… Are you okay? You got hit there right?" she asked.

"I'm fine. It just got me by surprise."

She nodded silently and suddenly hugged me.

"From now on be careful okay?"

Well this was weird. Was she worried that I could have gotten seriously hurt?

The others arrived here and all of the girls did the same thing that Mona did. Ah, they were all so soft. What? I'm a guy so cut me some slack.

I could feel something ominous beside me so I looked at my sword and sure enough, it was emitting an ominous purple aura. It was getting stronger.

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