...Ok?

https://discord.gg/qpDTvSj3TC

https://pa treon.com/StickSwinger

***

Hu Tao had finished drying his clothes off. Luckily nothing caught on fire, and his clothes were also fine...

Currently, they were on their way to the guild to pick up their daily quests.

"Oi...Lolitao, move it."

"Hey! You said you would only call me like that if I were to burn them! I did nothing wrong!"

"I changed my mind."

They walked as they bantered.

The stress he felt during those dark fifteen minutes of helplessness was enough to piss him off for the rest of the day.

Lumine was still sleeping, and Paimon didn't want to join them, so it was just the two of them now.

He left Paimon two thousand Mora so she could go and buy herself something if she was hungry, however, she said she wasn't going to take the bait.

"Luring the tiger away from its mountain! Hmpf! Paimon will be protecting Lumine so that you won't pull a fast one on her!"

Leaving behind their angry flying companion, the duo embarked on a journey.

They had plenty of time to spare until tomorrow night.

As they checked in the guild, Katheryne gave them their daily quests, and they left Mondstadt.

The east forest was a distance of twenty minutes on foot from the town of Mondstadt.

Yomite hoped they could ride a carriage if it passed through but unfortunately, not one carriage passed by.

"Just my shitty luck. I really wanted to see horses... oh well..."

Exactly twenty minutes later, they had arrived at the east forest.

The daily missions weren't really that hard. Most of them were about collecting some ores and herbs.

He could leave that to Hu Tao as he was pretty sure she saw things like Wolfhooks before. He had no idea what those were.

'Although come to think of it, Charles did mention there was a special drink called Wolfhook juice, so I guess that's what it's made of.'

After collecting the necessary items, the last quest was Hilichurl extermination in one sector of a forest called Wolvendom, luckily they just picked up a few Wolfhooks on the said location and didn't have to move anywhere.

What he currently wanted the most was a map.

Something he could navigate with.

Fortunately, this forest was the same location he was transferred to a few days ago, and he had Hu Tao with him, so it wasn't that hard to find, but a map was a must.

He will have to buy one later down the road.

"The quest states that we should exterminate a Hilichurl camp, but which one? There are bound to be more..."

They advanced towards the dense forest while carefully checking the surroundings, trying to find any Hilichurls.

Both of them were startled when they suddenly heard the cry of birds and noticed the presence of small animals shaking the trees inside the forest.

It was only vague, but Yomite knew there were signs of a presence in their surroundings.

'Where is it? What kind of creature was it?'

He calmly scanned his surroundings. He could feel some kind of enmity projected towards them.

He didn't know if it was another perk of his new body, but he could clearly feel someone's gaze, filled with hostility.

"Be careful. Assistant-kun. There's something here."

Hu Tao noticed so as well and pulled out her polearm.

She pointed to the depths of the forest with her gaze, shifting to a combat stance.

While waiting for any sign of movement, a black shadow jumped out from the forest and attacked them.

Yomite twisted his body in a hurry and evaded it, easily able to see through its movement.

Grey hair with a dark aura was extending along its body.

Although it was approximately the size of a large breed of a dog, it wasn't that cute.

"A wolf. A ferocious one at that."

Its size was much smaller than that of the pup they found in the Domain though, so he really wondered how big will that pup be once it grows up.

When he confronted the one wolf that jumped out, he saw a second one spring out from another direction aiming at Hu Tao.

Hu Tao rushed to face it from the front and drove a full-body blow into the snout of the wolf.

It ate a mouthful of her fist, and straight after, it fell to the ground just like that, with a final twitch, closing its eyes forever. Surely a one-hit kill.

"What the hell..."

That was an instakill. Yomite knew that Hu Tao was strong, but he only saw her weapon mastery and her Vision...Not her actual strength.

'What a monster...She just freaking punched it...'

He ought to be nicer to her, or he might just one day end up being strangled by her in sleep, unable to do anything

'What a scary thought...'

Punching something to death wasn't hard and Yomite had experienced it first class himself as brain matter splattered all over his face from the poor Hilichurl, but Hu Tao killed it without it even bleeding.

From his understanding she must have injured the brain of the wolf by causing it an internal bleeding, or she must have severed the connection to the brain.

Not even a drop of blood was spilled and the job was done.

Something like that was impossible for him as his brute and uncontrollable force didn't allow that.

The unimaginable control of her strength almost frightened him.

Shortly after the wolf had died, the black aura had dispersed, but Yomite had no time to notice this as he was dealing with a wolf himself.

While he was admiring Hu Tao, aiming for this chance, the wolf in front of him bore its fangs and rushed again.

He read the wolf's movement calmly, matching its movement. Doing so, he unsheathed the claymore on his back.

They crossed each other in a flash.

At that moment, the wolf's neck flew in the air and rolled vigorously on the ground.

Killing an actual animal for the first time, some feeling of guilt and disgust floated in his mind.

It wasn't as bad as when he thought about Hilichurls being humans, but animals were still a big part of his life, and he loved them.

"I am sorry doggie..."

However, while he was immersed in the mourning, four new wolves appeared in a group.

Of the mentioned four, two of them moved in his direction.

"More of them came...Oh well...I will apologize later..." He readied his claymore and prepared himself to draw more blood.

Just then, he heard a voice of a girl,

"Come forth! Oz, thy majestic beast of eternity!"

A streak of thunderous purple lightning had befallen the place, and what appeared to be a purple raven, flew straight through the wolves, electrocuting them to death.

Wolves were charred black, and it seemed that there was no longer any point in fighting.

A woman, or rather, a blonde-haired young girl wearing bizarre, purple, web-like clothes, glanced at the two of them and smiled, "I, Prinzessin der Verurteilung, descend upon this land by the call of fate!"

She crossed her hands in front of her, placing one of her palms over her visible green eye, as the other one was covered with an eyepatch.

Standing in front of them, with this intimidating pose, Hu Tao didn't thank her for helping them, but instead was cautious, as she noticed that a purple Vision was hanging around her waist.

Yomite felt like he recognized the pose and murmured in his mind, 'Jojo?'

Hu Tao pointed her spear at the newcomer and asked, "Who are you and why are you ruining our fun?"

Yomite turned to her and mouthed, 'How is that fun!? Poor wolves...'

"Me? Hehehe. Remember thou this, that I, Fischl von Luftschloss Narfidort am the Prinzessin der Verurteilung, Sovereign of Immernachtreich, omniscient and eminent judge of all the world's iniquity, divine being from another world and the Devil of the Rhine!" She let out a sneer.

"From another...world?"

Yomite's interest was immediately piqued.

Her familiar raven sighed and explained, "She means that she's an investigator for the Adventurers' Guild."

"Oh, it could talk!" Yomite's hands were itching as he felt the need to pet it.

"...Ahem. Oz! That is but one of my many royal engagements." She glanced their way and continued, "And I shall bring great suffering to every worm that stands in my way!"

"...Ok?"

A little bit baffled, Yomite let out a single word.