Lurking

"This is…"

Childe muttered something inaudible, noticing a Harbinger insignia on top of the letter.

He opened the envelope and pulled out the letter.

In a tall elegant handwriting, ink seemed to pool in the curve of each stroke, the words were precise and unadorned.

He turned the letter over a few times, realizing its thickness due to the special wax seal only Harbingers could open, that had been affixed to the letter with no clear intention of opening it.

If her Highness Tsaritsa wanted to use such measures, then there was obviously some level of importance to the message, he had no doubt.

With a sigh, he slid the letter towards himself, resting it against his palm. As his fingers brushed against the paper, his eyes widened in shock.

(The orders of the mission were…changed?)

The sharp tone of his thoughts caused his mind to reel, the sudden realization dispelling any rational thought.

What was Her Highness actually thinking?

Weren't they supposed to take care of the Traveller first to regulate her growth?

Was there something else he wasn't aware of or hadn't taken into account?

Childe suddenly knew he should hurry up and depart. He had a bad feeling about this…

He glanced towards Yomite who seemed to have been assessing the situation from afar, "I'm afraid our duel has to be postponed for a bit. It would appear I'm a rather busy person."

Yomite blinked at him. "Sorry?"

Childe cleared his throat awkwardly, "Ah yes. I know, I know! I'm angry too...But something urgent came up and I can't miss it... So please, let's fight again later! Peace for now?"

Yomite frowned deeply, his grip tightening around the claymore he clutched.

He had to take care of Childe now, otherwise he might risk dying by his hand in the near future as the prophecy told, but when he noticed an enormous number of Fatui Agents and Fatui Skirmisher Warriors appear one by one, he changed his mind.

He came into contact with them before at multiple occasions, they attacked indiscriminately and all of them were pretty tough. Fighting them so often, he noticed there were a few different types of them.

The close combat ones, and then the annoying long range fighters, both covered by heavy armor.

He could take care of the close combat fighters relatively easily, but the long range bastards were quite the problem.

They were highly mobile, and stayed far away, firing their guns with pinpoint accuracy at their target, hence if he did fight the Fatui, he would have his party to support him.

The first time he saw them, Yomite seemed shocked by the fact that there were guns in this world, or at least something very similar to that.

The bullets were relatively slow, compared to a handgun, but the projectiles fired by them were considerably large and more destructive.

The most annoying out of all of them, however, were the Colossal Fatties, as he liked to call them.

Men, with huge bodies and shoulder plates covering their chests and backs, along with thick, belled masks to cover the upper half of their faces.

Their strength, much higher than normal humans, showed through as their form was a compact, pure fat…

And their guns were able to freeze a living being within seconds, which made it hard to fight them melee range alone, as someone like Hu Tao with a Pyro Vision was needed to defeat them instead.

Although that didn't mean they were invincible.

Still, Yomite wasn't delusional enough to think he could fight all of these enemies by himself, especially not now, when that man Childe was still with them.

"Haah, when can I finally reunite with Teucer…all of this work…" Childe mumbled darkly under his breath, earning a face of disbelief from Yomite.

"Wait…did you just say…Teucer?" he asked sharply.

At the mention of the name, an image flashed before his eyes.

"Huh? Teucer? It's my younger brother's name. What? Don't tell me you have the same obsession as your lover, to bury kids alive? Or are you trying to enrage me, perhaps? Hmph, I currently don't have time for this, save it for when we cross paths once more. Till we meet again, Comrade."

With those words, Childe snapped his fingers at Yomite and left the location, transforming into a water stream as he shot up the cliff and vanished into the city.

After Childe left, the Fatui members gave Yomite a menacing glare, but didn't have enough guts to confront him directly, as they've seen he was evenly matched with their Lord.

They slowly backed away, leaving Yomite the only one remaining in the area.

The difficulties began to pile up, a soft sigh left his lips as he tightened his grip on the claymore once again…

He thought spamming a few cubes would be enough to take care of him as he managed to summon a few of them during their battle, but Childe instinctively dodged them, and then countered him which put Yomite at a disadvantage so he refrained from using them after.

He knew that further conflict would be necessary.

He only wanted to visit Liyue to see the hot springs, eat Liyue specialties, enjoy the trip with his girls, and so on, without having to worry about getting a death sentence at any moment from an assassin or even a God…

(Teucer…was the name of the brother of Ajax the Great from Greek mythology…An Ajax and a Teucer, huh...It's highly unlikely that this is just a coincidence…)

***

Not far away from the location where Childe and Yomite fought...

"Ahhh.. Yomite-sama is so cool when he is covered in blood and wounds! So cool!"

A squeal of delight echoed in the distance, followed by the distant rumble of what sounded like an applause.

"Aaah he is so amazing..." a young pigtailed maiden cooed to herself, placing her hand over her stomach and sighing happily.

The girl was obviously Barbara, who followed him all the way from Mondstadt, and didn't forget to take pictures along the way. At this point, her whole handbag was full of pictures of him.

She was all set!