December 15, 1993 of the Teyvat Calendar, inside Baiju Inn at Feiyun Slope.
Another week passed, and Yunyan’s investigation made new progress.
The communication of this investigation result was chosen to be held at Baiju Inn.
Because the water involved in this investigation result was a bit deep, communicating inside a restaurant like before raised concerns about walls having ears.
As a hotel in Liyue Harbor heavily invested in and operated by Ningguang and others, Baiju Inn naturally became the best choice for the meeting venue.
“Are you saying that the pharmacy is backed by the Fatui?” Obviously, Kuaixue was very surprised by the answer to the question.
“Mm, absolutely true.
After multiple confirmations over these 15 days, it is certain that the piles of Violetgrass inside the pharmacy are supplied to the Fatui.
According to the investigation, the pharmacy stocked up once again in the past half month, and the customers patronizing it every day numbered no more than five fingers, none of whom looked like people from a clinic.
In addition, according to the children’s visits, the deceived crowd has been investigated, and the list of victims has been completed.” Yunyan was still quite reliable when in work mode, especially glowing with radiance when mentioning the children’s achievements.
“Strange, why are the Fatui buying so much Violetgrass?
Even if they got hurt cleaning up monsters in the wild, they could just go directly to a clinic, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs even provides subsidies.
Seeking far when near is available must mean there is something fishy going on.” Ningguang was also puzzled by the suspicious behavior of the Fatui.
The Fatui are a special dispatch force of Snezhnaya, the nation of ice.
Because Snezhnaya is located in a remote area with a cold climate and scarce local resources, quite a few citizens of Snezhnaya choose to join the Fatui and go out to work for a living.
Due to the advantages of Snezhnaya’s technology, the Fatui, acting as mercenaries, can use their equipment to crudely wield elemental energy, making them count as ‘artificial allogenes’.
Although incomparable to true allogenes, they are still very popular in various nations.
The main business of the Fatui is cleaning up local monsters and providing technological and military support to local exploration and investigation teams.
As mentioned earlier, people in the world of Teyvat are in a pattern of large aggregations and small scattered settlements.
The vast majority of people within a country live in the main cities, such as Mondstadt in Mondstadt, and Liyue Harbor in Liyue, but some subjects still live in other places, which causes traffic problems.
Cities relatively prosperous like Yilong Port are fine; the official road from Liyue Harbor to Yilong Port is guarded by the Millelith, so it is quite safe.
However, in places with fewer populations like Jueyun Karst, dispatching the Millelith obviously has the problem of insufficient manpower, at which point the Fatui would be hired to promptly clear out nearby monsters and ensure road safety.
Some places, such as uninhabited areas like Tianqiu Valley where large numbers of monsters like vishaps live, also hire the Fatui to be stationed there so as to understand the situation in a timely manner and prevent monster surges from flooding into human settlements without warning.
In this way, the Fatui, as mercenaries, rely on the advantage of being cheap and of good quality to scatter across the wild areas of various countries.
If citizens of various countries encounter danger in the wild, they can ask the surrounding Fatui for help.
Among the folk of Liyue, the reputation of the Fatui is quite good.
Especially in recent years, when underground anomalies occurred in The Chasm, the Fatui, as foreign guests, actually stepped forward and disregarding danger saved many miners, earning them the honorable title of ‘heroes’ among many people.
As for the government, its attitude towards the Fatui is relatively ambiguous.
On one hand, taking advantage of the difficulty of supervision in the wild, the Fatui frequently survey other countries’ hydrological environments without permission, explore ruins and Domains to embezzle treasures, and even ignore citizens asking for help.
On the other hand, the Fatui are after all a foreign nation’s army.
Although they are mercenaries, the object of their allegiance is not the buyer but the Cryo Archon.
These points make the governments of various countries always vigilant against the Fatui, and the Fatui are not allowed to be stationed in the country’s main traffic arteries and urban areas.
However, there’s no other way; the Fatui are simply too cheap.
The finances of various countries are always limited, and for the sake of maintaining stability, they can only turn a blind eye.
That aside, assuming it is really the Fatui purchasing those Violetgrass, the matter might become even more serious and even turn into an international issue.
“Why would the Fatui suddenly demand so much Violetgrass?” Ningguang muttered while deep in thought, “Usually, with the strength of the Fatui, if there are many wounded, it would at least require combat power equivalent to more than three Lawachurls to be possible.” As the only one among the three who owns a Vision, Ningguang has a clearer concept of the combat power of the Fatui.
Fatui soldiers equipped with Snezhnaya’s technological equipment and through combat training may have individual combat capabilities inferior to Vision owners like Ningguang, but the Fatui usually carry out missions in squad units.
Even Ningguang cannot easily win against a team of the Fatui.
After all, Ningguang had just obtained a Vision not long ago, and his mastery and application of element power were not mature enough, let alone that the Fatui soldiers in the squad possessed equipment with different attributes and could cooperate to trigger elemental reactions.
To be able to cause severely injured casualties among a squad of the Fatui, the strength of their opponent would only be even more terrifying.
“But in that case, no matter how much they block the news, there must be rumors within Liyue Harbor.” The number of Violetgrass in the warehouse is not small at all, with at least over a hundred wounded.
This casualty count can be said to be no exaggeration even if a monster surge occurred.
However, the current situation is very weird.
The Fatui, having suffered heavy casualties, would rather sneakily go to an illegal pharmacy to spend money on medicine than go to a clinic in Liyue Harbor to enjoy subsidies.
Clearly a monster surge level disaster has occurred, yet not a single bit of news can be heard inside Liyue Harbor, and even the Ministry of Civil Affairs hasn’t made any moves.
The three people in the private room kept silent.
Everyone knew that the water in this was very deep—so deep that their current selves could not handle it.
“An unknown Domain or The Chasm.” Kuaixue recalled the situation within Liyue and stated a possible guess.
“The Chasm again.” Ningguang’s eye twitched, almost allergic to this name.
“Mm, for this kind of situation to occur, either the battle location took place in an unknown underground, or it happened inside a Domain deep in the mountains and forests.
Only in the above two situations can the Fatui barely block the news.
According to my stereotype of the Fatui, eight out of ten times it is the former; because if it really were deep mountains and forests where the Ministry of Civil Affairs knows nothing about the situation, they could easily shift the blame to monsters and receive treatment in a clinic with peace of mind.
However, the fact is, judging from the pharmacy owner’s situation, this kind of situation has appeared for at least a month, and very few Domains are ones that the Fatui couldn’t clean out after spending a month.
Only The Chasm, where the Ministry of Civil Affairs knows the general direction of the Fatui and where the combat environment is enclosed, is possible.” “…I am preparing to notify the Ministry of Civil Affairs right now, explaining the situation to them.
According to the investigation of the past half month, the next time the Fatui patronize should be at 2:00 AM three days later.
We will strive to catch them red-handed to avoid unnecessary complications.” Regarding this, Kuaixue and Ningguang held the same view; if they didn’t throw out this hot potato, it would only hurt their own hands.
It might not seem tempting right now but who knows what the future holds?
“And If you’re enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!”