With a heavy heart, Lumine went up to the counter first to settle the bill.
Fortunately, the Mora in her pouch was just barely enough to cover it.
“Sigh…
Looks like I’m going to have to pinch every single Mora from now on,” Lumine muttered quietly as she put her purse away.
She felt like crying without tears.
This dealt yet another devastating blow to her already impoverished financial situation.
After all, there weren’t many Mora left in her wallet.
*Looks like if I’m going to keep feeding these two little bottomless pits, I’ll need to take on a lot more commissions,* Lumine resolved silently in her heart.
There was no helping it; Eve and Paimon simply had black holes for stomachs.
That single meal had cost well over twenty thousand Mora.
Aside from searching for her brother, Lumine now had a brand-new top priority: figuring out how to make money.
After all, she couldn’t afford to starve to death before she even found Aether.
“Lumine, I’m stuffed!” Eve announced, looking over at Lumine as she returned to the table.
As a deity, she could technically keep eating, but considering Lumine’s sad wallet, she decided to show some mercy.
She had already witnessed the brutal cost of living in Mondstadt.
*Seriously, how does that tone-deaf bard even survive in a high-consumption city like this?*
*Ah, right.
He’s practically immune to starving anyway.*
*Well, aside from that, Eve shouldn’t be eating too many high-calorie foods either.*
*Even immortals like Ganyu could get chubby; gods were no exception.*
“Lumine…
mmph, wait a minute, I’m not done…”
Paimon was still eating, devouring her food like a starving ghost that had never seen a meal in her life.
Lumine sat back down in her original seat, watching Paimon stuff her face.
Her eyelids began to flutter heavily.
In a brief haze of exhaustion, she thought she saw her brother.
Aether was pulling her by the hand, saying, “Lumine, let’s go.
We’re leaving this place—leaving this world.”
Then, with another blur of her vision, the scene shifted dramatically.
A sprawling, ruined city of decay suddenly materialized before her eyes.
The stark contrast snapped Lumine completely awake with a start.
“Let me tell you, back at the gathering of the Seven, I sent that tone-deaf drunk flying with a single punch just for trying to force me to drink…”
“Back in Sumeru, I was an absolute big sister boss!
The Akademiya didn’t dare say a damn thing to me when I—”
“How long was I asleep?” Lumine asked, rubbing her eyes as she pushed herself up from the table.
“Hmm…
about an hour, I’d say!” Paimon’s voice chimed in.
“Wait, where’s Eve?” Lumine scanned the table, only to find the small white form completely missing.
She’s over there!” Paimon immediately pointed a finger in a specific direction.
Following the guide’s outstretched hand, Lumine looked over and saw Eve stumbling onto another table, wildly flailing her arms and babbling incoherently to a group of startled strangers.
“That banquet was legendary!
I drank all that wine, and when I woke up, that tone-deaf idiot was literally walking around me in a wide circle!
Even old man Morax told me straight to my face never to touch alcohol again—”
“She took advantage of the time you were asleep, fished out a cup of alcohol from somewhere…”
“And the second she drank it, she turned into *this*,” Paimon said, sounding thoroughly exasperated.
“Sigh, this little troublemaker really knows how to keep me on my toes,” Lumine sighed.
She stood up and walked over to retrieve her.
“Eve, stop blabbering nonsense.
It’s time to go,” Paimon called out.
“Go?” Eve sluggishly spun around.
Before she could even register what was happening, her entire body was scooped up into mid-air.
“Wait, isn’t Eve a Dendro slime?
Alcohol is mostly liquid, so…
did she just absorb it way too well?” Lumine muttered, staring down at the limp form in her arms in sheer bewilderment.
At that moment, Eve had finally quieted down, having completely passed out.
“Never mind.
Let’s head out, Paimon,” Lumine said.
“Right, let’s go!” Paimon wiped her mouth haphazardly and zipped over to hover by Lumine’s side.
“Mm.” Lumine offered a tired smile and nodded.
***
After lunch, the trio resumed their stroll through the city of Mondstadt.
With the gentle, warm breeze blowing past, the alcohol in Eve’s system burned off remarkably fast.
“Nngh?
Where am I?
What happened?” Eve mumbled as she blinked her eyes open.
“Hahahahaha!
You’re finally awake, Eve!
Do you have any idea what you were doing just now?” Paimon crowed with laughter.
“I…
I think I drank something, and then…”
Instantly, a wave of secondhand embarrassment so intense it could dig a crater in the ground crashed over Eve’s consciousness.
*Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods!
If I had known, I never would have touched a single drop!*
Eve honestly wished she could find a crack in the pavement and crawl right into it.
I can literally just burrow underground.*
She shook her head vigorously as memories from two thousand years ago came flooding back.
She vividly remembered the time Barbatos had forced a cup of wine down her throat, getting her completely sloshed.
She had gone on an absolute rampage during the banquet, punching Barbatos so hard he rocketed into the stratosphere.
Even Morax had barely managed to stop her, which was why the old man had earnestly advised her never to touch booze again—her temperament while drunk was truly catastrophic.
*Barbatos:* “And that’s why getting her to drink is a lethal hazard.”
“Ugh, dead memories are suddenly attacking me,” Eve groaned in pure agony.
As they turned a corner, Lumine suddenly halted in her tracks.
“Huh?
Lumine?
Why’d you stop?” Paimon blundered right into the back of Lumine’s head.
“Shh…” Lumine immediately gestured for quiet.
“Isn’t that Acting Grand Master Jean?” Eve whispered, peering past Lumine at a figure standing ahead.
“She seems to be talking to someone.”
“Let’s wait until they finish, then we can go over and say hello,” Lumine murmured softly.
At that moment, snatches of conversation drifted over to them.
“So, that is our official stance.
We’ll leave the rest in your hands,” a masked woman said, addressing Jean directly.
“If the Knights of Favonius are incapable of swiftly eradicating that rampaging dragon, you might as well hand the defense of Mondstadt over to us in the Fatui.”
“We are entirely confident that we can handle Mondstadt’s security much better than you ever could.”
“Just like how the dragon crisis can be resolved easily, if you’d simply let us deal with that beast…” the woman continued smoothly.
“A beast?
That’s enough!” Jean’s expression darkened with clear displeasure.
“Oh?
What’s this?
Is Acting Grand Master implying something?” The woman’s tone sharpened instantly.
Although she was merely a minor diplomat, the reason she dared speak with such condescension to a nation’s highest-ranking authority was entirely due to the terrifying organization backing her: the Fatui.
No, not just the Fatui—to be precise, it was Snezhnaya.
Their overwhelming national power was what gave her this kind of spine.
“Hoo…” Jean drew in a long, steady breath.
“I expect your nation’s diplomats to display a far more professional attitude,” Jean said coldly.
“You want to deal with one of the Four Winds of Mondstadt?”
“I will not tolerate anyone spouting such lunacy right in front of a Knight of Favonius!”
Jean’s voice burned with suppressed fury.
Had this been the past—back when Grand Master Varka was still present—any Fatui diplomat who dared utter such insolence would have been physically thrown out of Mondstadt on the spot.
But the situation now was entirely different.
Grand Master Varka had taken the vast majority of Mondstadt’s elite forces out on a distant expedition.
Mondstadt’s current military strength was painfully hollowed out; even the Cavalry Captain didn’t have a single actual cavalryman under his command.
Otherwise, there was no way the Fatui would ever dare to swagger around Mondstadt with such unbridled arrogance.