"Kamisato Satoru, I never realized you were this strong!" Paimon slowly floated over, staring at the horrifying trail of destruction behind him with her jaw practically on the ground.
If a rookie like her, whose combat ability wasn’t even a match for a wild boar, had taken that attack head-on, everyone in the village would probably already be on their way to her funeral feast.
"Oh? Paimon, weren’t you calling me the ’Blindfolded Big Meanie’ earlier? Why’d you stop?"
Kamisato Satoru reached out with one large hand, caught Paimon with perfect accuracy, and gave her chubby cheeks a merciless squeeze.
"Mmph... Paimon never said anything like that! Let go of me!"
Paimon desperately wriggled free, covering her cheeks with both hands. They had been kneaded red and swollen, and she muttered under her breath with an aggrieved expression.
"What a perfect example of someone who bullies the weak and fears the strong." Lumine shot her a disdainful look from the side.
"Ugh... I’m so mad! I’m giving you an awful nickname too! From now on, you’re... ’Trashy Lumine’!" Paimon shouted furiously, puffing out her cheeks.
"Heh. You’re nothing but emergency food. Know your place." Lumine shrugged dismissively.
"Hey!"
Paimon was just about to fly into another bout of impotent rage when something atop a massive boulder caught the corner of her eye.
"Lumine, look over there! What’s that?"
"Whatever it is, the aura coming off it feels awful. It’s giving Paimon the creeps."
Following her direction, the group walked over and saw a crystal glowing with an eerie crimson light, silently hovering in midair.
"Hiss... So cold!"
Kamisato Ayaka cautiously touched it with the tip of her finger, only to yank her hand back as though she’d been shocked.
Her expression turned solemn.
"This red crystal is definitely dangerous. Everyone, be careful."
"Let’s take it with us for now. Once we get into the city, we can find someone who knows what it is and ask them."
Lumine didn’t seem to suffer any adverse effects from it. She reached out, took the teardrop-shaped red crystal, and placed it in her pack.
"You’re not feeling any discomfort, are you?"
"Don’t worry. I feel completely fine. Let’s keep moving."
"All right. We can never be too careful."
Kamisato Ayaka nodded in agreement and followed after her.
Before leaving, Kamisato Satoru seemingly glanced by accident toward a certain spot high in the air. A mysterious smile tugged at the corner of his lips before he leisurely followed the rest of the group.
"Heh. I didn’t expect that guy’s senses to be so sharp."
Hidden from sight, the "little green guy," Barbatos, watched Kamisato Satoru’s departing back with mild surprise.
He had originally intended to intervene when the dragon unleashed its breath attack. However, after noticing Kamisato Satoru’s almost unnatural calm, he’d chosen to wait and observe instead.
Sure enough, Kamisato Satoru had seemed to stand in another dimension entirely, effortlessly taking an attack powerful enough to obliterate a mountaintop.
What shocked Barbatos even more was that the man had actually detected his concealed presence high above.
That level of strength was anything but ordinary.
"To think someone like him would emerge from the Electro Archon’s nation that proclaims Eternity... It seems the days ahead are going to become very interesting indeed."
Barbatos murmured to himself.
His figure then dissolved into a gentle breeze and drifted leisurely toward Mondstadt.
"Everyone, please stop! The road ahead isn’t safe!"
Not long after Kamisato Satoru’s group left the forest, an agile figure clad in red leaped down from a small cliff and landed steadily in front of them.
"Hey, Amber. Keeping pretty busy with those reconnaissance missions, aren’t you?" Kamisato Satoru greeted the energetic girl before him.
"Huh? It’s you two! What are you doing all the way out here in the wilderness?"
Amber clearly hadn’t forgotten the Kamisato siblings she’d met a few days earlier. After all, foreigners as striking-looking as these two weren’t exactly common.
And since they had managed to befriend someone as awkward and prickly as Eula, Amber naturally regarded them as friends as well.
"But who are these two new faces?"
"This blonde one is Lumine, an extremely ’trashy’ Honorary Traveler. The little white-haired thing floating in the air is Paimon, our emergency food reserve. They’re two friends we just picked up by the roadside."
Kamisato Satoru delivered the introduction with an utterly serious expression.
"You’re the old lady, you bastard!"
Lumine immediately lost her composure. After all, no girl could tolerate someone making such sarcastic remarks about her appearance and personal attributes.
"Exactly! And Paimon is not emergency rations! Paimon’s the best traveling companion!"
Paimon planted her hands on her hips and protested indignantly.
"Oh, I see. In that case, Traveler, may the great Anemo Archon fool— ahem, bless you on your journey."
Amber hurriedly suppressed her laughter and solemnly performed a Knights of Favonius salute.
"Allow me to formally introduce myself. I’m Amber, Outrider of the Knights of Favonius."
"’Fool you’..."
"Pfft—HAHAHAHA!"
Kamisato Satoru couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing.
Mishearing "bless you" as "fool you" was ridiculous enough, but when he thought back to Venti—that alcoholic slacker who never did any proper work—the phrase was honestly way too damn fitting.