"...I'm sorry, I was too arrogant. I shouldn't have had that attitude. Please forgive me."
Mona, who had just been so spirited, was now kneeling on the ground, sincerely apologizing to Durandal and the others.
"Hey, what's wrong with you? Didn't we ask you to do a divination to verify your identity? Why did your attitude suddenly change?"
Paimon didn't understand why Mona suddenly changed her attitude. Didn't she claim to be an Astrologist? To verify her identity, Paimon asked Mona to perform a divination for one of them.
Mona already knew that Lumine was not from this world, and Klee was her target this time, so she turned her attention to Durandal.
She wanted to see what kind of person this extraordinary Children was, and at the same time, show them her prowess.
With this thought, Mona performed a divination for Durandal, and then... and then she became like this.
"I... I did the divination, and it went very smoothly. It's just... I just saw something a bit terrifying, so..."
Mona gave a bitter smile. Facing Durandal's gaze, she lowered her head, not daring to be as presumptuous as before.
What exactly did she divine? She didn't divine Durandal's past or future. When she performed the divination with Durandal as the target, she saw a terrifying scene.
It was a pair of extremely frightening crimson eyes; merely looking at them made her hair stand on end, as if warning her that if she looked further, she would suffer misfortune. With a roar from the other party, she was jolted out.
This was the first time such a thing had happened. Through this anomaly, Mona realized that Durandal was not to be trifled with, a truly terrifying existence.
So she no longer dared to be presumptuous as before, and her attitude suddenly became very sincere, indicating that she had no ill intentions, but merely came to fulfill the agreement between her Master and Klee's mother, to have a showdown in astrology.
"Astrology? What's that? Mom only taught Klee jumpy dumptys, she didn't teach anything else."
"Didn't... didn't teach? How is that possible? Isn't your mother named Alice? That genius who excels in all sorts of mysterious fields, didn't she teach you that knowledge?"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, I have an idea. The knowledge of mysterious fields you're talking about, it should be very profound, the kind of knowledge that ordinary people don't understand, right?"
Paimon, who had a slightly clearer understanding of the situation, interrupted Mona and asked, "Klee is still a Children now. Do you think she would be interested in such difficult knowledge? What were you doing when you were little, Mona?"
"Uh, you... you do have a point. Cough! Cough! A miscalculation. I didn't expect her to have only inherited the bloodline, and not yet the knowledge. I was too hasty. So there's no way to compete then."
She had predicted so many things, yet she hadn't predicted that the other party was still just a Children, not yet old enough to compete.
A competition was definitely out of the question now. So what she could do was complete the task that Old Woman gave her, which was to retrieve the item she had left with Alice.
"Um, little one. Tell me, did Alice mention anything about the 'Fifty-Year Pact' when she left? Or did she tell you about a special box?"
"The 'Fifty-Year Pact'? Mom never told Klee about that, but Klee does know about a special box. So, Sister, you're here to get that box. Wait for me, Klee will see if it's in her bag."
The backpack Klee always carried must have been a special alchemical product given to her by Alice. It looked small, but it actually contained many bombs, a book, and other miscellaneous items.
Everyone present had ways to store items, so Klee's magical little backpack didn't hold much appeal for them. The only thing that concerned them was that Klee actually had so many bombs in her backpack.
Even if these bombs needed Klee to trigger them with the Pyro element, if she ran too fast and accidentally caused friction, would the bombs in the backpack explode?
"Don't worry, these bombs are very stable. Unless Klee uses them, or throws them into a fire to roast, they definitely won't explode."
"Throw them into a fire to roast? Why would that happen? Has that ever happened before?"
"Hehehe~ When I was playing with Razor before, I accidentally threw a bomb into a cooking fire."
That was one of the times Klee saw Razor's most expressive face. When he saw the bomb accidentally fall into the fire, his expression became particularly vivid. Almost instantly, he grabbed Klee, hoisted her onto his shoulder, and ran towards the outskirts.
That incident made Klee realize how powerful jumpy dumptys could be if not detonated with the Pyro element.
"Be careful, Klee."
"Hehehe~ Klee knows. Ever since that incident, Klee has been very careful around fires. Because... Acting Grand Master Jean warned Klee that if it happened again, Klee wouldn't see tomorrow's sun. (Referring to being grounded)"
A furious Acting Grand Master Jean was still very scary, and Klee also knew she was in the wrong this time. It was truly dangerous back then; if not for Razor's help, she might have been injured by her own bombs.
Klee searched for a long time, turning out everything in her backpack, but still couldn't find the box Mona mentioned.
Feeling strange, Klee thought carefully and finally remembered where the box had gone.
"Klee buried the box and her new treasure at Windrise last time. It's not in her bag. I can only give you the box back when we return to Mondstadt."
"It's not on you? Looks like I'll just have to go back to Mondstadt with you. Anyway, my destination for coming here was to find you in Mondstadt, so walking a bit more is fine."
Mona shrugged, holding a book that Klee had just pulled out of her backpack. She had thought it might contain some amazing knowledge, but it turned out to be just a diary.
Anyway, she'd take a look. It was something from Klee, after all. Maybe the diary was just a cover, and something really amazing was hidden inside.
Mona followed behind the group, reading the diary, while Lumine came to Durandal's side and whispered in her ear.
"Hey, what do you think of this person? Should be no problem, right?"
"What problem could she have? Do you think she can stir up much trouble against so many of us?"
Mona did possess amazing astrology, but there were so many of them here. One person could pin Mona to the ground and rub her around. What was there to worry about?
"That's true. The one we should be worried about isn't us, but her."
"No, I think she should be worried about you."
Ever since Mona appeared, Lumine had been glancing at Mona's clothes from time to time. Speaking of which, her clothes were quite similar to Shenhe's, except... Mona's figure wasn't as good as Shenhe's. At least in some aspects, Mona was completely outmatched.
Her clothes, like Shenhe's, were the kind that would make people stare on the street. Shenhe didn't care about other people's gazes because she had lived in the mountains for too long. What about her?
Durandal didn't care about human clothing. The reason she always wore this black Lolita-style outfit was because she had it when she was in human form.
This outfit didn't hinder her movements, so she didn't change it. The only addition was the iris hairpin that Lumine gave her.
Looking at Mona, who was still reading her notes and trying to find some clues, Durandal shook her head. She wouldn't care what kind of person she was, as long as it didn't affect the people she cared about.
Time passed unknowingly, and it was almost noon, almost time for lunch. Durandal and Lumine prepared lunch for everyone, while Mona brought some vegetables and mixed them together to make a fruit salad.
"With so little, can you really be full?"
Looking at the small amount of vegetables in Mona's hand, Paimon, the big eater, doubted whether Mona could fill her stomach.
"This is already enough. As long as I can get enough energy, I don't need to eat anything else. And it's more convenient this way, isn't it? Just mix these vegetables together and it can be a meal."
"But that's not enough to fill you up. At least for Paimon, this is definitely not enough, and Paimon won't eat this."
Perhaps because she had wandered in the deep mountains and forests with Lumine, Paimon and Lumine now carried a large amount of cabbage, Mushroom, Fowl, and beast meat with them, in order to avoid the situation of not having enough to eat.
Paimon didn't care what Mona's philosophy was. If she could eat something, she would definitely choose to eat it and would never wrong her stomach.
"This is the difference in our realms. When you reach my level, you won't be obsessed with food."
After stirring the vegetables, Mona began to taste her vegetable salad. Paimon flew back to Durandal and Lumine's side. It just so happened that they had finished cooking, and everyone ate together.
At first, Lumine invited Mona to eat with them, but Mona refused Lumine's invitation, saying that this was enough for her.
But while eating, Mona kept looking at them, and occasionally looked at the meager vegetable salad in her hand and sighed for a long time.
Seriously, how did these two make such delicious dishes in the wild? Wouldn't that make her look like an idiot?
But she had already said those words. Since she had said so, she had to do it. She didn't want to slap herself in the face.
The vegetable salad was quickly eaten, but as Paimon said, this little bit was not enough to fill her stomach.
But Mona didn't have any other food, so she could only divert her attention to make her stomach feel better.
At this time, Lumine came to Mona and invited, "We made a little too much food, and we can't finish it all. Can you come over and help us out a little?"
"Eh? That..."
"You only have the strength to travel when you're full. It's still a long way from Mondstadt. To avoid not having the strength to travel, eat something. How about it?"
"...Since that's the case, then there's no way around it. In order not to affect the next trip, I'll just eat a little."
Cough! Cough! She said that, but her face was inexplicably rosy. Was she shy?
Faced with Paimon's meaningful gaze, Mona blushed and took the food Lumine handed over, picking up a piece of meat from the pot and putting it in her mouth.
The moment she bit down, Mona showed an expression as if she was about to Melt, and said in a trembling voice.
"It's so fragrant..."
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