Outside the gorge—
Kaito looked at the six Snezhnayans sprawled unconscious on the ground.
"Tie them to that tree," he said calmly. "No chance they wake up and slip inside to tip off the Fatui."
That kind of work was Kaeya's specialty.
He moved like he'd done it a hundred times—hands quick, knots clean—binding wrists and ankles before securing all six of them to a sturdy tree nearby.
"Kaeya said yesterday he got intel that the Fatui already went into the gorge," Kaito continued as he sat down and ladled Anemo Archon Stew into bowls. "And that merchant still dared to claim there were monsters along the route…"
He glanced at Noelle, Razor, and Klee as he explained.
"Even if he wasn't Fatui on paper, he was definitely connected to them."
"If he sent someone ahead to warn whoever's inside, our movements would be exposed."
"Our goal is the Tear Crystal—plus finding out what the Fatui are plotting. The best way to do that is to stay in the shadows."
That was why they'd knocked them out.
And of course, Kaito hadn't forgotten the reward for the winner of the race—he saved the biggest bowl for Klee.
Klee made little "shoo-shoo-shoo~" sound effects and started eating with her spoon like it was the greatest prize in the world.
Razor took first watch.
Noelle took the second.
At dawn, after the group finished the breakfast Noelle made, they prepared to move out.
"Are we just… leaving them here?" Noelle asked, glancing back.
The Snezhnayan merchant and the Fatui guards were still unconscious. After a whole night in the cold, they were coated in dew and looked half-frozen.
Kaito considered it, then dismantled one of their spare tents and draped the canvas over them.
"If they're still unlucky enough to get found by passing hilichurls or slimes," Kaito said, waving a hand, "that's not our problem."
"Let's go."
As for interrogating them—he wasn't doing it.
There were three kids here. That kind of scene didn't belong in front of them.
A thin mist hung inside the gorge.
If you looked closely, you could still find traces of recent fighting—scars in the ground, gouges in the rock walls.
Not much time had passed yet. The wind and fog hadn't erased it.
Just as Kaito expected, there were no monsters left in the gorge.
"La-la-la~"
"Brother Kaito, look!" Klee called, crouching by the wall. "This lizard has patterns I've never seen before!"
She quickly grabbed a green-backed lizard and brought it over like a trophy, poking its triangular head with her finger and giggling so hard she made little "hee-hee" sounds.
She'd found a new toy—Razor's fluffy hair was finally spared.
They passed the abandoned Temple of the South Wind Lion.
Ahead, the path dipped into a wide slope, and the uneven valley looked like a giant dragon had raked its claws through the mountains and torn open the earth.
In the middle of a shallow pond, two enormous dead trunks crossed each other like a crude monument.
Three ring-shaped walls of wind formed a barrier around them.
Across the pond and the wet shoreline, ancient rusted swords and broken blades were jammed into the ground—some upright, some leaning at odd angles—like a silent graveyard.
In the small grove near the pond—
a modest Adventurers' Guild campsite had been pitched there.
But it had been taken over.
Fatui were occupying it now, and the original owner—someone who'd hidden nearby for half a day—had been dragged out.
She was tied beneath a tree, being questioned.
"Dr. Livingston," a woman said with her arms crossed, chin lifted, voice dripping with arrogance. "You were hard to find."
"Since you understand this place so well," Anastasia continued, "you must understand this Sword Cemetery too. Tell us everything you know."
"The Fatui…" Dr. Livingston asked, still clinging to a shred of hope, "are you really coveting Mondstadt's treasures?"
"Treasures?"
The Fatui soldiers' eyes lit up immediately.
So they hadn't come to the wrong place after all.
Anastasia's expression sharpened with excitement too.
If she could present a prize like this to Lady Signora, it might make up for some of the mistakes she'd made before.
"Yes," she said softly. "That's exactly what we want."
She leaned in close—
then, right before the distance vanished completely, she raised one finger between them and made a gentle "shh."
"If you don't talk," she murmured, "and we don't talk… who else will ever know?"
"Dr. Livingston… you'll keep the secret, won't you?"
"…"
Livingston knew the woman wasn't wrong.
The Fatui were dangerous. Who knew whether they'd kill her to silence her?
But a dead body was trouble—especially for someone like her, a registered researcher with the Adventurers' Guild.
If she answered obediently, she should be able to keep her life.
And there was another temptation too.
She could use them—borrow their strength—to help her crack the Sword Cemetery's mystery.
Livingston nodded. "I'll keep it secret."
"Good," Anastasia said with a satisfied smile. "You know what's good for you."
She ordered a subordinate to loosen Livingston's restraints and spoke lightly.
"Now tell me—what treasure is inside the Sword Cemetery?"
"The Sword Cemetery has existed here for a very long time," Livingston began. "Based on investigation, this was once a battlefield."
"What's inside is likely the relics left behind by warriors who fought monsters."
She gestured toward the wind barriers.
"To prevent later generations from defiling it, ancient heroes placed three layers of sealing barriers here. Following the traces of elemental flow, the mechanisms to open them are located in nearby hilichurl tribes."
"Hilichurls lack the intelligence to create or maintain such mechanisms," she continued. "Which means by setting the seals this way, the tribes naturally become the cemetery's guardians."
"Two layers of protection…" Anastasia muttered, thinking.
One layer was the barrier itself.
The other was the hilichurls around the mechanisms.
"So you don't actually know what's inside?" Anastasia asked.
"Of course I do not," Livingston said grandly. "As an adventurer, I possess wisdom that rivals the stars and courage enough to explore the edge of the world—yet I lack the brute force required to act on it."
In other words: she couldn't beat the hilichurls.
"…"
Anastasia didn't bother correcting her.
Adventurers were all like this.
"Then tell me about these tribes," Anastasia said. "What do you know?"
"There are three, each in its own valley," Livingston replied.
"To the south is the Sleepy Tribe. They're drowsy at night."
"To the north is the Meat Tribe—they love muscles and stuffing their faces with meat."
"And on the eastern slope is the Eclipse Tribe. They're too strong… too mysterious. I didn't dare get close."
Livingston actually knew more.
She just wasn't saying it—especially about what lurked inside the Eclipse Tribe's territory.
If the Fatui lost a few people here, that would be perfect.
"Bind her again," Anastasia ordered. "We're going to strike the Sleepy Tribe."
Night was falling.
And if that tribe truly became sluggish at night, this was the best moment for a stealth raid.
…
By the time Kaito's group arrived—
Anastasia had already led her men into battle with the Sleepy Tribe.
Possibly because of their habits, the Sleepy Tribe's large camp had no fire racks, no bonfires—nothing burning.
Under the moonlight—
in the pond at the center of the camp, a Lightning totem used to unlock part of the Sword Cemetery's seal had already been activated.
Anastasia herself was a Cryo Cicin Mage? No—Kaito's eyes narrowed.
She was an Electro Cicin Mage.
She was using the pond as a conductor, fighting the tribe's only Wooden Shield Mitachurl by herself.
Near the pond, nine Fatui skirmishers formed a tight battle line, holding off waves of hilichurls with wooden shields.
Two other Electro Cicin Mages carried lanterns filled with Mist Flower pollen, directing their cicins to harass the hilichurl archers on the watchtowers—ruining their aim and disrupting their shots.
And threaded through the chaos—
three Fatui Debt Collectors appeared and vanished like ghosts, each strike landing heavy.
This operation was led by Anastasia, the envoy.
Only fifteen Fatui had participated.
Any more manpower would risk alerting the Knights of Favonius.
And even if the Knights were alerted, it wouldn't necessarily matter—most Fatui forces were stationed back in the city, and the Knights simply couldn't spare enough people to come all the way out here.
Their decision was, frankly, correct.
Even if Kaeya discovered their movements, in the end he could only come personally.
If Kaito hadn't been at his side, Kaeya would still have been forced to retreat upon seeing this formation.
On a hill overlooking the valley—
Kaito's group watched the scene.
Kaeya didn't understand why the Fatui were "helping Mondstadt" by fighting hilichurls, but to him the logic was simple:
If it was the Fatui doing it, then getting in their way was always the right answer.
"Ambush them?" Kaeya asked.
"This is something Klee can handle by herself," Kaito said easily.
He tilted his head.
"Klee. Blow them up."
Klee shook her head vigorously.
"Survival Rule—bombs hurt people, Jean comes to the door! Brother Kaito, you can't use bombs to hurt people!"
"They're bad guys," Kaito said smoothly. "It doesn't matter if they get hurt. Just don't blow anyone into pieces."
"Bad guys…?"
"People who threaten Mondstadt," Kaito said, voice steady and convincing. "If you blow them up, Jean will praise you."
Klee hesitated. "Really…?"
"Of course," Kaito said, looking utterly reliable.
Klee glanced at Kaeya.
After all, Kaeya had helped her write those survival rules.
Kaeya immediately nodded.
"Boss Kaito's right."
"Th-Then… okay!"
The hesitation vanished.
Excitement rose onto Klee's adorable little face as she pulled out a bomb from her backpack and hurled it down into the hilichurl camp below.
"Jumpy Dumpty!"
"And another one!"
"Bouncy Blasty!"
"Da-da-da! La-la-la-la!"
"Boom-boom-boom~!"
A string of childish battle-cries spilled from her mouth as bomb after bomb rained down from above.
She threw them so fast she could barely control herself.
The motions were practiced—far too practiced.
It was obvious she'd done this more than a few times.
Down in the Sleepy Tribe's camp—
Anastasia had just been thinking the battle was under control.
Give it a little more time, and they could wipe out the tribe cleanly, withdraw, and move on to strike the second tribe.
"Hilichurl tribes are nothing special," she scoffed. "It's ridiculous the Knights of Favonius are so useless they haven't cleared them out in all these years."
"Yes!" a subordinate flattered her quickly.
"We need to start planning the attack on the Meat Tribe," Anastasia said, already shifting to the next target.
Then—
a red object streaked across her vision mid-conversation.
Plop.
It landed in the pond.
"What is that?" one of the Electro Cicin Mages blurted.
The distraction broke her rhythm—one of her cicins was immediately shot down by a hilichurl archer.
"That looks like—" Anastasia began, frowning.
Why did it look like a bomb?
A bright light ignited from within the red object.
It… swelled.
"It's a bomb!" Anastasia screamed.
She threw herself sideways—
And in the next heartbeat, a deafening explosion erupted.
Then another.
Then another.
Bombs rained down one after the other.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The firelight lit up the entire Sleepy Tribe valley in violent flashes.
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