3 The Temple Of The Wolf

We all eventually arrived at the Knights headquarters, and it was time to meet Jean.

A few knights could be seen across the hallways either chatting, or standing guard. We all walked through the hallway, silently.

'Ugh, I hate awkward silences... Let's say something...'

"Hey Lumine. Again, I'm sorry about eariler. I really didn't think it through." I tried to sound sincere in my apology, even though I wasn't feeling that regretful.

She glared at me, her expression clearly showing animosity. "Whatever," she said.

'Ugh, c'mon! I'm apologizing here!'

Well, it seems she's quite stubborn. Still, it wasn't the best first impression to just crash onto her and nearly kill her.

I hope this doesn't sour our relationship.

One of the first things I thought about when I arrived in this world was participating in the main story of the game, you know, because it's exciting! But to do that I'd have to travel with Lumine, of course.

So, let's try and stay friendly with her...

As I was thinking about that, we arrived at the Grand Master office.

"jean, I've brought them," Kaeya said, gesturing to us.

He then proceeded to explain what happened beforehand. Stormterror's attack, how I recklessly jumped into battle, and how Lumine helped save the day.

I have to say, the way he explained it was not very flattering to me...

I looked toward Jean, a tall blonde woman with her hair tied back into a ponytail with a black ribbon. Her blue eyes looked sharply at me and Lumine. She wore a sleeveless black button-up under a white vest, a short blue and gold cloak was attached to a white collar and white tights embroidered with a gold diamond-dot pattern that gave her an elegant look. She was quite beautiful indeed.

"Mondstadt welcomes you, travelers," she said. "I'm Jean, Acting Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius, and this is Lisa, our resident librarian."

She gestured to a tall woman with honey-brown hair styled in a side ponytail that fell on her shoulder, and bright green eyes. She wore a typical witch hat, a purple and white dress with open slits at the sides and some black lace stockings, Her outfit really showcased her beauty, though it was a bit... distracting.

"Are you cuties here to help? You're all so adorable!" Lisa said. She had the voice of a mature and alluring woman. To say it didn't make me feel giddy when she called us 'cuties' would be a lie...

"Well, yeah. I guess we're here to help," I said.

Lumine shot me a glare. I could feel her intent, 'don't speak for me.'

"I can help. But, I was hoping you could help me look for my brother," Lumine said, her expression suddenly turning somber. "He has golden hair just like me."

There was some silence, before Jean said, "We would like to extend our help but..."

"The elemental interference caused by Stormterror's attack make any kind of Ley Line search difficult," Lisa interjected. 

"I'm afraid all we can do to help for the time being, is putting up some missing person posters." Jean said with an apologetic look on her face.

Lumine didn't seem to happy, but nonetheless said, "Alright. I'll still help out with what I can."

"Paimon too!"

I doubt she can do much...

"Great! We need all the help we can get," Amber said, with her almost contagious cheerfulness.

"It seems everyone is willing to help. In that case, we need a plan." Kaeya turned serious, his prominent laid-back expression now gone.

"Lisa found the source of Stormterror's power with detection magic." Jean glanced at Lisa, leaving her to explain.

She basically told us that Stormterror's power came from the Four Winds' Temples, and that we needed to infiltrate them in order to cut the problem off at its source.

After that, we concocted a plan. Lumine and Amber would go to the Temple of the Falcon, and me and Kaeya would infiltrate the Temple of the Wolf. Lisa would wait for us at the Temple of the Lion, where we would rendezvous before entering together.

With the plan known, we all went our separate ways.

"It seems I'm with you, huh?" Kaeya said while we were walking.

"That you are. Hope you don't mind," I responded.

"Not at all. I'm very interested in seeing you fight." Kaeya had a slight smirk on his face.

I chuckled. "Well, I guess I can't disappoint then."

_______________________________________________________________

After and hour of so of walking, we found ourselves at the entrance of the Temple of the Wolf.

"Let's head in," Kaeya said, opening the massive stone door that separated us from the domain.

A giant stone hallway was before us. Stone torches illuminated the walls, and there was a slight scent of wet rock.

Kaeya pointed to a massive hole on the ceiling, a few dozens of meters away, "That's the end of the temple." With our objective clear, we started strutting toward it.

Seemingly trying to make small chat, Kaeya asked, "This will be our first time fighting together. Think we'll make a good team?"

"Well, that depends if you can keep up with—" Distracted by Kaeya's question, I stepped on nothing, and fell a few meters.

The floor was very wet, a small layer of water covering the entire room. 'Ugh, I hate being wet...'

I could hear Kaeya laughing from above. "You didn't do that on purpose, did you?" I asked.

Looking up, he was holding his stomach. 'He got a good laugh, huh...'

"Do what?" Kaeya said through a lingering chuckle.

"Just come down here you asshole." I said standing up. Numerous hilichurls could be seen across the room.

Kaeya jumped down, landing besides me. "Now, now, no need to get so prickly."

Out of nowhere, small particles of light generated around Kaeya's hand. A sword materialized. It had red handle and a lion's head made of steel on it's upper end before the blade. 

It was a Lion's Roar... How did he do that?

Kaeya glanced at me, and noticed my curiosity. "Vision holders can link a weapon to themselves, and materialize at will."

I nodded. 'That's kinda cool...'

It wasn't on the game, but I can't expect this world to be the same world I always saw on a screen.

Kaeya and I exchanged glances, and nodded. We both charged to the hilichurls on the room.

Concentrating more on Kaeya than myself, I could tell he was an experienced fighter. He skilfully maneuvered and cut apart the hilichurls, not using his vision even once.

I, on the other hand, limited myself to punching and kicking the little critters with cursed energy reinforced attacks.

Those were at least enough to knock them out, if not outright kill them though to the blunt trauma.

Though I only defeated a few hilichurls, Kaeya easily killed almost a dozen, without even being touched once.

I didn't struggle, but it wasn't easy...

Hnngh... I don't like being outperformed like this...

After the last hilichurl was done with, Kaeya said, "Impressive. Your physicality is leagues above most knights. I doubt they could knock out a hilichurl with just punches and kicks." He seemed like he wanted to pry for more, but decided against it.

The compliment seemed sincere, but it still felt like I wasn't contributing too much to this 'raid'.

Suddenly, a giant door made of stone opened itself up as we were done with the hilichurls. Kaeya and I made our way to it, and continued venturing ourselves deeper into the dungeon.

Eventually, we arrived at a dead end. The path was cut off, a giant abyss with seemingly no end could be seen down below.

A wind current was blowing upwards besides the path.

Kaeya turned to me, a big shit eating grin on his face. "Do you have a wind glider?"

"You know I don't." I ran my hand through my hair, and jumped into the current.

After a few failed attempts of trying to catch on to the ledge, and falling to the ground, I managed to succesfully land on the upper path that lead to a stone door.

Kaeya easily did what I took several attempts to do. He opened his mouth, a giant grin on his face.

"Please don't," I said, before he could even speak. I don't want to hear it...

We entered the door to a room with a giant pyro slime on the center. Without wasting any time, I charged toward the pyro slime, and punched it.

It slightly burnt my knuckles, and the slime was simply pushed back a few meters. If it wasn't for the cursed energy, I probably would've been hurt more...

Kaeya clicked his tongue twice, and said "This is how you do it."

Materializing his sword, he coated it with ice, slashing through the big slime, causing what seemed to be a melt reaction.

The place where Kaeya had struck was left with a mark, and a sizzling sound. The slime jumped at Kaeya, intending to attack him, but he simply sidestepped, easily dodging the measly attempt at an attack.

Stabbing his sword into the slime, he unleashed an ice blast from it, freezing the ground beneath it.

The slime seemed to take enough damage, as it started shrinking and expanding before self destructing.

I... don't like this feeling. That I'm just on the sidelines, that I'm not contributing much.

Like when you are on a group project, and everyone else is giving it their all while you laze around... I don't like it.

Is it guilt? Maybe jealousness? I don't know, but I hate it.

Leaving those feelings behind, we passed through a hallway, after which we came across a big room. A green crystal that was covered in wind was on its center.

"That seems to be the source of Stormterror's power," Kaeya mused.

"Let's break it then," I said.

I coated my fist in cursed energy, and struck it, completely shattering the crystal in a million pieces.

"Very good." Kaeya turned to me, hands on his hips, and said, "You are still rough aroung the edges, but I can definitely tell you're quite strong."

'I don't know if that's true...'

"Thank you, I guess. You're not too bad either."

He chuckled, "Well, stories of your heroic deeds to help save Mondstadt from destruction shall be sung by bard for years to come."

I don't know if he was being sarcastic or not, but didn't pay it much mind.

"Well, time to head out. We've got to rendezvous with Lisa."

"Hm. I can take care of the rest here, you can go first," Kaeya said.

Before I could walk away, a sinister laugh could be heard.

I turned around, and looked at the source. A fluffy-like being that had mage like garnments, and a mask. It wasn't big in size, but it emanated a strong presence.

An abyss mage, a cryo one. He prepared an attack, but before he could launch it, a flurry of flames flew past me, a man following them.

He had a giant claymore, and he smashed the mage to the ground, before slashing him with his big weapon. 

The abyss mage was sent meters back to a wall, where it crashed, seemingly defeated.

"Knights of Favonius, always so inefficient..." the man said.

His red hair was tied in a low ponytail, reaching to his middle back, and his red eyes stared holes into Kaeya. He wore a black coat with fur trim at the bottom on top of a long white best, paired with some black dress pants.

Kaeya clapped, and said "Well, your involvment in this certainly has made things more interesting."

I recognized the man immediately as Diluc, the Darknight Hero. He certainly made some work out of that abyss mage.

He looked at me, his claymore vanishing. "Hmph. You should not involve yourself with the Knights of Favonius. Such organizations only restrain themselves foolishly, instead of dealing with the problem efficiently..."

"Oh? And what might you be referring to?"

There was an awkward silence, and I broke it. "Okay, it seems you have some unresolved drama going on, so I'm gonna go."

I already know of their relationship. I'm not really sure if I can call it 'strained' or anything, but it is quite a peculiar one.

I waved at them, not really wanting to hear what they were going to talk about, and made my way out of the dungeon.

As I was walking, Kaeya's words ringed through my brain. 'You are quite strong'.

...Maybe so, but I don't really feel that way. I still have a long way to go to catch up to the powerhouses of this world.

Maybe my objective in this world was seeking excitement, but now... Now I want something else.

Today, I formed an oath. An oath with myself.

I will become the strongest, so I don't ever have to watch on the sidelines when others are putting in the work, so those words that Kaeya told me don't end up being an empty compliment, and instead they transform into a blazing truth.

A small smile formed on my face, hopeful for the future.