Chapter 1 part 4: Mond(4)

Mond’s morning dawned.
I was busily moving from early morning. I trimmed the ingredients, organized the spices, and skewered meat and mushrooms onto the skewers one by one.

The place where I was working was a street stall. To be precise, it felt like a food truck equipped with only simple cooking utensils. However, since there were no trucks on the continent of Teyvat, it was replaced with something like a handcart.

Although I borrowed money from Amber, there wasn’t much I could do with it. The capital I borrowed from Amber was 300,000 Mora, and even that was handed to me with her hands trembling.

She had a rather tearful face, but I don’t know how she’s doing now.

Normally, she would have stopped by my stall at least once out of curiosity about what I was doing with the money she lent me, but unfortunately, the Knights of Favonius were extremely busy at the moment.

And Lumine and Paimon, who were always with me, were the same.

It was a few days ago. The day I first entered Mond, Amber and I were having a peaceful conversation.

“I’m not asking for all of it. Hmm, about 10 months’ worth of a knight’s salary?”

“That’s still a lot!”

No, come to think of it, it wasn’t such a peaceful conversation. Paimon interjected from the side, but I decided to ignore the unhelpful guide’s words.

“Well, you can lend me that much, right? I’m not asking you to give it, but to lend it. ‘Kind and responsible knight’ sir?”

At those words, Amber trembled. Incidentally, the words ‘kind and responsible knight’ were added by Amber when she said she would guide us to Mond after raiding the Hilichurl camp.

Soon after, she had to shut her mouth when she saw the state I was in, charred like a piece of charcoal.

“O-of course. The Knights of Favonius always keep their promises, ahaha……”

Amber said that with a tearful voice and handed me the money after finding it. While handing over the money, she seemed to be on the verge of tears.

I said I would repay it soon, but naturally, that didn’t seem to be much comfort.

At this point, I would have parted ways with her with a shudder, but surprisingly, Amber offered us even more favors.

She said she would teach me something called ‘Wings of Wind’?

But no matter how much I listened, it didn’t seem like something I could handle, so I said I had more important things to do and left separately.

If I wanted to do business, I needed to know the geography and think about which food would sell best. Most importantly, I needed to understand the dietary habits of the people of Mond.

With that judgment, what I encountered while wandering alone was the sky covered with clouds and a violent wind.

No, could it be explained simply as violent? Roofs and bricks torn apart in all directions were swirling, and people were screaming and crouching.

And that huge shadow covering the ground, that monster that was roaring fiercely with a sharp sound tearing the wind, made me close my eyes.

So, that ‘dragon’ was the dragon we saw!

Still, when it was with the unidentified boy, it seemed relatively calm, so I had some hope, but seeing it again, the word ‘monster’ didn’t seem like an exaggeration at all to describe its aggressiveness.

I quickly tried to crouch like the people of Mond, but before that, a plank that fell from somewhere was faster in hitting my abdomen.

“Ugh!”

It was truly ‘ugh!’ No more words came out.

The feeling of being hit in the abdomen by a plank flying on the strong wind was so painful that it took my breath away.

Moreover, I was an ordinary person who lived in the modern era where I rarely experienced such pain.

At best, I had only been hit a little in school and the military, which was the entirety of my life’s beating experience, so I had no tolerance to endure such pain.

Immediately, I clutched my abdomen and bent over, then tumbled down in the strong wind.

As I groaned and searched for a place to take refuge, I heard a voice calling me from somewhere.

“Siwoo!”

That unique, beautiful voice, ah, it’s Lumine.

I let out a faint groan, “Uuuugh,” and forced my staggering body to rise.

The pain remained, but it wasn’t unbearable.

Lumine rushed to me with a startled face and asked me with a terrifying look.

“……How did this happen?”

A cold voice, I learned then for the first time that Lumine could make such a voice.

When I looked at Lumine in bewilderment, her face was stiff.

Her gaze was fixed on my abdomen, which I was still covering with one arm.

Her vermilion eyes were still deeply sunken, but the depths felt like they were burning as hot as the sun.

“Uh, well… it’s because of the w-wind… I’m fine, it’s not that big of a wound. It’s not something to worry about that much…………”

Before I could even finish my sentence, Lumine bit her lip, stood up, and started running.

Into the storm that was tearing Mond apart.

“Lumine!”

I called out to her with a bewildered voice, but she didn’t even pretend to hear and threw herself into the storm.

And then she soared into the sky, spreading unidentified wings.

・・・・・・ No, is that even possible?

How could those small wings support the weight of a human body?

Moreover, the unrealistic sight was that Lumine was fighting the dragon with movements close to aerial acrobatics with those wings.

Could it be that those wings are something amazing, and if you have wings, anyone can do that much?

But seeing the people of Mond around with their mouths agape in astonishment, it didn’t seem like that at all.

After fighting Lumine for a while, the dragon, as if it couldn’t hold out any longer, roared and began to retreat from the skies of Mond.

I didn’t know the details, but it seemed that Lumine had won for the time being.

The storm subsided, and Lumine landed softly near me with an elegant posture.

“Lumine!”

I forced my body to stand and ran to Lumine.

“A-are you okay? What are those wings? And no matter what, if you jump into a storm…………”

Lumine was looking at me with a slightly puzzled face as I poured out my worries. Then soon, she smiled brightly.

It was a breathtakingly beautiful face.

“I’m fine, Siwoo. More importantly, how’s your, uh, injury……?”

With those words, Lumine’s face instantly filled with concern. My appearance was already a mess, but the wooden plank had torn apart what was left of my tattered clothes.

Through the torn clothes, the spot where the wooden plank had rammed into me was visible. Although it hadn’t been that long since I was hit, a dark bruise was already appearing.

As I was having thoughts like ‘This is going to hurt for a while,’ I saw a person running frantically from afar.

A red headband reminiscent of rabbit ears, long brown hair. My financier… no, it was Amber of the Knights of Favonius.

“Are you all okay?! Is anyone hurt?”

Amber then stopped abruptly as if she had discovered me. To be precise, it was my abdomen that I was covering with my arm.

Amber immediately ran over and started examining my wound with a bewildered face.

“Did you hit something? Does it hurt? I-I’ll get Barbara right now…………”

“Stop, stop. It’s just a bruise. If it was torn inside, would I be standing here like this?”

At my words, Amber seemed to come to her senses and stepped back with a hum, hum, clearing her throat. Lumine was still looking at my wound with a pitiful face.

Still, it didn’t feel bad to receive the worries of the two girls. Amber seemed to feel a bit guilty that the guest she brought had been injured, but in fact, I was the one who insisted on moving alone, so I couldn’t have any complaints.

“Siwoo, are you okay?! What’s that wound?!”

And Paimon, who had appeared out of nowhere, put her hands on her hips and was about to say something to me in ‘long speech mode’ when applause echoed in the air.

Clap, clap, clap.

The man who gathered our attention was a man with a peculiar appearance, with bronzed skin and one eye covered with an eyepatch.

His navy hair, developed muscles, and broad shoulders gave the impression that he didn’t neglect his daily training.

‘Knight’, although he had a somewhat suspicious impression, I could tell right away that he was a knight.

I couldn’t think of any other armed group in Mond that would train to that extent on a daily basis.

“To possess the power to confront a dragon………….”

He scanned Lumine and us as if he had seen a very impressive scene.

“Are you our friend, or a new storm?”

“Ah, Senior Kaeya! This is……”

Indeed, he seemed to be a ‘knight’ as Amber greeted