Ren
"Yeah, that's definitely a big building." Ren looked up at the Palais Mermonia. The place of highest authority in Fontaine, and where all administrative affairs are handled.
Liyue Harbor definitely had some incredibly detailed and intricate buildings, especially for all things Adeptus or Qixing related.
But Fontaine just won him over. It had a specific grandeur that scratched his brain the right way.
Or maybe he was just acting like a tourist.
He made his way inside to see about a dozen people walking around. It was honestly less busy than what he expected.
After a little bit of waiting in a line, it was finally his turn. Walking up to the reception desk, he was greeted with a smile by the woman working.
"Hello, sir. How may I assist you today?"
Ren returned her greeting, "I want to sign up for the Champion Duelist training event."
"May I know what your party size is?"
"That's another thing I wanted to ask about. Is it possible to register as just one person?" He asked hopefully.
The woman shook her head. "Unfortunately, the two party minimum requirement is something we cannot make exceptions for."
'I kinda expected that, but it was worth a shot.'
"Alright. When does the event actually start?"
She flipped through a ledger. "Two weeks from today."
Ren blinked.
'Two weeks?'
That was a lot longer than he'd thought it would be. He assumed the event would be happening in days, two weeks was a considerably longer window than he expected.
The receptionist chuckled lightly at the surprised look on his face.
"The Palais requires proper preparation time for an event of this scale." She said plainly, like she had said this a hundred times already.
"I guess that makes sense." He should know, he helped prepare the Rite of Descension. While this event was nowhere near as important, it should still take some time.
'Guess I've got time to kill.'
He thanked her and stepped back outside, thinking about what he planned to do with his extra time.
He had enough Mora to last him a few months, but doing nothing for two weeks seemed wasteful.
'Maybe I could head over to the Adventurers Guild.'
Back when he first got the Shadow Courier running, Katheryne had also insisted he try out to be a member of the Adventurers Guild. While he didn't take it back then, he did do the test a few weeks back just in case and passed quite easily.
'Doing commissions should keep me busy, though I don't know if my Liyue Guild credentials carry to Fontaine. Guess I'll find out.'
As he walked toward the location of Fontaine's Adventurers Guild branch, he was unaware of the figure in the Palais looking down at his disappearing form.
"Keep an eye on his activities. Find out what his purpose is in Fontaine," they said, turning to the Gardes. "Do not under any circumstances engage the individual. He is extremely dangerous."
The Gardes nodded, and dispersed to their posts.
But the person told one to stay behind and whispered, "If possible, call Clorinde back to the city just in case."
The request made the Gardes eyes widen, but he nonetheless nodded and went through with the order.
They watched a moment longer with a difficult expression before turning and disappearing back through the side door.
/ — /
The aquabus ride to Beryl Region was pretty slow, but at least he got a good view at Fontaine's wilderness.
'But it would definitely look better from the sky.'
Out of instinct, he nearly summoned Nue in the city to fly to the Beryl Region. Thankfully, he stopped himself, or else things would have gotten messy.
He took it upon himself to read up on some of the local laws after checking his Guild credentials, which thankfully still carried.
If he had summoned Nue, that was a fine because having an unregistered/unknown animal as a pet was illegal.
If he had used Nue to fly, then that was another fine plus potential jail time.
Safe to say, he did not want to risk going against Fontaine's laws, especially not in a Nation where their Archon was constantly wandering about.
"Haaah…" Ren sighed and relaxed into his seat. Even though the aquabus was quite slow, it was still fast enough to make the wind become a cool breeze.
Not long after, Beryl region slowly came into view.
He disembarked at a small dock and started walking with no particular destination in mind. After everything with Rose, and now the two-week wait hanging over his head, a little unstructured wandering felt earned.
Though his mind kept circling back to the actual problem.
'Partner. I need a partner.'
The easiest and most convenient solution was the Adventurers Guild commission board. He could just post a request and go with whoever took the commission.
But that came with its own risk. He would be relying on a complete stranger who would probably be in it just for the money. He could just reject them and keep trying until he got a competent partner, but that would take way too long.
'That and I don't want another Rose situation...'
Another reason why the commission board was a no-go was because of the event's structure. He'd read further into the details from more newspapers and asking around.
The training was split into two tiers, beginner and expert, sorted by combined party strength.
If he showed up with someone weak, or worse, someone who panicked the moment things got serious, he'd get bumped into the beginner bracket regardless of his own ability.
'And there's no way I'm doing beginner drills when I came here to fight Clorinde.'
Which meant he needed to find people the old-fashioned way. Asking around and maybe finding Fontaine's stronger adventurers.
He kicked a loose stone off the path, watching it skip across the grass.
'Guess I've got two weeks to figure it out.'
The path wound up a low hill, and Ren was mostly lost in his own thoughts when something at the edge of his vision made him stop.
'Are those bags?'
Several bags and suitcases were scattered across a wide patch of grass. The contents seemed to be personal belongings that spilled out.
From the way things looked, it was unlikely that it was a picnic or anything similar.
'Of course, I run into trouble the moment I walk out of the city.'
One could say he could just walk away and pretend he didn't see anything.
But where was the fun in that?
Truly, Ren's mind and instinct were always at odds.
He walked closer to inspect the items. While most looked like they were dropped in a rush, a few were torn and cut in places.
As he traced his fingers at the seams of the fabric, he couldn't help but frown.
'This is too clean for tearing.' Tearing would leave inconsistent edges. This almost looked like a cut from a professional tailor.
Given the size and shape of the cuts, Ren guessed that a long blade was what cut the items.
He extended his senses and scanned the surrounding area to look for anything out of place. His senses came back empty, but he did spot a few footprints near the trail.
'The shoe size of the prints looks like those of an adult and a child.' There were too many scattered footprints to get anything more.
"Alright, so this was definitely a robbery. Or at least, an attempted one."
His eyes caught the shine of something on the ground.
'A bullet casing?!' Technically, it was a cartridge case, but he didn't really care for specifics.
Looks like things were more serious than he thought.
"Vader, you're up."
The shadows beneath his feet rippled as a black dog jumped out from it. Vader looked up at him with expectant eyes, waiting for his command.
Ren pointed to the pile of scattered belongings. "Sniff out these guys for me."
Vader's ears flicked as it sniffed through the items. Its head snapped up just a moment later and ran off in a direction.
"Good dog."
Vader led him far from the main trail and deeper into the wilderness. Slowly, they walked into an area that led to a downward slope on a mountainside.
Sure enough, Ren was led into a deep cave.
True to the nation of Hydro, the place was really wet.
He made sure to sharpen his senses the moment he walked into the cave. He didn't know what to expect from the monsters in Fontaine, so it was better to be prepared.
It took a little while of walking, but sure enough, his senses caught something. It wasn't anything powerful, but it was definitely human.
'Around four people.' Ren thought. Analysing their position, they seemed to be huddled up together in an open area of the cave.
Sure enough, he found what he was looking for after another turn.
Four figures huddled together in a shallow alcove. A man in a Garde uniform, a woman with tear streaks on her face, and two children pressed close against her sides.
It seemed like Ren made too much noise, as their heads snapped towards him not even a second later.
The mother held her kids closer while the Garde raised a–
Ren's eyes widened. 'Oh crap, he's got a gun.'
He wasn't too worried about the firearm. Dodging or cutting a bullet was always a little tricky, and he didn't know how strong the Gardes gun was.
However, he knew better than to disarm the Garde immediately. Even if the man wasn't a threat, initiating a fight would only scare the family behind him more.
He needed to understand the situation first.
Ren raised his arms. "Calm down, I'm not here to fight."
The gun didn't waver.
"I saw bags torn up on the trail and wanted to see if anyone was hurt."
The man's eyes flicked between Ren and Vader, breathing hard.
Several long seconds passed before the gun finally lowered, though the man's stance stayed rigid.
"...You're not with them."
"Can you elaborate?"
"We were attacked by three Rogue Champion Duelists." The man grunted.
Ren had to hand it to him. He still stood tall even if he looked like he was about to keel over.
Turning to look back at the family behind him, Ren finally noticed how expensive their clothing looked. Just from looking at them, he immediately knew these people were of the more privileged sort.
His eyes narrowed. 'A noble then?'
As if hearing his thoughts, the Garde explained further.
"I was in charge of escorting the Vasquier family." Yup, definitely a noble family, "I can't say where to. But we were ambushed on the road. I managed to hold them off long enough for the family to run, but I was outmatched."
Ren's eyes moved to the man's other arm, the one not holding the gun. Several visible gunshot wounds, blood dried dark against torn fabric, his clothes cut through in multiple places.
'Ouch, that's gotta suck.'
He took in the family's current state. They were exhausted but not fully spent, and no signs of recent movement.
'They've been here a while.'
'A competent Garde would've already made it to an aquabus station to report the situation and get reinforcements.'
'If he didn't—'
"They must have stolen something important," Ren guessed. "So you can't return until you get it back."
The Garde's eyes widened. The woman's grip on her children tightened.
"...How did you—" The man's voice was careful now, wary in a different way than before. "Who are you?"
"No one of significance."
That answer only made the Garde more suspicious, but Ren was focused elsewhere.
The situation right now was uncomfortably familiar to him. A Fontainian noble had something important stolen and has to get it back.
It didn't take a genius to guess that whatever was stolen was either worth a lot or it was blackmail material.
The possibility of killing the mother here crossed his mind. His experience and instinct with previous nobles had put a sour taste in his mouth.
But his eyes shifted to the kids for a moment.
Whatever the parents had or hadn't done, the kids usually had no say in the matter.
That said, if they were involved in any activities that were unacceptable… Well, their life would be cut short.
'I'll find out what was taken first and then decide what to do with them.' Ren decided. He couldn't judge them if he didn't know the full picture. 'If the kids are innocent, I could just knock them out. Hopefully I don't need to dirty my hands so soon.'
"I'll get your items back."
The woman's expression went panicked immediately. "Absolutely not. We have no idea what your intentions are, you could be working with them for all we know."
"Could be." Ren shrugged. "I'm going to go look either way. Believe whatever you want."
She looked slightly befuddled at his casual dismissal and couldn't come up with a rebuttal.
Ren reached into his shadow storage and pulled out a small medical kit, offering it to the Garde.
"For the arm. I'll be back soon." He threw the small box.
The man grabbed it with his good hand and eyed him suspiciously, but he didn't refuse the help.
Ren turned and started back toward the cave entrance, Vader falling into step beside him.
He waited until he was well clear of the alcove and out of their line of sight entirely before dismissing the shikigami back into shadow.
'Alright, so I get to try my hand against these Rogue Champion Duelists.' A smile crossed his face. 'I hope they're as good as Solenne.'