Ren
Yoda tore through the underbrush with single-minded focus, and Ren followed at a jog, doing his best not to think too hard about how many caves this nation apparently had.
He understood that caves were logically the best spot to hide, but still, it annoyed him how often he had to go in one.
'Seriously. Does every hideout in Teyvat need to be underground?'
Even so, he moved deeper into the mountainside until Yoda finally stopped at the mouth of another cave entrance.
'Dammit, I jinxed myself.'
Crouching at the entrance, he extended his senses.
Deep inside the dark cavern was a faint but ever-present energy signature. He felt three signatures clustered together, so it definitely was the rogue duelist's camp.
"Thanks, bud." Ren ruffled Yoda's head before dismissing it into the shadows.
Instead of walking in, he sank into the shadows of the cave and moved through the darkness.
He was already used to this floating feeling every time he went into the shadows. While it may seem like he was walking aimlessly in the dark, his senses could actually 'see' everything around him.
It was hard to describe. If he had to make an analogy, it sort of worked similarly to echolocation, just minus the echoes.
At one of the corners of the cave, he emerged with just half of his face, seeing the small camp within.
Sure enough, the three figures rested around a small fire with their gear scattered around them. Two men and a woman were dressed in what Ren could only describe as a mix of a fancy suit and a cowboy cosplay.
It was definitely an interesting attire.
Not that he could judge. He'd been using the same style shirt for nearly a year straight.
His eyes focused on a small, open briefcase on the ground in front of the female duelist.
'Now that looks interesting.'
"—should be worth a fortune," she said, grinning as she flipped through something in his hands. "A wealthy family like that? They'll pay whatever we ask just to keep quiet."
Ren raised a brow.
On the surface, it looked like just another group of thieves who got their hands on some juicy material while chasing a big payout.
But another possibility arose in his mind. What if they were actually the good guys, stealing from corrupt nobles and—
"Speaking of, how much did we get off that adventurer group last week? The one near the ruins?"
"Barely anything." One of the guys scoffed. "Beat them half to death for a handful of Mora and some worthless trinkets. What a waste of an afternoon."
"Should've hit them harder." The other guy laughed. "That would teach people to be scared of us."
'...Never mind.' It seemed like they were just the typical bandits.
With their intentions clearly settled, he went on to analyse what he could from their energy signatures.
They felt much weaker than what he expected from Champion Duelists. These people didn't hold a candle to Solenne.
'But they could be suppressing their energy.' He never could really be sure.
This was the good thing about energy suppression.
It works as intended. For better or for worse.
'Though strong people could still sense suppressed energy. I need to figure out how they do that.'
He filed the thought away and went through his options.
Normally this was the part where he'd use Orochi's extension to either knock out or bind his opponents. Maybe even use Nue's extension to bring the stronger ones down.
But he had neither right now.
'Looks like I'm gonna have to go back to the classics.'
It was certainly less convenient, but provided great entertainment.
For now, he just waited in the shadows, like a predator waiting to ambush its prey.
His smile was hidden in the submerged half of his face.
All he had to do was wait for one to be alone.
'This is gonna be fun.'
/ — /
"Hey Colette," Marcel called out, prompting the woman to look at him. "When you said we would be getting blackmail material on the Vasquier bitch, I didn't expect… that."
He gave his fellow duelist an odd look. "How did you even find out about that?"
Colette shamelessly smirked, much to the disgust of the two men.
"It's a girl's instinct. You men wouldn't understand."
"That's one way of calling yourself a freak." Denis teased.
She gave him the finger.
Marcel rolled his eyes at the banter before standing up and stretching. "I'm going to get some fresh air, the cave is suffocating."
"Don't take too long." Colette reminded. "We need to split up the material before we head back. Who knows how long it will take for the Gardes to come searching."
The two men rolled their eyes.
Denis scoffed. "You give them too much credit. I bet that noble isn't letting the Garde call for reinforcements so the blackmail doesn't get exposed."
"I second that." He waved a hand and made his way toward the cave entrance. The fresh air slowly hit his nostrils as he got closer.
"Fresh air is pretty nice, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it's—Wait…"
SLAM!
THUD.
Colette and Denis instantly tensed up back at the camp.
"...What was that?"
Colette was silent, her weapons drawn and ready as she slowly walked towards the entrance. "Marcel?!"
No answer.
"Marcel!"
Nothing.
She exchanged a look with Denis, who had also brandished his weapons. An unspoken understanding passed between them as Denis stood at the front, while she guarded the back.
"Keep your eyes peeled." He whispered.
The two walked as quietly as possible towards the entrance, but the cave echo made their efforts useless.
As the cave entrance came into view, so did Marcel's unconscious body, lying motionless on the ground.
Denis's eyes moved to the treeline, the rocks, any place that a person could use to hide.
Someone had tracked and ambushed them somehow. Entirely without showing a single trace of their presence apart from his unconscious friend.
"Where is this bastard?" He muttered. "Colette, you see anything?"
…
"Colette?"
A chill went down his spine.
He spun around to see nothing but empty space.
The grips on his weapons grew tight as he quickly lost control of his breathing.
"You bastard—show yourself!" He yelled out, shooting a bullet upward in a warning.
Yet nothing answered his attempts at provocation.
Only the sound of his shouts and bullets echoed through the cave.
Every instinct he had told him to run as far as he could. Right now, he was outmatched and couldn't even—!
"Yo."
The voice came from directly behind him.
He spun, sword swinging on pure reflex, and connected with nothing.
A fist filled his vision a half-second later.
And everything went black.
/ — /
Ren
Ren looked down at Denis's crumpled body, the man's nose bleeding from his punch.
"Well, that was disappointing," he sighed.
Three for three, none of them landing so much as a scratch on him. He'd expected at least a little resistance, some show of skill befitting the title of Champion Duelist, but the panic alone showed that they weren't anything special.
People fought differently once they knew they were outmatched. In this case, the poor man experienced being a horror movie protagonist.
The one thing that gave Ren satisfaction was his flawless execution.
Slowly building up dread, making the rogue duelists squirm before taking them out one by one. Leaving the last one to panic alone before dealing with him.
Absolute cinema.
He gathered rope from his shadow storage, enough to bind all three of the duelists.
"Time to see if Shenhe's ropework lessons paid off."
It was one of the few things he picked up while helping Shenhe control her curse. There were times when she would lose control, and he had to tie her up with the red ropes.
His first few pitiful attempts at tying the ropes just ended up with Shenhe angrier at his lack of skill.
So basically, Shenhe taught him how to bondage.
And oh boy was she good. Scarily so.
After a few minutes of fumbling around, Ren looked forward in satisfaction at the tightly bound duelists.
It was perfect, tight enough to hold them in place without actually hurting.
If Shenhe's words were to be believed, they could even feel comfortable.
Moving on from the tied-up duelists, Ren walked over to their camp, eyes locked onto a particular briefcase.
'Let's see what kind of blackmail we have…'
Ren crouched by the briefcase and flipped the latches open.
Inside was mostly what he expected. A stack of documents, some kind of ledger. The usual stuff you'd expect an important person to carry.
It was interesting, but nothing that fit blackmail material.
The rogue duelists talked about something they saw in the briefcase that could force the Vasquier family to pay them a large sum. This didn't really fit that image.
Then his fingers found a small pouch tucked into the lining.
'What's this?'
He pulled it out.
It was made of soft, high-quality leather, and a little heavier than its size suggested. Feeling the pouch, it felt like a lot of photos stacked together.
The front of the pouch also had a single word in cursive that was etched into the leather.
[Fun.]
'That's definitely not ominous.'
Even so, he kept an open mind. There was a chance that this wouldn't be the bad kind of blackmail material.
It could be evidence of fraud, an affair, or something embarrassing but ultimately mundane.
But on the off chance it was something like the nobles at the mansion…
Ren shook his head, deciding to get it over with instead of indulging in baseless speculation.
He took a photo.
His mind had already steeled itself in preparation for what he might see in the pictures.
But no amount of preparation could have prepared him for this.
'So that's the mom with… wait, where her clothes at?'
It took a second for the image to click.
"What the FUCK?"
He shoved the photo back into the pouch.
The sheer shock made him blink his eyes rapidly, as if it could somehow undo the last two seconds of his life.
'Was that the mom? With—there were so many—'
His brain unhelpfully replayed the image in his head.
'Was there also a—'
Against his better judgment, he glanced at the pouch again and pulled the photo halfway.
'IS THAT A MITACHURL IN BONDAGE?!'
"HRUUGHH—!"
He clamped a hand over his mouth, using every ounce of strength he had not to throw up on the cave floor.
Ren thought he'd seen the worst of what humanity had to offer.
Having access to a thing called the internet back on his world exposed him to many things a child should have never seen.
The true depravity of humanity in the palm of your hand.
Never in his life did he think anyone in this world could ever stoop lower. But alas, Teyvat always surprised him.
Ren looked back at the pouch in his hand.
He suddenly had a feeling he knew what he would find if he looked at the other pictures inside.
But the possibility of there being a picture of an actual crime stopped him from throwing the pouch back in the briefcase.
Until he knew for certain there were no pictures of actual crimes, he had to look through all of them.
"...Fuck my life."
He put the first photo aside and took another.
'Ok, this looks like a normal dinner—Nope, there's someone naked on the table. Dammit.'
The next ten minutes would be one of the most traumatic moments in Ren's life. He would see things he never thought were possible with the human body–no, things that should have never been done with the human body.
And then, he was done.
In the end, it was all that. Literal porn.
…
"Oh, Focalor, I beg thee, cleanse these images from my mind." Ren looked upward with his eyes open. Afraid that once he closed them, the images would flash in his brain.
But in the deep crevices of his mind, a part of himself he would never acknowledge or ever show.
That part of him might have… liked some of the pictures he saw.
The image of a disappointed Rex Lapis looking down on him appeared in his mind. Disappointed that the man he gave a gift to could possess such depravity.
"Forgive me, Rex Lapis, for I have sinned."
/ — /
"We should run back to the city," Margaux said quietly, more to herself than to Julien. "You are injured and bleeding. Let's just call reinforcements and get you medical attention."
Julien, the Vasquier family's personal Garde, shook his head. "Forgive me, my lady, but I cannot. As your personal Garde, I must go out and retrieve what those scoundrels took from you."
He gave her a small smile to try and ease her worries. "Do not fret. Now that I'm patched up, I can go out and search without worry."
The brazen dismissal of his injuries only made Margaux more exasperated. She knew how loyal the man was and appreciated him for it.
However, now was the worst time for that loyalty to come into play.
"Julien, you're in no condition—"
"I've fought through worse."
Margaux bit the bottom of her lip, guilt flashing across her face, though not for the reason Julien likely assumed.
He probably thought she was worried about his safety, about sending an injured man back out to face three armed duelists.
Of course that was part of the reason. But the other was that she did not want him to risk his life just over compromising pictures of herself!
'This must be my comeuppance.' She thought. For all the times she put off important matters to indulge in depravity.
But even if that was the case, she still desperately hoped there would be a way out.
'Lady Furina, I beg of you.' She clasped her hands together in prayer and closed her eyes. 'I promise, I will never do such activities again. So please don't let those pictures of me get out, and especially don't let Julien risk his life over pictures of me with ten—!'
"Yo!"
Everyone jumped.
Julien almost instantly raised his firearm at the source of the sound, only to freeze at the baffling sight.
It was Ren with a smug smile, briefcase in one hand, and a length of rope in the other. The far end of it disappeared toward three bound figures dragged along behind him.
"Hmmph!"
"Hmm! HMMM!"
They screamed fruitlessly into their gags, aiming furious glares at the one responsible for their predicament.
Julien and the family stared.
To think a stranger would bring in the rogue duelists that attacked them without so much as a scratch… Jarring didn't quite cover it.
"These guys wouldn't shut up, so I had to gag em." Ren yanked the rope to demonstrate, and the three duelists let out muffled shouts of protest, thrashing uselessly against their bindings.
Julien had to rub his eyes to be sure he wasn't seeing things. "You. You actually caught them?"
"I said I would, didn't I?" he responded, as if that helped explain anything.
Margaux slowly approached him. Her mind was still processing the fact that her prayers were answered.
"T-Thank you." She finally sighed out, the stress of the entire ordeal leaving her almost entirely.
Ren's eyes drifted over Julien's bandaged arm, then to the ones on Margaux and her children. He let out a small smile at the sight.
"They put up a bit of a fight, but nothing I couldn't handle," he said, trying not to make it sound too effortless.
"Is that so?" Julien looked at him up and down. "And you're not with the Garde?"
"Nope. Just a random adventurer that happened to be in the area."
"That's rather convenient, wouldn't you agree?" he questioned. Everything just aligned too well in his mind that he couldn't help but be suspicious of Ren.
But Ren didn't seem to care.
"Yeah, tell me about it." He held out the briefcase. "Here's your stuff."
Margaux's gaze moved to the briefcase, and all the relief she felt suddenly turned to anxiety once again.
"D-Did you look at the contents?"
"Nope." Ren lied as naturally as he breathed. "I'm not interested in getting roped into whatever business there is between you and them. I'm here on vacation, you know?"
Margaux held his gaze for a second longer, searching for any cracks. Thankfully, Ren was able to disguise well enough that she backed off.
He handed the briefcase to Julien, who took it with a small nod.
But Margaux suddenly rushed forward and grabbed both of Ren's hands, making him freeze in place.
"Thank you. Thank you so much I—I swear I will repay you for this act of kindness."
"Hahaha, you don't have to." Ren tried to pull his hand away, but the woman's grip was strong.
She finally released his hand after what felt like an excessive number of shakes, already turning to say something to Julien about arranging transport back to the city, relief radiating off her.
Ren looked down at his own hand and shivered.
He was going to wash that hand thoroughly.
With a lot of soap.
/ — /
Furina
A Garde burst through the doors of the Palais Mermonia's main hall. Everyone inside the hall jolted from the sudden noise.
The man ran towards his superior, breathless. "Sir! There has been another rogue duelist attack near Beryl Region! But this time, an adventurer apprehended three of them alive!"
That got the attention of everyone in the room, even those who weren't necessarily Gardes.
"Get a team out there immediately! I want those three questioned the moment they're brought in!" The one in command shouted and ran out with a few more Gardes.
'An adventurer apprehended three alone?' Furina hummed, analysing the scene from one of her many secretive spots in the Palais.
After she began looking into the rogue duelist situation herself, she had been able to identify a few likely scenarios for their appearance.
But they were still educated guesses. She had yet to come across any evidence to back up her claims.
It didn't help that they hadn't actually caught a rogue duelist until now.
This was an opportunity she couldn't pass up.
She stood, smoothing her dress as she planned how she would approach the matter. Showing herself in front of the masses would do no good, and going to see the rogue's interrogation would be a waste of time.
The reports of the interrogation would make their way to her desk anyway.
What she was really interested in was the adventurer who defeated them.
'My senses are telling me something is amiss! I must investigate this myself.'
With her mind made up, Furina slipped into a side room and pulled out her new disguise.
A different oversized trench coat, complemented by a wig several shades darker than her actual hair, and a pair of red contacts to hide her dazzling eyes.
After the many, many times she was caught in her disguise, she realized she needed to pick up her undercover game.
Her disguise now in place, she smoothed back her wig and smirked, pulling on the coat with dramatic flourish. "It is time for Furina de Fontaine to go undercover! Hahaha!"
She cackled to herself and spun her heel toward the door—
and immediately tripped over the hem of the coat.
"WAAA—OUGH!" She hit the wall with a very undignified thud.
She rubbed her head and muttered several Fontainian curses.
The only saving grace was that no one saw what had just transpired.
"...Maybe this trench coat is a touch too long." She grumbled before walking off.