Ningguang POV
It was one of the funniest things someone has said to me in a long time. A stranger just comes in here, uninvited, and declares themselves my friend.
And he was being completely serious.
I took out my pipe, taking a deep breath from it before letting out the smoke. "You know, a great many people would pay almost anything for me to call them my friend. What makes you think I would hand you that title?"
I couldn't help but keep playing along.
"Sorry, it's already decided. We're friends now." He answered shamelessly.
"Is that so?" I laughed. "And what do I get from your supposed friendship?"
"Friendship hugs?" He offered.
I raised an eyebrow. "I thought I asked for benefits."
"Oof, that hurts me right here." He covered his heart. "How about I'll beat up anyone who tries to bully you?"
"Is that what friends do these days?" I asked. "I must be out of touch with this sort of thing. In which case, why wouldn't I just go make friends with other people instead?" I hummed, looking at him for an answer.
"You make it sound like you don't have any other friends." He tilted his head.
"Who knows." I blew out another stream of smoke. "I don't place much value in finite things. Friendship and relationships. An enemy of today is a friend of tomorrow; a friend of today is an enemy of tomorrow. In this world, only Mora is infinite, so that's where I put my devotion and pursuits."
"You said a lot of words, but I wasn't paying attention. Friends."
My lips twitched. "I never accepted being friends."
"The best of friends." He nodded to himself.
I couldn't help but laugh again. "Has anyone ever told you that you are a very shameless man?"
"Yes. Many people. Many, many people." His companion answered for him. "There is no point in trying to shame him; it will only fuel his determination."
…and he just looks so proud of himself.
"You must have it hard." I sympathized with her.
"Yes, thank you." She smiled.
I found myself comparing him to that annoying ship captain. "You wouldn't happen to know Beidou by any chance?" I asked curiously. "You are very similar."
"No idea. But if you're comparing us, then they must be very handsome."
"She's a woman."
"She must be very handsome."
Oh dear, I really hope they never meet. I tapped my fingers on my desk. "You say you'll beat up anyone who bullies me because we're friends. Then what if I said something blasphemous, such as I was going to go to war with Rex Lapis himself?" I wanted to see how he would react.
"Bet."
...There was absolutely no hesitation, was there?
"And…. what exactly do you think you'll gain from a friendship with me." I studied him curiously to see what he was after. Everyone wants something, so what's his desire? What's his intention here?
"Why does it have to be transactional?" He asked. "Though I suppose at the end of the day that all relationships do work off the idea of a transaction, usually more conceptual in nature. Lovers give things like 'love,' 'comfort,' and 'intimacy' rather than something monetary. 'I give you love; in return, you give me love too.' At the end of the day, it's a trade. If one sides breaks the agreed price, cheating, falling out of love, or simply a distance grown between them, then the relationship dissolves, like the dissolution of a contract." He looked thoughtful.
"...That's not the answer I was expecting." I blinked in surprise. "You are surprisingly wise."
"Surprisingly?" He asked.
"Yes, it makes it annoying because he is both intelligent and wise when he wants to be." His companion chimed in again.
At this point, I think I would be less unenthused if he just asked me for Mora.
I could just shake my head. "I don't think I've been this exasperated since that fool from Fontaine couldn't take a hint."
"Oh, need me to go beat something up?"
Why was it becoming so easy to laugh like this? "No, he was already put in his place. He just had the gall to stare at my legs in such a horrendously rude way that I had to throw something at him to pull his eyes away." I shook my head again.
"Well, they are very nice legs."
"Oh my, should I be worried? Right in front of your lover, are you flirting with me now?" I raised an eyebrow.
It wasn't spoken, but I could tell the relationship between them rather easily.
"He isn't flirting." She said calmly. "If he were flirting, you would know."
"Is it that bad?" I asked.
"Yes." She nodded.
"Hey! I am not bad at flirting." He defended, but I trusted her opinion more here.
Woman's intuition.
"It's utterly shameless to the point where it becomes endearing." She let out a sigh. "I was a victim of it myself."
"Now I'm curious," I leaned in. "What else do you find nice about me?" I decided to keep playing along. "I do so love to hear compliments~"
"Well, you have a very pretty smile, and your laugh is equally beautiful. I think your white hair is charming, and I enjoy the way you dress. I like—"
"Okay, okay, I get it." I held my hand before looking at his lover. "He's really not flirting?"
She shook her head. "He's not."
I supposed I asked for it.
The compliments were nice, though. They were very…polite? Usually when people say those things, their eyes aren't quite so passive. It's been a while since someone's complimented me like this so good-naturedly, hasn't it?
Other than the children I play with, that is. But they're much more pure than this shameless man.
"Is this where you ask me for money then?" I looked at him.
"Why would I ask you for money?" He tilted his head. "I have my own money. I'm actually very rich."
I was being facetious, but now I'm curious. "You are?"
"Yes?"
"Then why are you dressed like that?" I pointed to his outfit. "It's like something that merchants would try to sell to tourists."
"...I'm a tourist." He responded. "I also have this." He took out a folded fan. "It makes me look even more handsome, doesn't it?" He unfolded it in front of his face.
"Pfft." I had to hold back another laugh. "Some people find confidence attractive, I suppose." He did say we were alike, didn't he? I guess I should have expected that he was also a wealthy person? "Give that here." I held my hand out.
"You want my fan? Since we're friends, then I'll let you have this treasure of mine."
I snatched it from his hand with a roll of my eyes. "Cheap." I inspected it. "Barely costing any Mora. It will probably break in a week if properly used." I couldn't help but shake my head once more. "If you have money, why are you spending it on this cheap trash?" I pulled open a few of my drawers until I found my own fan, and I tossed it at him. "There, use a proper one."
"Oh, shiny." He unfolded it, and it was significantly more elegant and impressive than his cheap toy one. "We exchanged fans; the ancient rite of friendship is completed. We are now best friends."
I snorted. "Truly, the most ancient and traditional rites that are well known throughout Liyue. Don't read into it, your wasteful spending offended me." I waved it off. "You never told me, what do I gain from your friendship, hmm? Beyond 'beating people up' for me?"
"Unconditional emotional support?" He blurted out.
"How much is that worth?" I chuckled. "The last person who tried to befriend me had given me a generous gift worth tens of millions of Mora."
"Hmm." He looked thoughtful before holding his hand off to the side.
I was about to ask what he was doing before a torrent of gold suddenly spilled out onto the floor. Gold coins, gold bars, other manner of golden fixtures, all gold.
I could tell at a glance that it was most certainly gold.
With my Vision, I could feel it.
I mentally calculated it. How much was that in Mora? Well over three hundred million, and that wasn't even half of it.
"I wasn't be serious." I forced out, feeling particular about being called out so easily.
"Well, it's yours now." He said casually.
I felt my eye twitch. "Take your gold back."
"It's not my gold anymore." He shrugged helplessly.
"It's an eyesore." I didn't react.
"It's your eyesore now."
My eye twitched again. "What do you expect me to do with this?"
"Sell it? Isn't that what people do with gold?"
"This amount of gold? Do you have any idea what it would do to the market if I tried to sell this much? No, even if people knew I had this much gold, the speculation would cause wild fluctuations."
"Sounds rough. Thankfully, it's not my problem." He nodded to himself.
I let out a long sigh.
I had a feeling that arguing would be pointless. If you had this much money, why are you buying pointless trash like those clothes and the fan!?
In fact, if you're this wealthy, why have I never heard about you before? I know every major merchant from here to Sumeru, to the islands of Inazuma! I keep tabs on all of them and monitor all their movements in the markets.
There is no way I missed someone like this….is there?
"Where exactly did you get this much gold?" I got up from my seat, picking up a gold coin. I didn't recognize the engraving. It's certainly not Snezhnaya; they imprint all their gold with their marks.
"Stole it."
"...Dare I ask from whom?"
"Listen, don't mind the details." He cleared his throat.
"Wilhelm, stop misleading her on purpose." His companion gave him a look, and he seemed to relent under it.
It's clear who keeps him out of trouble.
"Dead people, mostly." He rolled his eyes. "You know, good old-fashioned adventuring down into tombs and crypts and dungeons and finding loads of treasure chests filled with gold."
I believed part of that explanation.
But now it made sense; he wasn't a merchant; he gained his fortune through other means. It makes sense; he is in the Adventurer's guild, and there have been reports of one of their members striking it rich from exploring old ruins and such.
But still…that's a lot of gold.
"I still don't want it; take it back." I was dismissed.
I don't take handouts.
"If you force me to take it back, I'll throw it all off the side of your floating palace onto the streets of Liyue." He responded.
"Are you forcing me to accept your gift?" I raised an eyebrow.
"You're the one who asked for it in the first place."
…I dug myself into a hole, didn't I? I guess, from a certain perspective, it is my fault. However, for some…petty reason, I didn't want to admit fault here.
He unfolded my fan in front of his face, and I could clearly tell he was laughing silently behind it.
"So your friendship only amounts to a pile of gold then?" I changed tactics. "If so, I could buy many more such friendships then. If you think this mere pile of gold is enough to sway me, then you severely underestimate me."
"So you want more gold? I can do that."
You're being intentionally obtuse just to get a reaction out of me. "If you think my friendship is so cheap, then by all means."
"Okay!" He held his hand out on the other side and dropped another pile of gold onto the floor.
I stared at him silently, and he just had the biggest grin on his face.
Deep breaths.
"You are really set on this, aren't you?" I asked him.
"I can be very stubborn." He didn't deny it.
I took a breath from my pipe before breathing out the smoke. "Yes, I've noticed."
[Line Break]
Wilhelm POV
Friend acquired.
Resistance is futile.
But honestly, she didn't seem against it. I wasn't the type to force a relationship if they were obviously not interested. She had been playing along this entire time, so I won't overthink it.
And I had a new fan!
Today is a good day.
"Now that we're friends, we can do things that friends do," I said.
"I never said I agreed." She responded without hesitation. "You seem to be making quite a few assumptions."
She said that, but…
"Has anyone ever told you that you smile with your eyes?"
Her expression changed slightly. "No one has said that to me before. I feel like you're making that up."
I wasn't.
She was the type of person who, without much facial expression, could show a lot of emotion through her eyes. It's hard to explain, but if you meet the type of person, you can sort of understand it.
"Well, it's decided. Best friends for now on." I clapped my hands.
"Do you just choose to ignore things that contradict what you want?" She let out a long sigh.
"Yes."
"He does, yes." Artoria confirmed.
She was completely unperturbed by what was happening.
Ningguang just shook her head. "I feel like I'm going to get a headache if this continues."
I was about to say something else, but I noticed someone walking down the stairs, as did everyone else.
"Ningguang, I have the—" A girl, around Artoria's height, stopped in her tracks, looking at us and at Ningguang at her desk. "I apologize; I wasn't aware you had guests."
"Hi, I'm her new best friend." I introduced myself.
"He's not." Ningguang corrected without much of a reaction. "In fact, he snuck up onto the Jade Chamber. If anything, he's currently trespassing. Oh my, I feel quite threatened by this intruder."
I blinked, wondering what she was doing until the new girl had a blade drawn, pointing at me. "Do you want me to call the Millelith? I will apprehend them right away, if need be."
The girl walked up, placing the blade on my shoulder.
Huh, she has a vision too, a purple one.
Electro?
My first time seeing an Electro Vision.
I looked at Ningguang, and while her expression didn't change, her eyes certainly did. She was all but giving me a smug smile behind her stoic expression. She was all but taunting me, saying, "What are you going to do now?"
Jokes on her, I tend to make situations worse!
"I can't go to jail again!" I pushed off her desk, making my chair fall backwards as I rolled back, kicking her sword up, and breaking free from her 'detainment' as I gained some distance and hopped to my feet.
"Y-you! What are you doing in the Jade Chamber? This is not a place for lowly intruders to trespass! Stop moving at once; if you resist, I will use force to detain you!" The purple girl demanded.
"I choose to resist; please use force."
She seemed surprised by that answer. Do people not tell her when they're going to be belligerent?
Fools!
As a proper troublemaker, you should be upfront about causing trouble.
"No need to hold back, Keqing. If you need to beat him up a bit, go right ahead." Ningguang gave her the go-ahead.
"Hmph!" The now-named Keqing adjusted her sword in hand, turning it to the side as she tried to hit me on the side of the head with it.
Credit where it was due, she was using the flat side of her blade.
I drew my Lion's Roar in response, parrying it with ease.
Again, she seemed surprised for a brief moment before her eyes narrowed and she apparently got serious.
There was the tiniest crackle of lightning around the handle of her sword before she thrust forward, and I turned my body, using my sword to push it past me.
She followed up with another thrust, which turned into about a dozen in quick succession.
"Oh, you're pretty fast. But you're lacking in the strength department. That's not always a significant flaw, but if someone can match your speed, it becomes a huge weakness."
"I don't need you to critique me!" She frowned, and then her sword was wrapped in purple light, and her speed increased several times over.
Her blade flew past my head as I had to quickly jerk to the side to avoid it this time.
Wow, she's really using her vision now, isn't she? Her power increase is noticeable from just that one attack.
His stance changed, and a wide sweep came from below, coated in her electro energy; it was fast and quite powerful compared to her earlier attacks.
I swung Lion's Roar upwards at it to deflect it, but a purple haze enveloped her body, and several 'silhouettes' of her branched off, all attacking me simultaneously. One came from the side, the other came from above, a third came from below, another aimed at my shoulder, and several others filled the games.
The silhouettes, made of Electro Energy, followed her commands to attack me as they splintered from her body.
They weren't 'clones' in the normal sense; they didn't possess separate personages as they were still attached to her, but they could provide a wide array of attack patterns, which made this 'technique' of hers quite deadly if someone was unprepared.
"Interesting, but there's one fatal flaw in this attack of yours." I leaned back before kicking backward to throw myself out of her range.
Her attack was impressive from the front, but the weakness of it was that there was no way to stop someone from retreating backwards.
"Now, what—" I blinked because something flew past my head, intentionally missing me because I knew she was skilled enough that she wouldn't miss from this distance at least.
A flash of purple lightning went past me as I followed its trail with my eyes; it condensed in the air, forming a…totem?
A marker of some sorts?
But it stood there, a construct made of lightning, hovering statically in the air. I looked back at Keqing, and her body shimmered into purple too; her entire body turned into Electro energy, turning into a streak of lightning aimed right at that marker of hers.
It hit that Marker before her silhouette reformed in the same breath, her sword poised in a slash as it aimed downwards on me.
I absentmindedly blocked it and twisted my wrist, sending her flying across the floor as she slid to a stop and caught herself.
Obviously, I was wrong about her 'weakness'; she had another card up her sleeve, but that's not what I was mentally stuck on.
Did she just turn her entire body to lightning?
Yeah, I've done that in the past, but lightning is literally part of my metaphysical makeup. I'm a Campione; my divinity comes from the storm; it's part of me. And in fact, I can do it because I use my Semblance, which drains a significant amount of my Aura to utilize as well.
Yet, she did so with such ease?
How?
It's not a simple thing to do. I could analyze the intricacies of what she just did with her 'technique'. She used that floating marker of hers to act as a sort of lightning rod to catch herself so she couldn't uncontrollably shoot off somewhere else.
But turning your entire body to an element has innate dangers to it. If you're not careful, you can lose yourself, or even significantly harm yourself. There's generally not a threat of dying because of it, like not remembering how to turn back or not being able to turn back.
Your 'form' will reassert itself eventually and all that, but if you don't handle it properly, you can seriously harm yourself.
I underestimated the elemental abilities here.
But beyond that, I realized something.
Was it really that simple?
Could I...?
I looked at my hand, and I was about to activate my Semblance and try to imbue it with my Divinity, but I stopped myself as Keqing flicked her hand, and dozens of those little markers appeared all around the large chamber.
"Let's see how you handle this!" She ran her fingers along her blade, and it became completely imbued with Electro Energy, turning an intense, thundering lightning.
She stepped forward like she was going to jump, but she turned into a streak of lightning again. She bounced between all the markers around me, but it was different this time. She came flying out back to where she started, skidding across the ground, looking slightly out of breath.
All the markers she touched a moment again crackled, and each one manifested a lightning silhouette, leaping off to slash at me.
Good technique.
Unfortunately, still a bit immature.
I got slightly serious, holding my Lion's Roar up, and I slashed it outwards with my own lightning, cutting through all her little markets, dispersing all the lightning clones of hers in one go.
She stared at me with a brief moment of shock, perhaps a hint of horror, but she quickly composed herself, ready to fight again.
"That's enough." Ningguang called out from her room where she was watching the entire exchange.
"Ningguang?" Keqing looked at her.
Ningguang waved at her casually. "I was just playing around; no need to get too serious. And I don't want my Jade Chamber damaged."
Keqing gave me a meaningful look, like she didn't want to stop. I don't know if it was just pride at this point, or rather, not that kind of pride. But rather, the pride of someone who wanted to keep going to prove themselves?
She had the mannerisms of a proper swordswoman.
She was skilled; she clearly practiced quite thoroughly, so I could understand it.
"Keqing, if possible, when you leave, on the way out, can you please tell the servants to fetch some boxes….a lot of boxes, for this gold." She added, a noticeable tone of her voice.
Keqing blinked. "Where did all that gold come from!?"
"Somewhere annoying. Boxes, please."
"….very well." She nodded before turning on her heel and leaving without any preamble.
"Well, if you're going to sit around here and bother me. I may as well put you to work –"
"Oh look at the time." I looked at my imaginary watch. "Time to go; let's go, Artoria!" I grabbed her by the arm, and she didn't resist, just smiling with an eye roll. "We'll come visit later, bye~" I ran up the stairs with her and quickly jumped off the balcony.
I must avoid those dreaded words.
But also, I have a lot to think about now.
I sort of see a path forward I hadn't considered previously.
[Line Break]
A/N
Wilhelm has an idea of how to proceed with his divinity, and he makes a new friend.
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