"Jean, every time I see you, you're this busy. Haven't you taken a break?"
Alice sat on the edge of Jean's desk, her posture lazy and relaxed, her graceful figure fitting against the tabletop as if she owned the place.
"Miss Alice, I'm the Acting Grand Master. There are many things that need me to handle them."
Jean shook her head. Things were not actually that bad right now. Compared to the period of the dragon crisis, she was already much less busy.
It was not as if she had never rested, either. At the very least, she no longer collapsed from overwork at the slightest provocation.
"Want me to go to Nod-Krai and drag Varka back for you? Then you could finally get some proper rest," Alice said absentmindedly.
"Hahaha, I think that's a pretty good idea," Koji said in agreement.
"Let's not. The Grand Master definitely has important matters to deal with right now. There's no need to bother him over something like this."
Jean laughed helplessly. She did not doubt for a second that Alice might genuinely go all the way to far-off Nod-Krai and haul Grand Master Varka back by force.
Mondstadt was not in any crisis at the moment. She could still manage.
"Miss Alice, you didn't come back this time with any strange new ideas, did you?" Jean hurriedly asked.
She was referring to the kind of ideas no normal person would ever think of.
If danger really appeared, Alice was absolutely reliable.
But if there was no danger, then Alice herself was absolutely the greatest danger.
The woman in front of her had a mind that ran wild in every direction. Whatever bizarre thing she might think of, no one would find it surprising.
Maybe it was because she was not human, so she had no psychological burden at all when it came to those things.
"Oh, Jean, I'm hurt. What exactly do you take me for?" Alice asked, putting on an injured expression.
She had not done those kinds of things for years. Back then she had been young and reckless. She would not do that now.
"A walking disaster?" Koji teased with a smile.
With the kind of absurd ideas Alice came up with, she was more than qualified to sit at the same table as dangerous individuals.
The fact that even the steady and composed Zhongli had personally kept an eye on her said enough about just how dangerous she could be.
"That's too much. Why are you bringing up old history? What did I ever do?" Alice seemed a little annoyed.
She just had a few more imaginative ideas than other people. That had nothing to do with being a menace.
And more importantly, even if she had those ideas, how many had she actually managed to carry out?
Jean said nothing, but inwardly she rather agreed with Koji. When Alice got the urge to stir up trouble, "walking disaster" was a perfectly fitting description.
Stormterror's Lair was a classic example. It used to be called Stormterror's Ruins.
"Alice, a lot of your ideas never came true only because people were keeping an eye on you. Otherwise, can you honestly say you wouldn't have tried them?" Koji asked with a half-smile.
This woman was an unstable factor through and through. Not because she was a bad person, but because her wild ideas were simply beyond what normal people could accept.
"Well…"
Alice let out an awkward laugh and did not refute him.
If Venti, Zhongli, and the others had not been watching her, she really would have felt the urge to test some of those things out.
She was not the type to stop at theory. She would genuinely act on her ideas, and once she did, she would go all the way.
"So, Miss Alice, please don't do anything frightening in Mondstadt," Jean said in an extremely serious tone.
The unspoken meaning was clear enough: behave yourself while you're in Mondstadt. If you absolutely must cause trouble, go do it somewhere else.
As the saying goes, better someone else suffer than yourself.
Besides, the gods of the other nations were not fools. If someone as dangerous as Alice crossed into their territory, there was no way they would sit still.
Elsewhere, Venti was listening in on their conversation.
It could not be helped. Alice had returned, so he had to be a little more attentive and keep track of her movements.
"If Alice runs off to the old man's place, is the old man going to come beat me up?" Venti muttered.
Alice might be a member of the Hexenzirkel, but she also counted as someone from Mondstadt. After all, her daughter lived here.
If Alice ran off to Liyue, Zhongli would definitely get a headache. He might even come over for a little chat.
Venti went back to drinking. Even if Alice really did run off to Liyue, it had nothing to do with him. Alice had a mind of her own. It was not as if she were some wooden puppet.
…
"Wooo!"
Stelle spread her wind glider and soared freely through the sky, the sensation making her cry out in delight. It felt unbelievably good.
"…That girl really doesn't know how to be careful at all." March 7th looked up, black lines appearing on her forehead.
After all, Stelle was wearing a short skirt. It would be very easy for her to expose herself like that. March 7th also wanted to try it, but since she was wearing a skirt too, she could only hold herself back. Stelle, on the other hand, clearly had no such reservations.
"So this wind glider originally came from Teyvat," Murata Himeko said with interest.
There was one at Herta Space Station too, but no one had known where that kind of winged device had originally come from. Now they knew—it came from the world beneath their feet.
"Aren't you going to try it? Wind gliders are really fun. They carry the Anemo Archon's power on them. Every wind glider in Teyvat has it. Only wind gliders like that are the genuine article," Lumine said.
"That Anemo Archon really is incredible. He has that much power, and yet he still chooses to be a drunken bard," March 7th complained.
"Who knows. That's just his personality, I guess."
"Koji told me before that Venti holds part of the authority over time. He once used the wind to blow Mare Jivari right out of the timeline."
When Lumine had first heard that, she had also been utterly stunned. Was that really something a god could even do?
"The power of time…" Welt said in surprise. "Looks like I underestimated that Anemo Archon."
No matter what world it was, the power of time always stood at the very top.
In his own world, the Herrscher of Finality wielded the power of time. In the Star Rail universe, perhaps only the End could truly command time and move against its flow.
Whatever Venti's overall level might be, authority like that was extraordinary.
"Teyvat really is a very special world, to have such a concrete manifestation of power," Sunday said.
Even across the universe, it would be hard to find many worlds like this.
"I think the waters here run pretty deep too. I've traveled through many worlds, but I've run into this many strange things only in Teyvat," Lumine said with a sigh.
She and Aether had traveled by spaceship to many worlds, yet the time they had spent in Teyvat was unusually long.
"Lumine, traveling and Trailblazing are actually somewhat alike. They both mean going to new worlds and witnessing new things," Murata Himeko said with a smile.
Lumine nodded. She thought so too.
If she and Aether ever joined the Astral Express, then perhaps they really could become Trailblazers.
Still, they had their own ship, one capable of sailing through the sea of stars.
(End of Chapter)
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