Henry opened his eyes and immediately looked around.
He was sitting on his semi-hard mattress, while the window overlooked the same familiar section of Mondstadt. Most importantly, he was standing inside his own room.
A grin spread across his face.
Success.
[Congratulations. You have successfully achieved the incredibly difficult task of not teleporting into a girl's bedroom.]
I told you it was an accident.
[Of course... Of course it was.]
Choosing not to continue that argument, Henry left his room and walked toward the room right next to Alina's. A moment later he knocked.
The door opened almost immediately.
Alina stood there wearing a simple white blouse and dark skirt, and the moment she saw him, her expression brightened noticeably.
"Henry! You are back. Were you busy working in your world again?"
"Something like that," Henry replied with a small shrug. "Although technically I resigned, so I suppose I was busy not working. I did get a few things done though."
"Oh?" Alina tilted her head slightly in curiosity. "What kind of things?"
"I bought a few buildings."
For a second she simply stared at him.
"You bought buildings?"
"A few."
Alina let out a short laugh and shook her head.
"Hah! Every time you return, you somehow sound richer than before. One day you are selling Mora, then you buy a café, and now you are casually purchasing buildings."
Henry paused.
"Wait a second. I don't remember telling you exactly how I bought the buildings. How did you know I sold Mora to pay for them?"
For the briefest moment, Alina froze.
Then she laughed nervously.
"I mean... it is kind of obvious."
"Obvious?"
"You told me before that you weren't particularly wealthy in your world, and then suddenly you started spending huge amounts of money. It wasn't exactly difficult to deduce that you were probably selling Mora there."
Before Henry could respond, Orianna immediately jumped into the conversation.
[Henry, why are you interrogating the poor lady?]
Why are you defending Alina? Henry asked silently. I was just curious so I questioned her.
[And why can't I defend her? Alina is a perfectly beautiful and innocent young woman.]
Henry narrowed his eyes.
How do you know she is a beautiful innocent young woman?
[Women's intuition.]
Henry opened his mouth, closed it again, and decided that continuing this conversation would only damage his sanity. For a system, Orianna behaved suspiciously like a real woman whenever it suited her.
"Hey!"
Alina's voice interrupted his thoughts as she snapped her fingers in front of his face.
"You are spacing out again."
Henry blinked and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Sorry. I am a little tired."
"You were asking me something."
"Right." Henry nodded. "Oh, just ignore my rambling. I was only curious. It's not like you're secretly a Fatui agent or something, right?"
Henry laughed.
Alina laughed as well.
"Haha."
"Haha."
"Hahahaha."
"Ha... ha..."
Neither of them stopped.
The laughter continued for several more seconds as both smiled at each other with increasingly strained expressions.
"Hahaha..."
"Haha..."
"..."
"..."
Henry's smile slowly faded.
"Wait."
"You are not actually a Fatui agent, right?"
"Don't be silly, Henry," Alina replied immediately. "How could I possibly be a Fatui agent?"
Her answer arrived so quickly that Henry found it slightly suspicious.
Then again, he was currently taking relationship advice from a talking system, so perhaps he wasn't the best judge of suspicious behaviour.
Before Henry could continue down that increasingly suspicious line of questioning, Alina decisively changed the subject.
"Anyway, while you were busy becoming a property owner, the renovations are complete."
That immediately got Henry's full attention.
"The café is finished already?"
Alina nodded.
"The workers finished everything yesterday. I inspected the work myself afterward and paid them before they left."
"That was fast."
"It only sounds fast because you weren't here watching it happen," Alina replied with a small laugh. "Most of the major construction work had already been completed before you left. The remaining tasks were mainly decoration, furnishing, wiring, and installing the equipment, so once all the materials arrived it didn't take nearly as long as the earlier stages."
Henry considered that for a moment and eventually nodded.
When she explained it like that, it made perfect sense.
Even so, actually hearing that the café was finished felt strangely satisfying. The project had started as a random idea, then somehow turned into weeks of planning, hiring workers, purchasing equipment, managing deliveries, and spending an amount of Mora that still made him slightly uncomfortable whenever he thought about it too carefully.
And now it was done.
The café existed.
"Then let's go see it."
A genuine smile appeared on Alina's face, as though she had been waiting for that answer from the moment he returned.
"I thought you'd say that."
Several minutes later, they arrived outside Henry's Café.
The building looked completely different.
Not structurally, because the overall shape remained exactly the same, but atmospherically. The exterior had been cleaned thoroughly, the windows polished until they reflected the morning sunlight like sheets of glass, and decorative flower boxes now rested beneath several of them, adding touches of color that had been absent before.
Henry found himself smiling before they had even stepped inside.
Alina unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The moment Henry stepped through the entrance, he stopped.
For several seconds he simply stood there taking everything in.
The light green walls immediately softened the atmosphere of the entire room, while plants extended throughout the café in carefully planned arrangements rather than being scattered around as simple decoration. Some occupied corners, others rested on shelves, and several hung from elevated planters that naturally drew the eye upward, making the space feel larger and far more alive than it actually was.
The effect was subtle.
Yet surprisingly powerful.
Instead of feeling like a business, the café felt welcoming and comfortable, like somewhere people would willingly spend hours talking, reading, or simply relaxing without feeling pressured to leave.
Rows of tables and chairs had already been arranged throughout the room with enough space between them to avoid crowding while still allowing staff to move efficiently during busy periods. The counter occupied the far side of the café, its polished wooden surface contrasting pleasantly against the lighter colors surrounding it, while large windows allowed natural sunlight to flood the interior and illuminate every carefully chosen detail.
The entire space felt warm, inviting, and distinctly different from every other establishment Henry had seen in Mondstadt.
Alina folded her arms as she watched him examine the room.
"Well?"
Henry slowly turned in a circle, taking one final look before facing her again.
"It looks incredible."
For perhaps the first time since meeting her, Alina looked genuinely pleased by the praise.
"I thought you might approve."
"Approve?" Henry shook his head. "Alina, this is better than what I imagined. Seriously, good work with the decoration. The indoor plants, flowers, and creeping vines give the entire place a natural atmosphere without making it feel overcrowded. It actually feels like somewhere people would want to spend time instead of just grabbing a drink and leaving."
That earned him another small smile.
They spent nearly twenty minutes walking through the entire building while Alina explained the final changes that had been made during the last stages of renovation. The kitchen had been completed exactly according to specification, the storage areas were neatly organized, preparation stations had been installed in their proper locations, and every surface looked spotless.
Everything was clean, everything was organized, and perhaps most importantly of all, everything was ready.
After finishing their inspection of the upper floors, Henry and Alina eventually made their way down into the basement. Unlike the warm and welcoming atmosphere of the café above, this section of the building had been designed purely for function, with plain walls, exposed utility lines, and various pieces of equipment occupying most of the available space. It was hardly attractive, but that had never been the objective. Customers would never come down here, which meant practicality mattered far more than appearance.
The moment Henry entered, his attention shifted toward the generators installed along one side of the room. For all the decorations, furniture, and renovations upstairs, these machines were the real foundation of the project because without electricity the lighting, refrigeration, air conditioning, and countless other conveniences he intended to introduce would amount to little more than expensive decorations.
As he approached the equipment, however, his gaze settled on several large battery banks positioned beside the generator, causing him to slow down slightly.
...Orianna.
[Yes love?]
Henry pointed toward the cabinets. These are batteries.
[Correct.]
Industrial battery banks.
[Correct.]
I can buy these on Earth.
[Also correct.]
Henry stared at the equipment for another moment before shaking his head.
Then why exactly did you give them to me? I can literally travel back to Earth whenever I want, and I have system storage. If I needed batteries, I could walk into a store, touch them, put them into storage, and bring them back myself.
[Well, I gave them to you for your convenience.]
A brief pause followed before Orianna added,
[If you want, I can take them back. Then you can return to Earth and purchase them yourself.]
No, no, don't take them, Henry replied immediately. Now that you've already given them to me, it would be stupid not to use them. Thank you for making things easier for me.
[Hmph. You're welcome.]
The fact that she sounded genuinely proud of herself somehow made the entire conversation worse because, for a brief moment, Henry had genuinely expected Orianna to provide some futuristic technology straight out of a science-fiction movie rather than industrial battery banks he could have purchased himself.
Meanwhile, Alina had been quietly watching him inspect the unfamiliar machines. Whatever these devices were, they had clearly captured Henry's full attention again, and the way he kept examining them suggested they were far more important than their plain appearance implied.
"So what exactly do they do?"
"You have no idea," Henry replied as he walked over to the installation and checked several of the connections. "If these work properly, half the things I want to introduce become possible. If they don't, I suddenly have a very expensive basement decoration."
Alina let out a small laugh and glanced at the large metal cabinets.
"Ha! Are those bulky things really that expensive?"
"They are in my world."
Her eyes widened slightly.
"Oh, so they're from your world?"
"Yeah. Both the batteries and the generator."
That immediately seemed to increase her interest, and she took another look at the equipment, this time with considerably more curiosity than before.
Henry continued his inspection, checking the connections, examining the installation work, and confirming that everything appeared to be exactly as intended. Several minutes later he stepped back, thoroughly satisfied with what he had seen.
At least this part of the project looked ready to survive contact with reality.
---
We're only at 52 Power Stones right now, so please try to push the count to 150+ this week.
We managed to hit the milestone once, but we haven't reached it again since then. If you're enjoying the story, drop your stones.
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