Chapter 179: The Unwelcome Fatui
Faced with Gin's question, Wanderer's expression darkened, and a cold, sharp laugh escaped his lips. "Heh. It's nothing. I simply discovered that someone had deceived me. I loathe him, so naturally, I can no longer work with him."
"Is it that Dottore you mentioned before?" Vermouth interjected, pointedly ignoring the flash of irritation in Gin's eyes.
Wanderer's gaze flickered to her before he answered with a single, clipped word. "Yes."
"I would have thought, with a temper like yours, you would have charged in and killed him yourself," Vermouth mused, her voice a silken thread. She paid no mind to the cold glare he shot her way. "Not simply... spinelessly leave your organization."
"Of course, I would have. I just didn't get the chance," Wanderer replied, a strange, eerie smile playing on his lips. "That man provoked the Director of another department within the organization and was forced to destroy his other selves, one by one. Tsk. A pity. It deprived me of the joy of tearing him apart piece by piece myself."
Standing just behind Gin, Vodka couldn't help but swallow hard.
Were the people in this Teyvat Organization they were collaborating with all this terrifying? They attacked their own comrades without a second thought, and not with a quick bullet, but with methods that sounded far more horrifying than any punishment within the Black Organization.
"So, the man is dead. Why did you still leave?" Gin's eyes, cold and sharp as chips of ice, remained fixed on Wanderer's face. The reason he'd given felt insufficient, a flimsy pretext that only deepened Gin's suspicion about his true purpose for joining them.
Wanderer shot him a look of pure disdain. "Who told you he was dead?"
"What?! He's still not dead after all that?!" Vodka blurted out, his voice cracking with disbelief.
He immediately flinched as his boss's head snapped around, a glacial glare promising retribution. Vodka stumbled back a step and clamped his mouth shut, signaling he wouldn't dare interrupt again.
After silencing his subordinate, Gin turned his piercing gaze back to Wanderer, waiting for the rest of the explanation.
At Wanderer's words, a flicker of understanding crossed Vermouth's features, but her expression subtly darkened, a private, unpleasant memory surfacing.
"To help his experiments, he created clones of himself. I'm not sure how many," Wanderer explained. "But regardless of how many there were, only one remains now. Ha. What a shame." Though his words spoke of pity, the triumphant curl of his lips conveyed nothing but satisfaction.
"Cloning..." Vermouth's voice was slow, deliberate. Her lips curved into a smile that held no warmth. "That is surprising. I didn't realize your organization's technology had reached such a level."
'Human experimentation again,'she thought with a flicker of weary contempt.'So the so-called Teyvat Organization is dabbling in the same filth.'
It was hardly a surprise. Those old men at the top were always obsessed with such things. When Teyvat had demanded the research data for the "silver bullet," she had already suspected as much. They weren't planning to develop a new line of skincare products, were they? She just couldn't fathom what purpose the head of Teyvat had for ordering his subordinates to conduct cloning research.
"Give it up, Auntie," Wanderer's characteristically mocking tone sliced through her thoughts. "Don't even think about their cloning technology. It's no longer possible."
"Why is that?" Vermouth asked, her curiosity piqued.
"Because the necessary materials have been exhausted, of course," Wanderer said, an eyebrow arching in amusement. He was clearly enjoying the fact that something she might want was beyond her reach. "If it were still possible, that fool Dottore wouldn't have allowed himself to be backed into a corner with only one body left and no backup."
"And how can you be so certain that this Mr. Dottore only has one body remaining?" Vermouth pressed, a hint of skepticism in her voice.
From Wanderer's description, Dottore sounded arrogant, intelligent, and cunning. How could such a man allow himself to be cornered so completely? Was Dottore deceiving everyone, or was the Director who forced his hand just that overwhelmingly powerful?
"He said so himself," Wanderer stated simply. "As much as I loathe him, I know him. Given his monumental pride, he wouldn't deign to lie about such a failure."
"Is that so?" Vermouth murmured, her tone noncommittal. Having satisfied her curiosity, she turned to Gin, giving him a slight nod to indicate she was finished.
Gin pulled a cigarette from his coat. Seeing the motion, Vodka instantly scrambled to produce a lighter, flicking it to life for his boss.
Gin took a long, slow drag, the tip glowing like a malevolent eye in the dim light. He exhaled a plume of smoke and looked up, his gaze locking onto Wanderer. "So you betrayed your organization, and the head of Teyvat simply allowed you to walk away alive?"
From her position, Cointreau watched Gin's subordinate, Vodka, and felt a pang of envy.
'Sigh,'she thought,'that big lug Vodka might be dim-witted, but he's so obedient. He does whatever Gin says without question. He doesn't talk back, doesn't mock people, and he can drive... he's actually a pretty good subordinate.'
Her gaze then shifted to Wanderer, who wore an expression that suggested everyone else in the room was utter trash. Thinking about how the Boss had instructed her to keep an eye on him for the time being, she felt a headache coming on. The days ahead were going to be difficult. With Wanderer following her around, his attitude was so abrasive he'd probably forget who was in charge. Comparisons truly were brutal; only now did she realize how good she had it compared to Gin's situation with Vodka.
"This hardly counts as betrayal, does it?" Wanderer scoffed. "I just decided I no longer wanted to work for the Fatui of Snezhnaya. I didn't even get a chance to make a move on Dottore before someone else beat me to it."
He then added, his tone feigning wide-eyed surprise, "Does that count as betrayal in your organization? Don't tell me you don't allow people to resign? If that's the case, your group is truly pathetic, lacking even the courage to grant its members a little freedom."
"Since it wasn't a betrayal, and you merely didn't want to be in the Snezhnayan division, why not transfer to another department?" Gin ignored the taunt completely. He saw nothing wrong with eliminating traitors; anyone who posed a threat to the organization deserved to die.
"Oh, I know this one," Cointreau chimed in, feeling she could provide a more objective answer. "I heard Kaeya mention it when we were chatting. The Fatui from Snezhnaya don't exactly have a great relationship with the other departments."
She paused, searching for the right words. "To be more precise, they've offended almost every other department. You see, Snezhnaya is responsible for Teyvat's military force, but they're constantly stirring up trouble in the other territories. So, to put it mildly, nobody likes the Fatui."
"For instance," she continued, "the Director of the Sumeru Department was the one who forced the Fatui's Dottore to destroy his bodies until only one was left. And the Director of the Inazuma Department killed the Fatui's Rosalyne with a single slash. Oh, right," Cointreau gestured casually toward Wanderer, "the Director of Inazuma also happens to be Wanderer's mother."
Vermouth listened with rapt attention, a flicker of genuine amazement in her eyes as she processed the tangled, messy internal politics of Teyvat.
If everyone in this so-called 'Fatui' had a personality even remotely similar to Wanderer's, then it was perfectly normal for them to be ostracized. She hadn't expected the abrasive youth to have such an extraordinary background. No wonder Cointreau was so keen on bringing him into the fold.
And yet, for them to be tearing each other down to this extent, and for the Black Organization to still have found so little concrete information on Teyvat... it seemed the man at the very top was not to be underestimated at all.
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