https://discord.gg/qpDTvSj3TC

https://pa treon.com/StickSwinger

***

After adding another member to his party, Yomite met up with Hu Tao in front of the city.

He was satisfied by her 'acting' and thought she would want something as a reward but she said that teasing the small fairy kid was so much fun that she doesn't need anything.

At one point she also managed to run away from her, then creep from behind her and scare her so badly her wings stopped working and she fell down into a flower pot.

Yomite just wryly smiled at that, after this quest was completed, they would be adventuring in the same party and he couldn't even begin to imagine the amount of stress and pranks she might pull on the poor Paimon.

'Well, Lumine kind of sold her out in a sense, feels bad man.'

In any case, Yomite talked with Hu Tao a bit and asked her about the kinds of monsters there were in this world, but only got vague answers such as slimies, flowies, hilichurls.

He was familiar with the former two, despite her weird pronunciation, but what the hell was a Hilichurl? Another tongue twister like that abyssos something?

Upon further investigation and a few teasings, she described the Hilichurls as cute humanoid monsters with masks, using weapons.

"Bu-hahah! Assistant-kun~! How can you not know what a Hilichurl is~!? You are so stupid! I am dying!" She was rolling on the grass in front of the city gates, holding her stomach, "You are so silly~!"

The roars of her laughter echoed in the surrounding area.

'This little...'Yomite grimaced.

Yomite then saw something out of the corner of his eyes. It was the two Knights guarding the entrance. He met them earlier today.

For a quite number of reasons, they were slowly distancing themselves from the duo, and Yomite couldn't help but agree with their decision.

He felt like he was slowly descending into madness. At this point, it wouldn't even surprise him if someone spread rumors about the new crazy addition to the already crazy Hu Tao. Now there was a duo of crazies.

Anyway, back to the Hilichurls, Yomite could imagine them being something close to goblins or maybe some humanoid tribesmen monsters, as she said they wore masks and used weapons.

In any case, he would have to see Hilichurls for himself first before arriving at some sort of conclusion.

Currently, Hu Tao was running around the bridge like a wind. Chasing after pigeons and scaring them away while shouting, "Take that! I shall fly in the sky with you one day!"

They entered the city through this very bridge, starting their adventure on this exact day. It was hard to believe that only something more than an hour had passed and he managed to experience so many new things, be it good or bad ones. All experiences mattered.

Yomite was laying on the ground in front of a river, enjoying the peaceful breeze and the smell of the warm grass he was currently laying on.

"Yuppie~! Yahoooo~!" Hu Tao's shouts from the other side of the bridge could be clearly heard by him. She was like a child. He knew she was definitely at least of age, as it was a common trope in novels and anime for someone to look and act like a child, only to be a 3000 years old monster virgin loli granny.

He took a glance at her from the distance and groaned, "She did help me with that so I guess I can let her do whatever she wants for a short while...well it's not like she is going around setting stuff on fire or something, so it should be fine." He concluded and noticed that there was a boy sitting on the edge of the bridge, looking at Hu Tao with a frown of disapproval.

'Who is that child?' Yomite hadn't seen him before. When they entered the city with Kaeya, he wasn't there.

He didn't know who it was, but he for sure generated an aura of hostility.

Yomite left his resting spot and walked up to him with a friendly smile, "What's up, kid? You seem to be troubled."

The boy turned around and replied, "Is that person your friend? If yes, please tell her to stop."

"Huh? Why? What is she doing that's bothering you?" Yomite was confused. Well sure, she was loud, but he didn't believe that bothered him. Kids were loud all the time after all.

"She is scaring the pigeons away!" The boy shouted.

"Huh? Pigeons?" Yomite was dumbfounded, well the boy wasn't wrong as Hu Tao was indeed chasing them, but he didn't understand why it bothered him so much.

"I was feeding them! She is a bad person for scaring them away!"

'Ah...kids...' Yomite sighed and shouted at her, "Oi, Hu Tao, come here for a second."

"Eh? Okie dokie~!" She swiftly arrived and asked. "What do you need, Assistant-kun~?"

"This kid here says you shouldn't be scaring pigeons away as he was feeding them as you can see," He pointed to the ground that was full of seeds and grains.

Hu Tao nodded and replied with a somber tone, "I see..." Her fun was ruined and she definitely didn't like it.

The little boy pointed at Hu Tao and shouted, "Hey! You are a bad person! You should be ashamed! Bad! Bad! Bad!"

Hu Tao was being hit by a barrage of 'insults' but she couldn't care less about what a kid had to say. She sat down on a nearby rock and fiddled with her ponytails, fixing them as not to let her hair become loose.

"They'll be back anyway. They are birds after all. If you feed them properly." Yomite said while staring at the grief-stricken child.

"They do come back usually... But what happens if one day they leave and never come back again?"

"Just like daddy..." the boy started wailing.

""...""

'Oh...Oh...Alright...You've got to be kidding me...' Yomite wasn't good at comforting children so he turned to Hu Tao who was still sulking. As he watched the side of Hu Tao's face, she looked toward him with a pissed look that seemed to say "What the hell do you want!?"

Ignoring her rude glare, Yomite silently waved at her and whispered, "Hey...can you deal with this?"

She, however, averted her eyes to face forward as she put her elbows on her knees and rested her chin on her hands. She was annoyed to the extreme. Why should she stop having fun just because of a random kid? Stupid birds and a stupid kid.