Sweating bullets now, Fufu?

As Furina's declaration ended, the screen seemed happy to oblige. The next shot showed Furina in lavish attire and a blue crown-adorned top hat, showing off her long, fair legs.

Furina strolled forward under the gazes of the citizens flanking her like a backdrop, their malicious, hostile vigilance setting her off.

The spotlight on the stage shone on Furina, the undisputed protagonist, lending further support to the claim that this video depicted an opera.

No, a musical would be more accurate.

[Furina: Mm, very nice. It looks like I was in excellent form then. My voice was clear, and my expressions were perfectly controlled.]

[Furina: But this plot isn't from any production I remember, so it must be an opera staged in the future. No, if singing is its main form of expression, I suppose I should call it a musical.]

[Navia: I never expected to see Furina's future musical ahead of time for free. Does this count as a windfall?]

Furina was currently Fontaine's hottest star. Her appearance fees were astronomical, and tickets to operas and other productions she personally performed in were all but impossible to get.

Ordinary Fontainians who wanted to watch their beloved Hydro Archon perform could generally only pin their hopes on Furina's impromptu performances.

And the citizens of the Court of Fontaine actually had quite a few such opportunities. For various reasons, Furina rather enjoyed being in the limelight in her everyday life.

[Lyney: Strange. The Traveler said these cutscenes were all meant to enhance the storytelling. Is there something special about this musical, then?]

[Lumine: Maybe it'll expose some secret nobody knows about Furina. (Laughs)]

Seeing the Traveler's teasing in the discussion area, Furina's heart skipped a beat.

She had far too many secrets.

And if anyone dug into most of those secrets, they could ultimately expose her greatest secret: that she was not the real Hydro Archon.

Even if missing information kept them from reaching the conclusion that "Furina isn't the real Hydro Archon" for a while, the other things exposed would still cause plenty of trouble for her other self in the mirror.

Boo-hoo, please just expose how I sneak out of bed to eat little cakes in the middle of the night.

As Furina prayed, her sweet, lingering singing drifted from the screen.

"Ah, if I turn to water and return along the path home,

let my homeland's days and nights be as they once were.

Ah, Mother, could you forgive me?"

As Furina sang with faint sorrow and joy, the view gradually drew closer. From her left eye, which seemed to hold a blue water droplet, a clear spring appeared, emerging from the waters into the world in innocent bewilderment.

[Alice: Oh my, now this is interesting. The scriptwriter behind this musical is one hell of a talent.]

[Alice: Leading with a royal bomb on the very first line.]

[Lumine: ???]

[Alice: Although I'm usually a lawless egotist, I think I'll keep my mouth shut this time.]

[Neuvillette: ...]

[The Knave: ...]

[Lumine: All right, so this is a reference only the locals get? A foreigner like me doesn't understand.]

[Lyney: Uh, I didn't really understand either, actually. The first lyric seems to echo quite a few legends from Fontaine, but Fontainian operas generally draw on local legends too.]

[Furina: Yes, they're perfectly normal lines. Don't pay them any mind. Besides, this is only a musical.]

Furina was doing her best to cover for herself.

She already had a bad feeling, so now she felt that if she didn't lay some groundwork in advance, she might not be able to explain things away later.

While Furina tried to downplay the lyrics' implications, her onscreen self continued to sing.

For the first time, the singing voice she would normally have been so proud of irritated her.

"Flow through the seasons, set all nature's voices racing,

reviving all that lay in ruin wherever you pass,

and filling the lake within a beloved heart."

Endless clear spring water flowed from the sky, filling thirsty lakes and nourishing the parched land.

Life returned to the town, flowers bloomed across the land, and children could play in the countryside in simple innocence.

Beneath a waterfall, a blond young man gently cupped spring water in his hands, speaking to the spirit of pure water-or rather, trying to persuade her.

"But what about your wish?!"

[Diona: Strange, why does this feel a little familiar?]

[Lisa: Oh my, it has something of a Heart of Clear Springs feel to it. But perhaps only the beginning is similar. After all, the spirit in Springvale's legend should be an Oceanid.]

[Mona: Fontaine happens to be the Oceanids' homeland. There must be even more stories about Oceanids there, so overlapping plots are perfectly normal.]

While some starred users from other nations curiously asked what kind of story Heart of Clear Springs was, the warm, happy scene onscreen had already vanished, and the dead land reappeared.

For the sake of people's selfish desires, faced with the townspeople's ugly expressions, the innocent Oceanid gave herself up, bringing life and joy. Yet in saving everyone, the only one she seemed to have forgotten was herself.

At the man's question, the beautiful fantasy was torn apart. Amid a reality where deathly silence and thirst coexisted, Furina raised her head in bewilderment.

"My... wish?"

Seeing how the opera had unfolded onscreen so far, Furina silently sighed. By now, she could essentially confirm that this was a musical made by those so-called outsiders-or the official creators of "Genshin Impact"-as an allegory for her.

Others might not understand, or only half understand, but Furina, who bore everything and had kept this one-woman show going from five hundred years ago until the present, had already seen her own shadow in the opera.

From the musical's very first lyric to its plot, though the details were not quite the same, every part alluded to everything Furina had persisted in doing over the past five hundred years.

Fortunately, she had laid the groundwork right at the start by saying it was only a musical. Though she probably couldn't fool some people, her five hundred years of prestige should let her bluff her way past most of them.

Besides, the others didn't know as much as she did. They wouldn't be able to work much out from this alone. At most, they would have some doubts and questions, and if that was all, she could still hold on for now.

The problem was that the rest of the video had better not drop any more bombshells.

In the VIP seats at the Opera Epiclese, Furina quietly clenched her fists, praying over and over.

Please, don't expose anything that shouldn't be exposed.

[Furina: Ha, haha, yes, even I must commend my future self's performance in this musical. Both her voice and her emotions are very full.]

[Navia: ...Furina, has anyone ever told you that you're rather obvious when you're trying to hide something?]

[Furina: Huh?! What would I need to hide? I am Focalors, the most righteous of gods. My heart and actions are as clear as a mirror. Everything I do is justice.]

[The Knave: ...]

[Neuvillette: Lady Furina, today's trial has not yet concluded. Please do not disrupt order in the courtroom.]

Furina gritted her teeth and glanced down at the Chief Justice, Neuvillette, who was watching her expressionlessly.

Whatever the case, Neuvillette's words, which she normally found so dull, had indeed come to her rescue this time.

Taking the opportunity, Furina quickly steadied her somewhat unsettled emotions.

For Fontaine's greatest actress, who had played the Hydro Archon in this one-woman show for five hundred years, regulating her emotions was already instinctive.

She had only briefly panicked because this fearless screen, which casually exposed secrets that could destroy nations, had very likely chosen her as the subject of a video and might expose her secrets.

Now that she had caught her breath, Furina quickly brought her emotions under control.

She listened to the suddenly tragic, stirring music from the screen, watching the town left in ruins by the lack of water and the man and woman standing together.

Even when she heard-

"To become human..."

"Means hiding secrets, experiencing pain, and living with loneliness..."

"Even so, are you willing?"

-lines whose subtext was practically the creator behind the video explicitly saying, "I know you're actually only human, not the Hydro Archon," "I also know you've been hiding secrets all these years since becoming human," and "Thank you for your efforts over these five hundred years," Furina could still appear utterly unruffled, even commenting with ease on her own performance onscreen.

As for what she was actually thinking inside...

I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead! The screen really does know!!!

Aaaaaah, what do I do, what do I do? It absolutely can't be exposed, or all the efforts of the me in the mirror will have been for nothing.

I have to save everyone!

At a time like this, Furina instead grew all the calmer.

Because there was no Traveler from beyond the heavens here, no one-the only person in this world-to whom she could tell her secrets and with whom she could share her burdens without worrying about her other self's plan falling apart, Furina instead did not waver in the slightest within.

She was, after all, the great actress who had persevered through 182,375 acts in the original story. Even if Furina was suffering so much inside that she was on the verge of collapse, even if Hydro was overflowing, a single video would not bring her down.

In short.

First, she would do her best to keep this video confined to being nothing more than an excellent musical that showcased her charm.

If she couldn't...

Furina's gaze grew determined.

Then she would do everything she could to win the reward for this question.

After all, judging by the previous nine videos and the rewards for the questions that followed them...

Although the being behind this screen might have a somewhat twisted sense of humor, its nature still leaned toward justice.

Surely such a being couldn't simply watch so many of Fontaine's people be swallowed by seawater and dissolve into the sea.

That would not fit the way it had behaved so far.

So either she did not need to worry about this video exposing her greatest secret for now...

Or the reward for this video's question could give her a way to resolve the prophecy, or at least delay its progress.

Perhaps it was because everyone had known from the start of this video that it was a musical, a work of art inherently different from the previous official PVs, fan creations, or gameplay footage.

Though they knew that any video shown on the screen was bound to contain remarkable information, the preconceived notion of a musical that Furina had planted meant the information within it had to be viewed as part of a work of art.

So for the moment, the discussion this musical stirred up in the discussion area really was less heated than that of the earlier videos.

At most, some starred users who were artists remarked on the musical's methods of expression or the success of the music itself.

Or, more simply, there were people like Bro Itto, whose approach was "Alas, I'm uncultured; 'holy shit' gets me through everything," merely marveling at how lovely the music was, how beautiful the performance was, and whether this was really something they could watch for free.

Things like that.

As for the plot point just now about "Furina disguising herself as a human," naturally, everyone simply took it as part of the musical's premise.

Only a very, very small number of people might have thought a little further.

After all, every video the screen had played so far had exposed quite a lot of practically consequential information. Even the previous day's most ridiculous fan creation, Cryo Archon Cyno, had actually revealed information about Gnoses to the public for the first time.

So was this musical really just the screen saying, "Your moods have been on a roller coaster these past two days. Thanks for hanging in there. Here's a musical to help you relax"?

Surely not.

If not, that meant the being behind this screen at least believed that some of the musical's content could allude to secrets about Fontaine, or even the Hydro Archon.

And judging by how the Hydro Archon Furina had nearly panicked and lost her composure earlier, she was clearly hiding something too.

It was just that there was far too little information available for anyone to come up with any reasonable, useful conjecture.

Surely the Hydro Archon couldn't really be a human. (Laughs)?!

Not even Cyno would make that joke.

For now, they could only record all the video's contents through various means and wait for the Hydro Archon to perhaps let a few words slip in the discussion area, or for the screen to reveal another video that tied into it later. Then they would know.

The Oceanid's sacrifice brought the land new life.

Or rather, Furina's sacrifice brought people laughter and joy.

"Love, bury this sweet dream deep,

let farewell bloom like a profusion of flowers,

like our memories, joyful and sorrowful."

The water representing Furina flowed through lifeless mountains, dried-up rivers, and ruined towns.

It brought life and vitality to those places.

In the once-deserted town, around the blond young man, the people who had left returned amid laughter and cheerful voices, enjoying their wonderful lives to the fullest.

Romantic love, friendship, familial love...

Whether ironically or just as the spirit of pure water had wished, they played out to the fullest upon this rejuvenated land.

[Navia: Strange, I keep feeling that this musical's plot...]

[Lumine: I get it.]

[Lumine: So Fontaine isn't going to end with a plot where the Hydro Archon sacrifices herself to resolve the prophecy, is it?]