A blitz on the Court of Fontaine, of course

Seeing the rewards on the screen and the description of the Civilian-3 small floating city-especially the "modification notes" practically shoved in his face-Wriothesley, far away in the Fortress of Meropide, gave an amused smile.

[Wriothesley: Oh? This screen really does know everything.]

[Wriothesley: It handed me the reward I want most right now, just like that.]

[Charlotte: Uh, Your Grace, what exactly do you need this floating city for... Could you have secretly trained an army in the Fortress of Meropide, and now you need a floating fortress to launch a blitz on the Court of Fontaine?]

[Wriothesley: Ahem, you reporters are always looking for a big scoop.]

[Wriothesley: Take a good look at the screen's helpful reminders.]

Wriothesley was quite happy to banter with Charlotte in the discussion area now.

Although he was somewhat irreverent and had little respect for the Court of Fontaine,

Wriothesley knew that the implications of the answer he had just probed out were a little too outrageous-outrageous enough to have a major impact on Fontaine's current situation.

Wriothesley did not particularly care whether the Court of Fontaine blew up.

But at this critical juncture, he really did not want the Court of Fontaine to divert its already limited strength toward internal disputes because of him.

So, without exchanging a single word with Furina, Wriothesley tacitly cooperated with her, choosing to muddy the waters and get past the matter of the Vision in the previous quiz for now.

[Charlotte: Hmm, they're all related to resettling and relocating people.]

[Charlotte: Could it be that Your Grace wants to relocate people, in numbers counted by the tens of thousands... That prophecy?!]

[Wriothesley: Exactly. Call me an alarmist or call me mad, but down here underwater, we sinners in the Fortress of Meropide have a much stronger sense of danger than you people above the water. I want to make sure the people underwater can escape in time, even if they face a crisis like the one in the prophecy.]

[Lumine: Huh? So what exactly is this prophecy you've all been talking about?]

Lumine, who was very good at picking out key words, felt as if she had discovered something. Could this prophecy she still knew little about be the main storyline of her Fontaine arc?

After all, wasn't that how traditional RPGs went? A terribly dangerous prophecy had circulated in some place since ancient times, and the protagonist just happened to wander into the area at that moment, then helped the locals resolve the foretold crisis.

As a veteran who had cleared every game in the Ys series, Lumine declared that he knew this formula inside out.

[Lyney: Ah, let me explain this one.]

Lyney's eyes lit up when he saw the Traveler's question.

Question: How did you bury a hot topic that attracted a lot of discussion?

Answer: Bury it with an even hotter topic!

Having already obtained the answer he wanted, Lyney now needed others-or at least most people-to disregard the earlier video and quiz, just like the Duke and Furina did.

As it happened, Lyney, being a magician, had studied people's psychology quite extensively. He knew that openly describing the prophecy in the discussion area at this moment might cause some unrest, but it would definitely make most people overlook the issues with the video and quiz themselves.

At this point, Lyney was counting on Lady Furina, who had become serious for once, to play the main DPS like the gods of other nations, and he did not want her troubled by anything extra.

At least, that was how things stood now.

[Lyney: Here in Fontaine, a prophecy has been circulating since who knows when... Well, it can't entirely be called a prophecy, because you could say it's already happening.]

[Lyney: All Fontainians are born bearing sin, and no matter how many trials Fontaine, the nation of justice, holds, that sin cannot be absolved.]

[Lyney: Until one day, Fontaine's sea level will begin to rise, and the people burdened with sin will gradually be submerged...]

[Lyney: In the end, everyone will dissolve into the sea, leaving only the Hydro Archon weeping on her throne. Only then... will the sins of Fontaine's people be washed away.]

[Lumine: Uh, how should I put this? Your prophecy is so classic that I don't even know where to begin poking fun at it.]

[Lyney: ???]

[Lumine: Let me put it this way. I wouldn't say every adventure RPG I've played had a similar prophecy, but if you checked every other game, you'd definitely miss some.]

[Lumine: Just a reminder: as long as this game's writer follows traditional storytelling, especially if they're the sort who likes paying homage to classic games, there's no escaping it. Your prophecy will definitely come true.]

[Alice: Just like how, if a gun appears in a shot in a film, it's bound to go off in a later scene.]

[Lumine: More or less. And don't worry too much, because what usually happens next is that the protagonist's party joins forces with the locals, and they work together to resolve the foretold crisis.]

Boom!

Seeing that the Traveler, who had all but been officially designated the protagonist of that "Genshin Impact" game, had delivered a definitive verdict on Fontaine's prophecy,

the Fontainians, who had never really believed the prophecy and were still blithely seeking entertainment in trials, erupted.

Just as Lyney had anticipated, no one cared about Furina's Vision anymore.

Thanks to the earlier speakers' muddling and switching of concepts, most Fontaine viewers now thought it was merely an ordinary prop in a musical. How could that compare in importance to the Traveler confirming a prophecy that concerned the future survival of every Fontainian?

The people of Fontaine were in an uproar, clearly thrown into disarray by this sudden assault.

[Furina: Ah~, well, how should I put this? While I appreciate the Traveler's insights into my nation's prophecy, I hope you can be a little more tactful next time...]

[Furina: Even the defendants and plaintiffs currently on trial have started gathering together harmoniously to discuss this.]

Furina joined in at just the right moment and thoroughly muddied the waters. With her taking the initiative to discuss the prophecy, everyone else paid even less attention to the scene of her receiving a Vision in the video. Even The Knave lent a hand of her own accord, while also taking the opportunity to probe Furina.

[The Knave: Then could I ask the Hydro Archon to stop taking things so easy? Even the orphans of the House of the Hearth are working hard for their homeland, yet the Hydro Archon has remained so leisurely that it's astonishing.]

[The Knave: My apologies. I do not mean to reproach the Hydro Archon, nor do I intend to damage diplomatic relations between Fontaine and Snezhnaya. I am merely suggesting, as a foreign friend, that the Hydro Archon take some practical action.]

[Furina: ...]

[Furina: I have not been idling my days away, nor have I ever taken the prophecy lightly. But I can guarantee that, as long as things continue this way, I will have done right by everyone!]

Although Furina was currently something like a superstar and mascot in Fontaine, before the subsequent string of missing young women cases in the original story, and most importantly, the public revelation that Fontainians readily dissolved in water, her words as the Hydro Archon still carried considerable weight.

The Fontainians, who had begun to grow restless, gradually calmed down when they saw their Hydro Archon's assurance in the discussion area.

"If Lady Furina says so, we should be able to rest easy, right?"

"Exactly! Lady Furina is the embodiment of justice, the Hydro Archon who can judge even the gods. If she says that, everything will definitely be fine!"

"No matter how unreliable she usually is, Lady Furina is still our Hydro Archon. She wouldn't joke about something like this."

Furina smiled confidently on the surface, while inwardly weeping as she watched the Fontainians below whisper among themselves and cast trusting looks her way. She could only sincerely hope in her heart

that her reflection in the mirror would come through for her.

And...

Furina glanced at Neuvillette, who was watching her with his usual expressionless face, and recalled the correct answer in the screen's recent quiz about who would give her a Vision in the future.

That grand trial should be presided over by Neuvillette, right?

Furina was a little uncertain, but after that question just now, she was already leaning toward that possibility.

And so Neuvillette saw a great deal of inexplicable expectation appear in Furina's gaze as she looked at him.

*???*

What was she up to now?

Could she be expecting me to resolve the prophecy?

What a joke. As the Hydro Dragon Sovereign, I'm already giving you plenty of face by serving as Chief Justice here, and you expect me to turn around and save you enemies of mine?

That's simply im-

Neuvillette recalled everything he had encountered during his more than four hundred years as Fontaine's Chief Justice, and all the humans and Melusines he had come to know.

The faces of Carole and Vautrin, one Melusine and one human, flashed through his mind.

Understanding gradually dawned in his heart, as though he had begun to grasp the "Hydro Archon's" intentions.

I see. After these four hundred-odd years of experience, even I have changed...

[Lumine: Ahaha, sorry, sorry. I nearly forgot that actually facing a prophecy like this in reality, especially a confirmed doomsday prophecy, seems pretty likely to cause panic.]

[Navia: Dissolve into the sea... Dissolve into water...]

[Navia: Ugh, I feel like I'm just about to grasp a clue. Damn it.]

Seeing his foolish niece's comments in the discussion area, Marcel-or rather, Vacher, who was using the false name Marcel-felt his heart jolt.

Over the past twenty years, he had been able to keep committing crimes, establish a foundation, and build a tightly organized operation, particularly carrying out something as heinous as the serial disappearances of young women without being discovered, all thanks to his caution.

Over the years, whenever there was even the slightest possibility of exposure or discovery, he had immediately nipped it in the bud.

Better to kill three thousand innocents than let a single target go-that described precisely his kind of person.

Now, seeing that this "idiot" Navia had noticed something amiss just like her father, Marcel's first thought was to dispose of Navia the way he had disposed of Callas.

"Get rid of Navia tonight... No, that's too rash. That stupid woman is a star-rated user of this screen now. If she suddenly disappeared, it would be too conspicuous and draw more attention... Tch, why did it have to happen now?"

Vacher was extremely anxious. By his usual practice, he should have found a way to dissolve Navia with Primordial Sea Water tonight.

But under the present circumstances, Vacher could guarantee that if the screen had just discussed the prophecy during the day and Navia vanished that night, even Arataki Itto in the discussion area would notice something was wrong.

Especially since people dissolved that way always left traces of water at the scene, making it even easier for others to connect the dots.

"Damn it, what should I do now? Run? No, all my research requires me to be in Fontaine. If I run now, Vigneault will never have any hope of returning!"

In the darkness, Vacher's expression was hideous.

Although his research had made virtually no progress in over twenty years, his efforts to bring back people dissolved by Primordial Sea Water could not be called entirely fruitless-only that he had grown increasingly practiced at dissolving people.

Instead, business in his byproduct, Sinthe, kept growing. It had already penetrated Fontaine's upper classes, getting some wealthy merchants and nobles hooked on the stimulating drink.

But damn it, rather than getting rich, Vacher wanted Vigneault to return. He wanted nothing else.

Even so, Vacher had still not abandoned his research, stubbornly following his crooked path to the bitter end. Even now, facing signs of possible exposure, his first thought was not to flee, but to kill Navia for noticing something wrong and continue covering up his crimes.

"Tch, it's all that suddenly appearing screen's fault. Damn it, damn it, damn it! If it weren't for that screen, my plans would still be going smoothly!"

Vacher apparently did not understand the principle of not cursing a social media company while its large-scale social app was running. All one could say was that the people of Teyvat had absolutely no awareness of software companies leaving data-collection backdoors in their own software in the information age.

It was not just a cautious fellow like Vacher who had failed to realize this. Even some of the clever people in the discussion area had yet to think of it. At most, they refrained from posting certain things because the screen broadcast across the entire continent.

But when giving instructions or discussing things in private, they never considered the possibility that the screen might hear them.

In this respect, only a handful of beings such as Nahida, who had encountered similar products like the Akasha, instinctively concealed things that were inconvenient to say-not only in front of the screen, but now even in private.

Just like yesterday, the screen gave Teyvat's viewers some time to digest today's video, along with the recent quiz and rewards. Only after a full half hour did a notification appear.