"What did it feel like to be rejected by the world?" Ronava asked curiously as she walked beside Columbina down the busiest street in Mondstadt City.
"Hmm..." She paused. "It was like someone was squeezing your throat really hard, and you could only take the tiniest breaths."
"That certainly sounds uncomfortable." Ronava nodded. "So, after you touched Tang Wang, the feeling disappeared? Were transmigrators really that special?"
"Transmigrator...?" Columbina was taken aback by the word. "You mean he wasn't from Teyvat?"
"That's right, I'm not from Teyvat," Tang Wang, who had been listening, said. "I came from a place... somewhere between heaven and hell."
"There, we didn't have The Seven, the Four Shades, or the Heavenly Principles to guide the development of human civilization. We could only find our own way. So massacres, invasions, wars... played out between different countries at every moment."
"Some countries had mountains of blood debt, yet used the resources they had stolen to transform themselves into so-called symbols of freedom and democracy."
"And some countries... though they still existed, their citizens lived far worse lives than so-called slaves. Even Vanessa, before Mondstadt gained its independence, lived hundreds or thousands of times better than they did."
"And these countries could only avoid large-scale wars of extermination by relying on terrifying weapons powerful enough to destroy one another."
"Extermination..." Ronava repeated the word without thinking. "That sounds a little frightening."
"More than a little." Tang Wang shrugged. "Put it this way: if a country didn't possess sufficient means of violence, most of its citizens would have their heads cut off and mounted on flags."
"I've seen that kind of scene. And I'm certain that if those beasts in human skin gained that kind of power, they would do it all over again." As he spoke, Tang Wang unconsciously clenched his fists.
"So, in my view, the world's underlying logic was violence, and violence alone-when I could snap your neck whenever I wanted, you were my slave."
"When you could at least take a chunk out of me, you were a stumbling block that made me wary of acting. When you had the power to leave us both badly hurt, we were allies working together. When you could turn around and kill me..."
"So that's why you pursue great power?" Seeing that something was off with him, Columbina cut him off. "It's all right. As long as I'm alive, I won't let anyone treat you that way."
With that, she used Kuuvahki to lift herself a little higher and patted Tang Wang on the head.
"Me too." Ronava wanted to pat his head as well, but the difference in their heights was a little too... excessive.
Seeing this, Tang Wang sighed softly, then lowered himself so Ronava could reach his head.
"I never would have guessed you were much gentler than you looked," Venti, who had been watching from a distance, said with a chuckle.
"Venti, why are you still here?" Ronava asked, puzzled. "Don't you have anything else to do? As one of The Seven, don't you have duties of your own to fulfill?"
"Ah, well..." Venti glanced from side to side. "Oh, right, did you know? Mondstadt's lyres carry the Anemo Archon's blessing!"
With that, he produced two lyres as if by magic and handed one to each of the two girls. Then he immediately vanished from their sight.
The three spent the rest of the day wandering about. That night, when it was almost time for bed, the girl tilted her head at the room the people at the Goth Grand Hotel had arranged for her, then made a request that left them dumbfounded:
"I want Tang Wang to sleep with me." The request seemed perfectly reasonable to her. Without the help of Logic Above Logic, she would once again be rejected by Teyvat.
After experiencing what it felt like to move freely in Teyvat, Columbina felt she could no longer bear the pain of being rejected.
"...Isn't that a little inappropriate?" Tang Wang asked her.
"But I really don't want to go through that feeling again." Columbina sounded rather pitiful.
"If it's a matter of human propriety..." Ronava spoke up just then. "I think the three of us can sleep together. That should be fine, shouldn't it?"
"Mm... wait, what?!" By the time Tang Wang realized something was wrong, it was too late to back out.
So, when he opened his eyes the next morning... both his arms were so numb and sore that he had almost lost all feeling in them.
However, after looking at the sleeping faces of the two girls on either side of him, he couldn't move his arms away.
"Was this torture, or some kind of reward...?"
News of his "improper conduct" naturally reached the Fatui and the Knights of Favonius right away.
"He slept in the same bed as Lady Damselette, and brought along a white-haired girl of unknown origin too?" Most of the Fatui soldiers found it inconceivable.
Yet both La Signora's encounter and the experiences of the other soldiers proved to them that the Third Seat truly was the most capricious and most terrifying of the Harbingers.
The members of the Knights of Favonius knew relatively more about the circumstances. But when they actually heard about it, the vast majority of the Knights of Favonius still couldn't control their expressions.
The only two who weren't surprised at all were Linaya and Danika. Both simply trusted Tang Wang's character, though one of them had misunderstood his relationship with the two girls.
"The final battle will take place at Windrise." Albedo had already been waiting for a long time at the entrance to the Goth Grand Hotel. "Tang Wang, are you ready?"
"As far as I can tell, I think so." He nodded. "But I suddenly remembered something pretty important."
"Albedo, are you carrying any artifacts right now?"
"Yes." He promptly pressed his palms together, and five blue-and-white artifacts glowing purple floated out.
"Wait, you're a Geo Genshin Impact character, and you're using the Blizzard Strayer Set? Seriously?" Clearly, Tang Wang had been misled by the game logic he still retained.
In fact, there was nothing wrong with his thinking, but the people of Teyvat weren't the Traveler. They couldn't use Original Resin to repeatedly farm Ancient Trees of the Ley Lines and extract artifacts from them.
For most people, putting together a complete set of artifacts was enough. As for their specific effects? It didn't matter. Forget about it.
"What else? Can you get me another set of four-star artifacts?" Albedo separated his palms and shot the question back at him.
"Actually... no." He shook his head. "But for Yaya and Nana..."
As he spoke, ten artifacts glowing purple appeared in his hands. They were what players commonly called the "Noblesse Oblige Set" and the "Crimson Witch Set."
"I just remembered I had these two sets stored away in some obscure corner of the Shadow Domain."