Chapter Text
You had been, more or less, an otaku your entire life. Yes, even now, as you flip through the manga adaption of Pretty Please, Kitsune Guiji? while mountains of paperwork lie beside you in your small office.
In your defense, you didn’t even want this position. It was just your luck that the vision you got boosted your skills so much they just had to promote you…
Before your vision interrupted your life, you had been doing well as a below-average member of the Knights of Favonius. Being able to buy most of the volumes of your favorite mangas with minimum effort was true salvation in life! …yeah, that didn’t last.
Anyway, you would’ve eventually been fired if you didn’t have the vision, but at that point you were pretty much content with all you had.
Which is to say, you could’ve just— y’know, died like a regular person instead of MaGiCaLly receiving a GiFt from the gods and getting an unwanted upgrade in ability.
Normally, something like that would be your ‘awakening’ or whatever those trashy power fantasies called it now. There’s just one major difference between you and them. You’re an introvert, and you’d like to stay an introvert.
…ahhh! That was amazing!! I swear, the cuteness is going to kill me someday…!
Setting the book on a relatively stable portion of Paper Mountaintm, you look at the piles before you. And then back at the manga.
Surely, it couldn’t hurt to read it again? What is this, the 13th ti-
“[Name], are you done with the paperwork? …[Name]? Just because I can’t see you through the papers doesn’t mean I think you’re not here!”
Fuck. You can just hear a lecture from Jean about how you have to finish filling out reports of recently cleared hilichurl camps or whatever it is you need to get rid of coming.
“[Name]! If you don’t come out in 3 seconds, I’m going to dock your pay. Three… tw—”
You stumble into Jean’s line of sight. Tossing Pretty Please, Kitsune Guiji? to the side and hoping Jean takes it as part of the noise you generate moving, you direct a guilty expression at her face.
“A-alright, alright, I’m here… please don’t actually do it.”
“I might if you keep procrastinating your paperwork! I’ve given you enough time already, please get it done.”
Oh, no. She was pissed. And by the looks of your table, you might be out of a job. Uh…
“Fine, fine… I, uh… will. By next week! Promise!”
The pains of living with such strong aversion to boring activities were truly infinite. Who cares about the details of your fights? They all ended with you winning anyway, and it’s not as if it really matters if a hilichurl got its leg chopped off or not.
With an unconvinced look in her eye, Jean allows herself to be pushed out with minimal effort. But, you can tell she’s actually serious this time… ah…
Finally managing to close the door behind you, you let yourself breathe easy now that your hidden manga is at no more risk of being discovered! But at what cost? You stare at the pile of paperwork.
It would be so easy to turn it all to ashes. Light a match, walk out the door, and they wouldn’t notice until you’re gone.
…
…no, no, those aren’t the right thoughts to have.
So, how would you do this? Most recent first, and also ordered by most to least boring, though they’re all largely the same (regarding that, at least).
If only a god would swoop down and magically do it for you too. You half consider chucking your vision out the window. What did it do for you in this situation, anyway?
The gods are blind, but the people are probably worse.
People…
…oh.
Oh, archons. Why didn’t you think of that earlier? Commissioning someone would work, right? You have money (thank fuck you didn’t spend it on alcohol), and maybe even the Honorary Knight could lend you a hand!
I’m a genius. Well, I’m probably going to end up commissioning a genius, if I get what I pay for, so it looks the same to Jean.
You’re already bolting out the Favonius door as you’re thinking, and don’t bother going down the stairs because you’re jumping down into the Mondstadt plaza, and finally skidding to a stop in front of Katherine.
“Kathy! My faaaavorite robot attendant! I’d like to, uh, place a commission! I’ll give… 100 mora to the most capable applicant. Um…”
“What are the details of your commission?”
“Oh! Well, I need an assis— actually, just put down that someone needs help with Favonius matters and would like if you could go to the back of the Favonius building for more information. Please.”
“Is that all?”
“Yep, basically!”
Huh, this was easier than expected! Most commissions had so many details you thought they spent the day penning and perfecting the art of shoving unclear details in a block of text.
“Katherine, can commissions be about anything?”
“As long as it’s not illegal, I believe so.”
“Really? Wow, yay! I’d like to make a commission of 200 mora for the out of print A Firsthand Guide to Summoning Spirits! Doesn’t have to be pristine, but not too worn, either.”
“Is that all?”
“Mhm! Thank youuuuu!”
Man, you sometimes found it easier to talk to her than an actual human being. Robots don’t nag or anything, and they don’t care about stuff like how you kill your hilichurls.
Well, what else was there to do except for finding your mangas and bringing them back where they actually belong… in your house? That’d be pretty embarrassing if you were seen as an otaku, ’cause being a Knight that gets their own office gave you a nice reputation— why would you want to taint it?
Unfortunately, all you know is that you’ve lost at least two volumes within the place, and that there was only so far the ‘keeping it for a friend’ excuse could go.
As you search, long and hard, for any volumes, any sign of them, that could’ve possibly been lost to the Paper Mountaintm, you don’t even realize that the door had opened.
“Wowww, so this is the mighty Elsa ripoff…? …uh. That’s a… lot of paperwork.”
What’s an ‘Elsa’? Are they edible? Actually, the question you should be asking is, why tf is this weird guy in your office??
Naturally, your delayed reaction time causes you to jump like a cat faced with a cucumber immediately after finishing that thought.
“What the what the what get out shoo shoo nothing to see here—”
Your clumsy attempts at pushing him out the door are blocked by a single phrase:
“So you don’t want my hel—”
“Nevermind, come right in random dude!”
He didn’t go along with the instructions, but you were would take what you got.
Settling into a corner of your very full office, you gesture wildly to your surroundings.
“So, I need all of this done by next week. Uh…”
Now that you think about it, 100 mora was a little bit too less for such a task. You might need to raise it.
”…oh! I’ll give you 300 mora? Actually. you choose! I just kinda… need this done.”
“Wow, so I can choose? But what if I clear out your bank account?”
…uhhhh. Was this person important? Theoretically!! You could… theoretically make them disappear, but only theoretically…
“P-please don’t, mister! Umm, I’d really appreciate you not doing that… anyway, uh… how do these commissions work? I’ve only ever been on the receiving end, so I don’t really know how to do this…”
“Oh, I suppose you’re not very well acquainted with the rest of the Knights? I’m Lohen, by the way.”
Rest of the— yeah, maybe you needed to find someone else.
“Nice to meet you, then. Do you know anyone who might charge a… y’know, lesser amount of… mora?”
Lohen seems to think for a moment before confusing you.
“Are you really [Name]? I’ve heard that you were exceptionally lazy, but I mean… wow. This is just…”
What a pain. Ugh, would anyone even be sad if he was gone? Rude!! Gossiping right in front of you. What kind of person was he?!
“Okay, okay, get out.”
He returns your upset gaze with one of mock innocence.
“Well, I never said I wouldn’t help.”
This… irritant…!
“I don’t care, leave already! I’ll find someone else.”
“Do you really think you can do that?”
…ugh. His expression is that of a person who’s already won. What a pain in the ass.
“Yeah, obviously. If it’s not enough mora I’ll go change it later.”
So, it’s all very sad that he doesn’t let you push him out of your office, which should’ve been used for personally taking care of your own personal Knightly things, which you don’t really do.
“Fine. How about this? If you can beat me in a battle,” Lohen tilts his head closer to yours, “I’ll do your work for free.”
Somewhere in that sentence you decided it was a wonderful day to start practicing the art of social distancing, mainly because of his unnecessary closeness.
“Uhh… can I get a contract for this? I need to make sure you’ll actually help.”
“Why so confident? As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a lazy otaku with loads of paperwork to do.”
“You…!”
Piece of shit. Motherfucker. Son of a… honestly, you have no idea whether his mom was a nice lady or not, and you couldn’t exactly say ‘son of a woman’, so… hmm…
Wait, you’re getting sidetracked.
“…ugh. If I don’t win against you, then I’ll… I dunno. I’ll buy you a weapon? Do you drink?”
Lohen considers his options, but eventually ends up with:
“If I win, then I get to make you do one thing of my choice. Is t—”
“Hell no, that’s just unfair! If I win, I have to be able to do the same.”
“Deal.”
And yet, he still looks at you like he’s already won! Is this guy that full of himself? Ugh.
“Aha. Okay! We can use visions, right? And choose our weapons?”
“Well, suuuuure. If you want.”
Why did he always sound so mocking?? Was it some kind of disease?? If it wasn’t for his personality, you might’ve found him as attractive as the morally gray side characters from your mangas.
“Then let’s go right now, Lohen. The loser is the one who’s down for more than 10 seconds. Come on, where’s a good spot to start…?”
“Any training grounds will do just fine.”
You did have to learn to control your damage eventually…
“Yeah— let’s go already, where are they?”
…and again with that unimpressed look. Ah, you really shouldn’t be taking this personally.
“You seriously don’t know where they are?”
“I, uh… forgot…”
Maybe you shouldn’t have let yourself be so oblivious to the outside world? It did really seem like he was doubting your position…
“L-let’s just go.”
Lohen leads you to one of the— oh! You have been here before, because you recognize the girl who’s been training 6 years to become a Knight and is still just a maid, but a severely overpowered maid.
“Uh, so… why do you need that many weird dagger things?”
For some weird reason, Lohen actually trains… and uses weapons… ahaha… unlike your lazy ass. The vision really is enough for you.
“Let’s start on the count of three.”
“Oh, sure.”
Absentmindedly, you crack your neck. Ooh, that was really loud!
“3…”
Was Lohen tensing or just readying up, or what? You scratch your head and feel a sneeze coming.
“2…”
“Achoo!”
Wait, this wasn’t fair, you were distracted!
“1.”
Eyes half-bleary from the sneeze (wtf, immune system?), you resort to making a larger shield as to protect the hems of your clothes from being pinned by those… unaesthetic blades.
“Hey! Aim for the person, not my—”
And then the guy’s all up in your personal space just to swing at you! Social distancing!! Go!!
A relatively large meteorite of ice now occupies the space where Lohen was! …and he’s gone. Come on, stop moving…!
It takes all of a few seconds for you to switch strategies. Throwing ice chunks at him wasn’t gonna work, so might as well just lower his body temperature.
While blocking those dagger things from reaching your body (how did he have so many??), you make a bit of ice appear on Lohen’s person. Like, a chunk of ice. Wait, but if he doesn’t have oxygen, he’ll… go limp! Yay! No wait, nay! Don’t escape!
If only he would stop moving around so much and finally use up his dagger supply. Ah, if only.
“Lohen, could you move slower? I mean, you’re my senior, right? Go easy on me…”
You could try immobilizing him for a bit and then stabbing him with some of his daggers. That’s too much trouble, you could just make some of your own.
Hmm, but for immobilizing him… hey, he just aimed one at your face!
Making some sort of spike grow on the inside bottom of his shoe could… theoretically work. Why not try it? Aaaand, up!
…oops? That would suck if you had to pay for his holey shoes, which were also now getting stained. That probably doesn’t need medical attention, right? Lohen made some sort of noise that was a cross between laughter and surprise, so… psychiatric help, maybe? Hopefully not.
What next? Well, you had to get him down for 10 seconds… so if you stabbed him in the balls, could it immobilize him? Not long enough.
Actually, who says you have the aim for that?
Hmm… ugh. Maybe you really do need to let him get close for you to land a hit. All you’ve been doing is getting stuff to deflect off other stuff, so you remove whatever shields you have.
It takes less than a second for him to disregard your desire for social distancing again.
“Eep—”
Thank fuck you blocked that out of instinct and also managed to get an ice chunk in him. …that sounded so weird.
“Uh, Lohen? This is getting kind of boring.”
“Ahahaha! Really, [Name]? I do wish you’d fight me for real, though…”
???
“But I am? What do you mean by that?”
“You’re not even trying…!”
Wahh, he got past a barrier. Guess you have to dodge. Phew, that didn’t stain your coat.
“I… don’t understand.”
Was Lohen actually trying to harm you? He did throw that dagger at your unstabbed face, so maybe…
…but this didn’t make sense, not at all. He was confident! He must have something to back it up. It was really getting boring.
Let’s say you wanted some flowers. You could make him a flower crown and it to expand, get the shrapnel to dig into him. But it would make it much harder for him to help you.
Bombs are a good idea. Why not?
So, you get rid of your barriers once again. However, he seems more inclined to throw sharp stuff at you.
“Don’t do thattttt… come on.”
You get a large, blunt ice object to launch you in Lohen’s general direction, and he— he can backflip?! Wait, whaaaa??
Oh well. Your idea works just the same!
The air immediately chills around him, and you sigh— that wasn’t what you wanted to do! If you made it a bit colder… no this wasn’t working. Maybe you really should just stab his legs. This was going on for wayyyy too long than needed anyway.
“I apologize for the damage.”
Right after you said your apologies, pricks of ice erupt from Lohen’s pants. This sounds so weird again, why do you word it like this? He’s just getting stabbed via the inside.
But, finally, it seems he’s stopped moving! …for the time being. You make some ice nails to get him to stay on the ground, though they melt quick.
“Ten!! Nine!! Eight!! Sevensixfivefourthreetwoone! Okay, match done.”
Was that accurate? No. Did you want it to be? Yeah.
“Now, get up already! You have to help me with my paperwork! C’mon, c’mon, no time to lose—”
“[Name]?”
Oh, fuck. Jean.