"Excuse me, Master Diluc, we'd like a seat at your...least conspicuous table."

Venti led Roxas and Paimon into a nearby bar, Angel's Share. Roxas recognized the person named Diluc; he was the person that had taken out that Abyss Mage Heartless in one of the Four Winds temples.

"Well, the second floor has fewer customers, so you'd be less conspicuous there," said Diluc, "but you're a bard, right? Shouldn't you want to sit front and center?"

"I'll save the paid performance for later tonight," Venti replied. "Roxas, c'mon."

Roxas reached the second floor not a moment too soon as two Knights of Favonius entered Angel's Share. "Master Diluc," one of them said, "you've heard what happened, right?"

Diluc sighed. "No, but does it have to do with the fact that you've mobilized so many guards?"

The other Knight nodded. "Yes, two thieves are trying to steal the Holy Lyre der Himmel."

"Oh? The Holy Lyre, eh?" Diluc expressed his intrigue. "How...odd."

"It is, isn't it?" the Knight agreed. "It's a treasure that was played by the Anemo Archon, Lord Barbatos, himself. Such a precious piece of cultural heritage-"

"Would probably be something the thief couldn't sell off," Diluc interjected. "So why would someone steal it? It'd pay better to steal from my cellars."

"...What?"

"Sorry, sorry, off-topic." Diluc pointed towards one of the city gates outside the window. "Think they went that way."

"Well, tonight, I'm in the mood for..."

Diluc interjected again, "You can put down that bottle you're trying to steal from behind the counter."

"...something cold." Venti returned the bottle to its place.

"Right, but I want answers."

"Lemme finish my drink first?" Venti requested. "I can pay you with a performance."

"Oh, I'm not worried about money," said Diluc. "You seem way too young to be drinking."

"Hey, when I started drinking, you were still-"

"Aaand on that note, we'll be answering this guy's question now, right, Venti?" Roxas hurriedly interrupted.

"Oh, we should, and I should probably introduce him, too," said Venti. "This is Master Diluc, the owner of this tavern. He's really famous, and his Dandelion Wine is my personal favorite. You should try it sometime. Once you're older, that is."

"Those guards were just telling me about a couple of thieves," Diluc said inquisitively. "For the record, you two have guts. I respect that. Trying to steal the Holy Lyre? Heh, even I couldn't do that. Even if it is foolish, we don't often get people like you in here."

"W-We didn't steal it!" Paimon stuttered.

"Yeah, this guy here's the big hotshot of the Knights," Venti said, putting a hand on Roxas's shoulder. "Why would someone like him steal a cultural treasure of Mondstadt?"

"Hotshot...?" Diluc got a closer look at Roxas. "Oh, it's you. Wait...I've seen you before. In that temple. You killed that Abyss Mage."

"Oh, right, he's not in the loop yet," Roxas whispered to Venti.

"We can fill him in later," Venti whispered back.

"So, you're friends with the bard, eh?" said Diluc.

"Not...really," replied Roxas. "Only heard him play, like, once."

"Well, despite only being a passing traveler, you helped Mondstadt in its time of need," said Diluc. "I can respect that. Shame you joined the Knights. Inefficient from beginning to end, those guys. And don't even get me started on how they deal with the Fatui. Weak and conservative."

"Wow, someone's got beef," Roxas quipped to Paimon.

"Differences in approach, that's all," said Diluc. "I've got my own hopes for this city. Now...answers. Why'd you steal the Holy Lyre?"

"You sure you wanna know?" asked Venti. "It could implicate you in the affairs of the Knights."

"I somehow always end up implicated in their affairs anyway," Diluc remarked. "I'm used to it by now."

"How about I tell you with a performance?" asked Venti. "Would you believe me then?"

"That depends," said Diluc.

"Then will I get paid?"

"Your reward will range between five Mora and the freaking Holy Lyre itself," said Diluc. "All depends on your story."

"Very well then, let's begin..."

"That...seems very confidential," said Diluc. "Why'd you let me in on it?"

"Perhaps the winds are changing," said Venti. "What say you, Master Diluc?"

"...Interesting." Diluc adjusted his high-end jacket. "Give me some time, and I'll organize a few contacts. Roxas, you're one of the Knights, so it seems you're not a suspect. The wanted poster only says 'blonde' so you should be safe. As for your bard friend, however...you should stay in the tavern."

"No worries!" said Venti. "I like taverns!"

Diluc grumbled before composing himself. "Okay. Let's meet here tonight, after closing time."

"We meet again, Roxas," said Katheryne as the former Nobody approached her. "It seems you have a lot more experience under your belt, so I'd like to introduce to you the more formal work of the Guild."

"Lay it on me."

"The Guild receives requests from far and wide each day, and assigns Commissions to Adventurers accordingly," said Katheryne. "These Commissions are the main source of compensation for our Adventurers."

"What do those Commissions entail?"

"Several things," replied Katheryne. "It could be as simple as running an errand or as dangerous as clearing out multiple camps of strong monsters. But you needn't take my word for it. You should find out yourself. Here are tomorrow's Commissions." Katheryne handed him a list of tasks. "Report back to me upon completion, and a generous reward will await you."

"Got it," said Roxas.

"I knew I could count on you." Katheryne smiled at him. "Ad astra tenebris, Roxas!"

Roxas watched in disbelief as a crystalline heart emerged from the Hilichurl he'd just killed. The heart ascended skyward, leaving Roxas to question everything he knew about the monsters. "Are they Heartless, too...?"

"That's the last of the Commissions!" Paimon said happily, snapping him out of his thoughts. "Let's go report back to Katheryne!"

The duo prepared to head back, only for a foreign hand to snag Roxas's wrist and yank him out of the open and into the undergrowth. Paimon looked around, confused until she found Roxas crouched behind a bush beside a girl in strange yellow clothes.

"Shh!" the girl chided. "Keep it down! I'm trying to hunt here!"

"Hunt?" Roxas whispered. "Hunt what?"

The girl pointed. Right near the bush, Roxas saw a small pack of wild boars. The girl looked at them with glimmering eyes as her mouth began to water.

"Um..." Roxas tried to snap the girl out of her trance.

"I've been hearing about the tons of ingredients that are in Mondstadt," whispered the girl. "Guess it's true!"

"Are...you a chef?" Roxas asked.

"Yep!" said the girl. "Xiangling's the name. I'm from Liyue. What about you, stranger?"

"Roxas," said the former Nobody. "And...well, I'm from pretty far off the map. As for my friend, Paimon...I'm not sure about her."

"Paimon's not sure where she's from either," said Paimon.

"Paimon..." Xiangling eyed the faerie.

"...Why are you looking at me like that?"

Xiangling turned to Roxas. "Is it edible?"

"Oh, yeah!" Roxas replied, feigning approval. "But...unfortunately, you'd be eating all my emergency rations."

"Dang it, Roxas!" Paimon whisper-yelled. "For the last time, Paimon is not emergency food!"

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!"

"Aw, you two seem like such good friends," said Xiangling. "I've...got a companion, too. His name's Guoba."

"Paimon thinks that's the name of a snack from Liyue," said Paimon.

"Well, yeah," replied Xiangling. "But both Guoba the snack and Guoba the companion have a special place in my heart. But...anyway, would you mind helping me hunt? There's a ton of game around here that I'd like to cook with."

"Can't you do it yourself?" asked Roxas.

"I could," said Xiangling, "but I suck at hunting. Besides, I can whip up something tasty for you when you're done!"

Paimon's eyes widened and her mouth began to water. "Consider it done!"

"Thanks so much!" Xiangling said happily. "I don't care how you do it, just bring me back some meat."

Roxas smirked, summoning Oathkeeper and Oblivion. "Check this out."

Without warning, he bolted for the herd of boars and used his spinning slash technique, causing blades of white light to emerge from Oathkeeper and Oblivion. The entire herd was cut down before any of them could escape.

"I would've only needed three steaks' worth of it, but you got more than triple that!" Xiangling gushed. "I've got enough meat for weeks! I can shallow fry some of it, maybe deep fry some more with mushrooms...oh! And it might pair well with slime condensate..."

"Slime condensate?"

"Yeah, the stuff that comes from slimes!" said Xiangling. "It's not edible by itself, but if you cook it into something, it can be an amazing ingredient if you use it right. Oh, crap! I almost forgot, while I was carving up that meat, I managed to put together a snack for the both of you!"

"Sweet," said Roxas. "Um...where is it?"

"Oh, it's back in Springvale," replied Xiangling. "If you wanna come there with me, I can get it for you."

"Can you tell us how to make it?" asked Paimon.

"In theory," said Xiangling, "but I haven't written down the recipe yet...wait! I have an idea! I can make another one right here so you can watch, and then you should be able to pick up on it!"

Roxas looked around. "I don't see any cooking equipment, unless you're planning on using the hot dirt as a stove. Besides, even if I could watch you make it here and now, I'm...not the best cook. Far from it. I've never touched a stove in my life."

"Aw, c'mon, it's simple!" said Xiangling. "I can make a simple campfire and then fry the meat on a thin stone with some boar fat. Then I can build a stove out of rocks and use some dry grass for kindling...Sweet Flowers should do for sugar, and I found a load of rock salt in a cave the other day."

"Were you born with a skillet in your hand?" Roxas quipped.

"Yeah, it was really hard on my mom," Xiangling countered. "But in all seriousness, I just can't help myself when I get a chance to try something new. Not to mention, I can't exactly bring my entire kitchen with me whenever I go out. So just gimme a second and I'll get everything ready."

Before she could get started, a voice yelled out at the group. "You three! What do you think you're doing?!"

A young man with a bow strapped to his back ran over. "This is the natural habitat of the boars! You can't hunt them here, they'll all go running! Real hunters know better than to kill the chicken just to get at the egg."

"I...have no clue what that means," Roxas deadpanned.

"I get it!" said Xiangling. "The best meat comes from free-range boars that were born and raised in their natural environment. So if those boars all ran off...it'd be a major blow to the culinary industry - no, to all of mankind!"

"Okay, I know I said I had no clue what he meant, but it wasn't that."

"I'm so sorry!" Xiangling cried. "I...I got excited and I didn't think of the impact we'd have..."

"Well...don't apologize to me," said the hunter, calming down. "You'll want to talk with Draff. As the leader of Springvale's hunters, he always stresses the importance of respecting the rules of the hunt. I'm afraid he'll probably be very upset right now."

"Yeah...he will be." Roxas glared at Xiangling.

Xiangling noticed Roxas eyeing her and looked crestfallen. "I...I made a terrible mistake. And...I should apologize."

"I'll go with you," Roxas said, his face softening. He felt bad for her, after all.

Xiangling perked right back up. "Thanks so much! I'll make some more snacks for you once we're done!"

"Oh, don't worry about it," said Roxas. "I'm full already."

"Well Paimon isn't!" Paimon interjected. "Paimon'll take all the snacks you've got!"

"So...you're Xiangling." Draff, a man with a mustache and animal-like ears, glared at the young chef.

"Yeah..." Xiangling looked downcast again. "I'm...I'm so sorry, sir. We-"

"Don't bother, I heard the whole story," Draff interjected. "And now that you're here in person..."

Roxas stepped in front of Xiangling, his gaze dead set on Draff as he opened his hands, about to summon his Keyblades.

Draff's demeanor changed immediately. "Please, help me promote my meat!"

Roxas lowered his guard and raised his right eyebrow. "Hold the phone, what?"

"Sorry if I was a little brash there," said Draff. "Let me explain. Springvale's reputation was built on a foundation of top-quality meats, or...at least a reputation for having them. But, so far, that reputation only extends as far as Mondstadt's borders. When I heard that the woman, the myth, the legend herself: Xiangling, Liyue's greatest chef, was in Mondstadt, I asked for Allan to send you over."

"Wait, she's the best chef in Liyue?!" Paimon exclaimed.

"In some people's eyes, yes," replied Draff. "She and her father are the masterminds behind Wanmin Restaurant, a one-of-a-kind street eatery in Liyue Harbor. Her unique take on ingredients has resulted in the birth of some of the best dishes in all of Liyue. Tourists love them, I hear."

"Oh, stop it, you're too kind!" Xiangling gushed. "I just try to cook things cheap and tasty!"

"No need to be so modest," said Draff. "With a top-notch chef cooking top-notch food with top-notch meat from Springvale...our reputation would spread far beyond Mondstadt."

"All I do is just think about how to make tasty food," said Xiangling. "I don't ever limit myself to a specific set of ingredients, and I'm terrible at advertising. That's my pops' job."

"But surely you use boar meat all the time," said Draff. "I don't see any problem here."

"There might be," replied Xiangling. "What would you say if I told you that one of the...secret ingredients in some of my dishes is...slime condensate?"

Draff hesitated. "That's...I mean, couldn't you add something a little more...normal?"

"No ingredients are 'normal,'" said Xiangling. "You can turn anything into Celestia on a plate if you cook it just right. I refuse to let my creativity be limited by what ingredients I can and can't use! Food like that may taste good, but it's so boring!"

"Well, that escalated quickly," Roxas muttered.

Draff sighed. "Eh, since you're so adamant about it, I guess I can live with it. But it's a real shame..."

"We did come here to apologize," Roxas reminded her. "Why not try being a little more flexible?"

"Being flexible is one thing," Xiangling replied, "but having to entirely change my way of cooking is a whole other beast. Oh!" She took a whiff of the air. "Hey, do you smell that?"

Roxas sniffed. "Yeah. Think someone might be cooking something?"

"Definitely!" said Xiangling. "C'mon, let's go check it out!"

"Actually..." said Roxas, "I gotta go. I have some work I need to do."

"Aw, okay," said Xiangling. "Take care, then! See ya!"

"Yeah, see ya."

Roxas and Paimon left for Mondstadt City.

"Ah, Roxas! You made it!"

Venti's declaration turned several heads in the direction of the former Nobody that night - most notably those of Diluc and Acting Grandmaster Jean.

Jean's eyes widened. "Wait! Roxas...you're...!"

"Well," said Diluc, "first of all, I contacted more than one person. Secondly," he gestured to Jean, "she came here not as the Acting Grandmaster, but as...just Jean. A side of her you'd never see, even as an Honorary Knight."

"What a surprise." Jean almost looked like she was blushing. "So...the sound of the Holy Lyre can expel the darkness from Stormterror's heart and return it to normal...is that really true?"

"That's right!" said Venti. "Roxas is putting himself right on the front lines of resolving this issue. Now that's a big shot if I've ever seen one."

"Yeah, a big shot at breaking the law," Roxas deadpanned.

"If you need me to," Venti offered Jean, "I can play that song again-"

Jean cut him off. "I believe you."

Diluc eyed her. "Wait, what?"

"I can't think of any reason for Dvalin's betrayal, given it was once one of the Four Winds," said Jean. "But...if it was really poisoned in that war all those years ago...and then corrupted by the darkness after that...we can't really blame it. And then we have the constant diplomatic pressure from the Fatui making it about ten times harder for us to resolve this peacefully. People would think I've lost grip on the situation, so...I can only do this in private."

"That's just one of the reasons I don't like the Knights," Diluc grumbled. "But I'm still surprised you'd believe an outlander so easily..."

"Diluc," Jean said his name as though the two of them were an old married couple, "you trust him, don't you?"

Diluc's face turned pink. "Don't...say my name like that... ugh, never mind. It's not often we get to work together."

Roxas smirked and eyed Diluc knowingly.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Diluc asked.

"You know why," replied Roxas. "And I think Jean does, too."

Jean and Diluc blushed even more; the latter's face was redder than his hair.

Roxas leaned towards Paimon's ear. "I ship it."

"You and Paimon both."