Ajax, thanks for the preliminary reading.
You can't take away land in your pocket. But Diluc loved his gardens and plantations. He felt how the life-giving juice flowed in the stems of plants, how the fruits were filled with strength and taste. Diluc knew the aroma of the land awakening in the spring, the fragrance of the land that brought a generous harvest… Although he did not personally work with grape and currant bushes, didn't weed the beds, Diluс often visited the gardens and plantations, examined everything, checked, peered and felt into the ground and plants. And he received unique gifts from them, which turned into wonderful wines and juices.
Leave all this, buy somewhere new gardens and plantations? No. Land isn't a ship or a forge, which you can get used to in a week. It takes years to get to know the land. Even if you have a degree in agronomy from the best university in the world, you will not be able to fully manage the land immediately upon arrival, simply by taking soil samples for analysis. The land must be seen in its good and bad years, felt, and only then can it be controlled so that it bears fruits equal to gold.
Therefore, Diluc needed a prosperous Mondstadt. It must be rich. But things were getting worse for him. Prices rose, and merchants visited Mondstadt less often, as there were few buyers, good workers left it for a comfortable life in other countries. In Springvale, a village near Mondstadt, there was even a famine, half of the people fled in all directions, and only hunters remained, who could barely make ends meet.
The capital itself was still holding out, but Diluc was selling less and less fruits, wine and juices both in the city and in everything in Mondstadt, which meant that exports became unprofitable - money was needed to transport goods, and a lot of money. Moreover, it became difficult to find good workers: skillful smart people demanded a fee much more than it was profitable for Diluc to pay and hiring cheap stupid shit-craftsmen meant ruining production. The plantations and the distillery have so far held without losses, but for how long? Profits dropped quarter by quarter.
And the Ordo Favonius, who calls himself the defender and guardian of Mondstadt, did absolutely nothing to save him. And who could do what? Bunch of idiots.
And they are thieves.
Diluc was sure that the monsters that constantly attacked the city were sent by Order. It was the only way for him to show his necessity, only because of the monsters the townspeople did not drive the knights away.
And so the noble gentlemen fed well from the state treasury, taking from there much more than they needed.
Diluc didn't hide his hatred of the Ordo Favonius but he kept silent about knightly theft and the origin of monsters. Crepus, Diluc's father, has already paid for this with his life.
Even a rich merchant was subhuman in those years for the aristocrats who ruled the country. No matter how much Mondstadt calls itself the City of Freedom, no matter how much he insists that the power of the aristocrats is over, but in reality everything was different. Crepus wanted to become a knight of the Ordo Favonius, this equated even a laborer with the nobility, but the doors of the order were closed for the merchant. But Crepus didn't lose heart, paid the servants of the Order and collected enough compromising evidence to force the master Varka to make the sons of Crepus knights.
However, soon a monster attacked Crepus' caravan. Diluc was sure that this was not an accident. Especially since Eroch, an inspector of the Ordo Favoinus, demanded that Diluc recognize the attack as an accident. Diluc obeyed, not wanting to die. And he left the Order, so as not to get dirty more in its dirt.
But Kaeya, Diluc's half-brother and Crepus' adopted son, remained. And organized the leak of information. A huge scandal broke out, fueled by the fact that Crepus, a simple man, the same as everyone else in Mondstadt, not a knight, not a magician, not a priest, could use a magical talisman to save the caravan. Varka expelled Eroch from the Order, expanded the opportunities for those wishing to join the Ordo Favonius, and allowed ordinary people to use some talismans. But all the same, Varka hurried to dump him from Mondstadt after the scandal, allegedly it was an expedition. The skin was dearer to him than the title and power. Varka appointed an aristocratess as Acting Grand Master. And he appointed a fool who can never seize power and rule well. And the banished Eroch miraculously turned out to be the plenipotentiary representative of the Adventurers' Guild in the Varka's expedition.
However, no matter what Varka was up to, no matter what method of triumphant return he came up with, this bastard disappeared into oblivion along with the detachment and representatives. And this was so pure that Ordo Favonius is still waiting for his return. Diluc also learned that his half-brother, whom everyone always considered worthless, was a master not only in organizing information flows but he knew how to do an ideal alibi — so far no one has guessed to connect the disappearance of Varka with his detachment and Diluc's journey around the world. And even in the false quarrel of the brothers, everyone believed.
If Kaeya had not clung to the Order… If only he had been a little worried about the fate of the plantations and the distillery, and therefore of Mondschadt…
The Order has lost control of the monsters. If Diluc himself didn't kill them, hiding under a mask from the revenge of the knights, then the capital and the whole country would have turned into ruins — monsters always appeared in the capital and spread around. The situation was rapidly deteriorating, and Diluc didn't know how to save his land.