I'll never yield to sadness
I'll always show the best of me not everyone understands
Nero pulled out a map from his - originally his father's - coat pockets, unfurling it as he took a gander at his surroundings. It's been a couple of weeks since he washed up in this place, which fortunately for him, it was close to the area he was going to.
Though unfortunately, he ended up stumbling and got lost.
"Let's see, if I passed by the place filled with those old, rusty swords. Then I should be... here?" He talked to himself, voice filled with uncertainty. He wasn't even sure which direction he was facing at this point, given he ended up going in a circle... thrice...
Sighing, he put his map away and began looking around again: rock, rock, tree, grass, creepy glowing plant, smoke-
"Smoke?" Nero thought, doing a double take to see if he wasn't hallucinating. Much to his delight, he wasn't: beyond the trees, he could see smoke rising to the sky. And whenever there's smoke nearby, it could mean two things: he needs to get out of there as fast as he can lest his clothes burn away, or there's other travelers making camp nearby.
Hoping its the latter, the young hybrid quickly went to the source of the smoke. But to his dismay, it was just a camp filled with hilichurls and a single mitachurl.
To make matters worse, they ended up noticing him.
"Great..." he muttered, watching them slowly circling around him. As he was preparing to throttle them all into oblivion, he heard one of them suddenly scream in pain. Turning around, he saw one of the hilichurls burst into flames, while another figure was currently making its - her - way to him: a brunette whose clothes mostly adorned the color of red, holding a bow in one hand. Her weapon wasn't what caught his attention, but rather the strange item strapped to the side of her waist, hosting the element of pyro within its gem-like center.
Time seems to have come to a halt for the white-haired traveler once that... thing caught his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself that he had bigger priorities to take care of.
He snapped out of his trance when he felt a sharp tug on his left arm, realizing that the brunette from earlier was pulling him away from the hilichurls.
"It's not safe here sir, come with me!" She hollered, dragging him out of the conflict - albeit one he did accidentally caused - and into a much more peacful location. "I'll come back for you later, just stay here for a while"
Turning back, the two had realized that the mitachurl from earlier had been chasing them, ready to crumple their bones by ramming its large body against them. As Nero watched the girl prepare to nock a fiery arrow, he realized she wasn't going to make it in time.
Instinctively, he suddenly dashed forward with his cloak sent flying into the air, his arms stretched forward as he prepared to catch the rampaging mitachurl by the horns. He felt his boots digging into the ground as he slowed the mitachurl's attack. But like the young man himself, the mitachurl was just about as stubborn as a boar. He glanced at his cladded right arm for a bit, before deciding to shift his gaze back to the brunette behind him.
"Hey, a little help here?" He asked, feigning strain. The girl quickly snapped out of her thoughts as she prepared to nock an arrow, watching it ignite itself as it flew into the mitachurl's head.
The large creature howled as the fiery arrow literally blew up in its face, forgetting that it was battling Nero as it now focus on putting out the flames on its upper body. Exploiting this window of opportunity given to him, the young hybrid immediately bent the mitachurl's neck in such a way that's considered impossible, watching as the large creature suddenly went limp and crumpled onto the ground.
The man turned back to the archer and gave her a grateful smile. But before he could've said anything, he immediately caught an arrow meant for the brunette, now holding the shaft in between his finger and thumb.
"I'll thank you later, cause right now..." he trailed off, turning around to see the remaining hilichurls from earlier finally catching up to them. Snapping the arrow in his hand into two, Nero drew the large blade from his back and ran towards the hilichurls, impaling one that's unfortunate to be closer to his vicinity. Pulling out the sword from his fallen foe, Nero then swung it in a downwards arc as he cleaved another into two, its halves now falling in separate directions.
As he prepared himself for his next victi- opponent, he suddenly felt heat erupt from behind him. Turning around, he saw another hilichurl collapsed before him, currently draped over by a blanket of fire. As he was about to give a thumbs up in the girl's direction, he then suddenly felt a strong gust of wind from behind. Turning back, Nero came face to face with a miniature tornado, forcing him to brave against its razor-like winds.
He soon came across the source of the tornado as a hilichurl from the far back laughed at his predicament, what was strange about this hilichurl was that it looked far too different from its peers: aside from the different design in masks, its figure made it appear to be the runt of the litter. Wielding a winged staff on hand like a shaman, it began chanting as the winds suddenly grew stronger.
Without wasting any time, the young hybrid quickly fought his way through the strange hilichurl. Seeing this, the runt of the litter suddenly began chanting a different tune, causing a vacuum that was slowly pulling Nero into its center. The brunette was still occupied with the other hilichurls for her to realize Nero's current predicament. So with one gutsy move, Nero jammed his claymore onto the ground and used it to propel himself towards the small hilichurl. He could hear its frantic chants as he crept up to it in an alarming rate, firing razor sharp winds at the young man but he didn't care.
With his right arm outstretched and the shaman hilichurl in panicked state, he successfully caught it without much intervention. Nero could feel the anemo energy seeping out of the creature and into his right arm, despite the lacquer armor that covered it. Once the small hilichurl finally went limp, he nonchalantly dropped it and shifted his focus on the remaining ones.
Nero was picking up the masks - or whatever was left of them - of the hilichurls after the battle. He's heard of people collecting these things but he never exactly saw the appeal. If anything, they're pretty much just glorified firewood for him.
"Looks like I got enough for an entire day..." he muttered, examining the amount of broken masks in his arms. He then felt something tapping on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw the brunette in red giving him a curious look.
"It doesn't seem like you're from around here" she spoke up, "may I know who you are?"
Maybe this girl could be helpful. After all, the more people know what he's looking for, the easier it'll be to find.
"Well, since you asked" he shrugged, putting away the damaged masks. "Name's Nero. I'm looking for my old man, have you seen him?"
The girl in turn, gave him a puzzled expression. Right, that question wasn't going to help him find his father at all. Putting his thoughts aside, Nero spoke up again:
"Right.. err, forget about that last part" he muttered, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. Wanting the awkward silence to end, he switched to a different topic. "I gave you my name, can you at least tell me yours?"
"Oh, right! You can call me Amber" she quickly introduced herself, "as for your previous question, maybe you can give me a description? I could send a notice all over town if you like"
"Well, I was just about to head into one anyways, speaking of which" Nero pulled out a map from his coat pockets, unfurling it to show its contents to the brunette. "I've been wandering for weeks now and I got no idea where I am. Do you know where we are currently?"
Amber inspected the map for a moment, before putting her finger in the northwestern part of a place called "Galesong Hill". "You're currently here, in between Windrise and Dadaupa Gorge" she told him, "just keep going northwest and you'll make it to the city within a day"
"Right, thanks" Nero said, folding the map and returning it to his coat pockets. As he picked up the damaged masks again, Amber watched as he took a few steps ahead before looking around for a bit, and then suddenly turning back to face her. "Uh, which way is northwest?"
Amber gave him a concerned look before leading him onto the path to the city.
AN: I know I said in the preview that I was going to upload a good portion of the Mondstadt Arc in the next year. But after trying to write even ONE chapter of this fic, I ended up getting stressed immediately. So next time I say something about uploading multiple chapters at once, doubt it with all your heart and shit on my grave.
Looking back at the previous chapter, I realized I was in a twitter-spiting fever when I uploaded it. I'm really sorry about that. I guess like Nero's scrapped taunt says, I was too eager to take my hand and shove it up twitter's ass.
Also look, apparently there's no flashback in this chapter. guess I'm having an off day this week, huh?
Anyways, I'm probably going to try two things to help get the roadblock off my head: those being answering any questions you guys have in mind, and random trivia about the current chapter.
Okay the latter doesn't really help at all, it's just that I'm like a little schoolboy eager to share things. Without further ado
Random Trivia: I've always put DMC lyrics or William Blake stanzas at the beginning of each chapter of the Devil's Impact series. For those who don't know, the lyrics in this chapter comes from a CR DMC4 ost called "Life is Freedom" ...it may or may not have caused me to imagine an anime opening for Dark Divinity Mondstadt arc.
One last thing: I'm going to be taking a break from DMC: Legacy Untold. When I'll be back for it? Who knows