This was supposed to be a normal day, and she was just supposed to find the treasure hoarders' hideout. But when a strange crowd of hilichurls caught her eye, no doubt she had to investigate what was going on there.

Peering from the side of a tree, Amber observed their peculiar behavior. Seeing them crowding into one place wasn't unusual for the energetic outrider; it was how they typically started setting up a new camp.

But this in particular was different: instead of settling down and creating another obstacle for travelers to be wary of, they all just stood there in a circle, facing the innermost part curiously, like a group of children when they come across something new.

Was there really something that caught their fancy? The outrider couldn't tell from this height. She decided to climb up a tree and quickly settled on top of its trunk, pushing aside the smaller branches as she tried to get a better look at whatever might have piqued their curiosity.

However, much to her dismay, she still couldn't see from her current position, so she carefully walked onto a branch closest to them. With each passing step, the outrider could feel the branch trembling, causing her to go into a crouch as she attempted to plant her feet firmly.

Continuing onwards, she eventually caught a small glimpse of what seemed to be a tattered fabric laying on the ground. Why did such a thing intrigue them so much? Amber wondered, before moving to get an even closer view. Little by little did the mysterious object began to reveal itself to her: the tattered fabric became a tattered cloak, and despite the hood over their head, she could clearly make out a person's chin.

Wait...

Her eyes widened at the shocking discovery. Why was a person there? Why were the hilichurls crowding around them? And why was she getting lower and lower?

Hold on, why was she getting closer to the ground?

A series of loud cracking sounds snapped Amber out of her thoughts, realizing now that she was at the far end of the branch. Turns out, the imbalance of her weight onto the wooden branch forced it to slowly lower itself right next to the hilichurls.

And, probably the worst part of it all, they noticed.

"Uh... hello there, strange... yet respectable wayfarers!" The outrider laughed nervously, awkwardly giving the group a slight wave. One hilichurl let out a violent cry as it attempted to pounce on her, but was soon sent flying beyond the horizon as Amber jumped off of the unsteady branch.

Watching as their friend made their way to heaven, body and soul, the other hilichurls flew into a rage, arming themselves as they finally went on to the offensive. Amber grimaced as she narrowly avoided an incoming swing, taking a few small leaps back as she tried to widen the distance between herself and the hilichurls.

Once the distance was wide enough, she drew her bow and took a deep breath. She gently traced along the outline of her bowstring with her fingers, causing it to be covered in a strange sensation of warmth. When she pulled back her bowstring, she ended up tracing a white line in thin air, before suddenly lighting itself ablaze as it manifested a physical form.

She aimed for one of the closer hilichurls, and let her arrow fly.

The light arrow whistled as it tore through the air, before knocking a hilichurl off its feet as the arrow plunged itself onto its terrible hide. Suddenly, the arrow then erupted into flames, turning the unfortunate hilichurl into nothing but a charred carcass.

The process repeated itself continuously: the hilichurls attempted to swarm the outrider with their numbers, with the latter avoiding their onslaught in time and widened the gap between them, before putting down one of their own with a well-placed arrow. Amber smiled as she got the rhythm down to a tee, before nocking another arrow as she aimed for the last hilichurl.

Well, she thought it was the last one, before she found herself crashing head-first into a tree. She looked in the direction from which she had been sent flying and realized everything around her was a blur. Her legs wobbled as she attempted to stand up; however, thanks to the tree serving as a crutch, standing up didn't seem like such a concern.

She attempted to rub away the blurriness from her eyes, only for her other senses to alert her to danger. Diving out of the way, her ears perked up as she heard the familiar cracking noise of wood, which was soon followed by a devastating crash.

Once the blurriness had finally cleared, the outrider could now clearly see what she was up against: a towering creature with a large, fuzzy mane, and horns longer than a person's arm. On one hand, it held a wooden shield near its size, while the other beat against it with a warrior's fervor.

Amber swallowed her breath as she gripped tightly onto her bow. How did this mitachurl elude her sight?

She snapped out of her thoughts as the monster let out a blood-curdling cry, before suddenly charging shield-first at her. Amber quickly moved to nock another light-arrow, but just as she pulled the bowstring, a sudden sharp, stinging sensation erupted throughout her arm, causing the light-arrow to be fired haphazardly as she recoiled from the pain.

The arrow flew through the air, missing its target by a hair's width. The outrider then rolled out of the charging mitachurl's way, watching the creature crashed onto a tree. Clutching both her bow and injured arm, Amber sucked the air through gritted teeth. She needed to improvise if she wanted to take that mitachurl down.

Recovering from its reckless charge, the mitachurl rubbed the side of its head as it turned around, only to see a vibrant, orange glow a good distance away from itself. With a clamlike grip, Amber pulled the bowstring with her teeth, with a strange item strapped to her waist glowing a fiery orange.

Not taking any chances, the mitachurl performed its violent charge once more, only for Amber to release her bowstring in sync. The awkward position she had with her bow limited the strength of her arrow, but the amount of pyro energy she poured into that shot should be more than enough.

Why did she believe that? Because the explosion that had occurred managed to rival some of Klee's bombs.

She winced as she saw the inferno before her, Jean will DEFINITELY not be happy when she hears this...

Pushing that aside, the outrider let out a sigh of relief, before running back to where the stranger laid.

Kneeling beside the stranger's figure, the first thing Amber did was remove the hood from his head: it revealed that the stranger was a young man with a boyish face, with white hair that appeared to be as fluffy as the clouds above. She then placed two fingers on his neck, hoping that she wasn't too late as she checked for a pulse.

Much to her overwhelming delight, she wasn't.

She gave a relieved smile, seeming as if there wasn't anything too severe, until she caught a strange glow in the corner of her eye. The mysterious glow was covered by a part of the young man's cloak. As Amber peeled it off, she saw that the source was from a strange armor that clasped his right arm: the palm and the back of his hand emitted the same glow she had seen earlier, and were connected by blue streaks that traveled throughout the front and back of the man's forearm. Other than that, it was covered in a strange material red in color, giving it a design that nearly looked reptilian.

She attempted to remove the bizarre gauntlet to make him feel less uncomfortable. But for some reason, the armor wouldn't come off. No matter how much she pulled at it, the gauntlet refused to budge, it was like as if it was his actual arm.

She paused for a moment when that thought came into mind, before letting out a stifled laugh. Yeah, like as if such a thing exists.

Giving up on trying to remove the strange armor, she put his other arm over her shoulder and hoisted him up.

"don't worry, sir. Once I take you back to Mondstadt, you'll be as right as rain" she assured, before making her journey back to the city. Surprisingly, carrying him was a piece of cake, she's never met anyone this light before.

"Lady, can you let go of me? It's getting difficult to walk here"

Amber stopped abruptly when she heard that voice, turning her head to see the young man giving her a blank stare. She would've jumped from her spot, had it not for the young man's weight pressing against her.

"O-oh! Sorry!" She quickly apologized, finally letting go of his arm. She watched as he did some stretching, hearing his sighs of contentment with every audible pop!

"The ground's a pain to sleep on..." He muttered, loosening the joints on his shoulder. "Hopefully, once I reach the city, I'll find a good bed..."

He then stopped to face the outrider, before giving her a strange look. She instinctively took a step back when she saw the young man's expression. Why was he staring at her like that?

Her answer was revealed when the stranger suddenly ripped off the hem of his cloak, before presenting the torn fabric to the outrider.

"Um... what-"

"You're bleeding" the young man said bluntly, gesturing to the side of her head. Amber then moved her hand to that exact spot, before her hand suddenly flinched from the searing pain. She realized she had sustained an injury when she crashed onto that tree earlier, and now quite a bit of blood had been trickling down her cheek.

"Oh, it's no big deal!" She assured, mustering up a smile. "Honestly, it would've been more surprising if I got off unscathed"

Despite that, the young man still stood there, holding the torn fabric right in front of her. He was going to be stubborn about it, was he?

Still, he was doing a kind gesture, so might as well accept it with grace.

"Sorry about the cloak though" She said, wrapping the fabric around her head.

"Eh, it's no big deal," the man shrugged. "Honestly, if my old man saw this, he'd probably say the tear adds character. Well, that or he'd be annoyed that I helped a stranger..."

"Well, we can fix that!" Amber laughed, before stretching her hand towards him. "I'm Amber"

The man just stood there, staring blankly at her hand. Seeing this, the outrider cleared her throat conspicuously, snapping the young man out of his thoughts.

"This is the part where you introduce yourself next" she mentioned, emphasizing by shaking her outstretched hand.

"Oh, right" he spoke, before finally taking her hand in his own.

"You can call me... Angelo"

AN: first chapter of the remake, but I feel neither accomplished, or disappointed. In honest truth, unlike with my FE fanfic where I had planned since I deleted the original run, this just feels really strange for me.

That aside, I got three things to say:

1. know that it's definitely for aesthetic reasons, but it always seems strange to me that every playable bow-oriented character in genshin never had a quiver with them. Then again, in a world of (elemental) magic and monsters, it wouldn't be wrong to assume they have some semblance of magic every time they nock an arrow out of nowhere. So here's my interpretation of the whole thing in the fic. And if you guys don't like it, I can always take the chapter down and rewrite it.

2. Regarding the previous iteration of the story, I've realized that there were a considerable amount of problems that didn't help my story at all. Because when I tried to write the next chapter, I kept getting cockblocked by my own story. Hopefully, as I continue writing, the problems would be fixed.

3. This is mainly just a concept I wanted to explore, but I've always kinda believed that the way people are what they are were mainly because of the environment they grew up in (like in the Deadly Fortune novel, Nero was constantly bullied by the other orphans because they kept claiming that his mom was a prostitute, which might've been the reason why he's sometimes rough around the edges). And because the previous fic dictates that Nero grew up with someone like Ei as his mom, and, to an extent, his dad not essentially being absent in his life. How different would he have been compared to his canon counterpart?

Would he have been cockier? Would he have been calmer? Would he have mimicked some of his parents' behavior and habits like other kids do? (Maybe that's just me, idk bout you guys). Or perhaps nothing really changes, and that he'd still the same foul-mouthed, asshole of a punk we all know and love.

to conclude my talk, did anyone find out the little thing relating to Nero's alias? If you did, I'm probably laughing by now.