Episode 1: Mona Megistus
"AAAAAARRRRGGHHHH! WHY IS THIS THING DOESN'T WORK? I THOUGHT THAT OLD GEEZER TOLD ME IT WILL IMPROVE MY DIVINATION!"
Inside of a certain apartment in Mondstadt, a young woman with a petite stature and purple-ish twin tailed hairs, angrily threw a spherical object at the wall of her apartment, causing it to shatter in pieces. The woman panted heavily before she tried to calm her anger as she slumped to the floor while covering her face in dismay.
"I used up all of my saving and sold all my other divination tools to buy this thing. How am I supposed to pay this month rent now?" The woman wept on the floor as tears started rolling out from her eyes.
This woman was Mona Megistus. She was an Astrologist hailed from a world called Teyvat. And in case you don't know, Teyvat was the world where the game called Genshin Impact took place and Mona was one of the playable characters in the game.
Mona might mostly be depicted as poor character, but she actually earned quite amount of money from her job as a writer. It's just that she has this rather bad habit of spending most of her money for anything related to divination, leaving her little to no money for her own basic needs.
It's always a headscratcher on how she was still be able to live with such lifestyle, but it's not like the dev was even care to explore more the characters daily life anyway, they won't even do it to the more popular characters than Mona.
Anyway, as Mona was crying on the floor, a very bright light suddenly appeared inside of her apartment, catching her attention.
"What is that?" Mona muttered to herself as she witnessed the light dissipated, revealing what it seems to be a double glass door with the word "Entrance" above it.
Mona began to rise back to her feet as she dusted herself for a second before she carefully approached the door. The glass door suddenly opened by itself as Mona was just about an inch from it, revealing a rather ominous looking rainbow coloured portal swirling in front of her. Mona went around the door to see it from behind, but was left utterly confused when the door and the gate was disappeared. It only appeared again when Mona was looking at the door from the front side.
"Interesting, it's only visible from here…I wonder where this portal leads to…" Mona spoke as she was assuming a thinking pose while contemplating whether or not she should walk into the portal.
Mona first thought was to perform a divination firsthand during a situation like this as a precaution, but then she remembered she had broken her ONLY divination equipment out of pure rage because it doesn't work as she expected.
Her rational thought screamed at her to ignore this portal or maybe even tried to seal it, but her curiosity nudged her to take the risk and found out what's behind the ominous portal.
Mona's hand then reached for her hat and took it off, revealing a small pouch sitting above her head. She picked the pouch, opened it and pulled out a single golden coin which was none other than Mora, the currency in the world of Teyvat.
The coin has two sides of number and a logo.
(CHIIIIINGG)
Mona flipped the coin, the coin flipped numerous times in the air before it landed on Mona's palm.
The logo was the one on top.
Mona sighed before she put the coin back into her pouch, placed it above her head before putting on her witch styled hat again.
Fixing her hat for a moment, Mona took a deep breath before she encouraged herself and bravely walked into the portal
And then, her vision turned into the world of white.
Mona was left speechless at the sight that greeted her when entered that ominous portal.
She was expecting the portal would take her to some hillicurl camps, or some monster nests, or even straight to the Abyss for all she knew. She wasn't expecting ended up being in what it seems to be a marketplace, a huge and fancy one at that.
The marketplace was full of many stores that selling all kinds of things. She recalled even Liyue Harbor wasn't this stacked when it comes to the amount of store it has. The marketplace also seems to be more crowded than Liyue Harbor during the Lantern Rite Festival. Aside from human, she saw many species that she has never seen before, ranging from a humanoid animal to what it seems to be a massive blob of sentient slime.
Mona eyes were looking around the marketplace until her eyes landed on a formal looking woman with lime coloured hair who seems to be the employee in this market place.
The woman's eyes met with Mona's as the woman behind the counter waved her hand while wearing a polite smile on her face. Mona then began to head towards the counter.
=Scene shift=
Alina Gray, the manager of the Multiversal General Store, was leaning on her chair with her legs stretching on the counter. Both of her hands were holding her smartphone as she was seen to be playing some game on it.
The lime haired woman frantically tapping the screen of her phone with both of her thumbs as she inputted the command on her characters to unleash series of random bullshit combo upon the enemies.
The team she used were nowhere near considered being a meta team and it was even a pretty mismatched team with characters that shouldn't be working well gameplay wise. Most of the meta characters in the game she was currently playing weren't appeal her and only a few that did.
No, the team consisted of some of the characters that she founds appealing, one of them being her genuine favourite.
Alina was currently farming for some equipment's, or artifacts in this case, to build the character that she obtained from the gacha few months ago. Yes, there was gacha in the game she was playing, but she rarely felt the urge to spend any money on it. Money was never a problem as Alina was filthy rich after all. It just that she didn't feel like it except during rate-up of her favourite characters.
After finishing the combat section, she then went ahead to collect the rewards. Alina clicked her tongue in annoyance when she didn't get the relics that she wanted. Grinding was inevitable in most games, she understood that as much. But damn the chance of getting the perfect relic was lower than getting a 5 stars character in a single pull.
"Oh yeah, I almost reached pity on my rolls." Alina said to no one in particular as she entered the gacha menu.
She checked on her gacha pull history and saw that she was indeed, almost reaching the pity number. Alina closed the pull history menu before she chose on which limited banner to pull before tapping on the screen to do a single 10 pulls.
Gold gacha animation appeared, indicating that she will get something with 5 stars rarity.
Said 5 stars rarity was a character that she has obtained a couple of time before.
"Goddammit Mona, not now." Alina snapped in annoyance at her phone as she got her third copy of Mona.
It's not like Alina dislike this character, quite the contrary as Mona was one of the reasons why she played the game in the first place because of her design and her ultimate move were the coolest in the game. It's just that it was always annoying whenever she failed to get the 5 stars that was not in the rate-up.
Mona being one of her favourite characters in the game didn't lessen the annoyance of losing 50/50 in the slightest.
(DING DONG)
The entrance bell suddenly rang which was a sign of a customer has entered her store.
"Oh, speak of the devil…" Alina muttered to herself as she witnessed the very game character that she just pulled in the gacha has visited her store.
This was not a surprise to Alina.
Mona was hardly the first fictional character who has visited the Multiversal General Store and she surely wouldn't be the last either. The thing is, Alina knew that Mona has little to no money on her person, so she can already see where this is going.
Alina observed that Mona seems to be confused or in awestruck, most likely both. This must be the first time she visiting her store. Heck, Mona also wasn't even the first Genshin Impact character that has visited her humble store.
Alina quickly logged out the game she was playing as she put her phone back in her pocket. It would be catastrophic if she found out that she was actually a game character. The last time someone finding out that they were just some fictional characters designed by an ordinary human, they suffered a very severe existential crisis.
There are some that took it very well however, eve couple of them being the characters from Genshin Impact.
When their gazes met with each other, Alina just put up a polite smile while waving at her to come here. Mona was still visibly hesitated before she seeming decided to comply.
"Good evening, ma'am. I'm Alina Gray, the owner of this place. How may I help you today?" The lime haired woman stood to her feet as she professionally greeted Mona when the latter was in front of the counter.
"Ah yes…" Mona began as her eyes roamed around the shopping centre. "…What is this place exactly? I can clearly see that this place is some sort of marketplace, but I feels like there is more than meet the eye about this place."
"Indeed, this place is called the Multiversal General Store. As the name implied, this place is connected to many different universes through the gate that autonomously spawned in said universes." Alina summarized it to Mona who has the look of astonished on her face.
"I believe a gate suddenly appeared right in front you, correct?" The store owner asked Mona and she replied with a numb nod of confirmation. "The gate only appeared to the people who are in need of something that they cannot find in their own world. The fact that it appeared before you meaning that you are in need of something that only my store can provide."
"Incredible." Mona whispered in amazement as she assumed a thinking. "Indeed, I have been looking for a perfect tool for my divination practice. However, I have never been satisfied with what I bought back in my world, and the most recent tool I bought made my blood boils that I broke it out of rage."
Mona's face turned sour as she recalled her recent outburst.
"A divination tool huh?" Alina hummed for a second before she reached for the drawer below the counter and pulled it open. She then picked up a flyer and handed it over to Mona. "The Magical Tools section might have what you need, use this to navigate through the store."
Mona took the flyer, examined it for a moment. The flyer was printed in the language she has never seen before, but she can read and understand it for some reasons. She was about to ask the owner about this, but the owner mentioned the word "magic" earlier so Mona assumed it was because of some sort of spell that she can understand this language.
The flyer has guides for each store and what they were selling, the locations of the stores as well as a map of this marketplace. It also has a chibi image of the owner on the top left of the paper.
Mona thanked the owner before she headed toward the place that the owner suggested with a piece of paper as her guide.
=Scene shift=
It didn't take long for Mona to reach the magical tool section, which kind of surprising since this place was so big that might took her forever.
The Magical Tools section was this eerie looking shop with purple lighting as well as some magical looking weapons being displayed behind the glass. It surely looks so intimidating that Mona began had a second guess of coming inside.
But then she saw a little girl ran out from the store with a very happy looking face and was holding what it looks like to be a magical item.
"Surely this shop isn't that bad if a little girl like her looks so pleased after coming out from it, right?" Mona thought to herself as she preparing herself to step into the scary looking shop.
Mona was greeted by what it seems to be a labyrinth of magical items displayed in endless series of counters and racks. The amounts of items being displayed here was astonishing. It was as if, she was in the library of magic.
"How am I supposed to find what I'm looking for amongst these piles of item?" Mona asked to herself out loud as she began to walk deeper into the shop.
Mona was looking left and right to find anything that has the looks like "divination tools". She found some items that were similar to the one she bought back in Teyvat, but her instinct told her that those items were not the one she was looking for.
Half an hour has passed and Mona still hasn't found the item she desired. She has looked everywhere, every rack she had carefully searched thoroughly. There were some items that piqued her interest, but those items were not a divination tool of some sort.
She starting to doubt it if the perfect divination tool she has been longed for even existed in the first place.
"Perhaps I shouldn't let my temper get the better of me after all." Mona sighed in disappointment as she started to regret smashing her only divination tool earlier today.
Just as she was about to search somewhere else.
(CHING)
That was until something flashed within her mind, triggering her instinct as Astrologist in process.
A dark room on her left that Mona was so sure it wasn't there few seconds ago. There was no lighting inside that room and the purple light that illuminated the shop couldn't penetrate into the room as if there was an invisible barrier blocking it.
The room was creepy and a giant red flag, but Mona instinct insisted her to explore that room.
Mona cautiously approached the room, gulping the saliva that got build up inside her mouth. She took a deep breath one last time before taking a first step into the room.
A pair of candles on each side of the room suddenly being lit on with purple fire the moment Mona took the first step into the room. After making sure it was safe, Mona took another stop into the room. More and more candles were being lit on by their own the deeper Mona stepped into the room.
After what it felt like a minute of walking, Mona suddenly found herself standing in front of a stone altar. The altar has some sort of writing that she wasn't sure what it means. But the Altar itself wasn't the one that caught her attention, rather than the object that was placed on top of it.
A mirror laid on top of the stone altar.
The mirror, for the lack of better word, was pretty mundane looking. A medium sized circular mirror with no ornament. Mona was sure she can find a better looking mirror at Liyue Harbor.
However, Mona's instinct screamed at her that she just found what she has been looking for.
Her hands slowly reached for the mirror, she then slowly touched the mirror on the edge to see if anything will happen. After deeming it's safe to be touched, Mona carefully picked up the mirror from the altar.
Mona carefully examined the mirror, from the back to the front to find anything out of ordinary. Nothing so far that caught her attention about the mirror. She had no idea how to implement this mirror into her divination practice.
"Perhaps I should ask the owner about this thing." Mona spoke as she securely hugged the mirror and began to leave the room. The candle that previously has been lit on were snuffed out one by one as she walked out the dark room.
Mona looked at the mirror again and smiled. She was about to leave until she realized one small problem.
"Where was the exit again?"
=Scene shift=
The printer that was on Alina's counter was printing the receipt for a payment of 5 tons of meat from one of the regular customers. Alina tore the paper from the printer before the receipt to her regular customer.
Said customer was a humanoid lion that stood over 10 ft wearing a spartan outfit which only consisted of a red cape and speedos.
"Thank you for your patronage, King Leonidas." Alina thanked her customer with a polite smile as she gave the receipt to the bipedal lion.
"No problem, owner. Your service is top notch as always." The lion replied in rather deep voice, taking the piece of paper from the store owner as he slung a quite huge wooden crate full of meats over his shoulder before heading towards the exit.
Alina slump on her chair as she let out a tired sigh while trying to relax. She then letting out a yawn and put her palm over her mouth to cover it. She then looked at the people that visited her store today.
"There are less people than the usual, perhaps I should put up a flash sale for certain expensive items to drive them to buy more." Alina hummed to herself as she assuming a thinking pose while rubbing her chin with her finger.
In her store, she placed magical items at quite high price due them being, well, magical in nature. The items possessed various kinds of effects such from for fighting purpose and for daily uses. However, they don't really sell quite well, even to those who came from the worlds where magic was very common. They were also those who came from the worlds where magic was nothing but a fiction, who showed great interests in her magical items, but most of them couldn't even hope to afford it.
"Nah, cutting the prize for those items wouldn't work, they are just too valuable. I will lose more money than I can make in long run." Alina shook her head while she was thinking about another alternative to attract more customer.
But her train of thought was interrupted when she noticed Mona was walking towards her counter while holding a magical item that she recognized really well.
"Hey, isn't that?...I see, the mirror is calling for her. It must be reacting to Mona's profession being an Astrologist." Alina thought to herself when Mona was finally right in front of her. "Although she will be disappointed in the end."
"Excuse me owner, could you tell me more about this item? I feels like this is the perfect tool that I have been searching all these years" Mona asked as she gently placed the mirror on top of the counter.
"You got really good instinct for finding this mirror. It is, indeed, a perfect tool for your divination practice." Alina the pressed her index finger on the mirror before make a diagonal line across the surface of the mirror.
What happened next caught Mona completely off guard.
The whole surrounding suddenly began to shift as if reality itself got twisted into a swirling vortex, leaving only her, Alina, and the counter where the mirror was placed, within the endless void of pitch black space.
"W-W-W-W-What is this?" The native from Teyvat was left speechless at the sudden change of surrounding as she gasped in pure shock.
Not long after, an endless amounts of light orbs materialized within the void space, surrounded both the Astrologist and the shop owner. Within each one of these light orbs, contained an endless amount of dots that were connected by equally endless amounts of lines that both existed parallel and adjacent to each other.
"What you are seeing right at this moment…is the visual representation of the Multiverse." Alina spread out her arms wide flamboyantly, earning another shocked look from Mona. "There are literally infinite amounts of them. Each one of these light orbs, contains their own multiverse, consisted of infinite amounts of timelines that existed both parallel and adjacent to each other."
Alina then pointed her finger at the ordinary looking mirror on the counter while letting out a half grin which caused chill ran through Mona's spine.
"This mirror is called the Mirror of Kaleidoscope. And by using this little trinket right here, one can have full observation of the entire Multiverse. Past, present, or future, all can be observed with 100% accuracy."
Mona's body was visibly shaking as if she was on the verge of having orgasm when the store owner delivered the explanation of this tool's function to her. If everything that the store owner said were true, then this ordinary looking mirror was indeed, the perfect tool for her.
Heck, with this tool, Mona will no longer needs any teaching from Barbeloth, her teacher who taught everything Mona knew about divination.
"Let me demonstrate it for you." Alina began before her left hand was reaching for one of the nearby light orb. "Judging by that Hydro Vision on your back, I believe you are from Teyvat correct. It's been a while since I've been there."
Mona ignored the fact that the store owner had been in Teyvat before and just nodded numbly. She was just too eager to see the demonstration of the tool to even care about such thing.
The Teyvatian saw Alina poked her index finger into the light orb, causing the light orb to suddenly expand and engulfed both Mona and Alina. The surrounding began to change from the scenery of endless light orb to the scenery of endless dots connected by lines.
Alina then pressed her finger onto one of the lines from the endless choices available, causing the surrounding began to twisted into a vortex before it shifted back, creating a completely new scenery.
Without her realizing, Mona found herself was standing right in the middle of a tomato field. The field was quite big and was ready to be harvested. and there was a rather modest looking house in the distance. But what caught Mona's attention was the person who was currently harvesting those tomato right in front of her right now.
Right in front of her, Mona witnessed a girl who looks exactly like her, was harvesting the tomato into a basket that she was carrying on her hands while dressing in a pretty modest looking clothing befitting of a farmer.
No, deep down, the Astrologist knew that the girl in front of her, was also named Mona.
"This is one of the alternate timelines where you didn't not pursue the path of Astrologist and decided to become a humble farmer instead." Alina stated as she just silently watched Mona approached her farmer-self. Her hand reached out to touch the girl, but it just went through the farmer girl without harming either of them.
Alina then swept her hand to the side and the scenery instantly disappeared, replaced by the endless series of lines again. Alina just went ahead and pressed her finger on a different line that existed parallel above the one she chose earlier, causing the surrounding shifted yet again.
This time, it turned into the scenery of some dark alleyway in the snowy town.
Mona saw a brown haired woman dressed in purple outfit was tied up on both of her legs and arms, her mouth has also been tapped to prevent her from screaming. Mona instantly recognized the woman as Lisa, the librarian of Knight of Favonius she usually met whenever the Astrologist visited the library in the Knight of Favonius Headquarter.
Mona was wondering why she was seeing this before she noticed another figure covered in black cloak was menacingly approached the librarian, who looks quite terrified as she evidently trashed around to free herself.
Mona began to feel horrified herself when she saw the figure straddled Lisa on her legs, holding up a pair of scissors on each hand before jammed it into the tied up woman's stomach, causing her to let out a muffled scream.
"It's useless, you cannot intervene no matter how much you try." Alina spoke out with a rather apathetic tone when she saw Mona was attempting to intervene the crime in front of them.
Mona ignored the store owner and kept trying anyway as she panicky activated her Vision and launched a hydro attack towards the cloaked figure.
Just like last time, the attack went through the person in this viewing without harming them.
The cloaked figure kept jamming their scissors again, and again, and again, into Lisa's stomach who kept letting out a muffled scream of agony while tears rolled out from her eyes like a water fall. Her body spasmed for a few more seconds before it went limp over her own pool of bloods as she finally died with her eyes rolled open.
Mona just stood there helplessly and horrified as she just witnessed a murder right in front of her.
But what happened next was even more horrifying to her.
The figure pulled down the cloak cover their head, revealing a familiar twin tailed hairstyle.
The murderer…was none other than Mona, or rather, another alternate version of her.
"This is the timeline where you ended up become a serial killer that has been terrorized Teyvat for decades." Alina stated as Mona was seen frozen in shock at the sight before her.
Alina decided that she had seen enough and dismissed the scenery back to the previous one with a swept of a hand.
"As you have just witnessed, the Mirror of Kaleidoscope can observe any timeline of the users choosing." Alina explained as her hand then scrolled back of the earlier points of the two timeline she pressed beforehand until at the point where both timelines met at an intersection. "Not only that, it also can observe the divergent point of what makes timelines are different from each other." Alina pressed her finger again on the point where both lines were connected.
Mona witnessed as the scenery changed yet again. But this time were a bit different.
There were actually two of them now, both were seemingly separated from each other by an invisible border. However, both have the same starting point.
It was the sights of child Mona, happily buying some groceries at a market.
"Keep in mind, the one on the left is the timeline of serial killer Mona while the one right is the farmer one." Alina stated as both of them keep watching the observation with Mona paying more attention to it.
The scenes kept playing out the same on both sides, they were both showing little Mona bought the same items with the same amount. There was no distinguishable difference that makes both timeline different from each other.
Until it happened during the part where both Mona were about to leave the market.
The little Mona who will later become a serial killer suddenly stopped walking and noticed a coin just laid there on the ground. She looked around before immediately took the coin and stuffed it into her pocket before leaving the market.
The little Mona who was fated to become a farmer however, never noticed the coin and just left the market without picking it up with her.
Mona, once again, was left speechless at what she just witnessed.
"That's it? That's what caused such differences?" Mona felt her head was spinning from the heavy load of information she just obtained.
In all of Mona's divination knowledge taught by her teacher, it required some heavy changes to shift one person's fate into a different one, even so that was doable from what her teacher had taught her.
What she just witnessed now, completely shattered everything she believes about divination. She just couldn't fathom such insignificant occurrences can literally and drastically change someone's fate. But the evidence was clear right in front of her.
Years of knowledges that she had accumulated, all went to the drain in one single visit to a marketplace.
Alina deemed that the demonstration was enough before she swept her hand one last time to revert the surrounding back to her store. The store owner witnessed Mona seems to have some existential crisis after what she just shown to the Teyvatian.
Alina let Mona to gather herself up for a minute. The Astrologist was still gasping as if she was desperately in need for oxygen, her body was sweating and shaking due to the shock. She balled her fists tightly that it would draw some bloods anytime soon.
After a while, Mona finally was able to get her composure back.
"I will take it…I will take this mirror." Mona spoke to the store owner with conviction in her eyes. "How much is it?"
Alina just stared at her with a blank look on her face before she rested her head on her hand.
.
.
.
.
"I'm afraid this item is not for sale." Alina responded with equally blank tone after a moment of silent has passed.
Mona was taken back at this as she physically reeled back with wide eyes.
"What? why?" The Teyvatian asked both confusedly and desperately.
"Considering what this mirror is capable of, I just feels like it would be a loss for me no matter how much price I put on this thing." Alina picked up the mirror before twirled it on her finger like a basketball. "Even if you offers me all the Mora from the Golden House in Liyue, it would still nowhere near be enough."
Mona's mood went from disappointed to irritated.
"If it's not for sale, then why did you put it in the store for me to find?" Mona agitatedly asked as she balled up her fists.
"I didn't. I was pretty sure I put it in a separate room from the other items. But it seems it wasn't separated enough." Alina replied calmly despite the rising anger from Mona. She then quit twirling the mirror and placed it on the counter again.
Alina was Mona's body was shaking as if she was about to erupt like a volcano. The store owner couldn't see her eyes as they were shadowed by her witch styled hat.
.
.
.
.
"…what should I do?"
"Hmmm?" The store owner raised an eyebrow when she heard Mona was whispering something.
"Tell me what should I do for you to give me the mirror! I will do anything you want, I will give you anything you want." The Astrologist desperately begged to the store owner.
"I'm afraid you don't have anything to offer me." Alina replied, still with the blank tone.
Mona then did the unthinkable. She backed a few feet away from the counter before she went down on her knee and then grovelled in front of the counter. Her head was so low that it threatened to sink into the floor anytime soon.
The proud Astrologist just effectively threw away all of the pride she has.
"Please…tell me what should I do? How many sacrifices do I have to offer you? Do I have to offer you my soul as well?" Mona was on the verge of crying as her forehead kept kissing the floor.
Alina just blankly stared at the grovelling Astrologist for a moment before letting out a sigh. She then pulled her chair closer before sat on it and strolled toward the computer.
"Get up!"
It was more of an order than a request and Mona seems to heard it and complied without question.
Mona witnessed the store owner was working on something on a device that she had never seen before. Her fingers were tapping onto the series of button as her gaze was focused on the rectangular screen in front of her. After pressed Enter, the printer was printing something.
"Read it carefully before deciding!" Alina spoke as she handed Mona the paper. Mona took it without question before reading what's in the paper.
Geis Contract
Binding Magecraft: Target - Mona Megistus
The power of Geis Contract hereby command: Provided that the following conditions are met, this oath shall become a commandment and bind the target without exception.
Oath:
To the resident of Teyvat, the illustrious Astrologist, Mona Megistus: Shall be able to fulfil every Request that Alina Gray demands and always be ready to be at her disposal at any given time.
Condition:
Transfer the ownership over the Mirror of Kaleidoscope to Mona Megistus.
Penalty:
Should the oath is failed to be fulfilled, the target of this contract shall have her ownership over the Mirror of Kaleidoscope shall be revoked and shall be returned to the previous owner. Additionally, all of her knowledges regarding divination shall be effectively erased and the target shall never be able to regain it by any possible methods. Lastly, the target shall also lose all of her affection towards anything related to divination and shall never be able to regain it by any possible methods.
Mona was visibly frozen in place when she finished reading the contract. Alina Gray wasn't sugarcoating it, it was downright a slavery contract with no specify an end date. For the perfect divination tool that she has been longed for years, the price Mona must pay was her lifetime servitude towards the store owner.
And the penalty for failing to fulfil the contract…Any other person might think the penalty wasn't that severe.
But not for Mona.
Divination was the very thing that molded Mona Megistus into, well, Mona Megistus. It was her whole existence, the path of pursuing divination was what defined her as a person. She had witnessed two examples of what she could have become, and while both of them have the same face and name, those two examples were NOT and will NEVER be her.
Losing her knowledges regarding divination and her affections toward the art was a fate worse than death.
"Where do I sign?" Mona asked the store owner with fiery determination in her eyes.
"Smears your blood all over your thumbs and the pressed it at the bottom of the page with your name on it. Makes sure the thumb isn't covered by any piece of clothing." The store owner simply responded.
Mona did as she was told. She bit the back of her thumb, making sure her glove wasn't in the way, smeared bloods all over it before stamped it on the part where her name was printed in the contract.
Alina took the paper from Mona, inspected it carefully before nodding her head in confirmation. She then slides the Mirror to Mona.
"The mirror is yours." Alina finally spoke a she gestured Mona to picked up her prize.
Mona gently collected the mirror that costed her, her freedom and cradled it as if she was cradling a fragile infant.
"What do you want me to do?" Mona asked quietly.
"None at the moment, you're free to go and do whatever you want until I have some errands for you. Wait for my call, it could be months or even years later." Alina said without looking as she stuffed the contract into the drawer beneath the counter.
"Call?" Mona asked confusedly, causing the store owner to look at her before realization struck her.
"Ah yes, hold up for a moment…" Alina hand was reaching towards another drawer, pulled it open and the rummaged into it while looking for something. Few seconds later, she pulled out a small rectangle object and hand it over to Mona. "…This thing is called Smartphone, its main purpose is to communicate over long distance. This one in particular works even if the other end is in another multiverse altogether."
Mona widened her eyes in another surprising day at the explanation. She just received the device without question while also staring at it curiously. The object was seemingly made of light metal with some sort of glass on the surface.
"It also has other additional functions such as music player, video player, Camera for taking picture and recording vide. It also has something called Internet which is basically a heavily upgraded Akasha Terminal where you can find various of information online. You can also play some games with it, I think I might have installed some in that phone."
Mona just nodded numbly at the information dumped provided by Alina.
She bowed slightly towards her new master before excusing herself and making her way towards the exit.
Mona was standing right in front of the similar portal that took her here before looking back at the store owner once again and entered the swirling rainbow portal to leave the marketplace.
When she came out from the swirling portal, Mona found herself back in her apartment in Mondstadt. She looked back towards the portal to see it become translucent before disappearing completely from her sight.
Mona let out the heaviest sigh she released today before making her way towards her bend and jumped straight into it. She let herself sank into the mattress while still cradling her new mirror and this "smartphone" her new master gave her.
"What am I doing?" Mona whispered to no one in particular as she was recalling of what had happened to her in the past few hours.
What it was supposed to be just an ordinary day conducting a divination experiment turned into a literal life changing day in just one visit to a marketplace. In return of getting the very thing that she always wanted for years, Mona had to give up her independence to a woman she just met for a few hours.
The whole fiasco was just utterly ridiculous, Mona genuinely thought even if she had performed divination beforehand, she still will not see this coming.
(BZZZZZZZZZZZT) (BZZZZZZZZZZZT)
"WAAAAAAH!"
Mona was startled when she felt something vibrated and also letting out some noises few times. She hurriedly jumped off the bed, was on the verge of activating her Vision, but stopping midway when she saw the rectangular device that Alina gave her lit up.
Mona picked the device with her right hand, saw a series of numbers and the name "Alina Gray" on the screen as well as some animated images and an instruction in Teyvatian language to use her finger to receive the call.
Mona did as she was instructed, sweeping the green image with her left index finger.
"Hello? Can you hear my voice?" A voice that was resembled Alina but a bit more synthetic, was heard coming out from the device.
"Umm, yes…I can hear you." Mona answered hesitantly, still not sure what to make of this situation.
"Good. That means that the phone is working. I will send you text message next, reply me whenever you figure out how to use smartphone. Have fun with your new toys."
And with that, the call ended.
"To be able to strike a conversation across the multiverse with this device? What an advance technology the owner has." Mona was staring at the small device in awe.
(Blip)
A blipping noise was heard, the phone was lit up again. Revealing a text bubble with a message in it.
Alina Gray: Have you received the message?
Mona wasn't sure what to do. She did receive the message but didn't know how to reply. So, she just tapped the message bubble and it suddenly took her to a message menu.
A series of buttons with Teyvatian alphabet appeared.
Mona mouth formed an "o" as she figured out how to reply message. She then replied her master message with a simple answer.
Me: Yes.
After tapping the send button, the message was instantly sent towards the receiver.
Mona then hopped on her bed again and just laid down while limply tossed the smartphone to the side. So much things happened to her that she was just too tired right now to test out her new equipment.
Mona then let slumber consumed her.
=Scene shift=
"She is sure a fast learner."
Alina commented as she slumped on her chair while reading the text message from her new minion on her phone with her left hand. The store owner closed her eyes as she let both hands fell to the sides as she was too, a bit exhausted from the encounter.
"That was surprisingly generous of you." A female voice was heard from behind of where Alina was seating.
Alina also could hear the person was playing some kind of game on her phone. And from the noises the game making, it looks like the person was playing Genshin Impact.
"It was just a spur of the moment thing, there is no deeper meaning about it." Alina denied the woman's claim while still not facing the person directly.
"Oh really…" The woman sarcastically replied. "…The last time you did something out of "spur of the moment", at least couple of thousand timelines from 5 different Multiverses got pruned out of existence."
Alina let out a sigh, she opening her eyes as she spun her chair around to face the person behind her.
"You are still mad about that?" The store owner asked with raised eyebrow and no guilt in her tone.
A familiar looking woman was sitting on the counter while playing Genshin Impact on her phone. Dark purple coloured twin tailed hairstyle, dressed in low cut blue-purple star-themed backless leotard with detached sleeves along with short blue-purple cloak. The outfit was completed by the blue-purple witch hat that she was wearing.
The person…was none other than Mona Megistus herself. Or rather, the FIRST Mona Megistus as well as the FIRST character from Genshin Impact who had visited the Multiversal General store previously and become a regular customer of the store.
And the fact that she was currently playing the game she came from was an obvious statement that she was one of the few visitors here who was aware about her existence being a fictional character from some media entertainment, in this case, a game.
"Not really…" Mona shrugged nonchalantly. "…Thanks to you, I have become so numbs that witnessing the destructions of timelines didn't faze me in the slightest, even if I'm partly responsible for it." Mona replied while she was still focused on the game she was playing.
"I will take that as a complement." Alina responded with a nonchalant shrug.
"But seriously though, what experiment are you cooking right now by giving her that mirror for free?" Mona asked again, still wanting to pry on the subject.
"Just a little quality check to see if that mirror is still functional, it's been sitting in that room for a couple of eons after all. There is no better quality tester exists than the illustrious Teyvat Diviner such as Mona Megistus." Alina answered the question.
Mona paused the game as she stared at Alina with twitched eyebrow.
"Was that a sarcasm that I heard on the last part." It was more of a statement rather than a question. "If you want to hand out that mirror to a capable diviner, Fu Xuan is far more capable for the jobs than some random version of me."
"Fine, I picked her because she was so easy to manipulate, happy now?" The store owner raised her hands. Mona just scoffed a little, but felt no offense as she returned back playing the game.
"Go logs into your account and let me farms Nobushi in your world." Mona demanded the store owner.
"You ran out of them out already?" The store owner raised hey eyebrow, not really surprised as she logged into her account from her phone.
"You and I both know that their mats drop rate are the worst."
To be continued