paradoxical | genshin impact

33: runaway prince.

To say everything was plunged into complete chaos was an understatement.

Diluc didn't waste any time getting you transferred to the Winery. He'd even had his employees contact the most learned healers in Mondstadt and Liyue, but none were able to give a proper diagnosis of what exactly was ailing you.

Things only started to mellow down at nightfall, when Diluc had come to terms with the fact that this was something mortal medicine couldn't cure. What's worse was that you still had that Delusion in a death grip so tight that the only way they could remove it was to cut your hand off. You clung onto it like a lifeline, and Diluc couldn't figure out the reason why.

It was a Delusion that took his father from him.

Will he lose you because of one, too?

Right now, your mother was at your bedside—never once uttering a word when she came in earlier. Diluc thought to stay and keep her company, but even if Celia looked as if she knew something about the Delusion in your hand, he elected not to interrogate her about it. At least, not now.

Instead, he managed one last look at your unconscious form before heading back outside.

In the living room, your friends waited for news with bated breath. He'd insisted for Mona and Fischl to stay put until everything was under control. Now that the healers have all left, Diluc supposed it was high time for him to get answers to his many, many questions.

"So are you going to let me know what happened?"

Mona rolls his eyes, putting down the book she picked up from his coffee table. "We were ready to explain the moment we arrived, but someone was rather busy."

"For good reason, obviously," Diluc scoffed. "I couldn't just leave her like that."

"Yes, but treating a curse like a mortal illness is quite foolish, even for you," the astrologer sighed.

While Diluc was quite irritated with her incorrigible attitude, he needed information. So instead of antagonizing his guests further, he seated himself across from them, lacing his fingers in contemplation.

"...What curse is this, exactly?"

Mona pressed her lips together as if hesitating despite her attitude, before turning to Fischl. The adventurer was someone Diluc had never spoken to in the past, but her eccentric reputation preceded her anywhere she went. Right now, though, Fischl looked too spooked to keep up the act.

"It happened about a fortnight ago," she starts, voice trembling with every word. "I was on the prowl for this masked man that's been lurking around Mondstadt. I'd only meant to tail him and nothing else but..."

Diluc raised an eyebrow. "But?"

"I saw Captain Kaeya in our friend's abode. He was...doing something to her—"

"So you were spying on her apartment?"

The young girl's face turned red with embarrassment. "I-I would never do such deplorable things! As I have mentioned, my mission was simply to snuff out a villain looming in the shadows! I did not at all expect the Cavalry Captain to curse her!" She accompanied the words by demonstrating what she saw—placing her palm over Mona's head to reenact what she saw.

"When he came out of our friend's residence, Captain Kaeya also spoke to the masked man I was hunting down...as if they knew each other." Fischl's voice dropped into a low whisper. "Then he disappeared out of thin air; even Ozvald was stunned by this.

"I planned to follow the masked stranger before he could escape as well, but when he sensed my presence, he attacked me with an invisible force. I couldn't see it at first, but after I was hit, these...dark pulses of magic suddenly appeared out of nowhere." The blonde heaved a shuddering breath before meeting Diluc's somber gaze. "The malicious aura that's plaguing our friend does not look so different from that dark magic I saw."