Genshin Isekai With Homies [Ao3 Crosspost]

Chapter 10: Part XXV - Operation Spy x Homies

A tribe of odd hilichurls bumbles a cart with a tiny 2-eyed samachurl sitting in it, up and down the hallway. Each toll in and out of the rooms, humming to "Don't be suspicious" and grabbing too many things from each room each time.

Sometimes, other hilichurls would pass by, like right now, and the guard hilichurl would go like,

"Hi, Steve. Nice necklace today." Or "You look nice like flowers." Or "Oh Frank! Meat this morning is good!"

When the hilichurl passes, a white hilichurl with a skirt elbows the talkative hilichurl.

"Yo, that's smooth, Felix."

"Aw thanks, Addy~"

"I can't believe they haven't noticed already," Gui says, opening the oddly moist pyro mask. "It's literally just a mask."

"Must be our luck," James chuckles under his cryo archer mask as Felix pretends to gasp offendedly.

"Klee always believed Bennett!" Klee says. Felix thanks her and she giggles.

"Now all we have to find is that crown..." Felix chuckles and looks up to the endlessly spiraling staircase, reaching into infinity and beyond. He whistles. He's quite sure the mountain outside is not this big.

Crawling through the multitude maze of rooms and doors of the domain akin to a Minecraft cave expedition, they search for the crown. As a precaution from Addy ("This is like one of those spy movies where the big baddy will come exactly when you find the treasure!" she said), the crew exchanged turns to be a pair of scouts while the rest ransacks the loots. The special two are selected through the fairest way: rock-paper-scissors.

The crew blends into the horde of fur and grunts and the chiseling of pickaxes into rocks, echoing through the walls. Fortunately, the abyss-wolf timer has not been triggered, nor the abyss mages has spawned. Yet, Felix can't help but constantly eye the pulsing, rippling void, hovering in the middle of the staircase chamber. Every now and then, low, impatient growls would crawl through, sending shivers up his spine. He hopes their masks also hide their scent too.

It is around Felix's ninth round outside (his friends insisted that he doesn't have to participate, but that's not fair! He has to win once eventually, right?), and he's standing by James when they hit a jackpot. Unlike other cramped holes of a cave with chests barely laid in musty cabbages and straws of wheat, this room is a flippin' hall!

From the tall ceilings hanging multiple chandeliers, wolf statues guarding the walls, and a giant, majestic sculpture of wolf-king Andrius with an altar on the other end homing that sweet mystical vibe, this must be the main ritual hall of a bygone city! But lore-wise this does not make sense... Felix scratches his head. They entered through Dadupa Gorge, the main village of hilichurls, so how could they be in the temple of the Wolf?

Woah, Felix shakes his head at such random trivia. Ah, how he misses YouTube and other big-brain counseling he could find on the Internet! He ruminates as he watches the others rushing into the room.

Beside him, James pokes his head in, eyes glittering in excitement. Felix chuckles,

"You should go in. Nothing'll happened for a while."

James holds back a look of doubt. Ouch .

"I'll take the post," Gui walks up to them. "There's nothing much to see anyways."

James hesitates, then thanks him and gravitates towards the nearest cool-looking weapons hanging on the walls.

"You should go join too," Gui tells Felix and Felix shrugs.

"Nah, I'mma 'kay."

They stand in front of the door while the inside buzzes with excited noises.

They watch as the hilichurls toil up and down the spiraling stairs, clocking in and out of work.