The Adventures of a Mushroom | Genshin x Child!Reader

Chapter 35: Deal with the Devil

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

Your fingers tightened around the Holy Lyre, and you forced yourself to walk towards Lumine. Now that you were actually here, it was real. This was the same person who had killed Miss Whopperflower and countless others in cold blood. She could kill you, too, and that alone made you want to turn and run, if it weren't for the hope within you...

[You... you're back to meddle.]

Ignoring Lumine, you stepped to the cliff edge. You touched Albedo's flower. For a second, you thought you heard voices of the past speaking to you, the memories of a thousand songs filling your fingers with a tingling thrum.

Then silence, like the silence before the orchestra begins to play.

You pulled the first string on the lyre, expecting an out-of-tune twang. Instead, a sweet clear note sang through the air.

One moment he wasn't there, the next he was. Where land and sky met, an impossible precipice for the foolish and the brave, Dvalin descended, talons outstretched like a butterfly about to alight on a leaf. Each wingbeat gusted you back, turning the grass into a rippling sea of sun-warmed green. Yet the sky roiled with clouds, sunbeams peeking through as though the weather couldn't make up its mind.

Your fingers moved on their own to the right places on the Lyre, like an invisible hand was guiding you. When you had finished playing, the melody remained in your heart.

"You... who are you?" inquired the dragon in a low, curious voice. "You are not Barbatos."

You opened your mouth to reply, but a new voice interjected. A strange, furry creature with rabbit ears and a mask appeared, giggling gleefully behind the dragon's wing.

"Is it not obvious? Your so-called friend has tricked you. Lured you here, to be slain by these mortals. Do you not see her sword?" Disdainfully, the creature gestured towards Lumine.

Dvalin's roar sent you tumbling through the air. The Lyre slipped from your grasp and shattered into pieces. "You would betray me in such a way, Barbatos?"

"Yes, yes! Let your wrath fester," cheered the creature. Turning its gaze to you, it snarled, "The time has come for the dragon to serve its true master... while you bewail your pathetic selves, and watch the world tremble in fear!"

With a final blast of wind, the dragon and the creature flew off, leaving you, Lumine, and the three exhausted knights to stare at each other in awkward silence.

"So... nice weather today," you began.

"(Y/N)! Get out of here! Get—" Amber fell silent at a single look from Lumine. Kaeya said nothing, only glared at Lumine with hatred.

Lumine's glittering eyes studied you for a moment.

[I'm tired of you always ruining my immersion. Who are you? What are you? A dev at Hoyoverse?]

"A question for a question. We each get three. No fighting, just the truth as you know it." Your voice was surprisingly steady as you pulled out the artifact Venti had given you. "If you agree, swear it on Rex Lapis."

[Fine, it's a deal. I swear on Rex Lapis. And at the end of the three questions? What if I just kill you?]

"You won't."

[Why not?]

"Kaeya, Amber, and Lisa won't let you."

[You think they can stop me? I can just take control of them.]

It's like I thought, but I had to confirm it just in case.

[Now, for my first question: who are you?]