"We will head out first then."
Amber, Kaeya, and Lisa left the Knights of Favonius headquarters in their usual crisp, efficient fashion.
Naturally, the one staying behind in Mondstadt was the Acting Grand Master, Jean. To suppress the Fatui envoy, you needed not only strength, but enough authority.
"Jensen, you should be familiar with the Temples of the Four Winds, right?" Jean asked.
"Yeah, I know where they are."
Jensen nodded.
He had not paid much attention to their exact positions before, but while fighting Stormterror in the sky earlier, he had seen three glowing locations on the land below and committed them to memory.
"Then I will entrust Amber and the others' safety to you."
"Relax."
Jensen waved a hand.
Lumine looked back once at the Acting Grand Master, who was leaning against her desk, deep in thought, then followed Jensen out. They walked side by side.
"Jensen, what exactly are the Temples of the Four Winds?"
Lumine tilted her head up slightly as she asked. Her voice was soft and sweet, pleasant to the ears.
"Yeah, yeah, what were they talking about just now? It sounded like a bunch of secret code."
Paimon scrambled up to perch on top of his head.
"Just what it sounds like," Jensen said, grabbing her down again. "They are temples guarded by the Four Winds. The North Wind Wolf, the West Wind Eagle, the South Wind Lion, and the East Wind Dragon. They were once the four great powers that guarded Mondstadt."
"The four great powers that guarded Mondstadt?"
Paimon floated out of his grip, frowning slightly. "If that is the case, then why can Stormterror use their power to destroy Mondstadt?"
"Do you remember what Jean and Lisa called those temples just now, before mentioning them?" Jensen asked back.
"The phrase before...? Uh..."
Paimon sank into visible agony. Thinking clearly was not her strong suit.
"Abandoned?"
Lumine tried.
"Right."
Jensen nodded. "Since they have been abandoned, that means no one is guarding them. In that situation, someone else taking advantage of them is not strange at all, is it?"
"I see."
Lumine nodded in understanding, then asked, "Are we heading over now?"
"Are you tired, Lumine?" he asked.
"I am fine."
"Do you want to change clothes?"
Jensen glanced at her skirt, which now had a few torn strips missing thanks to her emergency bandaging.
The tips of Lumine's ears, peeking out from under her hair, turned red.
She tugged the remaining fabric over the exposed areas as best she could.
"We are heading straight into an adventure anyway. I will change after we are done," she said.
Out in the wild, scrapes and tears like this were completely normal. When it was just her and Paimon, she never bothered. But with Jensen here as well, she felt a bit shy.
"Then let us go."
Jensen went back by Good Hunter first, picked up a spare Wind Glider, jumped out the window, and they headed toward the city gate together.
Mondstadt was still shrouded in dark clouds and storm winds. Leaves and trash swirled everywhere, and little Timmie who usually fed the pigeons on the bridge was nowhere to be seen. But after they had walked a short distance beyond the gate, the weather turned bright again.
When they looked back, they could still see Mondstadt wrapped in a mass of chaotic Anemo.
It felt like a completely different world from the outside.
In the distance, they soon spotted Amber standing in front of the entrance to some ruins.
A fire red elemental symbol was carved into the stone door.
Amber jumped and waved. "Jensen, Lumine, over here!"
"I already did a preliminary scouting of the temple," she called.
"How is it?" Jensen asked.
"This is the Temple of the West Wind Eagle. There should only be some hilichurls and slimes inside," Amber reported.
"There are monsters like that inside a temple?" Lumine was a little surprised.
"Well, it is an abandoned temple now, so it is not that strange," Paimon said, parroting the explanation she had just learned.
"Then it should be easy to deal with," Lumine said.
She had already fought slimes in the wild, and before entering the city she had helped Amber clear out a hilichurl camp.
"Can you feel it? The wind here is a bit strange. The dragon's power is still affecting this place," Amber urged. "Let us hurry in."
"Alright."
Jensen nodded and pressed his hand to the door.
Anemo surged out. The door that had previously been glowing with a red elemental mark was instantly filled by the wind's energy. It swung inward on its own, revealing a mechanism corridor beyond, with another sealed gate blocking the way.
In the corner of that mechanism gate, a control console jutted from the wall, slanting toward them.
Jensen walked over and channeled elemental power into it with practiced ease. With a heavy rumbling sound, the mechanism gate lifted open.
They filed in one after another.
"There, that should be the heart of the temple."
From the platform, Amber pointed toward a high point in the distance, more than a hundred meters up.
"Whoa, that high? How are we supposed to get there?" Paimon fretted.
"Let us get closer first. Since it is a proper temple, there has to be a way up," Amber said.
She drew her bow. Pyro gathered along the arrow, and she loosed it toward a thicket of dry thorny vines blocking the path.
The flames caught instantly and raced through the brush, leaving only ash behind moments later.
"Come on."
Amber took the lead.
Along the way, they ran into more of those dry thorn hedges. After burning them down, the thick Pyro lingering in the air only grew stronger, which Amber happily drew on as fuel.
"Get down."
As they turned a corner, she dropped her voice and made a hand signal to crouch.
Below the platform, three hilichurls were wandering back and forth, crudely armed with clubs and shields. They did not seem to have noticed the intruders yet.
Jensen swept his gaze over them, and the hilichurls' information automatically surfaced in his mind.
Lv9, Lv9, Lv10.
As for their side, Lumine Lv2, Amber Lv3, Jensen Lv9.
Just because there was a level gap did not mean the fight was unwinnable. It just meant they needed technique.
Amber, for example, had already quietly pulled out Baron Bunny.