Falling for You

Chapter 35 - A deal

 "Why would I know someone who randomly invaded someone else's territory?"

 "With your personality, if you didn't know my identity, you would have at least tried to inform Barbatos of my presence." She just laughed.

That's true, but...

 "There' s no way I could notify him from this far away."

 "Why don't you try biting your finger then? I bet he'll be back in less than five minutes. Don't you know that the mark on your neck informs him when you're hurt? That function has more uses than one." She explained.

 I just stared down at my finger. Would he really rush back for something like that?

 No, that doesn't matter right now. What I want to know is...

 "What kind of deal do you propose, Istaroth?"

 "Hoho! So you really do know my name. It seems like Barbatos is still as talkative as ever."

 More like your house is a mess.

 "It looks like you also found the time break in my room."

 Did she just read my mind?

 "I didn't read your mind. You said that out loud." She pointed out.

 Ugh, that's embarrassing. 

 "Let's get back to business. Since you sat that part of the past, this will be a lot easier than I thought."

 "Just tell me what you want already." This is really taking too long. If Venti comes back...

 "I just want you to do one thing for me. I want you to retire from your duties as a yaksha."

 "I-"

 "Don't refuse just yet. Let me finish first.  As you know, Venti wants to use this tree, to do something for you. What you don't know, however, is what kind of insane thing he wants to do."

 "It can't be that bad." Just what could he want to do?

 "He wants to get rid of your karmic debt." She said flatly.

 "What?! Is he insane?!"

 Even Morax never even attempted to just as much as touch someone's our karmic debt. And yet Venti wants to...

 "That's exactly the question I have been asking myself for the past 2000 years." She sounded defeated.

 "Is there no way to stop him from going through with this completely idiotic plan?"

 "That's what I was getting at. For him to go through with this, you need to have a certain amount of karmic debt, or your karmic debt needs to be in a state of agitation. Barbatos certainly won't go and agitate it, as for the other one..."

 "So that's why you want me to retire." That explains a lot.

 "Right now, your karmic debt is barely under the limit, so if you continue on with your work as an adeptus..."

 "That small amount of karmic debt will accumulate in no time." I finished her sentence.

 "Exactly! If that happens, there's no telling whether Barbatos won't just knock you out and drag you away to some secret corner of Teyvat to remove your karmic debt."

 If it's Venti... he would probably do exactly that. He wouldn't even ask me because he knows I would refuse.

 "So retiring is the only way?" 

 Before this, I had never even thought of retiring, let alone considering it. I always believed that if it was my fate, I would die to my karmic debt someday.

 "Don't misunderstand, I'm not telling you to retire forever, even I know what this means to a yaksha. Just stop working till I figure something out, will you? That blockhead Morax can probably find someone to replace you for a while, and it's not like Liyue will collapse if you stop working. There will always be Rex Lapis to keep the nation together."

 There it is again. Just why do they both address Morax like that?

 "He retired though." I suddenly remembered.

 "Who?"

 "Morax."

 "That workaholic retired?!" She looked like she just heard that the world had collapsed.

 "He retired a while ago, actually."

 "No way! I don't believe you!"

 "He also got married." I'm curious just how far I can push this.

 "M-married?! Morax?!"

 "Right now he's raising a child." It's not exactly wrong.

 "Ch-child?! Oh dear Celestia, just what happened while I was gone?" She collapsed to the ground.

 "There is also-"

 "No, I don't care, just shut up." She held up her hand to stop me from going any further.

 I was only going to tell her about the situation with the gnosis, but if she doesn't want to hear it...

 "So about that deal..."

 Too bad for the two of them that Xiao didn't finish what he had wanted to say because while Xiao didn't know the significance of this piece of information if Istaroth knew, she would have been quite puzzled, as, without a gnosis, Venti had no way to go through with his plan.

 Sadly, this information didn't come to light, and so, a huge gap in Venti's plan, that would impact their own, was missed by them.

 The story reached 10k reads!!!

 I'm so happy right now! This honestly made my day!

 Thank you to everyone who has followed this story till now!

 We're almost at the end now. I would say about 20 more chapters to go, and with my Monday free because of Easter, more chapters than usual might come out soon.