Paimon's woe

12. Paimon's training ground

"*pant* A-are we there yet?" Paimon complains.

"Just a little bit more." Keqing replied while climbing the rocks of mountains, towards the east from Mt. Aozang.

Prior to this walk, they discussed about the best road to the training location that she mentioned. They picked the ones with less steep areas, though every road is still hard to go across. Climbing is inevitable.

"Umuu~, Paimon's tired." she whines.

Aether, with annoyed eyes, stared at Paimon.

"You're flying. I doubt that you'd even break a sweat."

"Hey! Only Paimon knows how tiring it is to constantly fly. You've never fled before, so you never felt what Paimon deals with everyday!" she retorts.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure you already knew it, but I 'have' experienced flying before, so your argument is irrelevant." he replied, making Paimon quiet down, but in frustration.

For some reason, Keqing stopped walking, her face showing signs of confusion.

"Fly? Do you mean gliding? If so, of course you wouldn't tire yourself out. Your glider isn't a part of your body after all."

Oh crap.

He forgot that she is still there. Paimon realizes this too. He got too used to travelling with Paimon and sharing about the details about him traveling to other worlds, which shouldn't be told. There's no restriction for him to share the details of his travel with her, but he'd rather keep it confidential. Mostly for safety reasons.

"A-ah, yes. That's true." he replied, laughing nervously. Paimon tried not to look too suspicious.

She noticed both of them acting nervous and suspicious, which made her curious but didn't pry too much into it.

After a bit more climbing and walking, they finally reached their destination.

"Wow~" Paimon let out an astonished voice.

The scenery on top of the hill is pure bliss. Rivers can be seen on the horizon. There also seems to be waterfalls if they walk slightly more towards the west. The lake is crystal clear. No pollution whatsoever to the point that he can see his own reflection.

"We're here." Keqing said as she sits down under a tree. Aether follows her.

"Such a beautiful scenery. It's kinda a waste to use this place as our training location, don't you think?" he asked.

"That shouldn't be a problem."

"Oh?"

"The mountains here are as solid as a brick. It should withstand whatever that is thrown against it. Hopefully."

"And if it didn't?" he asked cheekily.

"W-well, since there will most likely be no eye witnesses, it's safe to assume that there won't be a problem." she coughs, covering up her nervousness. Truthfully, she haven't made any prior tests on the compatibility of this place since this training is done in a hurry. She had to make do with this for now.

"Naughty girl," he thought to himself. Of course, he can't say it out loud if he does not want to get electrocuted and become a part of Xiangling's gourmet.

"W-what's with that grin?" her face reddens. She knew herself that she might get into another trouble if word about this comes out, assuming that a catastrophe will take place.

"Nothing, really." he shrugs it off, though he can't stop grinning.

"Anyways, when are we going to start this session?" Paimon intervened, distracting Keqing's nervousness.