Rainy day out

3: The Great Paperwork Monster

You've decided to stay and help Nahida directly.

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"What if we give it a go together?" offers Lumine, "I don't have much going on and you said that two heads were better than one. I'm not great with paperwork or familiar with running a nation but at least you won't have to do it all alone."

"Make that three, Paimon will help however she can!" Paimon pitches in eagerly. Her small hands sway behind her as she zooms in the air. Lumine had always loved that enthusiasm of hers.

"Hmm—is that alright? You've already helped me plenty. I couldn't have dealt with the Fatui and the academia if I was just me," considers Nahida humbly, "Searching irminsul for leads on your brother was the least I could do for you. Unfortunately, Irminsul is vast and almost an infinite void where information is created and stored constantly as we speak. Even if I'm Dendro Archon, searching an infinite void for a particular something will take—well—close to infinite time. Although Wanderer was unable to find data relating to your brother, it doesn't rule out the fact that the information could be extremely well encrypted. I demonstrated it with the fairytale back then and there's no doubt more information is hidden in that same nature. You'd think I have better control over Irmensul but it doesn't necessarily belong to me. Regrettably, everything I did before I was locked up seems hazy, like a chunk of my memory is missing."

Lumine couldn't help but feel guilty knowing the truth behind Greater Lord Kussanli. The god before Nahida chose to delete herself and Lumine had already decided she would respect that decision. Forbidden knowledge was of the mind and Lumine wasn't sure what consequences would come if Nahida's past memory fully recovered. Would that bring Forbidden knowledge back into this world? The same curse Greater Lord Kussanli risked her life to banish?

Lumine shudders at the possibility. She doesn't have a clue who she could turn to for advice. Only a few retain memory of the past and she couldn't throw sensitive information like it was nothing. The best she could do right now was stick to her decision and hope she's making the right one.

"There could also be relevant data that is not directly connected to him, " Nahida continues, "If anything useful pops up, I'll be sure to alert you at the earliest notice. Other than that, I'm afraid that's the most I can do for you as of now."

"There's no need to apologize, you were already of big help. Believe it or not, out of the four archons we've encountered, you've already given more information than the other three combined," Lumine sighs, "I'm glad to take whatever information you can provide."

Seriously, what's up with the Archons pulling her into whatever shenanigans to save their nation? And the worst part is at the end where she receives little to no lead. Even when she purposefully stays away from trouble, trouble is always on the lookout for her, The same old trope was getting extremely old so Nahida was a fresh breath of air.

"Just let us help and don't be shy about it!" Paimon adds, "But if you insist on paying us back, just treat us to a good restaurant when things die down."

Lumine turns to Paimon who winks at her playfully in response, "Hey! Paimon said only if she insisted."

"If you really aren't busy, then your help will be appreciated greatly," Nahida pulls two chairs towards the desk for Lumine and Paimon but the traditional chairs aren't made with small fairies in mind. No matter how Paimon tries to sit, she's far too short to meet eye-to-eye with the table. It was a quick fix as Paimon settled around Lumine's shoulder instead, reminding Nahida of parrots and pirates from children's stories.

Nahida pulls up the first document of the piles, addressing the topic out loud. Beside her were two stamping seals carved out to form the dendro symbol inside of a tree, two pads of red and green ink, and a fancy fountain pen. She works at a record-breaking pace and more often than not, already came to a conclusive decision before Lumine could even finish reading halfway. Both of Nahida's luminescent eyes scan across the page like an automatic radar before she computes a decision. She stamps with the corresponding color and signs her signature in one swift motion. Depending on the file, she might write a concise response back, whichever was deemed necessary. With fast and graceful penmanship, she steadily plows through the documents one after another.