Genshin Impact: Watch me turn the tables and kill my servants at the start!

The next morning, Fanes was awakened by a series of crunching sounds.

Peeking out from under the covers, still half asleep, Fanes saw Little Black squatting on the bedside table, its two front paws holding a dried fruit that it had somehow found and munching on. Its round, amber eyes were bright and sparkling. When it saw that Fanes was awake, it tilted its head at him, and crumbs from its mouth fell all over the sheets.

Fanes silently swept the fruit peels off the blanket, thinking that this pet was good in every way, except that it didn't care where it ate.

Yakoda was all ready to go. Her goggles hung neatly around her neck, her cat-ear hat was fastened tightly, and a small cloth bag was tucked into her waistband, bulging with something inside.

After washing up and changing his clothes, Fanes picked up Little Black, and the two of them—along with a dragon—made a grand exit from the back door of the Goethe Hotel, heading towards the coast along the path east of Mondstadt.

The sand at Eagle's Nest Beach is a light golden color, soft and smooth, much more comfortable to walk on than the rough stone paths of Liyue Harbor. Waves surge in and out, leaving damp marks and sprays on the sand.

Several seagulls circled low in the distance, their cries punctuated by the sea breeze. Fanes took off his shoes on the rocks at the edge of the beach, rolled up his trousers, and stepped into the water. The coolness rising from his feet made him hiss involuntarily.

Little Black jumped off his shoulder, flapped its short wings, and landed on the beach. When its four little claws stepped into the sand, it was clearly stunned. It looked down for a while and watched the fine sand particles get into the gaps between its toes. Then it started digging in the sand while chasing a little crab that was walking sideways.

The crab was quite large, with a bluish-brown sheen on its shell. Its two claws were held high, and it moved sideways at a speed that seemed as if it had wheels on its feet.

Little Black pounced on it and pawed at it a couple of times, but the crab didn't budge and continued to stalk sideways with its indifferent gait.

Little Black tilted its head and moved closer, its nose almost touching the crab shell, as if wondering why this thing wasn't afraid of it.

The crab seized the opportunity, raising one claw and precisely clamping down on the tip of Little Black's nose.

The little black dragon froze. Its two front paws hung in mid-air, its amber eyes wide open, and then a shrill whimper squeezed out of its throat, a thin and high-pitched sound like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

It shook its head twice but couldn't shake it off. The crab held its nose tightly and didn't budge. Its two small eyes gleamed with a smug "You didn't expect that, did you?" light through the cracks in the crab shell.

Then Little Black opened its mouth.

An extremely subtle wisp of dragon breath shot out from its throat—not large in scale, and not particularly hot in temperature, but it precisely enveloped the crab.

The moment the flames licked the crab shell, they made a sizzling sound. The crab's claws loosened, and the whole crab turned from bluish-brown to a bright orange-red, emitting a rich aroma of roasted crab.

Little Black plucked the roasted crab off its nose and tossed it into its mouth, crunching it twice before its amber eyes narrowed in satisfaction.

Fanes watched this scene from three steps away and commented, "Crunchy, tastes like chicken."

Yakoda was already squatting on the ground laughing, slapping the sand so hard she couldn't straighten up. She laughed for a while before getting up, wiping away the tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes, then took a thin, long iron skewer from her bag and handed one to Fanes: "Boss, use this to catch crabs. I saw people use it when I was in Nodcale, it's much faster than catching them by hand."

Fanes took the iron skewer and looked down at the shallows exposed by the receding tide. The surface of the sand was covered with tiny holes, traces left by crabs breathing beneath the sand.

He crouched down and thrust the iron skewer vertically into a hole. The skewer made a soft popping sound as it pierced the sand. When he pulled it out, a flat-shelled crab, still unaware of what had happened, was stuck to the tip of the skewer.

He couldn't help but grin; this method was surprisingly effective. In the short time it takes for an incense stick to burn, Fanes made seven or eight skewers, a whole string of them hanging from the iron skewers, varying in size but all within the edible range.

Fanes held up the string of crabs, looked at them, then glanced down at the crab burrows on the beach, and suddenly said, "These crabs are too small. If only there were a big one, the kind that would be enough to fill you up after grilling."

Yakoda, without looking up, pried a razor clam buried in the sand with an iron skewer and replied, "Boss, be content! Back in Nordkal, the crabs we ate were even smaller than this, with more shell than meat, and it took forever to get a tiny bite..."

Yakoda stopped abruptly halfway through her sentence. Her starry eyes slowly lifted from the clam hole in front of her, looking over Fanes' shoulder towards the distant sea, her pupils visibly dilating.

Fanes sensed her unease and turned to look in the direction of her gaze—in the shallow waters near the reefs on the east side of the beach, a huge, dark gray outline was slowly moving.

The silhouette was about as tall as two people stacked on top of each other, its body as wide as a door panel, with two claws held on either side of its head, each about the same size as the person.

Fanes nearly dropped the iron skewer from his hand.

Yakoda's voice finally escaped her throat, trembling noticeably and sounding out of control: "Boss... there's a big one over there..."

Fanes stuck the iron skewer into the sand, glanced at Little Black who was scraping the last bit of meat out of a roasted crab shell, and then at the "door panel" on the beach that was moving sideways in this direction. He made the most rational decision without hesitation.

"Holy crap! This crab's come to life! Run, fucking!"

He turned and ran, his short legs digging two shallow craters in the sand. After running a couple of steps, he remembered to look back—Yakoda had already dashed quite a distance away, her light golden hair stretched into a straight line in the wind, while the little black guy's four short legs moved incredibly fast, the small black blob rolling right behind Yakoda's feet.

Fanes watched the two figures disappear into the distance, then kicked his legs twice to speed up and chase after them: "Holy crap, wait for me! And where did this mutated crab come from?! Did it drink too much Inazuma nuclear wastewater?!"

The sound of a large crab's footsteps came from behind—or more accurately, the dull thud of its several legs striking the sand, like a mallet beating a giant drum, chasing after me from afar.

Fanes ran for his life, feeling like his lungs were about to explode. His feet ached from the tiny pebbles on the beach, but he dared not stop for a moment, because the approaching footsteps behind him told him that the crab monster was no more than twenty steps away.

They crossed the grassy edge of the beach, rushed into the woods of the wind-blown land, and finally the three of them plus Yilong climbed up a large tree with thick branches using both hands and feet.

Fanes lay panting heavily on a thick, horizontal branch, while Yakoda squatted on a higher branch, looking down. Little Black was curled up next to Fanes, panting with its tongue lolling out.

The giant crab stopped at the base of the tree. It tilted its head back—if crabs have heads at all—and looked at the few creatures huddled together in the tree with its two tiny eyes peeking out from their stalks. It circled around twice, its legs winding around the tree roots, seemingly trying to figure out how to get up there.

But its thick crab legs struggled to climb the tree trunk for a long time without success. After circling the tree for the third time, it seemed to give up and slowly retreated sideways towards the beach. Its gray shell quickly disappeared behind the rocks.

As Fanes perched on the branch, watching the enormous creature disappear from sight, his heart finally settled. He leaned against the tree trunk and let out a long sigh, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. After a long while, he finally spoke: "I think... I've been set up."

The woods where the wind rose fell silent, save for the rustling of the wind through the leaves and the faint sound of waves lapping against the shore in the distance. A few oak leaves drifted down from overhead, swirling as they landed on the grass beneath the trees.

Behind a lush tree in the southeast corner of the place where the wind rises, two figures are watching the movements on the old oak tree through the gaps in the branches and leaves.

One of the tall, blonde women leaned against a tree trunk, one hand supporting her chin, a wide-brimmed witch's hat on her head, her eyes filled with amusement at the spectacle.

Standing next to her was a shorter figure, whose light golden hair shimmered softly in the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves, and whose face wore an expression of serene indifference that bordered on ethereal.

The short figure tilted his head slightly, his gaze falling on the three small dots on the old oak tree, and said softly, as if afraid of disturbing something: "Have we been discovered?"

The tall, blonde woman pushed up her hat brim, a smile curving her lips in a way that suggested she was enjoying the drama, her tone carrying a confident "you overestimate that child."

"He doesn't have the brains for it."

After saying that, she turned her head to look in the direction of the beach in the distance, and added, "But that crab was indeed a bit bigger than I expected. I'll have to control its size next time."