"Understood… we'll do it at once."
Hearing Idris's instructions, the guards posted outside his office twitched at the corners of their mouths. Truly a man of stature—only someone like him could coolly say "take photos for compensation" right after a brawl.
They quickly fetched the camera and began documenting the damage.
When that was done, Idris turned to Nahida. She glanced at the thin cut on his cheek and beckoned him down—she couldn't reach otherwise. As he crouched, she touched a fingertip to the wound; life force flowed, and the skin knit perfectly, not even a trace remaining.
"All better," she smiled. "Grand Sage Idris, a lot of girls in Sumeru are fond of that face. You'd better take care of it. If it gets marked up, hearts will break."
"Oh." Idris tapped his now-spotless cheek, patted her head, and thanked her with a small smile.
"Don't mention it," Nahida said lightly. "You just stood in front of me against the Doctor. He's very strong—stronger than Scaramouche, stronger than the Mechanicus God, perhaps even stronger than that avatar of the Withering. For a moment I thought… you might hand him my Gnosis."
"I never planned to," Idris replied, casually waving it off. "What's ours stays with us. If they want it, they can bring an offer that we actually care about. Besides, you're my—our—Little Auspicious Princess now. I simply did what was mine to do."
With that, he turned to handle the aftermath.
As for a trade they'd both find interesting—there were many possibilities, just not the one from the original tale. Back then, the Doctor erased his segments and traded the line "the stars beyond Teyvat's sky are false" to take both the Raiden Shogun's Gnosis and the Dendro Gnosis from Nahida. But she'd had little leverage; the exchange was unequal, propped up only by the desperate threat of smashing a Gnosis to rouse Celestia.
Now was different. Idris had plenty of ways to pin the Doctor down. If Snezhnaya wanted a Gnosis, they could pay fair value—or go without.
And if it came to it… Idris could always go punch Heaven himself.
As that thought flashed, the system's voice chimed in his mind:
[Congratulations, host. You have driven off the Fatui Harbinger, the Doctor—second only to the Tsaritsa—without surrendering the Dendro Gnosis, greatly diverging from the original plot.]
[Reward granted: Heart of Arraycraft!]
[You can now design, control, and deploy a wide variety of formations.]
Formations?
He blinked—then grinned. Trust this system to hand out something like that. With arrays in his toolkit, nudging other nations' fates would be far easier. No diagrams provided, true—but Teyvat was full of templates: ancient god-wards, ruin mechanisms… and Liyue's adepti were masters of such arts. Plenty to study. Plenty to do.
Still smiling, he stepped outside.
Back at the Holy Tree, Nahida's cheeks were burning.
"H-he said what just now? His princess? That shameless…! Spending all that effort to tease me—what a scoundrel!"
Flustered, she slipped out of the blasted office and scurried back to the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
From her hairpin perch, the Great Lord Rukkhadevata chuckled. "He might not be teasing at all. He may simply be stating a fact. In his eyes, you are a princess. Ahem—so am I, of course."
Patiently, she kept guiding Nahida… plotting who knew what.
—
That afternoon, with no memorials pending, Idris gave himself a brief holiday—strolling the city, listening, watching. Wherever he went, cheers and warm greetings followed. People still called him Grand Sage by habit, but in their hearts they already accepted him as their human king.
The only nuisance was how often people asked if he'd chosen a queen.
Ah, girls of Teyvat—far too straightforward.
Finally fed up, he headed to the Corps of Thirty's camp. Inside, their captain was negotiating with Rahman of the Eremites—folding them into Sumeru's command. Rahman looked hesitant. They had revered the Scarlet King; even with misunderstandings cleared, desert folk now respected only Idris and the Little Auspicious Princess. Being absorbed by others grated.
Conveniently, Idris arrived. He took in the scene and smiled.
"What's wrong? Talking past each other?"
"Grand Sage Idris!"
They hurried to salute.
"I know your worries," he told Rahman. "Past rifts don't vanish overnight. But I also know your ambition. You want your families in the desert to live in peace. You want respect—a place earned by your own strength within this nation. Don't you want a single, unified voice for the desert?"
"We do!" boomed the towering Rahman, nearly two meters of iron will. The king's pressure in Idris's words hit something in him like a drum.
"Then join," Idris said. "Become one. You'll be stronger than ever—better able to protect what's yours and prove who you are."
"Yes, Grand Sage!"
Rahman bowed his head to him at last.
Idris turned to the Corps of Thirty. "And you. People say you're Sumeru's army. Look at yourselves—what part of you looks like a national force? Folks only remember you in a crisis. With the calamity past, you must become a real army if you're to face what's coming."
The captain and his officers dropped their eyes, chastened. It took them back to a month ago—freshly enthroned, Idris had scolded them speechless then as well. Since, he'd delivered on every promise, again and again. And still, when he spoke, there was no place to argue.
"We will follow your command," they pledged.
Idris nodded, thinking quickly. To bind Sumeru tighter, the military had to be reforged. Fontaine had the Maison Gardiennage; Inazuma its Shogunate troops; Liyue the Millelith; Mondstadt the Knights. Only Sumeru's forces looked like mercenaries from top to bottom—undisciplined and loose. He'd done well to bring them under his hand at all, given the Akademiya's old factional rot. But with the Withering God destroyed and the nation united, it was time to truly integrate the ranks.
He looked from the Corps of Thirty's leaders to Rahman and the heads of other bands and said:
"Listen well. Whatever your origins—who you were—today you are one body: soldiers of Sumeru. From this day on, you bear a single name: the Yulin Guard."
"Yulin Guard?!"
Eyes lit across the tent. Even the sound of it was good. Yulin—Imperial Grove—rang like yǔlín, rainforest: close to home, simple, forceful. Like the Millelith—short, solid, proud. Far better than "Corps of Thirty."
Rahman's men nodded at once. "No problem. From now on, we're the Yulin Guard! We don't yet know what discipline a true soldier needs—but we'll learn!"
He hesitated, then added, "But my lord, don't force our faith. Even if the Scarlet King is gone, we will still honor him."
Idris inclined his head. "There's no conflict. In the past, the Scarlet King and the Dendro God were allies. With the gods withdrawn, we must be all the more united. The founding of the Yulin Guard today—that is our banner."
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