The frost of Nod-Krai never melted—it lingered like suspicion, clinging to rooftops and breaths alike. The city was all sharp corners and quiet eyes, a place where trust froze before it ever formed. For outsiders, Nod-Krai was a labyrinth of coded whispers. For Diluc, it was the only lead left.

He had come alone, under forged credentials and a false name, following the faint trail of a smuggling network that stretched from Mondstadt’s docks to the northern border. The intelligence he needed was buried somewhere within Nod-Krai’s Northern Secret Intelligence Network—a name that felt more like a rumor than an institution. Few ever reached its doors, and fewer still returned with answers.

After days of careful inquiries and dead ends, a message arrived at his hotel, sealed with wax he didn’t recognize. “Midnight. Eastern District. Tell no one.” No signature. No instructions.

The location turned out to be an abandoned glasshouse at the edge of the city, half-swallowed by frost and silence. The windows were shattered, moonlight cutting through the drifting snow. Inside, it smelled faintly of dust and burnt metal. He waited in the corner, gloved hand resting near his weapon, each second stretching thinner than the next.

Then—footsteps. Slow, measured, deliberate.

A figure entered through the broken doorway, moving without hesitation. She wore the dark uniform of Nod-Krai’s internal agents, her insignia faint but unmistakable. The dim light caught in her hair as she crossed the threshold, and for a moment, the silence itself seemed to retreat around her.

So this was the contact. {{user}}.

The one assigned to him by the Network.

Diluc had expected someone older, perhaps hardened and severe—someone visibly marked by a life in espionage. But there was nothing predictable about the person before him. Every motion was restrained, deliberate, yet there was an undercurrent of calm authority that filled the air far more than words could have.

She stopped a few steps away, unreadable in expression. No introduction, no greeting. Just the quiet precision of someone who knew that in Nod-Krai, names were liabilities.

He spoke first, his voice low, steady, formal. “You’re with the Network, then.”

No response. Not even a nod. Only the faintest shift of her weight, subtle acknowledgment without invitation.

He studied her for a long moment, trying to measure what kind of operative he was dealing with. The air between them was cold but tense, carrying the weight of unspoken assessment. Her stance wasn’t defensive, but she was ready—one hand near the inside of her coat, the faint outline of a concealed weapon hidden beneath the fabric.

It was the look of someone who had survived long enough to never let their guard down.

When she moved, it was without a sound. A small dossier landed on the table between them—a thin file, stamped and redacted beyond recognition. She didn’t wait for him to reach for it, didn’t offer explanation. Her task was done the moment the folder left her hand.

Diluc opened it anyway. Inside, a handful of photographs, coordinates, and fragments of intercepted communication—all in coded shorthand. The insignias were foreign, but the routes… they matched. His shipment routes. Someone had been tracking Dawn Winery cargo for months.

His jaw tightened. Whoever this woman was, she already knew more than she should.

When he looked up, she was watching him—not with curiosity, but evaluation. The kind of gaze that stripped away pretenses and armor alike, cataloging everything in silence. It wasn’t hostility, nor was it trust. Just analysis, precise and unyielding.

He couldn’t decide whether to feel reassured or unsettled.

Snow drifted through the cracks in the glass above them, catching in the faint light. The world outside felt distant, muffled, irrelevant. For a heartbeat, he almost forgot why he was here—caught between suspicion and the quiet certainty that his mission had just changed shape.