There was a reason Dill had avoided the easily traversable highway thus far. Many refugees from the Terea region had migrated via the Bronze Route, and naturally, this drew the attention of the Reincarnators, who hunted them to use as vessels.
Even for Reincarnators, it was far easier to cross the road paved by Tereans and Boreasans than the severe Fanged Mountain Range and the great forest spewing mist into the air. The majority of the Reincarnators’ forces were always spotted in the regions along the highway.
Dill was strong. However, he was not the kind of legendary hero who could safely go toe-to-toe with an army of immortal Reincarnators. Whatever battles he could avoid, he had to avoid.
“I can see it. Over there is the highway. And there—” They were finally out of the forest. After a glance over his shoulder, Dill quickened his pace.
“—are the footprints of the gods that surround Vulcan. Those are proof that, once upon a time, the Ex Machina descended here.”
The scenery was irregular. Next to Dill, Sid gasped at seeing it for the first time. The conifer forest had suddenly ended, and in its place was an enormous gaping hole in the earth—a bowl-shaped crater, revealing a striped pattern of geological strata. The cobblestone road descended the slope into the crater. In the middle of the road ahead, in the center of the bowl, stood a god: Ex Machina Amputation. He was the god of flame and creation who appeared from time to time in the myths of Redguard.
The true form of Amputation, who was depicted in sculptures and paintings as a lame blacksmith, was a gargantuan structure. Although it was mostly cubic in shape, cranes and supporting pillars stretched out like the branches of a tree, reaching straight up toward heaven.
Since ancient times, the followers of this god had gathered in his vicinity, built roads, and piled earth in hills to form a wall around it, resulting in the current city-state of Vulcan.
The structure was huge. There had been places of worship in the village at the crossroads where Sid was born, but they scarcely compared to the scale of Amputation. It was overwhelming.
“They say that they fought him...my distant, distant ancestors,” muttered Nue. “The gods you and Dill believe in were our enemies.”
“Are you really a Titan after all?” Sid opened his eyes wide.
“More accurately, Nue is one of their descendants,” Dill said. “Long ago, in the Golden Age, the Titans were defeated in battle by the Ex Machina and perished. A small number of their kindred, who had interbred with mortals, fled to the south and survived by being mistaken for humans... It was during the Holy War in the south that I met Nue.”
“So you were part of that war, Master...” The color of Sid’s eyes changed. He leaned toward Dill, and his voice was raised in excitement. Dill coughed awkwardly. “That’s amazing! To win back the gods, you fought with the heretics?! I’ve heard so much about it! Terea and the Eleven Cities were allies, and they had an incredibly strong hero named Aegisthus... Ah, right. Aegisthus is real, isn’t he? My father once said that no one that strong could really exist these days, but did he?!”
“Well...he is real, but you can’t believe every rumor you hear.”
“Then he really does exist?! Amazing! That’s amazing! Then it’s all true—the return of the age of heroes, the ancient civilization of the Holy Land, the still-moving Ex Machina, the soldiers of the south with a hundred arms, the monsters that flew through the sky...” Sid trailed off. A pair of watery red eyes was glaring at him.
“I’m not a monster.” Nue’s voice was full of anger. “Even the people of the Titan race in the Southwestern Alliance had only two arms, and they didn’t have wings. We don’t breathe fire from our mouths, and we only have two eyes! We’re normal too! I’m not a monster.”
“Nue, I wasn’t talking about...” groaned Sid.
“I just want to be normal...and stay with Dill.”
“Nue.” As if protecting her from Sid, Dill stepped between them and put his arms around Nue’s shoulders. Nue tried to throw Dill off, as if she was throwing a tantrum, but she only attempted this resistance once. After that, she clutched Dill tightly and wailed. Dill, while swaying from side to side and stroking Nue’s black hair repeatedly, turned to Sid and said, “Sid, the Holy War is over. To begin with, do you know what those in the south called the Holy War? An invasion. We won that war. However, right after that the Reincarnators appeared, and our Terean Empire also fell. All that remained afterward were the ugly rumors we spread in order to win.”
A foreign girl, with different-colored hair and eyes, was calmed by her father, who was not related to her by blood. She helplessly entrusted herself to him.
“Um, I...”
Dill smiled wryly at Nue, who now didn’t want to be apart from him, and kissed her on the cheek and on her hair. Sid, at a loss for words, averted his eyes.
At that moment, it happened.
“Hmm,” a man grunted to himself. There shouldn’t have been anyone nearby, but that very solitude was itself remarkable upon the highway leading to Vulcan of the Eleven Cities.
The first to react, unsurprisingly, was Dill. He swiftly moved so Nue was covered behind him, with his sword and dagger already drawn from underneath his chain mail cloak, readied in each hand.