An ancient battle was illustrated upon the pediment holding up the triangular roof of the temple, with two quarreling armies depicted on the left and right. On the right stood the army of Terea Boreas and its allies, led by the great king Haos. On the left were the heroic warriors of the ancient kingdom of Krios. Their leader was the hero, Prodotis the Silver.
The Reincarnator, Hero, looked up at the pediment, and contemplated the past with a mysterious expression on his face. At his feet lay the body of a Vulcan soldier he had cut down. Hero now stood at the summit of Vulcan’s proud holy mount, the Acropolis. There was a vast square there for the performance of religious rituals as well as a grand temple built from white limestone, with the god, Ex Machina Amputation, bursting out through the ground, proud and imposing in his appearance.
The Reincarnator forces who had occupied the temple in front of the Production Module, Amputation, were watched over by the citizens of Vulcan, who had been evacuated during the bombardment at the foot of the hill, as they joined the warriors in chain mail cloaks in battle.
“Your new body seems to be working well for you, Yuujin.” A man approached Hero. His facial features were ordinary, which had been a deliberate choice on his part, and he wore a pleasant but empty smile. Three bands adorned his arm. This man was the Project Leader, Shiden. The most powerful Reincarnator. “This is a bright day for us Reincarnators. I’ll have to have you wear your armbands too.”
“Indeed. Let’s make it known among the natives that the hero they worship, Prodotis, has surrendered to the Reincarnators.” Hero wound two bands around his own arm. Yuujin, Hero of the Reincarnators, was the first among the Project Managers, who numbered only six in total. Two other Managers, Toiler and Summoner, were battling the mail-cloaks who had come to reclaim the temple.
“Now, it’s showtime.” Shiden pressed the switch for the intercom. “Hello, everyone. It’s so nice to meet you.” Amplified by the speakers, Shiden’s voice echoed through the vast plaza. At the same time, a hologram was projected in the sky above, displaying the upper half of Shiden’s body magnified many times. For people unused to the products of technology, this alone was enough to instill a sense of fear.
“Don’t be afraid! This is only some kind of trick—not an attack!” The mail-cloak charged with leading the corps to take back the temple, Bastard, raised his voice and called out to his men, but their confusion did not abate. In truth, he was hardly confident that the image in the sky did not signal some impending enemy assault.
Shiden, projected in the sky, smiled. Bastard’s temples tensed up in anger. “Please rest assured,” Shiden went on, “that we have visited your city today to invite you to participate in a very profitable Project. Fighting you is not our objective.”
“Lies and deception!”
“I am the one overseeing the Project—the General Manager, Shiden. I am the one responsible for all Enlightenment efforts in Redguard.”
This is the man himself? A wave of anxiety passed through the mail-cloaks and the citizens of Vulcan.
“Are you aware of the Smart Polises we’ve constructed in each region of Redguard?” With a wave of Shiden’s hand, a portion of the image in the sky changed. Playback began on a promotional video where the hologram showed a far-off vision of a colonial city, divided into orderly districts. The people there were smiling. Reincarnators and Tereans worked together—one Terean rode a tractor among them. There were railway lines, show windows, sweets that looked like gemstones... The PR video, overflowing with material, continued.
However, what stole the attention of the people looking over the makeshift barricade was not anything displayed in the center of the screen. It was the old stone walls shown in the background—the cornerstone of an altar, the statue of one of the Ex Machina that the rain had started to erode away—these familiar sights of the hometown they remembered stood beside newly constructed buildings, almost looking embarrassing by comparison.
No small number of the people living in Vulcan were refugees who had escaped from Terea. Each time they saw a familiar alleyway or caught a glimpse of a former neighbor from the place they’d left behind, the people murmured and sighed.
The city had been painted over and warped to some extent, but it was still unmistakably their city. Although they had thought it utterly destroyed, it was not completely gone—it still retained a shadow of what they remembered. Upon seeing their hometown, which they were sure they would never lay eyes upon again, and the backs of neighbors they had long since given up for dead, they started to feel homesick.
“We are accepting applications from anyone who wishes to relocate to the Smart Polises. Let’s all take part in the Project!” came the announcement over the intercom.
The refugees could return home—as long as they did what the Reincarnators told them to. The Reincarnators had artillery, illumination rounds, and holograms in the sky. Their scientific power was even more vast than the people of Redguard had imagined. Thus, submission started to seem a much easier path than resistance. One person, then another, climbed over the barricade. People began flocking to the Reincarnators, as if they were drawn toward them.
“What are you doing?! Come back! When it comes to siege warfare, this is the oldest trick in the book. It’s obviously a trap!”
“Have you forgotten what the Reincarnators did to us?”
“There’s no way they intend to keep their promises!”
“Hurry! Someone go find Steel-Link and bring him here!”
The men in chain mail cloaks ran around the civilians, even trying to threaten them with their weapons, but the flow of people did not stop.
“They’ve fallen for it,” muttered Shiden after shutting off the intercom. The natives had voluntarily thrown down their weapons and were pushing their way toward the Reincarnators en masse. Shiden was under a misapprehension at that moment, but the outcome was the same. Vulcan would surrender.