Total silence descended. It wasn’t that Repeater couldn’t find the words to counter Dill’s argument. But at this moment she finally perceived the depth of the chasm separating Reincarnators from the people of Redguard. Repeater then changed her approach.
“If you were to cooperate, we could make a deal for control of the Tower Capital. That would surely make it easier for you to search for and retrieve Iris Earhart’s body. I’m saying this for your sake. Think carefully. Think of what you ought to do as a father...”
These words touched a nerve, finally incurring Dill’s anger. “Don’t you dare use Iris as a bargaining chip.” At that moment, the conversation was over. After a prolonged silence, Repeater slowed down her motorbike and ceased riding alongside Dill.
In her place, a much larger vehicle pulled up to the front of the convoy. There was the sound of several engine exhausts and metal wheels spinning. It was Halberd’s chariot, drawn by four motorbikes adorned with the valiant armor that had been worn by the horses Falaina had killed.
“What’s the trouble, my boy? Some manner of quarrel?”
“No, not really... I must say, General, you really seem to have taken a liking to those things.”
“Gah ha hoo! The emblem of Aegis on your iron steed also suits you very well.” Halberd’s comment reminded Dill of the snake-haired woman’s head that had been painted on his bike the night before, and the thought made him feel dejected. The culprits had been Rick and Mace, and Dill had been subjected to this indignity while he slept. “By the way, Steel-Link, have you noticed...?”
Halberd gazed at the distant horizon. Dill squinted hard. He couldn’t see anything. “I’ve noticed...” continued Halberd. “The thrill of the air dancing to and fro. The trembling of the wind. I can see the vultures flying overhead...gah ha hoo hoo hoo! The battlefield is near.”
Twenty minutes had passed since Halberd’s premonition. Through the vast rural plains of Aeros there ran straight gravel roads. On top of them lay timber crossties and rails laid by the Reincarnators, forming their railway lines which extended into the distance without end.
The undulating landscape had been either dug out or filled in, the railway lines trampling the ancestral wheat fields of this place. Even the fields that had not been filled in with earth had been abandoned, left to go to seed.
This infamous transcontinental railway, which had served as a symbol of the Reincarnators’ colonial policies, now lay in miserable destruction before Dill’s eyes.
“That’s one of the NR freight trains.”
“Looks like it had an altercation with that castle.”
“Were even the elite railway police powerless to stop it?”
The eighty-car freight train lay strewn on the ground like entrails. Nearby was the crater of a footprint left by the castle giant. Apparently the train had unluckily crossed paths with the giant along its route, and the giant had kicked it off the tracks.
The convoy stopped in order to investigate the wreckage. There were spears and arrows sticking out of the overturned carriages, and they had not come from the heroes of Krios. They were equipment carried by the regular army of the Terean Empire.
Rick walked up beside Dill, picked up a broken arrow, and muttered thoughtfully to himself. “Those slow coaches, who always arrived late to the party during the Holy War...or so we used to call them. Well, looks like they’ve been carrying on the fight in their own way.”
Dill had heard rumors that since the arrival of the Reincarnators five years prior, the remnants of the regular army had remained in the former territory of Terea, carrying out acts of guerrilla warfare. The freight train that had been trampled when the walking castle suddenly appeared would have been ideal prey for them. Anything of value had already been carried away.
“I would have been grateful if they’d worked to slow that castle down even a little...” Dill looked out over the plains in the direction of the giant’s footprints. He couldn’t even see the silhouette of Castle Krios. The distance between them had only continued to widen.
“Let’s be frank...you were the first one to suggest that. Stop screwing around and admit it. There’s a way for us to close the distance between us and the castle, isn’t there?” Dill seized the Manager, Toiler, and put the screws to him.
The scam artist hemmed and hawed. “Well, regardless of the fact that I can’t say for sure that there is no way...” Rust-colored eyes glared down at him. “...Um, there is a way. It’s a terribly dangerous method, though.”
“Understood. Let’s go with that.”
“Eh? Don’t you even want to know what it is first?” said Toiler, playing the fool. Dill pulled him closer still and glared at him.
“Let’s go with that. We’re running out of time.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Another hour passed. The Halberd Brigade and the Reincarnators had deviated from the path taken by Castle Krios. In the direction they headed there awaited the mountain range delineating the edge of the plains of Aeros. Long ago, the exploration of this mountainous region in eastern Terea, with its rich veins of iron ore, had triggered the collapse of the Bronze Route as iron replaced the copper transported along that highway. However, even that time of prosperity was now long past. These eastern mountains no longer produced iron for the sake of the Terean people.
In the blink of an eye, the new masters of this land had transformed the region into a mining district. Barbed wire and chain-link fences suddenly cordoned off the heart of the mountain range. Security towers bathed the sky and ground with their searchlights around the clock. People were crammed into forced internment camps—referred to as “company housing”—like livestock. This was the Reincarnators’ industrial plantation. This was the end result of their civilization having fallen away from the principle of equal competition.
“I wonder if you can see it. There it is.”
Dill, who had watched Tereans in work clothes move between the company housing and the plant, turned his gaze. Where Toiler pointed there was a building heavily guarded by chain-link fences. After the service entrance was opened, a line of trucks that had been waiting outside proceeded into the building one by one. One truck, two trucks, three trucks... It wasn’t a particularly large building. The walls were thin, and it was under three stories in height. Six trucks, seven trucks, eight... The building was clearly not large enough to admit all of the trucks driving into it.
“Looks like there’s no doubt about it—there’s a stationary teleportation gate inside... However, if you have such a thing, surely the Reincarnators don’t need a railway system?” In response to Dill’s question, Toiler smiled ambiguously, as if to indicate that a closer look would give Dill his answer. Toiler beckoned to Dill and his comrades standing behind him, and they approached the chain-link fence.
They left their trucks and bikes behind. Dill had been told that if one passed through that stationary, long-range teleportation gate, they would be transported instantly to the Tower Capital. If that was the case, surely these vehicles were unnecessary...assuming that things went as well as that.
“Now, we only need to make it to the gate...but beyond this point is private property, and it happens to belong to people who aren’t too fond of our Project. In other words, the moment I touch this fence, we’ll immediately...”
“It doesn’t matter,” interrupted Dill. The jocular Toiler looked like he intended to keep talking, but his fellow Manager Starlight clapped a hand on his shoulder, and he desisted. Dill had long since taken the role of leader in this band. “This land originally belonged to the people of Terea. We have a right to stride straight through it.”
“Master...I just have a suggestion,” said Sid, as if he had been bottling up his words for some time. “Let’s free the people imprisoned here! Let’s create a commotion. That will surely make things easier for us as well.”
Dill smiled with satisfaction, and nodded. “I was about to suggest the same thing.”
“I don’t know about this...” Toiler clutched at his head.
Halberd hefted his lump of iron and exchanged a glance with Dill, who stood right in front of him. They aimed for one of the observation towers. Everyone else finally placed their hands on the chain-link fence.
A shrill alarm rang throughout the facility. With that as their signal, Dill jumped. With a noise like thunder, Halberd’s lump of iron slammed into Dill’s feet. Dill kicked back, and soared skyward. He flew in a straight line toward a window at the top floor of the tower and crashed through it.