Chapter 63

"Hwoi~! Hwooi~!"

Two days since the survey began. The expedition, originally slated for a single day, was withdrawing toward the Church empty-handed-no danger, no gains, carrying only a few pilgrim corpses.

"Compared to this sight, the Iron Wall was nothing."

Staring at the glass-covered plain stretching to the horizon, Yaan instantly understood why the Church called this place a sanctuary and revered it.

Like a vast pit, the ground sank sharply beneath their feet. Below lay the Ancient city, breathtaking in its grandeur.

The enormous city was protected by a seamless sheet of glass, as if the whole thing had been submerged in a fishbowl.

It looked as though an entire city had been taxidermied.

Where Yaan now stood was like a fossil of old human civilization encased in glass.

"Is this the Alcatraz you spoke of?"

"No. That's at the edge of the region. This is Satellite City #32. It's a residential zone."

'Satellite city. Even compared to Capital Vailsar, it's no smaller.'

Gazing at the cityscape spread beneath his feet, Yaan repeated the thought.

Countless buildings spread across a depression roughly fifty meters deep.

Geometric structures so alien they hardly looked of this world. Domes rose here and there, and towers shot skyward as if piercing the glass floor.

Even the Mage Tower said to exist in Alfraia could hardly have been built higher.

"All right, enough gawking. Let's move."

The dwarf leading the party tugged the reins of an unfamiliar beast braying beside him, prodding the entranced Yaan onward.

"Hwoi~!"

At the tug, the beast snorted "phruk" and began to lumber forward.

Thick fur drooping under its weight, the creature's tusks and broad snout marked it unmistakably as a kind of pig.

"I've been wondering-what is that thing?"

"This? Ah, you mean a hog."

The dwarf walked on, patting the hog's back.

On the hog's saddle and armor sat unstable stacks of steel crates swaying as though they might collapse at any moment.

"A pack animal bred by wandering dwarf tribes. They're raised on the Janskarl plains."

"Bred... you mean cultivated?"

It was Ren who answered Yaan's question.

"They improve the original animal's genes, tailoring breeds for specific uses-restored cloning tech in-house."

"So rather than breeding them, you create them from scratch?"

At the question, a dwarf who had just inhaled smoke from his pipe answered instead.

Wait, that's not tobacco, is it?

"Exactly. No need to manage sires or dams; we can stamp out hundreds or thousands at once. In Janskarl, meat's cheaper than dung."

"Though the noble Assembly still imports cows from Alfraia, mind you."

"Can't you clone cows?"

"The big elder forbids it. Copy imports and our brothers outside get hunted for it."

"Hah! They treat us drifters badly enough; those pointy-eared bastards would do it in a heartbeat."

One dwarf, reminded of Alfraia, spat after speaking.

'Spitting in a sanctuary... the cardinals would faint.'

Thinking so, Yaan glanced at Sir Bayan beside him; the paladin looked utterly relaxed at the sight.

"A demi-human spat in the sanctuary and you barely blinked?"

"Hahaha! It's a sanctuary to us, but to them it's just another patch of road."

Bayan laughed, scratching the back of his head. Noticing Yaan's stare, he gave an awkward chuckle.

"Hardly fitting for a paladin to say, but truth is I'm not that invested in the Church."

"Yet every other word you speak praises the Creator."

"Not anymore, right?"

Had it all been an act?

Thinking so, Yaan shrugged as if asking for an explanation.

"Not everyone in the Church is devout. In a theocracy you eat or starve-sometimes you conjure faith you don't feel."

"You could always leave the Church."

"And go where? Elf tribes? Or the Kerdan front where shells might fall any moment?"

At Bayan's words, Yaan nodded in understanding.

Life without alternatives inside a closed society. Faith imposed on all without exception.

"Still, the current His Holiness is a little better, right?"

The one called the elder dwarf opened the topic.

"True. Under the last one, dwarves couldn't set foot in the Church."

"Only monks could enter this perilous place, claiming the unbaptized were barred."

Hearing the dwarf, Yaan asked.

"Perilous? I didn't see anything."

The elder snorted and pointed into the distance.

"That rise yonder-take a look."

In the dwarf's hand was a telescope.

Yaan took it, peered afar, then gave a dry laugh.

"Ha, you built a mountain of skulls?"

The term "ox-bone tower" exists-piles of bones left after cattle slaughter.

Then what should we call those distant mounds?

Human-bone towers?

"The route we're taking is verified-defense systems there are offline. Even dwarves paid dearly to map it."

"With no intel but scripture, sending bookworms here produced that result."

Yaan gazed silently at the sight as the dwarf spoke.

Some bones still wore red monastic habits-the cardinals' mark.

"They didn't send only junior monks."

"Martyrs forced by the previous Pope. Now they're all declared saints."

Bitterness laced Bayan's voice.

The elder drew on his pipe and continued.

"The last Pope pressed forty thousand believers into service. Bring back anything useful and great; die and you're with the Creator-win-win."

"Ha, forty thousand?"

A week's death toll on the Kerdan frontier.

Thinking so, Yaan snorted, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, and lit it.

"Mind if I smoke?"

Bayan chuckled at the cautious question and nodded.

"Guest lights up in his own room-who'd stop him?"

"Ha."

Yaan laughed at the remark.

Home.

This fossil under glass?

Thinking so, he inhaled, then exhaled the smoke toward the city beneath his feet.

"Short break!"

"Do not cross the marked line!"

At the dwarves' warning, a campsite began forming on the glass plain.

Time off until a hundred tents were pitched.

A voice called to Yaan as he wandered alone amid the Crystal City.

"You seem far more relaxed than when we last met."

Bayan's bright-eyed remark drew a snort from Yaan.

"It's leave, isn't it? When you rest, you rest."

"Is that so?"

A day-long survey ahead, forced upon him as a prisoner. With no subordinates to manage and utterly alone, Yaan's manner was languid.

"Or perhaps, as you said, coming home has loosened me up."

"Glad the journey is comfortable for you."

While the paladin and Yaan traded words, a hand tugged at his collar.

"Yaan."

It was Ren.

"Please continue your conversation. I'll take my leave."

"Ah, yes."

After saying that, Yaan watched Bayan disappear among the dwarves, and Ren's small hand tugged at his collar again.

"What is it?"

"If you wish, you could live here."

At the single sentence Ren spoke in a voice only he could hear, the cigarette Yaan had been smoking stopped halfway.

"...What nonsense are you talking?"

A dry voice devoid of any inflection. Ren noticed it, but she did not stop speaking.

"If we restore the residential functions and use the technology stored within me, we can create a small-scale community at the village level. That way..."

"What. You want me to quit everything and convalesce here?"

The expression on Yaan's face as he spat that out was as cold as ice.

"Glaepnir is a Frame that maximizes the user's body to secure mobility and reaction speed. After a single sortie, a recovery period of over two weeks..."

"That's why I'm resting like this now, isn't it? Even enjoying some leisurely sightseeing."

A bitter sneer hung at the corner of Yaan's lips as he spoke.

"Even at this very moment, my enemies are dancing atop my mother's corpse, and I can't do a thing. Understand?"

"...."

At the single sentence laced with self-mockery aimed at Yaan himself, Ren quietly shook her head.

"My duty as a biological terminal is to protect you."

"Then keep protecting me. That should make things a bit easier for me too."

"Right now, the biggest obstacle to protecting you is you yourself."

At Ren's words, Yaan closed his mouth.

"If you keep riding the colossus like this, you'll die."

"Certainly. And faster than you expect."

At the sentence that sounded like a verdict, Yaan snorted with a deflated sound.

"Fine. Then I'd better go crush Belkuth even faster."

"Your body won't hold out. You're already at your limit...!"

Ren's words could no longer continue. Yaan had grabbed the collar of the thick fur cloak Ren wore and pulled her face close to his.

"If you were going to stop me with that kind of reason, you shouldn't have made me board Glaepnir in the first place."

No trace of mockery could be found on Yaan's face as he asked that.

"Why did you urge me, who should've died back then, to board Glaepnir?"

Ren did not answer that question.

"To me, dying powerlessly, having forgotten my purpose and revenge-why did you show me that possibility?"

The emotions contained in the two eyes staring at Ren were anger, or perhaps regret. Maybe even remorse.

Unable to hold back any longer, Yaan poured out his pent-up emotions at the small girl he held in his grasp. It was like the filth that filled the trench floor where he had crouched.

"In that frontier! In the trenches! Amid the pile of corpses! You shouldn't have pulled me out! You should've left me to die! Why did you...!"

Yaan's cry of anguish could no longer continue. Ren had raised her hand and covered Yaan's face with both of hers.

"If the paladins see that expression now, it'll cause unnecessary trouble."

A brief silence.

Fortunately, buried beneath the dwarves' laughter, there was no one who had heard this quarrel. Only Yaan and Ren remained.

After a short while, Ren removed the hands covering Yaan's eyes and looked at his face as she spoke.

"Have you calmed down?"

Like an emotionless doll, the jade eyes reflecting him showed no change in expression whatsoever. Looking at the snow-white girl's face, Yaan weakly released the collar he had been gripping.

"Shit...!"

Realizing he had lost control, Yaan cursed. His face, buried in his hands, was twisted into a mess.

"Let's stop. I got worked up too."

Saying that, Yaan slumped down on the spot and fumbled for a cigarette in his trembling hand.

"There is no goodwill without a price, and no malice without a reason."

As Ren echoed the words Yaan habitually uttered, she looked at him and opened her mouth.

"At least, I don't expect any price from you."

At those words, Yaan let out a hollow chuckle, holding a cigarette in his mouth as he looked at her.

"Reproduce the glory of humanity. That's what the Tauros AI said, wasn't it?"

"...."

"Isn't that what you want from me? To pass that test or whatever and revive the civilization of the Ancients?"

At Yaan's question, Ren shook her head.

"The command input into me is only to find the suitable one, make him realize, and protect him. Whatever choice you make, that's your own."

An emotionless voice. Yet at those words, Yaan simply looked silently into her eyes.

'I'm too stupid to understand! I just like Yaan, so I'm staying with him!'

What flashed through his mind for an instant was the single innocent remark Yanika had left in an old memory.

Now, he couldn't even recall what her voice had sounded like or what her face had looked like. At her single remark, Yaan could only toss away the cigarette he had been holding in his mouth.

"Lieutenant Yaan."

The one who called Yaan and Ren, who had been silently gazing at the Crystal City stretching to the horizon, was Bayan.

"What is it?"

"A signal flare went up from the barrier. I believe we must hurry."

Bayan's face was rigid as he spoke.

"At the Holy See's main gate... the Imperial Army has apparently arrived, bringing colossi with them."