It was daytime. Iron and Noah were walking together across a wide green field. Nothing but thick grass stretched out around them, while an empty dirt road trailed off to their right.
As they walked, Iron addressed Lumon:
"If Noah had my magic, would his body be able to handle it?"
[Affirmative,] Lumon replied without hesitation.
"Understood," the engineer replied mentally.
He turned his head to Noah and asked directly:
"Noah, what do I need to do to get a body like yours?"
Noah looked at him in surprise:
"What are you even talking about?"
"About your body," Iron clarified. "How do I get that same strength, durability, and stamina?"
"I honestly don't know," Noah shrugged. "I've been like this for as long as I can remember. I guess you just have to train."
"I see," Iron replied.
To himself, he quickly summarized: "So, I just need to train more," and logged the task.
At that moment, Lumon brought up a warning. The scanner had detected ground vibrations and the clatter of wheels—a carriage was approaching them from behind along the dirt road.
Iron turned his head and called out loudly to the driver:
"Where are you heading?"
No one answered. The driver didn't even turn his head, continuing to rhythmically whip the horses.
Iron took a few steps to the side and stood dead center in the road, right in the path of the two harnessed horses.
The man on the coachbox yanked the reins. The horses neighed in fright, and the carriage came to a screeching halt right in front of the engineer.
"Where are you heading?" Iron asked calmly once again.
Before the driver could open his mouth, a guard in scuffed leather armor leapt off the rear running board with a curse. With a sharp metallic ring, his sword flew from its scabbard. The mercenary swung immediately, aiming straight for Iron's neck.
But the blade never reached his neck.
Noah stepped forward and caught the blade between his palms. The attack stopped dead.
The guard stared in shock at his own hands, and then at Noah, who was holding the weapon:
"Who... Who the hell are you?!"
Iron stepped calmly out from behind Noah's shoulder:
"You answer my question first. Where are you heading?"
The mercenary flew into an even greater rage at such audacity. He yanked the sword toward himself to rip it free and chop off his head, but a woman's voice rang out from the carriage:
"We are traveling to the Kingdom of Kront."
The curtain was pulled aside, and the face of a young girl appeared from the cabin.
Iron shifted his gaze to her:
"Do you happen to know where Count Wayland's lands are?"
"If you go straight down this road, you'll walk right into them," the girl answered calmly.
"Can you give us a ride?" Iron asked immediately.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?!" the mercenary spat.
Noah squeezed his fingers slightly on the blade, sending a cracking sound through the steel, and shot the guard a heavy glare:
"Shut your mouth."
The girl in the carriage sighed and shook her head slightly:
"I'm sorry, but we can't let you in."
"Fine," Iron cut in calmly.
He turned around and, without another word, stepped off the road back onto the grass. Noah opened his palms, releasing the trapped blade. The guard jumped back, breathing heavily.
The driver immediately whipped the horses, and the carriage quickly rolled on.
Literally a couple of minutes later, Elyria materialized next to them. She dusted herself off mid-flight and hovered over Iron's shoulder.
"So, what's going on in Dornheim?" Iron asked, not breaking his stride.
Elyria frowned and spoke rapidly:
"There are a lot of soldiers there. Not as many as before, of course, but still a lot. They’re clearing out the mine and everything around it."
She fell silent for a second, then added in a slightly more anxious tone:
"And also... I sensed mana there that wasn't there before. Very dense. Most likely, they've stationed some very powerful mages on guard duty."
Iron froze for a second, and then a brief smirk flashed across his face:
"So they didn't even fight us at full strength? The absolute nerve."
He shook his head and cast his gaze forward:
"Whatever. We have one general route—straight ahead."
"Well, we were already walking straight ahead!" Elyria snorted.
"Yes," Iron answered curtly.
They kept walking. The hours ticked by, and the surrounding landscape gradually changed. The endless steppe was left behind. Up ahead, a dense forest appeared, forcing them to navigate narrow trails as they slowly made their way through the damp forest.
Iron walked in front. The interface grid flashed in his eyes. At some point, he locked onto a familiar terrain profile.
He turned his head and stated:
"We're getting close to Wayland's lands."
"Finally!" Elyria immediately perked up. "It's been a long time since we saw them. I wonder how they're doing?"
"Yeah." Iron picked up his pace, stepping out into an open clearing.
Lumon overlaid a projection of the saved map onto the current topography.
Elyria flew a little bit ahead. A couple of seconds later, her small voice echoed in Iron's head through their mental link:
"Iron... Are these really Wayland's lands?"
"Yes, there's no mistake," Iron replied mentally in the same way. But a bad feeling was already clawing at his insides.
They quickened their pace, crested a small hill, and what opened up before their eyes made everyone freeze.
Where Wayland's main castle should have stood, surrounded by high walls and carved gates, there was practically nothing. No walls, no towers, no fortifications. Only charred, cracked ruins lay all around, and right in the middle was a gigantic, gaping hole in the ground.
"What the hell?!" Iron blurted out.
He broke into a sprint toward the ruined walls. Noah and Elyria rushed after him.
Reaching the rubble, Iron looked around, and everything went cold inside him. Certain details of the castle that he remembered distinctly were simply missing.
"Lumon, are these definitely Count Wayland's lands?"
[There is no mistake. The coordinates match one hundred percent.]
"Did they really get to him too?.." Anger boiled up in Iron's chest once again.
He immediately remembered Wayland's underground "laboratory."
Iron lunged at the nearest pile of stone boulders, grabbed a massive chunk of wall with his right hand, and hurled it aside.
"Noah, help me find the entrance to Wayland's basement!" the engineer barked.
"Alright," Noah replied, and immediately started chucking giant stones out of the way.
Iron frantically dug through the debris, but everything around them had been turned into a solid, chaotic mess.
"Damn it!" Iron cursed in frustration. "If the castle was intact, I'd find it in a second!"
He stopped at the edge of the gigantic crater, breathing heavily and peering into the pit. Everything started falling into place in his head. The ruins. The giant hole. The scorched earth and the complete absence of any central structures.
Iron remembered his conversation with Wayland. About the backup reactor. And Wayland's assumption was that part of the energy from the explosion of the Heart in Dornheim might have transferred over to him.
"The reactor..." Iron muttered quietly.
Wayland's backup reactor had exploded.
Only one agonizing question spun in his head: how did this happen? Did Wayland activate the detonation himself? Or did the enemies find out about the reactor and simply blow it up?
"If that's the case, then the basement... is this crater."
Elyria, who had dropped down a bit further away near the edge of the ruined walls, abruptly cut him off:
"Hey! Look, come here quickly! Look!"
Iron and Noah were unsettled by her tone. Exchanging a glance, they abandoned the rubble and followed the spirit outside the ruins, stepping onto flat, unblemished terrain untouched by the explosion.
Elyria hovered above the ground and pointed downward in bewilderment:
"Look... Is it just me, or are those graves?"
They walked closer and froze.
The entire area around them was covered in colorful flowers. But right amidst the bright blossoms, neat rows of earthen mounds stretched out. They filled practically the entire space in front of them.
"What the hell is this?.." Iron muttered, staring at the perfectly straight rows.
The interface instantly activated in his eyes. The system locked onto the coordinates of every mound and pulled up an exact tally on the screen. The numbers locked in: approximately 1,132 graves.
"Who would even need to bury this many people here, and why?" Iron said.
Noah walked right up to the nearest burial mound, inspected the earth, and grunted:
"No idea... But let's dig one up."
"Yeah," Iron answered curtly.
Elyria concentrated, and a dense stream of mana flared around her hands. From out of the grave, a simple wooden coffin smoothly rose into the air.
Elyria's magic carefully carried it through the air and set it down on the grass in front of them.
With a dull crack, the lid slid to the side. Iron and Noah simultaneously leaned closer to look inside.
A person lay in the coffin. Dead.
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