Chương 30: The Mythical Secret

They left Greyport before the market finished waking up. Ivan kept his hood low while Rys guided Ren through side streets that smelled of bread and fish, mixed with the stench of wet stone. The wanted poster from the tavern stayed in his head even after they turned away from the square. The sketch had been too vague to identify him. The words underneath were the problem. The Chain-Breaker. Human male. Suspected enchanter or mage. Known to unbind slave collars.

Anyone in this new place who got to know Ivan would eventually start connecting those details. He could hide his face, but he could not hide everything he did forever. So they left. There wasn't really any change of plans; their destination was Asterion and they were heading there. The initial plan had been to use a teleportation field from Greyport to Asterion, but it turned out that Greyport's small gate circle near the temple was not that powerful.

It only handled regional hops between nearby villages, not to Asterion. The larger transcontinental gates belonged to real cities with higher-grade Hearts of Civilization, heavy ward teams, and enough political weight to withstand whatever walked through them. Greyport had a harbor, a temple, and a decent stew pot. Apparently, that did not make it a hub. Asterion sat inland, across the expanded Hellenic wilds. Apparently Rys's Veyshore was near it.

She didn't comment when they watched the map, so Ivan decided not to ask about it either. She probably didn't want to return before taking proper revenge on the Iron Chain Consortium. Meaning to destroy the whole organization. Which, Ivan believed, would not happen anytime soon. Ivan wondered whether they should grab horses or a carriage for this journey, but soon decided otherwise. Walking was what they could afford because it kept him away from clerks who might enjoy matching wanted descriptions to travelers.

Ivan did not hate the idea. [Determined Step] turned distance into a smaller problem. Mud did not cling the way it should, and loose gravel gave under his boots without stealing much stamina. Hills still burned Ivan's legs, because apparently the System did not remove basic inconvenience, but he could move all day and still think clearly. He could even carry little Ren on his back when the boy got tired. He wanted distance from Greyport.

He also wanted time to learn the rules here before he accidentally broke them and made new enemies. Victor's continent had been simple in the worst way. Power flowed down from Sky Reach, and everyone beneath it learned to bow before they learned to argue. New Europe looked cleaner, with different rulers ruling different parts, which only made Ivan more suspicious. They passed white mile markers stamped with Aurora's sunburst. The road had drainage cuts along the sides and ward posts at regular intervals.

A patrol wagon rolled past near noon with two armored guards and a priest in pale robes, and none of them tried to [Inspect] travelers for sport. Ren watched the wagon until it turned a bend.

"Were they not supposed to stop us?" he asked.

"For what?" Rys did not slow.

"We're tired, we look real poor, and unlikely to be worth the report."

"That was what I was hoping for, glad it worked," Ivan said. Rys glanced at the ink staining his fingers.

"You've done this before?"

"Spent ten years in a scribe office. Looking harmless worked there too. Before that, between the beginning of the apocalypse and the start of my job, I had to live as a survivor. I've got a few heroic stories from back then, by the way."

"Sure you do," she said that, but she did not laugh. Her eyes stayed on the road ahead, and Ivan wondered if she was thinking about the wanted poster too. The kiss from the ship kept turning up whenever Ivan forgot about it. Rys brushed his hand when passing him a water skin and then acted as though his face was the interesting part for responding. Ivan had enough problems without trying to classify what that meant. It did not help that he still had another unanswered question about her.

Rys had shown him three tails and foxfire hot enough to kill a Level 71 Sea King, then walked away looking annoyed about her coat. Ivan had not asked what that meant, and she had not volunteered anything. Apparently, trusting each other had not made either of them willing to go first, so they had both left it alone. By afternoon the road left Greyport's immediate territory. The ward posts spread farther apart. The farms became smaller, and the stone walls around them looked higher.

Several had old charms tied to the gates, with symbols Ivan did not recognize from Aurora doctrine. Rys noticed him looking.

"Looks like you're up for a class. Here in New Europe, Aurora protects the coast," she said.

"Inland, other gods have claims. Some are friendly." She glanced at one of the charms.

"Some will smile while they count your broken teeth."

"Huh. That doesn't sound like anything new."

"Asterion has its own order, too. Ask anyone who likes its Champion and they'll tell you he's a philosopher king." The fact that he was known as a King in this post-modern world didn't give Ivan much confidence. Maybe he was a little more civil than Victor, but by how much? The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"What do the others call him?"

"They tend to be quieter." Ivan looked at her. Rys's ears twitched.

"Only a little, little boy." Ivan kept looking at her. Her smile stayed faint.

"I've actually been there a few times before for business reasons. Asterion is safer than Sky Reach, I think. Should be much cleaner too. But… it is an old city, and the families there don't need collars to make people afraid of them."

"Old city? How?" Ivan was confused. As far as he was aware, Asterion lay between Italy and Greece, where the Ionian Sea had once been before the world ended. Now the System had replaced the ocean with land, and Asterion was located somewhere there. So how could it be an old city?

"How do you know less about this than me, even though I'm from a different world?" Rys gave him an insulting look, which offended him.

"Hey, information isn't that available in this new world, and I spent most of my time scribbling runes, not reading newspapers. Besides, you lived nearby," he argued. She shrugged.

"Fair. Plus I am a Priestess, so it makes sense why I'd be more curious about this," she said, which confused Ivan. How were these two things connected?

"At the very least, are you aware of the Roman and Greek Mythologies?"

"Huh? Well, yes, but I'm confused about where this conversation is going." She laughed, "Have you heard of Knossos, the Labyrinth City from Greek myths? Well, Asterion is like an imperfect echo of Knossos, as if it had descended from the heavens. Nobody built Asterion, it was claimed. During the initial stage of the Integration, a big event happened in Europe where countless strong individuals participated to win Asterion… as well as the favor of some major gods."

"W-wait, wait," Ivan stopped walking.

"When you say Asterion is basically from the Greek myths, and then mention major gods right after it… Could it be…" She just smiled. Oh fuck.

The Serpent of Blackglass, the Father of the Obsidic Coil who sponsored Victor Hargraves, was one of the Twelve Primordial Gods. Victor was already a powerhouse, but his sponsor was the reason why he could so effortlessly control the entire continent of new Australia. And the reason he couldn't extend his reach beyond Australia was related to that as well. The Serpent of Blackglass wasn't the only Primordial after all. New Europe had more than one City Lord who was blessed by a Primordial.

The Philosopher King of Asterion was one of them. Blessed by the Sky Father, Dyauron, Sovereign of the Open Sky.

"Or what you Earth people might be more familiar with," Rys said.

"Zeus, the Thunder God."

"What the fuck."

"Yes. A fact you should know is that a lot of your world's myths are simply a mirror of the greater universe. Some really powerful Gods, with really interesting stories, manage to slip their stories into unclaimed worlds even before the System Integration. I don't understand the secrets, though. For example, the other eleven Primordial Gods aren't behind the inspiration of Greek Myths. Like who you might know as Poseidon, he's a strong God indeed, but he's not part of the Primordial Twelve. It's really strange."

Rys continued rambling about mythologies and Gods, but Ivan was busy getting his mind blown. To him, it was as if someone told him Superman was real. Was reality really this… fickle? The road climbed into rougher country by late day. Olive trees grew in loose terraces along the hills. Dry grass hissed under the wind. The sea had vanished behind them, and the sky felt wider without ship rails cutting it into manageable pieces. Ivan kept [Mana Sense] low but active. He was not searching for trouble exactly.

He simply no longer trusted an empty road to stay empty, and he wanted warning before anything with teeth reached them. Ren walked a few paces ahead, bow in hand. Leo's lessons had stuck. The boy held the weapon more naturally now and kept his elbow lower when he drew to test tension. He still looked too young for any of this, but less like a child playing with a stick. Rys watched him with a stern expression, although Ivan suspected she was proud.

"You've been watching him for the last mile," Ivan said.

"So have you."

"He's doing better."

"I know." Rys kept her eyes on Ren.

"You're allowed to look proud, you know. Uncles usually are." Rys said uncles as though the matter had been settled somewhere without Ivan. He still had not worked out when that happened. Ren turned his head.

"Yeah, yeah, I am doing better, right? You complained less after Leo said it."

"Well Leo's the expert," Ivan said.

"Arguing after that would only have wasted time." The road bent around a dry gully. Ivan felt a mana signature before he heard anything. It came from the right slope, low against the rocks. Dense, warm, and wrapped in a hard outer shell. He stopped. Rys stopped with him. Ren noticed half a second later and froze. Ivan raised two fingers, then pointed at the slope. Rys's playful face disappeared. She moved Ren behind a broken stone marker and slid one hand toward the scimitars at her hips.

The blades were new, bought in Greyport from a smith who had held his price even after Rys smiled sweetly at him. Ivan had expected that sweet smile to lower the price a little. Apparently, it had made the man hold his ground. Ivan let [Architecture of Mana] sharpen the signature. There was only one creature. That's good. Oh wait, no, there's more. He sensed a second, farther back. Then a third signature moved above them, almost hidden by the rocks. Shit. It was pack hunters.

He crouched and pressed two fingers to the road. Fine dust clung to his skin. Claw marks crossed the hard earth near the edge of the gully, deep enough to show weight.

"Hm. Stonehide Manticores," Rys said quietly.

"Young, I think." Ivan found the first outline as it moved between scrub shadows. [Stonehide Manticore – Level 58] Its body was shaped like a lion, but was buried beneath overlapping stone plates. The armor covered most of the areas Ivan would have preferred to aim at. It had a tail that curved over its back with barbs at the end, and the mana in those barbs flickered with a poison pattern. The second one showed itself farther up the slope. [Stonehide Manticore – Level 61] Ren swallowed.

Ivan remembered a Thornwood Prowler at Level 12. He remembered waking in a cave with almost no food and three mana points from collapse. Back then, a single mistake meant teeth in his throat. Now a Level 61 monster watched him from the rocks and his first thought was about angles. Ivan couldn't help but chuckle, which ended up making Ren flinch. He had not noticed how much things had changed. There was usually another disaster close enough to stop him from looking back.

But here, with the manticore still deciding how to kill him, Ivan was already measuring the slope, the road, and where Ren could shoot without giving the creature a clear path to him. He had options now, and he was recognizing them before panic made the choice for him. Ivan looked back at the Level 61 manticore. Let's see what I can do now.