[171] 1. Kergo Autonomous Zone (3)
Outsiders trampled Kergo while spouting every kind of excuse and pretext. Under the banner of "inspection and search," countless women lost their purity. However twisted their comrades' hatred became, taking the side of outsiders was out of the question.
"From now on, the inspection begins. You—come here and raise your arms."
Amy stood her ground, holding refusal and vigilance at once.
If the man hadn't been a master, she would have flipped his belly the moment he tried to humiliate her—but the killing intent around him wasn't ordinary. If a fight broke out, they'd have to brace for a commotion, and this place was a bad spot to start anything.
"You're going too far."
Rian stepped in front of Amy. Amy might be better at reading the situation, but if the other party intended to provoke a woman's shame, it was right for him to be the one to stand forward.
"Even if Palcoa is dead, Freeman's organization is still intact. If you treat us like this, you won't get away unscathed either."
Borrowing Freeman's prestige was a clever move on Rian's part. Amy also thought it was a good tactic.
But the Kergoans were far more belligerent than expected.
As if someone had touched a reverse scale, Mahatu's face flushed red.
"Is that a challenge? Come at me as much as you like. Kergoans don't run."
—Everyone, fall back. Mahatu is focusing his mind.
Arin notified them through the mental channel.
By the time the thought ended, everyone could feel it. Even dull Rian sensed the dissonant pressure of his fighting aura.
Amy aimed her Spirit Zone. Depending on how high Mahatu's aura climbed, their method of fighting would be decided.
Bwooooooooo!
Just then, a horn blast sounded from deeper in the cave.
If it could be heard all the way inside a winding tunnel, one could imagine how loud it was.
As the horn call spread through the entire cavern, Mahatu stared at the entrance in shock.
His comrades reacted even more strongly. Their shoulders were trembling as if they couldn't believe it.
"Mahatu, that's the Horn of Jingok. What on earth…?"
Before his companion even finished, Mahatu threw himself forward.
"Damn it! Why the Horn of Jingok! Has war broken out?"
The Horn of Jingok was the highest-grade alert the Kergo tribe had set. The moment they heard it, every tribesperson had to assemble at the source of the sound. There were no exceptions for any class, and absence meant punishment.
When the natives vanished, Amy's group was thrown into confusion as well.
"What is this? Looks like something happened outside."
"Let's go check it out first. Being at a dead end is dangerous."
Amy's party left the cave and arrived at the place the sound came from.
It was a vast plaza where seven tunnels met at the center.
Natives were gathering, and there were so many that they couldn't tell what was going on.
The murmuring noise blended together, making it hard to carry words. They tried to rely on the mental channel, but Arin was only staring at the dais.
"Kneel and pay homage! The Messenger of God who will save us has arrived!"
An old man on the dais shouted. Then easily over a thousand people fell to their knees and spoke as one.
"We welcome the Messenger of God."
As if the world were collapsing, the crowd sank down. Their view opened up to the dais, and they could see Sirone standing before the elder.
Sirone's eyes, which were scanning the surroundings, met Amy's. They had only been apart for two hours, but after too many ridiculous situations, he couldn't contain the swell of feeling.
"Amy."
Those who had been chanting "Messenger of God" fell silent. The hush rippled out in concentric circles, and several people looked toward Amy.
Mahatu was among them. Amy thought she would never forget the way his face was washed over by bewilderment.
"Sirone."
The natives' gaze returned to Sirone. Their attitude said they wouldn't miss a single syllable that came out of his mouth.
Sirone's face crumpled.
"Amy, what's wrong with these people? I can't understand a word they're saying."
Seeing Sirone on the verge of tears, Amy scratched her brow.
And said in her heart:
Would I know?
@
When Sirone took a step, the crowd split like bamboo being cleaved. Even as they held a posture of prostration, their perfect unison was proof of their tension.
Sirone's face was haggard. Anyone would be, after being exposed to an unknown language for two hours.
Normally, if speech doesn't get through, you give up on conversation—but the officiants of the altar hadn't left Sirone alone for even a moment.
"I thought I was going to die of frustration. Every time I tried to say something, they bowed, so in the end I didn't say a single word. Why are they acting like that toward me?"
"I don't know. We just got here too. Did you pass the test?"
"Yeah, I think so, but there's a bit of a problem."
"A problem? What problem?"
Explaining what he'd seen in the Labyrinth's spacetime would take a long story. And they didn't have the leisure now, nor were the circumstances good.
The old man who had blown the horn approached Sirone.
Mahatu followed behind the elder. His head was in turmoil. If this was the Messenger of God, it meant he had opened all eight spaces of the Labyrinth—but contrary to what he'd always imagined, the messenger was a boy with soft peach fuzz, which shocked him.
—Absolute obedience to the Messenger of God.
It was a phrase he'd heard so often since childhood that it had scabbed over his ears.
It wasn't on the same plane as the religious faith outsiders talked about. As subjects obey a king, to Kergoans God was a power that truly existed.
Mahatu quickened his pace toward Sirone. If he truly was the Messenger, then before he faced the elder, Mahatu had to pay for the offense he'd committed against Amy's group.
"O revered Messenger of God, forgive my boldness, but are these people your companions?"
Jis stepped up to interpret, but Mahatu raised a hand to stop him.
"No—someone here seems to be using mental-type magic. If that person is present, let them enable us to speak with the Messenger of God."
The moment he realized it had been when Amy's tone rose.
Normally, when you talk through an interpreter, speech grows simple and short, but in several parts he'd gotten the feeling they understood Kergoan with surprising accuracy.
Arin's Spirit Zone seeped into Mahatu's shadow.
Sirone was startled by the voice ringing in his head, but once he realized what ability it was, he nodded.
Taking that as the sign that preparations were finished, Mahatu repeated his earlier question.
"Messenger of God, are these people truly your companions?"
"Yes. They're my friends."
Mahatu bowed his head heavily. He wasn't afraid of dying, but insulting the Messenger's friends was a mistake that could endanger the fate of his entire clan.
Kergo had not been destroyed by Luf, civil war, or volcanic eruption. Officially, that was how the story went, but behind it lay a truth no one knew.
The Kergoans had angered an angel.
And the boy standing before him was the angel's descendant.
The tale handed down for five hundred years had taken root in the Kergoans' unconscious as a deep-seated fear.
Mahatu's expression changed—mortification to fear, then, as if he had steeled himself, back to what it had been. He dropped to his knees so hard they might have shattered and cried out.
"Forgive me! Please kill me! I committed a great discourtesy to your party!"
"Discourtesy? What discourtesy? You didn't resort to violence, did you?"
Sirone's wariness flared at behavior that bordered on fanaticism, and he fired back at once. If they had laid hands on his friends, he had no intention of forgiving it.
"Ah, it's nothing. We just bickered a little. You know, the kind of thing we do all the time."
Amy's words were practically slang. There had indeed been a clash, but things were complicated, and she wanted it let go.
Mahatu looked up at Amy with gratitude. Relieved they hadn't brought a crisis upon their race, he yielded his place to the elder.
Introducing himself as Hasid, an elder of the Kergo tribe, the old man posed a meaningful question to Sirone.
"Have you come after seeing Lord Miro's message?"
Sirone recalled the scene he'd witnessed in the Chamber of Achievement and Sacrifice. It had rushed by so quickly that the information remained in fragments, but each fragment was vivid.
When Sirone nodded, the elder planted his staff and turned.
The natives gathered on the plaza were waiting for the answer.
"At last, the Messenger of God has graced Kergo!"
Sirone's party covered their ears. As Hasid's words fell, the natives let out a warrior's bellow.
The cave filled with sound until it seemed the ceiling would burst.
Cries of joy were mixed here and there with weeping. Through the crowd, the half-naked came forward and fell to their knees before Sirone.
"Messenger of God, our child is sick. Please heal him."
Because Arin's channel was linked to Mahatu as well, she could understand the words. But Sirone had no power to heal a sick child.
An old man who had crawled up beside the woman pressed his hands together and stretched them out, pleading.
"Give us food! Our families are starving."
That was the start; people arrived one after another.
"Grant me immortality!"
"Please spare only my daughter Atore! She's already engaged!"
"Make me a woman!"
Arin not only covered her ears but shut her eyes. The vision delivered through the Mind's Eye was drenched in red, like watching seething lava. If she accepted any more of the people's yearning, her psyche felt like it would collapse.
"Kanis! The voice of the heart is too loud!"
"Close the channel. You might get hurt."
Sirone was trapped in the crowd and couldn't take a single step. With Arin canceling the telepathy, interpretation was impossible, but the ripples of emotion surged on without end, squeezing his heart. It was like a mass hypnosis. The keyword was madness.
Sirone turned to Hasid and Mahatu for help. But they only looked upon their kin with sorrowful eyes.
"Everyone, be silent!"
At a man's roar, silence fell in an instant.
A young man walked in from the northern tunnel, flanked left and right by sturdy warriors. He wasn't huge, but his balloon-swollen muscles more than overawed his escorts. His hair was long and swept back, and golden tattoos were engraved on his face.
Only then did Arin open her closed eyes.
The emotions she saw through the Mind's Eye were awe.
But that wasn't all.
They were afraid. It was the mental image commonly seen when facing an iron-fisted ruler. The man was clearly the head of Kergo.
Approaching Sirone, the man introduced himself.
"I am Kadum, chieftain of Kergo. From here on, I will attend you."
Sirone asked his friends what they thought.
No one objected. If they wanted to gain anything in the autonomous zone, he was someone they would have to meet sooner or later anyway.
And this was as far as Jis's job went.
Sirone spoke with visible regret.
"From here, we'll go on our own. It could get dangerous."
Jis didn't show any sign of being offended and nodded. Not putting on pointless pride was one of the reasons Sirone's party trusted him.
Shaking hands, Jis said with concern,
"Be careful. The autonomous zone seems very different from the Kergo I knew."
"Yeah. It'll be fine. And thanks for interpreting."
"I'm glad if I helped. When you're finished, drop by my place. Yuna and I will have lots of good food ready."
Sirone asked Kadum to see Jis back to the ruins. Then everyone vied to follow Sirone's orders and volunteered to guide him. Arin picked someone she could trust.
Jis left the Kergo Autonomous Zone following a burly warrior.
Kadum led Sirone's party into a tunnel.
Even after twenty minutes of walking, their destination didn't appear. If this path had been a blind alley, any traveler would have sunk down in despair.
A labyrinth isn't only one built with complex design. The autonomous zone's maze overwhelmed by sheer scale.