Chapter 11: The King's Highway
The transition from the dense, claustrophobic woods to the King's Highway was a massive relief. After days of dodging low-hanging branches and tripping over roots, the smooth, ancient stone thoroughfare felt like a luxury.
The Highway was busy, but in a totally mundane, "everyday" kind of way. I saw merchant wagons pulled by shaggy, multi-legged oxen, travelers in dusty cloaks, and even a few people on horseback with glowing runic lanterns swinging from their saddles.
"Okay, so no one's running for the hills," I muttered, leaning back on the driver's bench. I kept my hands loosely on the leather reins, though Fenris was basically on cruise control through our mental link. "But we're definitely the 'custom car' in a lane full of minivans."
Aria leaned against the doorframe of the carriage, watching a passing farmer do a double-take at Bee. "It's because they're strange, Nero. Most golems are lumpy puppets meant for hauling crates. Most silver wolves are wild beasts you stay away from. They aren't scared; they're just trying to figure out if you're a performer, a collector, or just a very eccentric tinkerer."
"I can live with 'tinkerer,'" I said.
As the sun climbed higher, the open plains stretched out around us. To pass the time, Aria started asking questions about Bee's joints. Thanks to her background in arcane engineering, she noticed he didn't move with the stiff, jerky motions of the golems she was used to.
"Most Golemancers just animate the 'shell,'" she explained, sketching a quick diagram in her notebook. "They treat the stone like a puppet. But Bee... his movements are fluid. How?"
I grinned. This was my favorite part. "That's because I'm not animating a puppet, Aria. I'm building an Inner Frame."
She tilted her head, confused. "An inner... what?"
"Back where I'm from, I had this hobby. We called them model kits—Gunpla, things like that. The high-end ones didn't just have an outer shell. They had a complete mechanical skeleton underneath. Every joint, every piston, every hinge was designed to work together before the armor even touched it."
I gestured to Bee, who was currently swiveling his head to track a passing hawk.
"When I use my Imagination Manifestation, I'm not just thinking 'move.' I'm visualizing the structural engineering I saw in those kits. I call it Anime Engineering. I'm taking the logic of fictional machines and forcing this world's physics to make them real. My magic handles the 'how,' but my imagination provides the 'why.'"
Aria stared at Bee for a long moment, then back at me. "You use... stories and 'kits' as the blueprints for your soul?"
"Pretty much," I shrugged. "In my head, a golem isn't a statue. It's a high-mobility machine. Because of my Gemini Soul, I can process the 3D layout of the skeleton and the armor at the same time. If I can imagine how the joints should click, the magic just fills in the gaps."
We spent the rest of the day just talking shop. No big plans for flying fortresses or world-saving yet—just a guy explaining how a ball-joint works to a girl who knew how to bend space. It was a weird, geeky bridge between two worlds, built over the steady rumble of wooden wheels on stone.
By the time the two moons started to show their faces, the distant, glowing spires of Oak Haven were visible on the horizon. Massive ancient oaks were integrated directly into white stone walls, lit by thousands of hanging lanterns.
"Rule number two of whatever it is we're doing," I told Aria as we approached the massive western gates.
"And what's that?" she asked, tucking her pencil away.
"Don't worry about being 'weird,'" I grinned, patting the Soul-Steel reinforced side of the carriage. "Just focus on being the best 'weird' thing in the room."
As the massive ironwood gates groaned open to let us in, I took a deep breath of the city air—a mix of woodsmoke, fresh bread, and magic. The "Clerical Error" had dropped me into the dirt, but I was entering Oak Haven with a partner, a magic box on wheels, and a lot of ideas.