Watching the model she had built collapse into recursive overflow again and again, Priestess Lena could not help but let out a sigh.
"Mediocre, yet prone to wild fantasies."
"Blind, yet unwilling to keep your feet on the ground."
For some reason, she found herself remembering her mentor's evaluation of her once more.
Although she had already become a Genetor, she could never forget the cold expression on her mentor's face after throwing her results from that one experiment into the incinerator.
Members of the Mechanicus might have all sorts of strange things stuffed into their heads, but that did not mean they were without emotion.
On the contrary, these technology fanatics with machine bodies often felt certain emotions even more intensely than ordinary people.
Some of them could devote their entire lives in loyalty to a promise made ten thousand years ago.
"No. I'll prove it to you."
A flicker passed through Priestess Lena's bionic eye.
"I'll show you that my theory is viable, Mentor."
At that thought, her gaze shifted toward the medical bay.
And during that movement, she accidentally caught sight of the storage component that had caused the Spear of Destiny to pay such a terrible price.
Before everything had happened, Solomon had already handed it over to Priestess Lena. She had originally planned to study the ancient storage device when she had the time.
But after that horrifying disaster broke out, the thing obviously should have been purified in sacred fire at once.
Yet for some reason, the moment Priestess Lena's eyes landed on those twisting blue patterns, a thought rose from deep inside her mind.
Take a look.
Yes.
Take a look.
The pursuit of knowledge was humanity's finest desire.
So take a look.
...
Gaia followed the members of the Adeptus Mechanicus around her with extreme reluctance.
The two of them really had wanted to enter a forge, but that was supposed to be for the purpose of replenishing the Spear of Destiny's stock of servitors and ammunition, not to be escorted inside like criminals.
Someone as hot-blooded as Gaia could hardly swallow that kind of humiliation without reacting. She had nearly resisted on the spot.
But the moment she raised her hand, the oil-stinkers and the Skitarii soldiers beside them immediately trained large-caliber melta and plasma weapons on her body.
There was an old saying on Old Terra:
A wise person knows when to yield.
The icy gun barrels helped cool Gaia down from her rising temper almost instantly. After all, none of her many talents included being fireproof.
Still, what puzzled her was that Solomon, walking right beside her, looked completely calm, without even the slightest trace of panic.
His composure also helped settle Gaia's originally unsettled heart a little.
That was right. Her identity might be a little special, and the other side had apparently mistaken her for someone connected to a Mechanicus traitor. On top of that, she had somehow triggered a servitor disturbance serious enough to let plenty of Tech-Priests write their promotion papers.
But so what?
She believed that the oil-stinkers, famous for their rationality, would at least be willing to listen to reason.
"Forge Lord, simply restraining them does not seem secure enough. I suggest disabling their motor centers first."
One of the red-robed priests beside the massive mechanical giant swept his gaze over Gaia and Solomon before making that recommendation.
Gaia, who was usually fairly emotionally stable, nearly choked on her own spit.
For the first time, she truly felt just how cold the synthetic mechanical voices of these people, whose brains had been mixed with sacred circuitry, could sound.
Solomon, meanwhile, smiled faintly without changing expression. If not for the fact that his legs were trembling like a shaking metal lathe, anyone watching might have been stunned by his extraordinary bearing.
"That won't be necessary. I still need her to guide me and help me find the one who betrayed Mars, so that I may correct our church's error in the name of the Omnissiah."
The mechanical giant known as the Forge Lord answered without even turning his head.
At those words, both Gaia and Solomon were shaken to the core.
Gaia was shocked by the identity of the man called Ulizar.
He had been judged a traitor who fled Mars, and he was somehow connected to someone as important as a Forge Lord.
That meant Ulizar was at least a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
A person like that was connected to her?
But she soon accepted it.
Anyone bold enough to perform augmentation surgery on her, traitor or not, was already doing things that were not much different from treason anyway.
As for Solomon, it felt as though lightning had struck straight through his heart.
Wait.
Brother, you're a girl?
The massive flow of information punched through his brain. In a single instant, from the birth of life to the eternity of the cosmos, he thought of many, many things...
And while Solomon's mind crashed from overthinking, the two of them were already being led into the grand forge.
Although the name made it sound like a furnace, in a forge world, a forge actually referred to the central industrial zone devoted to producing all kinds of mechanical creations.
Here, priests who specialized in mechanical construction and repair were known as forge-masters, while those qualified to control one enormous forge or multiple smaller forge districts were honored as Forge Lords.
In addition, Forge Lord also represented the highest rank a forge-master could attain.
At most, Solomon had only expected to deal with a few technical artisans before. Who could have guessed that he would skip past the teacher entirely, meet the board chairman, and come face-to-face with a legendary Forge Lord?
Unfortunately, the Forge Lord before them clearly did not want to discuss business.
After bringing the two of them into a sealed chamber, the Forge Lord ordered all nonessential personnel to leave.
And once everyone was gone, he could no longer suppress the fury in his heart. Steam hissed from his towering mechanical frame as he demanded of Gaia:
"What was Ulizar's purpose in sending you here?"
"He betrayed his promise to my teacher, and now he still dares covet my territory?"
His voice was cold, flat, and mechanically even, but Gaia could see the blazing anger burning through him.
For a moment, she genuinely could not tell whether the temperature inside this Forge Lord's heart or inside his forge core was higher right now.
Facing the furious mechanical giant, she took a deep breath and answered calmly, without submission and without arrogance.
"First, I do not know anyone named Ulizar. I was definitely modified by someone, but I have no memory of that period."
"Second, we also have no idea what caused your servitors to malfunction. We ran into this mess right after stepping off the elevator."
"Everything I have said is the truth. You can use the methods of the Adeptus Mechanicus to verify every word."
"And if you're still not convinced, you can review our full movements from the moment we docked and disembarked. They will prove our innocence."
Gaia's calm words helped the somewhat out-of-control Forge Lord recover a little composure.
Ever since earlier, he had been using servo-skulls to comprehensively monitor Gaia's physiological responses, and he had detected no signs that she was lying.
As for their movements, he had already sent people to verify them through the harmonic network, and while doing so, he had also used his authority to discipline the workers responsible for inspections at the starport.
Everything matched exactly what Gaia had said.
So although he did not want to admit it, she truly seemed to know nothing about the whereabouts of that damned traitor.
And setting Ulizar aside, the most important thing to determine now was this:
What exactly had caused the servitor disturbance?
As it happened, he already had a suspicion.
His expression did not change in the slightest, but inwardly, ripples were already spreading through his mind.
"Below..."
"Could it be... that thing?"
(End of Chapter)
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