"By the Omnissiah, I have never seen a ship in such miserable condition."
"Damn it, what have you people done to her?!"
When the Enginseer sent by the Forge Lord arrived aboard the Spear of Destiny, the servant of the Machine God nearly fainted from anger.
After repairing the ruined plasma chamber and the gravitic chronometer that had apparently been broken for a very long time, the priest even voluntarily helped them repair a large number of hidden faults in the ship's core systems.
The repair work went on for quite a while, accompanied by the priest's constant cursing and repeated rites to soothe the machine spirit.
During that time, he more than once tried to find the ship's engine seer and have a very serious conversation.
The man looked like a kind neighborhood aunt who had just discovered an abused child and now wanted nothing more than to hunt down the domestic monster responsible.
But for some reason, Priestess Lena had recently shut herself inside the medical bay and refused to come out, and after sensing the murderous intent radiating from the Enginseer, Solomon and the others did not dare reveal where she was.
In fact, even after Solomon brought back the reagents Priestess Lena needed, he had them passed along through several layers of crewmen just to avoid that furious devotee of the Omnissiah.
Still, the mechanical skill of this ill-tempered priest was genuinely superb.
Compared to the time normal ship repairs would take, the amount of time he spent could practically be called instantaneous.
And the Spear of Destiny ended up looking like a refurbished mining hauler. There was still plenty of damage inside, but on the outside, she looked fully ready to sail again.
"00100. May the Machine God punish those who fail to cherish their ships."
Even during the final handover rite, the Enginseer was still muttering curses.
"Listen carefully. Treat her better from now on... use 95-grade promethium whenever possible, not 92..."
Sweat gathered on Solomon's forehead as he nodded repeatedly.
Though he had explained more than once that he was the captain who cherished his ship more than anyone in the world, and that the Spear of Destiny had once been famous for her low damage rate, and that all these recent strange failures had been extremely abnormal, the fanatical Enginseer refused to listen.
Unable to find the engine seer, the priest had instead turned around and chased Solomon around with a powered polearm for quite some time.
Solomon was deeply grateful for the priest's hard work, but at this point, he sincerely hoped the man would never come aboard again.
Just as Solomon was about to escort the living disaster off the ship, Gaia suddenly spoke and stopped them.
"In fact, there is something I have long wanted to know. What is the honored name of Igor III's Forge Lord?"
That question had been bothering Gaia for a long time. In fact, she had wanted to ask him directly during their earlier discussions.
Leaving aside his connection to the Land sect, the simple fact that he had managed to secretly preserve the stasis-field cavern beneath Igor III right under the Fabricator-Governor's nose was enough to show that this Forge Lord was far from ordinary.
His identity was definitely more than that of a Forge Lord who had merely come to the Jericho Sector after being pushed aside by internal Mechanicus politics.
And the Enginseer now standing before her only reinforced that suspicion.
A figure followed by a priest of this level of technical skill could not possibly be some simple forge-master.
But since the Forge Lord seemed to be deliberately concealing his true identity, Gaia had not dug deeper before.
Now, however, they were about to depart for Swuvi and fulfill their agreement with him. Under those circumstances, learning a little more about him would naturally do no harm.
Her words made the hot-tempered Enginseer pause in surprise.
Dressed in a vivid red robe and gripping his powered polearm, the Tech-Priest slowly looked Gaia up and down. Beneath the red hood, the green glow of his bionic eye flickered faintly.
The inspection lasted only a very short time, yet it gave Gaia a strangely oppressive feeling.
"I can only tell you his name. Tylvius."
"Remember that name well. For now, it has been buried by the vermin who hate the pioneers of Land, but one day, it will thunder across the stars."
At that point, he seemed to grow angry again.
"Damn it, by the Machine God, may you judge the scum who wallow in factional suppression."
"Tylvius..."
Gaia repeated the name silently in her heart, a strange look appearing on her face.
She had the vague sense that the name was somewhat familiar, yet when she tried to recall it clearly, all she found was a blur.
Still, the very fact that it felt familiar at all was enough to show that he was no ordinary person. At the very least, he was someone with a role of his own to play in the world of Warhammer.
...
After Gaia finished asking her question, the Enginseer departed from the void-port.
Meanwhile, the first batch of servitors and crew from Tylvius had already arrived aboard the Spear of Destiny together with a large quantity of supplies.
On the surface, this was yet another gesture of goodwill from him.
But at the same time, it was also meant to transport a hidden piece of cargo.
That cargo was Dushi's ruined body.
According to the plan, Gaia and the others needed to bring this ancient machine from Old Night with them in order to persuade the old Mechanicus master, who had long suffered under injustice, to return to his disciple Tylvius's side.
In a certain sense, Gaia wanted that mentor to take part in the repair work even more than Tylvius did.
After all, both Dushi, the riddle-speaking Man of Iron, and the riddle-speaking Man of Gold who had left her that message had made her thoroughly uncomfortable.
That maddening feeling of only hearing half the truth was about as unbearable as her system's counter getting stuck at the number nine when the target was ten thousand kills.
But thinking of those two riddle-mongers, one dead and one still active, Gaia suddenly remembered that a set of coordinates had also been left behind in her mind.
Judging by the three-dimensional scale, they were clearly the stellar coordinates of a planet.
But as for what planet they actually referred to, that was a real problem for Gaia.
After all, she had not received even the slightest education in that field.
Just as she was beginning to frown in frustration, Solomon happened to pass by in front of her while directing the servitors moving supplies.
Seeing Solomon, whose face looked worn down by the flood of busy work, Gaia's eyes suddenly lit up.
"I may not know how to read coordinates, but someone else does."
So she stepped forward and blocked Solomon's path.
When he saw her, an awkward expression immediately appeared on his face, and he scratched his head before asking,
"Brother... no, wait, sister, what is it?"
Gaia nearly choked on that sudden correction, but she did not pay too much attention to such a minor detail.
She found a scrap of metal, then used the longsword on her back to carve the line of coordinates into it before showing it to Solomon.
"Do you know what planet these coordinates point to?"
Solomon rolled his eyes.
"Coordinates need a reference system. If you don't give me the center point, how am I supposed to tell what planet it is?"
Hearing that, Gaia thought for a moment.
In the age of the Men of Gold, human colonies had expanded outward from Earth as the core.
And since the Sun had been humanity's earliest stellar beacon, any later star charts would most likely have used it as their reference point.
So she tried answering,
"Try using the Sun as the center and make a rough judgment."
With some resignation, Solomon studied the string of coordinates carefully, then compared them against the rough star chart in his own mind.
His expression changed instantly.
"Huh... these coordinates..."
"They're Holy Terra."
(End of Chapter)
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