The lift descended for some time before finally coming to a stop. The empty space, encased in steel, was so still that it was hard to believe they were under the sea. Not even a ruin would feel so cold. In a place completely devoid of heat – enough to send shivers down his spine – Burke tightened his grip on his spear.

Leaving the tense Burke behind, If took off from Ethan’s shoulder.

“This way.”

Following her, Ethan looked around slowly. The faint smell of oil, the low humming vibrations ringing in his ears and the processed steel surrounding them on all sides – it all reminded him of Belphirn.

Then, unlike now, he didn’t even remember how it all began. After falling into a river and losing consciousness, he’d woken up to find himself already there – there was nothing he could do about it.

But the surroundings were similar. Belphirn, too, was filled with steel in every direction. Corridors lined with metal. A false sky and towering buildings. And between them – a strange woman, floating in the air.

The place where she’d attached his arm had also been surrounded by steel walls that emitted strange mechanical sounds. Engines, she had called them.

Each time she moved forward, the walls blocking her path would open one at a time, only to close again once she had passed through.

When Burke first arrived at the ruins, his mouth hung open in awe, unable to close. Had Ethan never been to the ruins before, he would have looked exactly the same.

‘Still… I didn’t expect this.’

This place should be under the sea, but what fell from the sky was unmistakably snow. Snow that neither felt cold nor melted.

“Wow…”

What words could say more than that?

His mouth still open, Burke looked around at the world before him. It had started as the sea, then as a steel-encased room. And now it was a flurry of thick, falling snow.

Ethan held out his hand. A white snowflake landed on his palm, perfectly intact, without melting. Despite the heavy snowfall, there wasn’t even a hint of wind, and none of the biting cold one would expect from winter.

Belphirn had his fake sky, and Rigo had his fake snow. To say they’d created a world didn’t seem like an exaggeration – they’d created all sorts of things.

A night sky filled with a vividly glowing Milky Way. Snowflakes falling below.

This – this was a scene from under the sea.

“Wait, didn’t we come from under the sea? What kind of sea has a sky?”

“It’s a 3D screen. Like I explained to Ethan – it’s a fake sky. Hmm, like… a moving picture?”

How could a picture move? Burke clicked his tongue. He was sure that no matter how much he listened, the explanation would go over his head.

“And snow that doesn’t melt.”

Burke grabbed a handful of the snow piled on the ground and squeezed it tightly in his hand. The crunch – the feeling of it clumping together in his palm – was just like the snow he knew. But his hand didn’t feel cold, and despite the warmth of his skin, the snow didn’t melt or leave any moisture.

“That’s because it’s not water – it’s artificial snow made of poplin.”

“And these are also artificial flowers?”

He pointed to the flowers at his feet. The yellow and white wildflowers looked just like the ones he knew. He’d never thought to see them next to snow. Flowers that should have bloomed in spring, standing in the middle of a snowfall – it felt like his understanding of the world was being torn apart.

“No, these are real flowers. Well, their structure is a little different from the ones that bloom up there.”

“Different structure?”

At Burke’s question, If pointed to the sky above.

“The plants up there need photosynthesis and water, right? But these flowers have all been modified – they don’t need any of that.”

“Wait, hold on. They’re still plants, aren’t they? And you’re saying they don’t need any nutrients?”

At his reaction, If tilted her head curiously.

“Plants only need nutrients for one reason, right? To grow. To flower and to bear fruit. So if they don’t grow, they don’t need nutrients.”

“Wait – are you saying… these things don’t grow? They just stay like that forever?”

“There is no need for them to grow. Plants grow so that they can spread their seeds far and wide, but it would be a problem if their pollen was spread like that.”

“What’s wrong with that? They’re just trying to reproduce.”

Burke said, frowning.

If blinked, as if she couldn’t understand what was so confusing.

“Well, it would be a nuisance if they started growing everywhere, wouldn’t it? We’d have to clean them up.”

If a seed sprouted in the cracks of a building or between machine parts, it could easily cause a malfunction. Keeping them in a defined area was much more efficient. They also looked better without the process of sprouting or wilting.

“……”

Burke was at a loss for words. He had no idea where to begin to explain.

Ethan, who had been standing with his arms crossed watching the two of them, gave a slight nod of his chin beside her before shaking his head.

After countless conversations with her, he had long since given up trying to make her understand.

There was no way Burke could succeed at something even Ethan had given up on.

Reading everything from Ethan’s gesture, Burke finally closed his mouth. Now he understood why Ethan had stopped If from talking too much to the other mercenaries. If someone had talked to her at length, he would have noticed that something wasn’t right – he had no choice but to stop it.

“So what about this place being dark? Belphirn didn’t have evenings, did it?”

“What the… wait, no evenings?”

Burke now felt more than just baffled – he was utterly deflated. The further the conversation went on, the further it strayed from anything remotely resembling common sense.

“Belphirn is a spring city. So it must have nice sunlight, right? That’s why it’s always daytime there. This place is a winter city. It was built to see snow, and snow looks best under a night sky, doesn’t it? So they made it dark.

Because it was spring, they kept it in constant daylight. And to make it easier to see the snow, they made a night sky. It all sounded so simple in words.

“No wonder people call these ancient ruins a city of gods… or say that the ancients themselves were gods…”

“Wait – does that mean those bastards invaded this city?”

They took out machines like that and used them? As Ethan’s expression hardened, If shook her head.

“That’s not it. The only reason we’ve come this far is because I’m with you. For someone like Ethan – someone not originally from this place – the only accessible area is the outside.”

“Outside? But the outside is where we live. You can’t call this an ancient ruin…”

At Ethan’s puzzled remark, If paused in thought, then lightly traced the air with her finger.

A white line appeared above a blue square panel – a map of this ancient city, drawn in thin and thick lines.

“This is what I mean by ‘outside’.”

She pointed to the area beyond the thick lines on the map. The thin lines she pointed to outlined a small section.

“That’s the dump. That’s why we don’t bother managing it.”

Of course, ‘small’ was only in comparison to the city – it was still big enough to rival a royal palace.

“So… all this time we’ve been mistaking this tiny dump for the ruins.”

A hollow laugh escaped him. He couldn’t think of a more stupid misunderstanding.

“Yes, probably. We never bothered to seal it off or anything. Oh – if we want to fix the mistake, we have to go that way.”

Walking ahead, If raised her hand.

Walking ahead, If held out her hand and pointed to the largest building – an extravagant structure, glowing brightly even in the darkness with numerous lights. A few scattered objects flew here and there around it.

“There are two ways to get there: we can either walk or take an airship. Which do you prefer?”

“Can we just walk?”

Just getting down to the sea had been exhausting – now they were going to take another vehicle? Burke didn’t know exactly what an airship was, but he had a strong feeling it wouldn’t be good for his mental health.

Despite Burke’s pleading tone, If turned to Ethan. After all, he was the one she was really asking.

Glancing between Burke and If, Ethan let out a sigh and gave a small nod.

“Let’s walk. I want to see more of this place.”

He’d thought all ancient ruins were the same – who’d have thought they could be so different? There was no hint of falsehood in Ethan’s words.

Nodding, she turned and began to move. Floating effortlessly, she glided forward, the two men following behind.

Ethan watched his surroundings carefully. His slow, sweeping gaze picked out the differences between this place and the Belphirn ruins.

“There are no robots.”

“The functions of this city have been shut down.”

Since all the Ancients had moved to Belphirn, nothing worked here except the bare minimum of power needed for maintenance. That included the android robots, so it made sense that he hadn’t seen any.

Ethan looked around in silence. As she had said, this place was no different from a ‘dead city’. Others might not notice, but after seeing Belphirn – a ‘living city’ – the contrast was stark.

It hit him again, more clearly than ever: she really was all that was left of the ancient humans.

“Those robots… they look a bit like that artefact, don’t they?”

“Yes. Moving piles of scrap metal.”

“Then what about that thing flying over there? Isn’t that a robot too?”

Burke pointed to a ship that was circling the large building, before quickly shooting off in one direction.

“That’s an airship. It’s a vehicle used to transport goods or people.”

“Whoa… so you’re telling me we were supposed to ride that thing earlier? That fast flying thing?”

Wait a minute – since when could humans fly without magic?