When Burke gaped in shock, she rolled her eyes.

“It’s actually quite safe – the speed is well regulated.”

It flew slower than she did, and the airships were in a constant cycle of maintenance and operation, so the chances of malfunction were virtually nonexistent. Even when idle, they were constantly being scanned for malfunctions.

“How is this not dangerous? At this speed, you could probably cross the entire continent in no time!”

Regulated speed, his foot. This thing flew by so fast it left afterimages.

“Well, not exactly, but if you took a maglev train, you could get to Belphirn in about twenty minutes.”

The fastest form of transportation they had created was the maglev train. And since the tunnel connecting it to the city was still intact, there was no problem using it.

“It wouldn’t even take five minutes to reach the capital…”

At Burke’s muttering, If brought up the map of the area in her mind. Rigo was at the very bottom of the empire, and the capital they were referring to was just below the center-left area.

“If you mean the capital, you’re talking about ‘Kalipe’, right? It’s about three minutes from here to Kalipe.”

Ethan, who had been staring blankly at the passing airship, leaving only afterimages, snapped back to reality at her words.

“Wait-hold on. Are you saying… it only takes twenty minutes to get from Belphirn to here?”

Ethan gaped in disbelief.

“Yup.”

“Wait. Why are you telling me this now?”

It had taken him over a month just to get back to Rigo! Ethan couldn’t hide his disbelief as he questioned her, and If tilted her head.

“But you never asked. And you said you wanted me to see the outside world.”

“I did. I said that, but…”

Ethan trailed off.

If he had known then, he would have asked. But thinking back now, such a possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind at the time, so of course he hadn’t thought to ask.

“Well, I guess that works in our favor. It means we can storm the royal palace whenever we want, right?”

Burke shrugged and stepped on the snow at his feet.

“That’s true.”

“But you said this snow doesn’t melt. It comes down like a blizzard – wouldn’t it just keep piling up?”

He pointed to a building rising like a chimney.

“There are cleaning robots. They leave just enough to make it look nice, sweep the rest away, and send it to the purification plant you see over there. After it’s cleaned there, it’s turned back into snow and falls again.”

“The more I hear, the more amazed I am. I mean, all this was underground? You say it’s a city that’s no longer in use, but it still works, right?”

“If it didn’t work, your side would be in trouble. A lot of things could explode if the cooling systems stopped working.”

“…What?”

Ethan raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar revelation.

“A lot has been built down here. Tools are only as good as their use. Right now, everything is being used efficiently, but if even a few functions fail, it could set off a chain reaction of malfunctions.”

She had managed to cut off some of the chain reaction pathways, but judging by the current state of things outside, there was still a lot that needed fixing.

If spoke again.

“One of the reasons I came here is to stop all this. Or rather, to fix it. I’m the only Ancient left now, and maintaining all this on my own is a huge waste of time.”

She didn’t want to spend her time on such things. She’d much rather be out exploring with Ethan.

“And the sea above this place, or the forest around Rigo – they’re not really suitable environments for humans, right? So I’d like to adjust those as well.”

“You want to adapt the outside?”

The longer the conversation went on, the more unbelievable it sounded. It made sense that she could change things in the ancient ruins – after all, she had built them. There was nothing strange about stopping the machines she had made or changing their functions.

But now she was talking about the world outside the ruins. About changing the environment itself?

“Did I hear that right?”

Burke rubbed his ear in disbelief, and when she nodded, he rubbed his eyes instead.

“Haah… Now I understand why you kept If hidden.”

This was no joke. If she wasn’t considered a god, who could be? If word of her abilities got out, it wouldn’t just be the Empire – every nation would go to war over her.

It didn’t matter who believed in her or not. The very existence of someone like her carried such a weight of responsibility that it had to be kept secret.

“Normally, I wouldn’t have told you either.”

If only he hadn’t been kidnapped.

The memory resurfaced and Ethan’s face twisted into a deep scowl.

***

The interior of the building was quieter than expected. So quiet, in fact, that not even the sound of flowing air or vibrating engines could be heard – it was a silence Ethan had never experienced before. A cold sensation crawled over his skin, as if every hair on his body stood on end.

With this unsettling feeling, Ethan couldn’t relax his expression the whole time he was walking. Burke wasn’t quite as tense, but he also frowned at the strange atmosphere.

It was their first time in a room so saturated with electromagnetic waves, and they both kept rubbing their bare skin against the strange air.

Each time she floated forward, sealed passages opened one by one. A green light emanated from the walls, scanning her body as she moved.

‘This is my first time here.’

Checking for errors in existing androids or unfinished robots, modifying codes, turning machines on and off – normally, tasks of this scale required the consent of all humanoids. The main computer would receive and execute commands only after this collective consent had been given. But really, what situation would require a direct connection to the main computer?

Like most humanoids, she had never had a reason to connect to it. If it was just one or two things that needed to be adjusted, she would have done it remotely as usual. But with so many changes to make this time, it was faster to access the main computer directly.

When the last door finally opened, she turned around slowly.

In front of her stood a pillar, tangled with countless cables. The cables stretched up like tree branches to the ceiling.

“Is that a tree?”

“Is that water? It looks like metal.”

Burke said, pointing to the base of the cable column.

It was surrounded by a low wall that barely reached their shins. Made of transparent glass, the room wrapped around the column in a perfect circle, resembling a carefully constructed pond.

But what flowed inside wasn’t water – it was shimmering silver.

It wasn’t the first time Ethan and Burke had seen molten silver. But the metal they had seen came from the forge – burning red with heat, billowing black smoke, and reaching temperatures of several thousand degrees.

“That’s liquid metal.”

With those words, If floated forward, leaving the others behind, and dipped her feet into the liquid metal. Plop. The silver substance rose up to her calves, then crept along her skin, covering her thighs.

Bzzzz.

Light began to spread from the walls, gradually converging toward her.

[Interface No. 55. Connection confirmed.]

At the strange voice that echoed through the space, Ethan and Burke instinctively tensed.

She had introduced herself to Ethan as “If,” but to be precise, beings like her didn’t have individual names. Their designations always ended in numbers.

But since using their full names was too much of a hassle, they were usually referred to by their numbers. For example, “Seventeen” would be called “Seti”. In her case, however, she had taken the first and middle letters and called herself “IF”.

As she stood on the liquid metal, light traveled up her legs, flowing into her body and tracing strange lines across her skin.

Information surged through her.

Her eyes moved quickly as she connected to the main computer.

[Confirm. Exclude. Confirm. Modifying. Error detected. Correct. Modify. Modify. Exclude. Stop. Confirm. Confirm]

Despite the never-ending stream of voices, Ethan kept his eyes focused solely on If.

It bothered him – to see her standing in that strange place she called liquid metal without a word of explanation. Part of him wanted to pull her out, but it was her job, so he couldn’t stop her.

[Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.]

A flat, emotionless voice. The repeated word was in a language Ethan had never heard before.

It was probably the language she used – the one she said she learned here. It didn’t take much to guess that it was the language of the Ancients.

After repeating for a while, the voice faded and the surroundings began to dim.

Ethan rushed to If’s side without hesitation.

The liquid metal that had clung to If’s body slipped off without a trace of moisture. She floated lightly toward Ethan and opened her arms to him in a familiar gesture.

“This is harder than I thought.”

Even with the help of the main computer, she had to check not only this place, but devices all over the world, which overloaded the system. If frowned from the dizziness.

Ethan gently rubbed her forehead and took her in his arms.

“You don’t have to overdo it. Just shutting down the artifacts here is enough – I’ll find a way to deal with the rest.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ve already shut down everything else.”

“What? But that was just a moment ago.”

“The main computer processes things the fastest. But about Kalipe…”

“The capital? What about it?”

“I wasn’t sure how they managed to activate the artifact, but I picked up a strange signal in Kalipe.”

“A signal?”

“From the perspective of someone like me – an ancient human – none of the usual methods of activation should have been possible.”

Even as she spoke, she kept tilting her head, as if it still didn’t make sense to her.

“Slow down. What exactly is the problem?”

“Hmm… Something similar to me, but not quite the same.”

She guessed that was what they’d used to activate the artifact.

“…What?”

“It’s hard to confirm from here, so I think I’ll need to go to Kalipe and check it out.”