As the little convoy continued on their journey south, accompanied by around four hundred and eighty fliers, signs of civilisation began to pile up. Small settlements, much like Camp Napolean — the spark that kickstarted the founding of the Republic of Francois — began to grow more and more frequent. Their inhabitants were mostly humans, dressed the distinct red colour now exclusive to the God of Fire, Liamar. Despite the absence of arable farmland, it seemed that these settlements were able to procure food by themselves through the killing of monsters…which, according to Colonel Marie, was an entirely new phenomenon in the South.

Monsters — a catch all term referring to animals with a desire to kill other sentient life, with an absurdly high reproduction rate — had somehow appeared in the Southern Continent. Captain Aziz, who had been reading the history books Marie had given him diligently, couldn’t believe his ears when he first heard the news. Such news would have been the story of the decade, if one didn’t count the descent of the four elemental gods.

And it was fortunate that the God of Fire’s citizens had their attention turned to the monsters. On the way, Captain Aziz had spotted small teams of people in red creating lances of fire from their hands. Their leaders, usually armed with a solid weapon, would flit around the battlefield on wings of fire. As always, the appearances of these teams were uniform, and the captain immediately guessed that these small fireteams were the lower ranks of the Worldshaper’s armies.

The convoy’s escorts, could, under any other circumstance, take on these teams with impunity, given their extreme advantages. But with a group of vulnerable diplomats at the centre, Captain Aziz didn’t really fancy their chances against such a number. Like the other people they’d encountered earlier on, however, these teams showed little interest in the group of around five hundred people.

“Can you see their hands?” Colonel Marie whispered. “Look at them closely. It seems that these people are using Arts — the sigil carved on their hands are lighting up every time they manifest fire.”

“Standardisation of powers, eh?” Captain Aziz replied. There were some advantages to using sigils that created natural phenomena — namely, their destructive power was not directly related to the amount of power employed when using them. Apparently, the variable that changed when one increased the qi used was the amount of fire — the temperature of the resulting conflagration was highly dependent on the sigil itself.

And besides, using extremely flammable mediums as the target would increase the temperature anyway.

“Yes,” said the colonel. “But the sigils that made up their Arts are most impressive. Their flames can probably boil water within a single second. If we can analyse the original sigil that their Arts were modelled after…”

“It’s most likely something directly granted by Liamar, so please perish that thought. We’re here to watch over our diplomats, not to poke around and steal secrets from a great god.” Captain Aziz rolled his eyes, but a chill continued to run down his back. He had the feeling that the colonel was about to return to her obsessed researcher mode, and before she could run off, the captain’s right hand shot out and grabbed onto her arm.

“Did you need something?”

Captain Aziz belatedly realised that his body had moved on instinct, and fumbled to think of an excuse. Telling her that she shouldn’t run over to investigate their Arts weren’t going to work — he needed a better excuse.

“I, uhh, suddenly felt somewhat insecure,” said the captain. “I needed to calm down by holding on to something.”

“And that something you chose was me?” Colonel Marie laughed, a tinkling sound that brightened the world around Aziz. “Now, now. Be a good captain and run along. I have something…important to do.”

“I didn’t know you had something important to do,” replied the captain.

“I just thought of it,” Colonel Marie replied immediately. Her face was straight, and nothing about her expression even hinted at the possibility of her disturbing the monster hunters of the God of Fire.

Captain Aziz cupped his chin and continued to stare at the colonel, who accepted his gaze without flinching. After staring for around three minutes, in which time the convoy had managed to move past these monster hunters, the captain turned away. His face was distinctly warmer than it had been three minutes ago, but the only expression the colonel revealed after Aziz retreated was that of disappointment.

Meanwhile, the members of Thunderbolt Battalion had noticed the oddity, but as the captain swept his gaze around them, most of them shot a thumbs up at him, and Aziz slapped his forehead. These punks have no idea just how close we were to being roasted by the God of Fire, sheesh.

He turned back to Colonel Marie, who hadn’t moved away from him yet, and said, “Wasn’t there something important you had to do?’

“Oh no, it wasn’t that important after all. There’s a time and place for everything, but the opportunity for me to do the important task had just slipped by,” replied the colonel. Her voice was even, and no matter how Aziz tried to analyse her words, there was no trace of disappointment to be found.

“Is that so?” Aziz murmured. “Or is it because your targets have slipped away?”

“Did you say something, Captain Aziz?” Colonel Marie asked.

“No, I didn’t.” Aziz looked away, and focused on the road ahead. Now that they were deep within the Worldshaper’s territory, he was beginning to understand why Liamar had such a title. Other than the Projection Spires, other incredible feats of architecture had sprouted up. Huge cities, statues of the God of Fire that dwarfed mountains, as well as aesthetics that somehow reminded Aziz of the capital city of the Northern Continent, Elysium. The hub of the Mortal Light dynasty, Elysium was a place he now knew was led by an otherworlder from Earth, and the city had been renovated to suit his tastes.

But how did the God of Fire replicate such aesthetics to the point that Captain Aziz himself could feel the similarity? He stole a glance at Colonel Marie, who had a befuddled expression on her face, and did a double-take as clarity replaced confusion.

“There’s an otherworlder under the employ of the Worldshaper, it seems.” Colonel Marie nodded her head.

“You were thinking the same too?” Captain Aziz asked.

“Great minds think alike, it seems,” replied the colonel. “But why is such a person in the employ of the Worldshaper?”

“Wish I knew,” replied the captain. “But we should keep our eyes peeled, at least.”

The colonel nodded, and lapsed into silence. The convoy continued to move until nightfall, at which point everyone set up camp to rest. The ground wasn’t as hard as it was in the external regions of World’s End, and after a round of examining the soil, Captain Aziz had the feeling that crops could actually be grown here if there was a source of water nearby. As a whole, streams and lakes were rather rare in this region, but their convoy had come across enough water bodies that farming wasn’t actually out of the picture.

After looking around aimlessly, Captain Aziz found a nice patch of smooth grass, which was a rare sight in World’s End, and laid down on it. The four-coloured sky that hung above them when they were in the Republic had changed its proportions greatly — a dark crimson would be ceiling of his bedroom tonight.

The captain yawned, and then fell asleep in a matter of seconds. The night passed without incident, and soon, the sun was rising once again.