After an extra day and night on the road, the remnant soul finally led them to a cylindrical building. Its skin was veiled in moss and clinging vines, damp as velvet after rain.

Within Lama City’s bounds, ruins gnawed by a thousand years lay everywhere, like fallen teeth across the earth. Among the collapsed walls and broken stones, this building stood like a crane among sparrows. Its walls still bore Nacha-styled reliefs, and its tall frame stayed whole, a straight pine among stumps. Even before they neared, Adelaide saw its crown-like top gleam like frost.

"What... is this?" Adelaide asked, her voice small as a moth in a hall.

Varie swept a hand over the wall; under the moss, steel flashed cold, scarred like bark blistered by sunfire. "Same tempered steel as the Type-24 Harpoon Assault Cannon Tela found," Varie murmured, thoughts rippling like a river. "It’s a forward fortress."

"A fortress?" Adelaide still looked lost, her brows knotted like wet twine. "Why bring us to a place like this?"

"Follow in and you’ll know." Varie moved toward where the Nacha remnant soul drifted, and it slid aside like mist on wind. Behind it, a bulge stood out on the wall like a knuckle under skin. Varie drew a deep breath, set her palm, and slowly turned, like winding a dry millstone.

Creeeak—

Torque that hadn’t tasted oil in a millennium rasped like teeth; even Varie’s monster strength waited for a final dull clunk. The iron door of refined steel opened, heavy as a tomb lid lifting. Of course, there were no confetti eggs, no chorus of welcome—only dust, webs, and a dead hush like cold fog. They were the fortress’s only visitors in a thousand years, footprints on untouched snow.

Varie lit a torch and stepped in; dust fell from rafters, a tawny drizzle shaken loose by her tread.

"Whoa— damn! That's a Type-37 Close-Range Scatter Cannon!" Tela’s shout sparked like flint on stone. She saw the giant barrels along the wall and ran like a magpie to gold, hugging one and wiping its dust. She ignored Hos’s eye-roll and rattled off its history, counting how many spearhead spiders it shredded at kilometers.

But even her blazing enthusiasm guttered in minutes, like a lamp starved of oil. Not because there were too few legendary weapons to praise—Type-28 Heavy Mortars, Type-49 Rapid-Fire Heavy Crossbows, self-cycling reload glyph arrays. As they climbed floor by floor, more systems surfaced, black-tech even to Elves, each enough to make Tela lecture for hours. But she closed her mouth, not from joy, but because every heavy gun had a matching count of bones beside it.

The small, lean skeletons slumped against walls or lay in firing slots, armor hands still clutching triggers like frozen roots. Varie walked to the weapons and brushed the barrels with her fingers, a touch like wind across cold water. Unlike the scorched exterior, the inner barrels bore no burn marks, thanks to integrated casting and layered protective arrays. This sealed construction could withstand a legion-wide magic like Holy Light sweeping in, a cliff resisting a storm sea. With heavy fire stacked on the walls like a bramble, they could slay spearhead spiders without end, even stand against a dragon. In truth, with well-drilled guards, they might have grievously wounded a dragon, a spear finding flesh under scale. And the badges on their armor marked them elite among elites, oak hearts under mail, able to repel monstrous foes.

Only, they hadn’t faced an ordinary dragon. Varie looked again: the bones showed no visible wounds, the armor stayed almost whole, like shells uncracked on a shore. They weren’t cut or burned; if they had been, there’d be struggle in their posture like storm-bent reeds. For them to fall where they stood, only one answer curled like smoke.

This fortress was built to meet a frontal assault; its designers never imagined a chaos dragon spewing poison fire. Outside scars proved it held against the first wave of heat, just as engineers had dreamed. But Soul Devourer Sormaidon’s breath wasn’t only flame; its chaos toxin seeped like acid rain through purifiers and sigils. It broke through dozens of layered cleansers in the vents and slithered inside like a shadow. For these victims, the battle ended before it began, a candle snuffed at dawn.

Varie shut her eyes first; grief and fury swelled like a tide, then she clenched her fists to hold steady. In the dark, she saw kin falling one by one, their souls pulled by a dragon like stars plucked from sky. Anger? Of course. Rage and refusal coiled in her chest like coals; but here, such heat had no use. She exhaled, brief as a sigh in winter, and opened her eyes to face the remnant soul again.

"These bodies weren’t burned by dragonfire, which means this isn’t where you died." Her voice was low, a blade wrapped in cloth. She’d thought he meant to show them his grave and quiet his resentment, but his melted armor said otherwise. "So, what do you want?" she asked, her gaze steady as a still lake.

The remnant’s single eye watched her, silent as a moon.

Someone else answered. "Varie... weapons, probably," Tela said from the side, her voice gentle as straw rustling. Varie turned; Tela had opened a chest, its straw long turned to ash, yet the guarded pieces remained bright as coins. "Type-23 Rapid-Hand Crossbows, Type-14 Burst Guns... even prototypes made only once," Tela said, hope like a candle cupped in hands. "He thinks these might offer... help?" She tried to lighten the air, words like feathers in a heavy room.

Varie looked at her, then at the others, rain-shadow in her eyes; then she turned back to the hovering soul. After a brief, quiet beat, she nodded gently to the remnant, like bowing to an old pine. "Thank you."

She didn’t hesitate now; she strode to Tela, then looked back at those still standing, rooted like stones. "Alright, brothers and sisters, what’re you waiting for?" "You planning to waste his good heart?"

Kabos reacted first. "Eh? C-can I have one too...?" His voice fluttered like a sparrow.

"What kind of question is that?" Varie snorted, a spark jumping; she tossed him a semi-auto hand crossbow. "You dared the road with us. Mark or not, you’re our Nacha ‘seron’ now—our co-living arm. Pick what you want."

Adelaide sniffed with proud heat, but the curve of her lips showed her mood had lifted like a banner. She tugged Mira’s hand toward the chests. The word ‘seron’ had stirred memories in Mira, and she hesitated like a fawn. So Adelaide picked for her, eyes swift as swallows.

The Nacha-made weapons were all masterpieces, time’s teeth barely scratching them, the craftsmanship enough to stun Elves. Human imperial engineers would gape like fish. From that glittering pile, Adelaide chose light bracers and a rapier of mithril for Mira. "Thin as a cicada’s wing, yet tougher than imperial heavy armor; even I can barely wear them," Adelaide said, lifting her arm. She drew the rapier and glanced at the name carved on its hilt. "Laimbi..." "Laimbi," she murmured. "In Nacha, it means quick-flash light." She cut a web; white silk parted mid-span, clean as frost split. Her grip felt no resistance in the palm, like cutting air; the rapier proved its name. "Good. A worthy blade. Your old sword’s worn; time for an upgrade," Adelaide said, pride flickering like a lantern.

Her heart was fragile; without a body-enhancing array, just armor and steel taxed her. But this cut needed little force, and spider silk resists slashes like braided wire; that clean sever spoke volumes. She swung a few more times, joy pealing like bells, then sheathed it and handed rapier and bracers to Mira.

Mira saw her sister’s fondness and wavered, eyes like clouds. "What about you, sister? If you want it, I can keep my old sword—"

Adelaide tapped Mira’s forehead again, cutting off her words with a smile like dew. "Told you, sis, don’t always give way to me." She pouted, then chuckled. "Besides, there’s something here I like more."

She drew another longsword from the trove. It was forged from a special steel, broader than Mira’s mithril rapier, its surface etched with deep currents like river lines. Those patterns converged at the hilt’s center, where a dull red gem sat like a sleeping ember. Without a body array, Adelaide flushed lifting it; its weight overshot her limit like a boulder. Mira hurried to steady it, hands quick as swallows.

"Sister, maybe pick another." She hesitated. "This heavy sword... doesn’t suit you well." Her tone was gentle as rain.

Adelaide bristled at the slight, cheeks puffing like a child, but Tela cut in, eyes wide as dawn. "You picked a magic-core sword—good eye," she said with awe, then sighed with regret like wind through reeds. "It’s a fine design; looks heavy, but it doesn’t take much strength—if the Red Demon Bat core still worked."

Tela touched the ‘gem’; fractures webbed at once, then it crumbled into fine red dust, trickling like sand to the floor. "Genius work," she said, fingers tracing circuits like vines. Built-in mana conduits amplify the user according to the core’s trait; that’s why the blade weighs like a laden oar. But after millennia, this core’s gone inert, like a dead coal.

"Small problem." Adelaide lifted her sleeve and showed the beige gem on her bracelet, gleaming like sand under sun. "We just swap in a core, right?"

"Ah?" Tela blinked, not catching on at first, then stared, mouth opening like a gate at flood. "An actual chance to assemble one—please, let me do it!" Her excitement crackled like fire, filling the hall.

Varie heard Tela’s shout and sighed with Hos, two reeds in the same wind; then she handed Hos a heavy sword. Hos took it and gave it a simple swing; the blade sizzled through air, glowing red with heat like live iron. He shrugged, fine with it, then asked her, "And you?" His question hung like a leaf in still air.

Varie plucked her new bowstring; it answered with a crisp twang, like ice cracking at dawn, brighter than the old one. She nodded, a small sun warming her face.

She grabbed a fistful of black-steel arrows; they chimed like rain on slate as they slid into her quiver. She rose and patted Barni’s new armor, dust blooming like motes.

"All right, everyone’s got gear that actually fits—"

Halfway through, Barni hooked a finger in her shorts and yanked; the tug was a rude wind that spun her. "You brute, what are you—"

Her complaint died, like a candle snuffed by a sleeve.

Barni had turned her toward Queen Dreamlan.

The queen knelt on one knee before a Nacha Tribe warrior’s bones, a pale hill of ribs under fallen sky. A remnant soul drifted by her golden hair like lost dandelion fluff.

Menglan pressed both palms to the dead one’s gauntleted hands, eyes shut, breath a low tide of prayer. She kissed the pendant at her heart, ending a simple rite clear as spring water—no perfunctory chill, no desecration.

Then she stepped to the next fallen, quiet as snow.

Varie watched her repeat the rite again and again; her gaze clung like ivy and wouldn’t let go. Not until Hos tapped her shoulder, a knock like a friend at dusk.

"Go pick something for her too," Hos said, his hand still firm, as if pinning a startled sparrow. "Your words: anyone who dared the road with us—human or Elf—deserves a weapon."

Barni grunted behind her, a low drumbeat in the ribs, and nudged her forward.

"…Fine, I got it."

Varie shook off Hos’s hand. Eyes on Menglan’s praying back, calm as a lake at night, she held her tongue. She turned and dug into the heap of weapon crates, a badger in a burrow of iron.

After a while, when Menglan finished with the last dead and lifted her lashes like moth wings, the first thing she saw was a dagger flashing like a sliver of moon.

"This is…?"

"A sidearm for you, so some little cave spider doesn’t snack on you en route."

Menglan looked up. She studied the spine, where "Velurora" was etched like frost. Then she took in Varie’s reluctant face, and a warm spring smile opened.

"A dagger called ‘Widow’… suits me well. Thank you, Varie~"

"I told you not to call me that—wait, what are you doing!"

Menglan reached for the blade along its edge. Panic leapt in Varie like a cat; she lunged to stop that senseless move.

"Are you dumb? No one taught you how to hold a knife?"

Menglan tilted her head, puzzled as a bird hearing thunder, which only stoked Varie’s temper like a bellows. Varie seized her hand, checked for any cut, then pinched and placed each finger, correcting her grip one by one.

While Varie focused, scolding and shaping like a potter at the wheel, Menglan just watched her. The smile at her lips thinned to a line; something complicated flickered there, like moonlight through bamboo.

"…What?"

"Nothing. Just… it’s been a long time since you talked to me like this."

Menglan lowered her head a touch, that faint sadness brushing the air like falling ash. Varie froze. It lasted only a breath. When Menglan looked up again, she wore her usual crescent-eyed smile.

"And if Varie keeps playing with my fingers like this, even I’ll get shy~"

Her other hand cupped her cheek. She swayed as if shy for real, a willow in a teasing breeze. Varie jolted like a live wire, yanked her hand back, and shouted, face hot, "Get lost!"

She turned away, puffed up like a pufferfish.

"I don’t get it. With melee instincts that bad, how did a certain someone survive the Chaos Uprising?"

She spat the jab like a cherry pit. No teasing came back, no quicksilver quip.

Only after a long moment did she hear Menglan murmur, a secret set adrift like a paper boat.

"Because… my lover just so happens to be the best bodyguard in this world."