Two wooden stakes of equal height, plus a few planks propping up a long board—that was the “table and chairs” for this lakeside negotiation in the middle of nowhere.

Commander Preman sat on one of the stakes, legs slightly apart, hands resting on his thighs. His posture was formal and rigid.

Facing him, Priestess Hilcaly sat with her legs kept modestly together, hands lightly folded on her lap.

Everyone else had been driven at least dozens of meters away. Without some special Wish Power, it was impossible to hear their conversation.

Even so, neither of them rushed to speak first. The silence stretched on for quite a while.

Both Preman and Hilcaly knew very clearly that with their status and the situation as it stood, they couldn’t allow a single crack in their words.

Preman: …Priestess Hilcaly.

Preman, who’d finished arranging his thoughts first, was the one to break the silence.

Preman: Our original agreement still stands, right?

Hilcaly: Of course it stands. The Divine Temple won’t get involved in any political affairs, nor will it interfere with any single nation’s exploration.

Hilcaly: There will be no entanglement between the Divine Temple’s investigation group and your country’s Pioneer Team this time.

Preman: Isn’t that kind of strange, Hilcaly?

Preman: This is a necessary route along our expansion path, and you read through the overall exploration plan before we set out.

Preman: So why are you somewhere you’re not supposed to be?

Hilcaly: ………

Hilcaly: We’re just passing through.

Preman: Passing through? Heh…

Preman: The direction the Divine Temple’s investigation group left Bao City is completely opposite from where we are now. How could that be “passing through”?

Hilcaly: If you suspect I’m lying, allow me to explain.

Preman: ………

Preman: Go ahead.

Hilcaly: Southwest of Bao City, near the border of the Unknown, there’s an unnamed pioneer village.

Hilcaly: The vegetation there is suitable for growing tree-wheat, the buildings are mostly single-story houses, with stone walls enclosing yards and roads.

Hilcaly: You know that village, don’t you?

Preman: Of course. It was one of the fruits of the pioneer campaign ten years ago.

Hilcaly: You were still pretty young then, right? Probably never imagined you’d become the one in charge of a Pioneer Team.

Preman: —Please stay on topic.

Hilcaly: …Alright.

Hilcaly: We discovered a lake there. For an open-air body of water, it’s a pretty large lake.

Hilcaly: To me, that lake felt mysterious.

Preman: Mysterious?

Hilcaly: Yes. Even with the corresponding Wish Power, our investigation group could only barely sense the faintest resonance with Divine Sivi there.

Hilcaly: It was like… a Molehog tunneling underground had just pushed a single claw up through the surface.

Hilcaly: If we don’t dig up the ground, we can’t grasp the full shape at all.

Preman: What do you mean by “the faintest resonance”?

Hilcaly: …

Hilcaly: ………

Preman: You can’t tell me?

Hilcaly: No, I’m just weighing whether Commander Preman can bear the impact of the truth—and whether you can keep it secret for us.

Preman: Your actions have intruded on my nation’s formal, legal, and public military operation, and you still want to hide things in a situation like this??

Hilcaly: No need to get that angry… I’ll tell you.

Hilcaly: In that lake, there are traces showing that a massive amount of Wish Points once gathered there.

Preman: …

Preman: ………

With almost no wind by the lake, the silence made time itself feel frozen.

Hilcaly: At first, word spread from the inner circle of the Divine Temple that “some kind of resonance” had been detected far away, and an investigation group was organized.

Hilcaly: That’s normal. Anything related to the Divine, of course we’ll give it our all.

Hilcaly: But it seems we were still a step too late. We didn’t find any creature that carried a massive amount of Wish Points.

Hilcaly: Whether it escaped or hid, there wasn’t a single clue.

Hilcaly: And of course, we couldn’t just go back to the Divine Temple and report in like that, so we decided to explore the lake itself.

Preman: The lake?

Hilcaly: Beneath that lake is a vast underground water world. Among the mud, rocks, and currents, we barely managed to find a path forward.

Hilcaly: In that lightless underground water, we followed our Wish Powers for who knows how long. It was less than an hour ago that we finally managed to find a way back to the surface.

Hilcaly: Right where you’re standing now.

Preman: ………

Preman glanced at the lake beside him, the doubt in his eyes still not easing.

Preman: Fine. Our country is far from the Divine Temple, and I don’t want to create any unnecessary conflict or bad blood with the Temple’s Divine Officers.

Preman: Investigating Wish Points has nothing to do with us anyway. We’ll leave that entirely to you.

Hilcaly: I’m glad you can understand.

Preman: —So after you finally saw daylight again, you celebrated by butchering a bug and, while you were at it, saved my two contract laborers?

Hilcaly: Huh? Why assume we killed it?

Preman: How could two bare-handed, ordinary laborers possibly kill that thing? And there are clear traces of you using Wish Power at the scene.

Hilcaly: ………

Hilcaly: Think what you want. It doesn’t matter. The fact that the bug’s dead isn’t going to change.

Hilcaly: It’s just… “ordinary laborers”? You’re really bad at lying.

Preman: —What’s that supposed to mean?

Hilcaly: Let’s put the laborers aside for a moment, Commander Preman. Don’t you think, as a soldier and an officer, your reactions to these matters are a little too sensitive?

Hilcaly: We haven’t done anything that actually offended the Pioneer Team, have we?

Hilcaly: What are you so anxious about? What terrible turn of events are you worried about?

Preman: …

Hilcaly: I’m a Divine Officer—the executor of divine will, someone the faithful who believe in the Divine can trust.

Hilcaly: If you also believe in the Divine and rely on the gift given to you, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?

Hilcaly: Even if I can’t help, it’s better than letting it rot in your heart, isn’t it?

Preman: Hilcaly, what you’re asking already touches on another nation’s military secrets. Are you sure you’re not going against the Doctrine for Divine Officers acting outside the Temple?

Hilcaly: Secrets and such… I’ve already seen right through them.

Preman: …!?

Hilcaly: You, Preman. You’re the secret.

Preman: …………

Hilcaly tilted her head, her gaze slipping free from the shadow of her hood as it swept over Preman from head to toe.

Hilcaly: You walk around carrying a secret like that, and you’re not worried at all?

Hilcaly: Don’t forget the Wish Power you inherited in your blood.

Preman: …

Preman’s lips moved, clearly unwilling, but in the end he still squeezed out the resentful words.

Preman: …I’m worried.

Hilcaly: Mm, that’s more like the style of the Realm of Sincerity.

Hilcaly: Then you don’t need to hide your troubles, do you? Tell me.

Hilcaly: I’ll keep your secret for you.

Preman: ………

He couldn’t resist.

He’d always tried to steer clear of situations like this, but faced with such a direct question, Preman couldn’t resist the power of the Wish Ability in his body.

He’d come intending to wring some advantage out of the other side by questioning her, but ended up getting his own weakness seized instead.

Yeah. If it’s a Divine Officer, of course she’d be able to see that secret. Wasn’t the whole reason he had Aiton receive the investigation group in the first place to avoid this exact situation?

How could he have forgotten that now…? Was he really that anxious, that reckless?

In any case, the Wish Power inherited through several generations of kings meant Preman, as their descendant, had no way to refuse her request.

That was the price of “sincerity.”

Preman: …Ten years ago, the pioneer campaign was abruptly cut short.

Preman: Back then, in the same direction we’re expanding toward today, there were unexpected casualties—an entire small squad wiped out…

Preman: The first scouting team we sent never came back. In their final transmission, they said… all their Wish Points and Wish Powers were gone.

Preman: And whenever they tried to pray and make a wish, the stars that represented their Wish Points would fall like meteors and disappear.

Preman: The commander at the time later sent out several more exploration teams. They managed to avoid further deaths, but their powers and Wish Points were also completely erased.

Preman: That place devoured the Divine’s gifts from everyone who entered… In the Pioneer Team’s records, it was named “Fall of the Stars.”

Preman: The supreme commander at the time lost his head over it, and large-scale expansion was put on hold for ten years.

Preman: To outsiders it looked like we were simply taking a routine break after a great expansion, building the border city of Bao City…

Preman: …But in truth, only those who lived through it know we were just too scared to move forward.

Preman: Yet this year, with no progress whatsoever in investigating “Fall of the Stars,” the king suddenly announced another grand expansion.

Preman: And at the same time, just as we set out, the Divine Temple’s investigation group just happened to arrive in Bao City…

Preman: You tell me—how am I supposed not to worry? Not to overreact?

Hilcaly: …………

Preman: Any wish that involves other people’s Wish Powers is absolutely forbidden by the Divine Temple. Only people from the Temple could possibly know what happened there.

Preman: Put yourself in my shoes for a second. Do you really think I’m dumb enough not to see a barefaced trap?

Preman: The king’s reasons for sending out the Pioneer Team, and the Divine Temple’s reasons for dispatching an investigation group at this exact time—there’s no way they’re unrelated!

Preman: For all I know, this is a trap where the Temple and the king already know the truth, then send us Pioneer Teams out as bait and cannon fodder!!

Preman: That’s everything I can tell you… Now it’s your turn to tell me the truth, Ms. Di-vine-Offi-cer.

Hilcaly: …

Hilcaly: I understand your concerns. But…

Hilcaly: Based on the intel I know, it’s nothing but a coincidence.

Preman: —It’s not a coincidence.

Preman: My Wish Power tells me this is no coincidence. This is a warning from the Divine.

Hilcaly: Commander Preman, I know nothing about the dealings between the Divine Temple and the king. But regarding the “Fall of the Stars” you’re going to investigate, I can at least help a little.

Hilcaly: If you go and confirm it yourself, you’ll know whether it’s a trap or not, won’t you?

Preman: …?

Hilcaly: We just came out of that underground water world, and we discovered two interesting facts.

Hilcaly: First, that bug that just died—its Wish Points have already returned to the Divine, but I happened to “see” that scene.

Hilcaly: When it was alive, it carried about three thousand Wish Points.

Preman: Three… thousand???

Hilcaly: Shouldn’t you be glad it didn’t have the intellect to use them?

Hilcaly: Well, I saw traces of an even larger cluster of Wish Points just a few days ago. Compared to that, three thousand barely registers.

Hilcaly: For a place to nurture a creature that far beyond common sense, it might well be some kind of omen.

Preman: …………

Hilcaly: Second—take a look over there.

Hilcaly pointed toward the opposite shore of the lake. Beyond a dense patch of jungle stood a bald cliff wall over a hundred meters high. At first glance, there was nothing there.

Hilcaly: There’s a hole in that rock wall.

Preman: A hole?

Hilcaly: Not very high up, but its width is about the same as this big ravine.

Preman: …??

Hilcaly: The hole, this ravine… Neither of them looks entirely like a natural formation.

Hilcarrie: As the top of a Pioneer Team with solid knowledge of geography, you should’ve noticed that much already.

Hilcarrie: The direction that cave leads to… seems to be the same as the “Fall of the Stars” you’re heading for, doesn’t it?

Preman: …………

Preman: …

Hilcarrie: In that case, we’re good, right?

Hilcarrie: We’ve provided you with useful intel for your expedition, and you forgive us for passing through by accident. Let’s leave it at that, yes?

Hilcarrie: As for your kingdom’s king, I’m afraid I can’t help. But I can at least ask around about the Divine Temple’s stance on the matter.

Hilcarrie: Judging by your expression, you agree with my conclusion, don’t you?

Preman: …………

Hilcarrie: Ah, since that’s the case, we Divine Officers should be on our way.

Hilcarrie: As beautiful as this place is, we’re not leisurely travelers. We still have duties to fulfill.

Hilcarrie: Same goes for you, Commander Puleman.

Hilcarrie: So… we’ll be taking our leave.

Preman: …

Preman: …………

Hilcarrie rose lightly and left the table. Preman still hung his head, saying nothing.

Negotiation wasn’t exactly Preman’s weak point, but today’s talk was clearly a loss. He’d lost to youth and lack of experience.

He hadn’t gotten the outcome he wanted, but the merciful priestess had still left him quite a few clues.

He took out a map and spread it on the crude wooden table in front of him. It was the Pioneer Team’s current detailed survey of the terrain around the “Fall of the Stars.”

Preman pulled out a pen and added a few new markings.

At the same time, a new plan slowly began to take shape in his mind…