Soul of Searing Steel

The ring, connected end to end, meant balance and also perfection. It was the most impeccable and flawless shape of all.

Black, which shadowed over all other colors, also mixed with all colors, was the background color of the universe. It was absolute. It was also a symbol of all endings.

The black ring emblem represented one of the Seven Gods, the God of Justice and Power—the existence of Zinsen (Execution).

In front of the main door of the St. Laurent Cathedral back in Moldavia, there was a stone tablet with the inscription of the God: Indifferent Justice requires power to preach. From there, one could roughly see the character and teachings of the god.

Joshua knew, and in fact, he was very familiar with the holy emblems of the Gods. When he noticed the emblem, he already learned that this elven bard right before him was a believer in the God of Might and Justice, and a devoted one as well. If that was not the case, the bard would not sew the holy emblem onto the sleeve of his clothes. Non-believers who sewed holy emblems was deemed disrespectful towards the gods.

After discovering this point, the warrior narrowed his gaze upon the elf who was currently singing. He did not regard the previous anomaly as an illusion but as a hint of meaning. At this time, many guesses flashed across Joshua's mind. Meanwhile, unlike Ying who was still focused on listening to the story, Ling who was standing behind the warrior had also noticed the strange behavior of his own master. However, he had no idea as to why his master was behaving differently from before.

—Perhaps it was because of the surge of Order energy.

That would be deemed as a reasonable guess, and Joshua was convinced that this was the truth of the matter.

In the previous life, the warrior did not come into contact with the hidden-most level of the Mycroft continent. Hence, the information and messages that the warrior knew about were incomplete. However, currently, Joshua had placed half of his leg into the center of this world. Not long ago, even the pope of the Church of the Seven Gods had spoken to him directly. Compared to the man he was in his previous life, he now seemed to know more details in certain aspects than before.

For example, the connection between the Sage and the gods.

Holy light and Order power were unquestionably the power system that the Sage refined through summing up of all his previous achievements over thousands of years ago during the Glorious Era. Meanwhile, the Gods in present time, regardless of whether it was the God of Justice and Power or the God of Wisdom and Choice, all seven gods possessed the Strength of the Sage. Meanwhile, their representative in the material world, the pope, seemed to know a great deal about the Sage.

There were inextricable links between the two of them.

Meanwhile, the warrior had just initiated the Azurite and unleashed a light pillar of Order power that penetrated straight to the heavens. It had been an extremely obvious occurrence though. Therefore, it was not surprising that it attracted the attention of the Gods, not to mention the inheritance of the Sage too.

"I did not expect the gods to watch me because of the previous incident."

Slightly laughing about himself, Joshua did not show even the slightest sign of worry. Compared to most of the people across the continent who only knew half of the gods, the warrior knew the Seven Gods quite well.

Compared to the humanized Greek gods in the previous life, the humans and gods on the Mycroft Continent were more similar to the representation of a certain concept. That was a relatively simple statement used to explain it. Meanwhile, in a more complex way to say it, that would be the embodiment of some sort of logical Order.

The Seven Gods had their own personalities, preferences, and even some sense of humanity. However, the moment when they were linked to anything related to the interests of human beings and the concepts they represented, they would abandon all ideas and operate like unamendable machines. Joshua believed that he did not do anything that would endanger humanity. He himself had not shown even the slightest trace of danger to the world. So naturally, the gods would watch him.

The God of Might had only expressed that he was watching Joshua closely through one of his believers. That was not a bad thing though. If he was the believer in the God of Might, he would feel much more honored. However, Joshua was not a believer in the god. So for him, it was merely like a small unexpected episode of his life that popped up out of the blue. After smiling gently, he continued to listen to the elven bard in singing about the migration of the elves before he brought the young man and the young lady along as they left.

Ural Fortress was the largest city in the central region of the North. So naturally, there were all sorts of shops and entertainment. On the wide street filled with styles of the North, Joshua leisurely walked among the pedestrians in the street. He would even stop at certain spots from time to time, listening to people talking about their daily lives and news about a lot of things.

Thanks to things such as the newspapers that were recently invented and used widely in the world, messages, and news were spreading across the entire continent even faster and wider than before. Meanwhile, the residents who lacked topics to talk about had also gotten a lot more to talk about. By listening to the civilians on the street around him, the warrior managed to obtain a lot of meaningful news.

For example, many old mages came from the forests around. They were spreading cans of gray mist, shrouding the mountains and the forests. And it seemed that the berserk beasts that were ferocious had calmed themselves down after they made contact with this mist. These beasts seemed much better than before when they were extremely ferocious and dangerous.

Another example was that in the major cities of the entire Empire, there was a sudden influx of sinister murder cases. Many of the elderly or young people who lived alone had been found dead in their own homes. Their corpses were usually dismembered. Their skins were removed from their corpses, and there were strange and bizarre patterns drawn on them. It seemed that the corpses were not decaying because of the presence of spells. The scent of blood did not spread out wildly as well, causing people around the area hard to discover that their neighbors were dead in their own houses.

When he heard about the news, Joshua could not help but frown. He even found a nearby trader selling newspapers and bought the most recent newspaper. While reading the news, his face gradually became serious. "I did not expect it to begin so soon. These worshipers of the Evil Gods are really nimble and fast in their actions."

The first news was nothing more than the official usage of the Berserk Dragon Vaccine on suppressing the beasts that went berserk. Meanwhile, the second news, although it was a little too cruel for ordinary people to accept, was merely a trivial matter that would only make them gasp and feel shocked briefly. However, for the warrior who already knew the reason that caused all these happenings, it meant that something about the Evil Gods on the continent had just reached phase two.

The advent of the Chaos Evil God would require all sort of special conditions to be fulfilled. Each Evil Gods would require different conditions to be fulfilled of course. However, most of the Evil Gods required fear to be spread across the entire world.

Currently, the Dragon's Calamity in the South directly attacked the kingdom and destroyed many major cities, setting off a commotion among the people there and started a wave of refugees. Meanwhile, the Dragon's Calamity had yet to reach the other regions on the continent of Mycroft for the moment. The believers of the Evil God would naturally use all sorts of plans to create fear among the people.

These bizarre rituals that involved the dismembering of corpses and skinning were just the signs of the first phase. The Evil God believers that were hiding in the shadows would later try to summon some Chaos Daemons in all of the cities to create large-scale chaos, causing people to feel unsafe and most importantly, fear.

In the previous life, although the activities of Evil God believers were quickly suppressed by local governments, they had also caused quite a mess to the world. Joshua believed that he would need to take note of that since now that he had become a thorn in the flesh of the Dragon race.

—Perhaps it is necessary to inform the main city now in order for them to put attention on this issue.

'Just do it when it comes to mind.' That was Joshua's motto. After all, he was not a procrastinator. So he walked into a slightly quiet alley. Then he informed Ying to take out a simple communication circle that was made of mirror-like materials. After that, the warrior contacted the main city of Moldavia immediately, while he was being watched by the silver-haired girl who was filled with curiosity.

—Buzz

Along with the flashing of the magic wave, a lot of white dots that looked like snowflakes appeared on the smooth surface of the mirror. Then, everything formed into a light screen. That meant that the communication circle was already connected. A glimpsing image of the mansion in the main city had appeared on the side of the light screen. Meanwhile, a small figure of a lady with long blue hair and a slender waist had also appeared right before Joshua's eyes.

"Hello, Joshua. You've contacted us through the communication line. Is there anything important that you want to instruct us to do?"

The clear voice came through the communication device, The person that received the call and kept the line connected was the Artificial Intelligence that came from the Karlis world, 03.

The gray-blue eyes seemed to be shrouded in mist, and the bottom part of her body was barely visible. The silky long blue hair was resting on the black wings behind her own waist. The hair was also slightly moving along with the movement of the body of the female Artificial Intelligence. Today, 03 was wearing a human-style dress with shoulder straps, exposing a large area of white skin on her arms. Her delicate little face had a hint of a smile.

"... You're looking more and more like a human now, 03."

Slightly sticking his tongue out as he made fun of the Artificial Intelligence, Joshua could not help but recall the first time when he met 03 in the Karlis world—that female Artificial Intelligence at that time was abnormally rigid, her spoken words sounded indifferent as if she did not have even the slightest emotion of her own at all. Her magical projection terminal did not change based on the outside world at all. She was seriously odd that time.

However, since she came over to Mycroft, made contact with many people here and acquired a large amount of information, 03 seemed to have become much more alive as if she was continuously learning and improving at becoming a human being.

"How can a human be as cute as I am?"

As if she was intended to frighten Joshua, 03 raised her chin slightly and said something she would never have said in a calm and arrogant tone, "The humanoid shape of a magical projection is definitely much more perfect human than a real human being. Other than being a little unreal, there are no major flaws or shortcomings or whatever word you used to describe imperfection. You know, the imperfection on skins and faces are much more difficult to duplicate compared to smooth skin."

"Pffft…"

"Miss 03, since when did you become so… this way…"

Ying and Ling who were standing behind the warrior looking at the communication screen could no longer hold their laughter back. They chuckled as they were struggling to hold their back their laughter. Although 03 sounded quite arrogant, the petite figure and perfect skin of her projection was inexplicably cute and persuasive.

Being speechless for a brief moment, Joshua blinked his eyes as he rolled his red eyes. He had no idea what to say at all. Upon remaining silent for a brief moment, he had finally found his words. Then he spoke one word after another slowly with a serious expression as he looked at the light screen in front of him. Then he asked the Artificial Intelligence, "So tell me, 03. Where did you learn to say those words?!"

When did the dull emotionless Artificial Intelligence girl of zero humor become like this?!

"This is the answer that I summarized from some very interesting books and observations during my peaceful days in the mansion."

The answer given by 03 was accurate.

After a brief conversation that went way off topic, everything became normal again.

Currently, other than assisting Joshua and the others on the research and development on the magic-enhanced armor, 03 had also been entrusted by the warrior with some other works. Minding the communication system of Moldavia was one of them. Meanwhile, more importantly, she was also entrusted to observe any abnormal signs of activity across the entire city of Moldavia.

Just like what the Artificial Intelligence said, her image was merely made of magic through her terminal in order for people to communicate with her conveniently. Although it appeared perfect, it was still merely a projection. What she really used to observe the world was the observation circle in her runic crystal. Under the large supply of magic crystals provided by Joshua, the observation circle of 03 was strong enough to cover most of the main city and observe most of the areas around.

After roughly explaining and instructing 03 to pay attention to any incoming of foreigners, Joshua helplessly looked at the projection of 03 which was rolling across the ceiling of the mansion.

It seemed like she would not be changing that habit of hers for the time being. The warrior placed some thought on a matter. After that, he attempted to ask 03, "Is there anything making you dissatisfied? 03, if the workload is too much and they're taking too much of your time, you can just tell me. I won't force you to work for me, you know…"

Upon hearing that, 03 stopped rolling on the ceiling. She remained silent for a brief moment before getting back to the front of the screen. Another moment had passed, she seemed to be having some thoughts on something as well. Only then, the Artificial Intelligence slowly opened up her mouth and said, "There's nothing wrong with work at all… it's just… I would like to be just like you and the others. I want to look at a bigger world."

"Although the main city of Moldavia is very interesting, it is just one city though. I want to see more places."

After saying that, 03 sighed gently. Then she spoke softly, "Even if I can have a body like Ying and Ling, I just want to use my bare hands to touch this world… this world that is filled with life and Order."