Chapter 32: Beneath Amber Skies

It was not just an enormous underground space. Before them stretched what looked like a vast valley, hemmed in by colossal walls of rock.

Grass and trees grew there, and in the distance, both animals and strange creatures could be seen drinking from the various rivers that crossed that land.

High above, the crystals, which in this place gave off an amber light, shone like an artificial sky, illuminating everything.

“This is incredible…”

Sae clasped her hands in front of her chest, unable to look away. Beside her, her grandfather Thaelor, archon of the visiare, was rubbing his eyes, unable to believe what lay before him.

“Well, this is the largest valley we’ve found.”

Cerys walked over to the edge of the ledge at the cave mouth and planted her hands on her hips, satisfied with her exploration of the underworld.

“I don’t know if ‘valley’ is the right word, but I have to say the underworld is packed with gigantic underground spaces full of all sorts of curious things…”

Nerez also approached the ledge and took a deep breath. For some reason, the air was extremely pure despite being in the depths of the earth.

“This certainly seems to be the most habitable one…”

“Lord Nereziel! Lord Nereziel!” Thaelor hurried over with tears in his eyes. “Can we truly live here?”

“If you don’t live here, that will be a problem. I don’t have many Skytree Nuts left…”

Thaelor gave a deep bow, then turned to the rest of the visiare to organize the descent along the narrow, steep path that led from the cave down to the valley.

“I don’t mean to offend, but rather than the lord of a powerful city, the archon seems more like a grandpa worried about his family…”

Nerez was speaking to Sae, who had come up beside him. For her part, she let out a small giggle.

“That is not offensive at all, Lord Nereziel. My grandfather has always been more of a grandfather than an archon.”

“Archon meant city lord, right? But specifically? A king? A baron?”

Sae tilted her head in thought as she rested one slender finger against her chin.

“In our world, a king refers to someone who rules over more than a single territory. On the other hand, archon is the title that describes dominion over a single city-state and its surrounding lands. In our case, that was the island where Atlenia was located.”

“Interesting. If an archon could hold more than one city-state, maybe the word would have been translated as ‘baron’ in my mind, or something close to that.”

Sae watched curiously as Nerez muttered to himself about things only he could possibly find interesting, until she could no longer hold back her question.

“Translate? I thought gods knew everything. According to Lady Cerys, at least…”

“What? Me?”

Cerys turned her head for a moment, but soon returned her attention to the valley in search of something worth fighting against.

“Well, Cerys gave a fairly simple explanation, but not an entirely wrong one,” Nerez explained. “Basically, because we are gods, we have the ability to understand what others say to us and express our intentions, even if we don’t actually know the words themselves.”

Well, in truth, it’s the Godscript that handles the translation, from what I found out after our encounter with Mireia, but I don’t want to get into explaining what the Godscript is…

“Oh, I see! I apologize for troubling you with my ignorance!”

Nerez could only smile awkwardly. He had been trying all day yesterday, but it was impossible to convince Sae that she did not need to treat him with such formality. It was like telling Mireia she did not need to pray in his name every night…

“Enough blah blah! Let’s go down to the valley already!”

Stolen story; please report.

Cerys, finally bored of staring at the scenery, stepped between Nerez and Sae and urged them to join the line of visiare already descending the rocky wall.

“If I may ask one last question…”

Sae began to fidget with her fingers, nervous.

“What exactly is the relationship between you two?”

Cerys looked at her without understanding what she was talking about, but Nerez did not hesitate for even a second.

“It’s like having a pet, only much more aggressive. And she has no problem biting the hand that feeds her. Literally.”

At that moment, Nerez raised his hand just in time to intercept Cerys’s head as she lunged at him with her mouth open.

Sae let out another small giggle, but her gaze soon drifted toward her friends, who were helping the archon with the descent.

A faint blush colored her cheeks, but at the same time, a worried expression formed on her face.

***

Fortunately, the valley was full of fruits and nuts of different kinds, so Nerez’s already dwindling rations did not take another hit.

All in all, it was quite a long journey. Even after the descent, several more hours passed. However, there was no change in the light as time went by, since it came from the crystals embedded in the stone ceiling rather than from any sun.

By the time they finally reached the fork in the largest river in the valley, Nerez had spent a good part of the journey wasting time thinking about how thick the curtains would need to be for him to sleep in that place.

For the visiare, who could regulate the light entering through their barriers, it was an irrelevant concern.

“This seems like an ideal place to build a settlement! The land is flat and looks fertile, and this river could sustain a city much larger than our beloved Atlenia.”