After wiping out the Olympus fleet that had surrounded the Storm Border, Chaldea's warship sailed across a calm, windless sea, following the land signal marked on the radar.
"You've done well. Want something to drink, Master?"
Scáthach sat sprawled on the deck, her crimson spear tucked under one arm with the shaft resting on her shoulder, looking utterly relaxed. A sudden coolness touched her cheek.
Shiomi had come up from the cabin with a nutritional drink, pressing it lightly against her face as he offered it.
"If anyone's worked hard, it's you too, isn't it?" Scáthach took the drink and gestured for him to sit. "Stop running all over the ship when you should be resting. Leave things outside of combat to the others."
"At least bringing you water isn't something I want to leave to anyone else," Shiomi said. He stretched his legs out, gazing at the sea ahead of the Storm Border as if he were on vacation.
Scáthach sipped through the straw, thinking for a moment.
"But we'd only just arrived in this Lostbelt. We were still underwater, and Odysseus found us immediately."
"Kirschtaria probably took what happened in Russia and Scandinavia as a lesson and made thorough preparations," Shiomi said. "With the power of the gods, plus technology that doesn't exist in Proper Human History… picking up the tiny phenomenon fluctuation we caused when we ended Imaginary Dive and returned to reality was likely easy enough."
"And yet the side laying siege, despite overwhelming numbers, was annihilated instead. Even the general commanding the encirclement died," Scáthach said with a laugh. "Even with that warship in satellite orbit bombarding us, we still got away clean… once the Crypters realizes that—"
The cannon fire from the satellite-orbit warship ultimately failed to pierce the barrier Skadi, Scáthach, and Shiomi had built together. That stability let the Storm Border slip out of the combat zone via Imaginary Dive without being caught in the blast.
"The strength we've shown will force Kirschtaria to push all his chips in to win this war," Shiomi said. "And the Alien Apostles clearly intend to help him here."
"Feeling the pressure?"
"We don't know their trump cards," Shiomi replied calmly, "but Kirschtaria doesn't know ours either. The fog of war covers everything. Right now, everyone's information is only half-complete."
He paused, then patted the deck.
"We'll deal with it when we get there."
"As long as you can think like that, I'm relieved," Scáthach said. She set her crimson spear aside, then eased herself down, resting her head on Shiomi's lap.
"But what was that thing, anyway…? It felt more advanced than an artificial satellite," Shiomi muttered.
"That, I don't know," Scáthach said, shaking her head. "Even I can't claim to understand everything about the Greek gods. At least… their origins really are like that."
What she knew started from the story fourteen thousand years ago, after the White Giant was defeated by the Holy Sword of the Planet.
Before that…
"If the intelligence is accurate, then the one still floating in satellite orbit is most likely the Greeks' true form," Morgan's voice cut in, slow and measured. "One of the Twelve Machine Gods of Olympus. Which one, we don't know yet."
"Huh? How do you know that?" Shiomi blurted, genuinely startled.
It was information even he didn't have, and it certainly wasn't included in what he'd shared with Morgan.
"I just heard it from Romani Archaman." Morgan casually tossed a cushion beside Shiomi and dropped into a seat. She stretched, her voice turning lazy. "I asked him about it on the bridge earlier. I didn't expect he'd actually know. Honestly, my husband… how could you forget that doctor's real identity?"
"Oh, right…" Shiomi covered his face.
He occasionally discussed Solomon-related matters with Romani, but out of habit he still treated that gentle, laid-back doctor, who never seemed in a hurry, as just an ordinary man.
Solomon's Clairvoyance could see both past and future. If anything, what had already happened should be even clearer than what hadn't yet come to pass.
Morgan digging for information that way was, in fact, exactly what they needed right now.
"So you're saying the Twelve Olympian Gods aren't gods in the sense of this planet at all, but Machine Gods?" Scáthach's interest was clearly piqued.
"According to Romani," Morgan said, leaning against Shiomi's other side as she relayed the information everyone had just heard together, "the Olympian gods came from beyond this universe. They descended upon this planet long ago, made contact with humanity, accepted human faith, and gradually became established as native gods of Earth. Before that, they were nothing more than mechanical gods that possessed divine authority."
"If they really did come from outer space," Shiomi said, letting his thoughts wander, "then it makes sense that the idea survived in later myths that the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar was the prototype for the beauty goddess Aphrodite—"
"They were probably influenced by Ishtar's faith when they took shape as gods," Scáthach replied.
Seen that way, it all added up.
"The problem is," Morgan said, poking Shiomi's cheek with her finger, "Romani also said that in the Age of Gods before the Common Era, the Olympians had already completely shed their Machine God forms and existed purely as native deities. Yet in this Lostbelt, they've retained their forms as Machine Gods."
Shiomi looked up at the blue sky and drifting clouds overhead. With his vision reinforced to its limits by Mana, he could still make out the Machine God that had just finished firing.
So where, exactly, was the point of divergence between this Lostbelt and Proper Human History?
The question stirred his curiosity.
"Did you really come all this way just to talk about that?" Scáthach cut the discussion short, turning it into a tease aimed at Morgan instead.
"Manipulating the leylines and sealed weapon systems to wipe out over a hundred warships was exhausting. I came to collect my reward from my husband," Morgan said, flopping onto Shiomi as if all her strength had left her. "My Magic Circuits feel like they're overloaded again. Could my husband help cool them down?"
"Don't talk like you're some kind of machine," Shiomi shot back.
Magic Circuit overload did exist, but they were definitely nowhere near that point right now.
Still, since Morgan had asked, he wrapped his arms around her as she lay curled against him like a cat, letting his Mana flow into her Magic Circuits as he always did.
"Mmm… my husband's 'massage' really is the most comfortable," Morgan murmured contentedly.
"We can almost see land now. Looks like an island," Shiomi said. "Once we dock, we'll decide whether to investigate the area."
"And the fact that that Machine God hasn't launched another attack is worrying," Scáthach added casually, idly rubbing Shiomi's knee. "We should stay on guard."