[VALL█Y]

//I'm going to say this a lot, but this book will be really, really dark as it goes on. If you're looking for something wholesome or a smut-filled book, you might want to run away now.

There will be blood, shed, gore, pain, and other unpleasant yet interesting themes.//

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Nausicaä, flanked by Pathos who was, in turn, being followed by the old man Mito. Three slowly trekked through the Valley, a small village of around 500 denizens built into the wall of a massive ravine. They were not alone as many if not all of the Valley people came out of their homes to take a look at the first, and presumably the last traveller of their generation.

"Mommy look, he's got funny hair!"

"Careful Ranni, don't get too close!"

"But mom~ His clothes glow!"

Pathos largely chose to ignore the chatter of the village people, walking at the same pace as the blue-clad princess of the Valley and the short old man behind him. His boots let out audible thumps with every step he took, but that was to be expected under his weight. Even with weight reduction, he still weighed quite a lot by human standards. If Pathos didn't have the weight reductive technology, he'd probably sink to the centre of the City, because of gravity, in a matter of seconds under his own immense weight.

But enough talking about nonexistent obesity.

Nausicaä had led Pathos to a special kind of home, this one appeared to be larger than the most and was closest to the centre out of all of them. If the male could compare it to anything, it would be a really small and kind of cute castle with two towers connected together by a shorter cube-shaped building. Very simple but it did its job so who was he to judge?

"Sorry about all the people, it's been a very long time since we had a traveller passing by," the pretty blue-clad girl shot Pathos an apologetic smile over her shoulder, one which he did not return.

"It's not an issue," it would seem that Pathos' simple replies will not be stopping any time soon, not that Nausicaä really cared all that much, she was a very big-hearted and open-minded girl.

"Please, come in."

Upon walking inside of, presumably, Nausicaä's home, Pathos was immediately met with a medium-sized living room. There were a bunch of entrances leading to other corners of the reasonably large home, however, what captured Pathos' attention were the highly detailed and colourful... carpets? He couldn't be quite sure what they were called now, but these thick pieces of fabric were plastered across the walls like wallpaper and had intricate red, yellow, blue, purple, black and white colours.

Pathos wasn't given a chance to fully analyze the pictures they depicted as Nausicaä pretty much dragged him up the stairs, Mito following closely behind the two, "Come, I must introduce you to my father!"

He could hear Mito laughing at him, but he made no deal out of it. Pathos did not care about humiliation or any sort of other views on himself. His mission was simple. His mission was once accomplished. But, due to... complications, it was then put on hold. Complications he has tried deleting from his memory, but ultimately couldn't bring himself to do so. A story for another time perhaps, another time...

"Father! I'm back!"

Nausicaä's happy and loud voice brought Pathos back down to reality, back to the present, to the room that Nausicaä had dragged him into. Just upstairs, immediately upon making it up, there was a bed. A large bed with an elderly, sick-looking man laying on it.

"Nausicaä! It's good to see -COUGH- to see you back home safe," the man's voice was raspy from old age, his body already unable to leave the bed he rested in.

The one clad in blue ran to her father's side to give him a quick but loving embrace, quite a heartwarming image if Pathos had to say so himself. Such a shame though it was that he had no human heart to speak of. Just a core, a core that produced an excessive amount of energy, probably enough to power a couple hundred if not thousand levels of this megastructure of a city.

"You need to rest father," Pathos didn't know yet just how vast and far Nausicaä's kindness reached, but he was slowly getting the idea that there was nought a shred of evil in this girl.

The man coughed as he leaned back on his large pillow, taking a deep breath in hopes of alleviating the stinging pain that came from his lungs. Only when he calmed down did he notice that there was not only a Nausicaä in the room, but also an old and a... person he's never seen before in quite the eye-catching armour.

"Oh! -COUGH- A traveller?!" the man had begun coughing harshly from excessively raising his voice from the sheer shock of seeing a person from beyond their humble Valley.

"Father, please calm down!"

Even Mito ran to the man's side in worry, but there was quite literally nothing he or Nausicaä could do but provide emotional support and hope, pray even that the man won't suffocate to death. Luckily, he didn't, but the shock on his face was still clearly apparent.

"To think that a traveller would visit us in my lifetime..."

The non-human male saw this as the moment when he was supposed to introduce himself, so he did, "My name is Pathos. I'm from... far away."

"A traveller... never thought I'd see the day... AHEM! A-Apologies, my name is Jhil, I'm the king of this -COUGH- V-Valley."

Pathos pondered on the male's words for a short while, his computing speed being of many times faster than the human mind. Processing at the speed of a quantum computer, it didn't take much thinking for him to piece together some valid pieces of information about this settlement. For one, they implemented the VERY ancient monarch system where there are one or two rulers, one heir and then so on and so on. Pathos has records dating back to an era where humans walked on all fours, but he couldn't help but find it a little... disappointing and peculiar that culture would regress this much.

"...It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I've never met a king before."

"You haven't?" Jhil, or really anyone couldn't be certain if there even were other human settlements out there, they only hoped and speculated.

"No. The last instance of monarchy dates back... several tens of thousands of years. Your Valley is the first I have come across since... I ventured out."

Jhil couldn't help but sigh in dejection, when not even a nomad has seen anyone else for a long while, then that lowers the number of people still out there, surviving, scraping by. The Valley was lucky in its factored existence, it was built into a wall where it was hard to spot, had a stable and steady supply of rations and a growing, healthy population... mostly. There were diseases that not even their healers and doctors could fix, such as the one that Jhil himself had...

"Well, what's this here?" a new voice entered the room, looking back to the entrance, by Pathos' side stood a woman.

A very, very old woman, older than even the oldest person in the room, excluding Pathos because he's not a human. She was very short, barely reaching the tall male's waist and was clad in dark robes.

"A passing traveller... oh how long it has been since I've seen one," the woman, despite having closed eyes still could apparently see Pathos.

She walked further into the room and took her place by Jhil's side... as his family member. Not a wife, but very close to a sister. She was very, very old but her mind would not betray her. Indeed, the man clad in mysterious armour was not from around here, but from afar, far away.

"Has the Great Rapture brought you here?"

"The great rapture?" this was not information in Pathos' database, so of course, he was interested to hear what the old lady was talking about.

"Indeed. It's what we've come to call the cataclysmic ruin of red rain. The event that created a hole through the world..."

Ah, now Pathos understood. The hole which he himself blasted through most of the City's structure had a great impact on this village and its people. It wouldn't be a far fetched idea to suggest that other settlements of humans who have witnessed or heard of the event would remember it for generations to come.

These people must think that the gaping hole across the City's strata allowed Pathos to make it to them, and they were not wrong, "Oh... yes, the rapture did allow me passage through the City's megastructure. However, the Builders have already begun repairing it. In a few years' time, it might no longer exist."

The room became silent for all but ten seconds before the old woman sighed, letting out pretty much every last bit of air in her lungs before giving everyone present a gentle, "Well, it is what it is. You may be the last traveller we see, or you might not. The future is uncertain. What is certain though... Is that I should get to making dinner!"

With a surprising amount of energy, the old woman skipped away, going back down the stairs to do whatever it is that she needs to do to get some food. Her actions plunged the group into an awkward, almost comedic silence before Nausicaä's awkward laugh broke it.

"Ehehehe... would you like to stay for dinner? We'd love to hear any stories you have to tell."

Pathos' answer wasn't immediate, but it was an obvious choice...

...

...

...

"...That would be lovely..."