Chapter 27: Amalgam

The environment seemed blurred. Everything seemed a blur. Only one voice echoed in the mind of the necromancer lost in strange ruins, Salvatoris.

"State of su-su-subject critical. Fluid administration strongly-ent reco-o-omander."

At these simple words, Salvatoris seemed to wake up. But when he opened his eyes again, he felt an intense thirst, accompanied by a horrible feeling of hunger. Time seemed to have flown by, his throat so dry that it seemed to beg for the slightest drop of water. Even his stomach was aching. It was as if he hadn't eaten in days. His vision had been far more charged than the last, and it seemed that this time, he hadn't just spent a day contemplating her. Even his body seemed rusty, the slightest movement an ordeal.

However, he quickly shook his head, his thoughts beginning to scatter.

[ Alice and Reiner are dead? So...how is she here? Isn't he the Reiner of legend? Is the vision really over? No...impossible.]

Then a gleam passed into his eyes as he gasped, realization crossing his face.

[Soldiers of the realm! If I slept any longer than last time, they must have arrived! Shit! ]

However, a contradictory thought quickly emerged in his tormented mind.

[No, there's nothing to say I slept longer, maybe I just hadn't had enough to eat and drink...and... why did I panic so much?]

As he held his skull, his thoughts continued to scatter. The dehydration and all the new information he'd acquired were making him suffer, but he had to get up. However, he could no longer leave Alice here. If the soldiers were on their way, or even had already arrived, to find her here, Alice would end up irreparably dissected by the local nobles, in the hope of understanding her inner workings. Although she could also simply be destroyed, being branded a spawn of evil, or a follower of demons.

Salvatoris grabbed the damaged synthetic with a concise gesture, without giving it much thought. He was careful not to bump into her, instead moving her inert body to the center of the small, ruined room he was in. Ignoring the cryogenic capsules surrounding them, Salvatoris tore off a few pieces of the rags worn by his undead, trying as best he could to hide all visible metal parts from Alice. And although, in the end, she was almost entirely surrounded by non-uniform fabrics, giving her an unsightly appearance, Salvatoris sighed with satisfaction as he began to carry her.

In combat, he was the least useful person, and he had no need of his arms to give commands to his puppets, so it was logical that he should do so rather than delegate the task. All the more so since the last thing he wanted was for the pieces of fabric Alice was wearing to fall off. If that happened in front of anyone, they'd both be executed without Salvatoris even having a chance to explain.

When Salvatoris reached the exit of the ruin, a strange feeling came over him as the sun blinded him. Why was he carrying Alice as if everything were natural? Hiding her would have been much more logical, so why did he feel a burning desire to keep her by his side? Of course, his thirst for answers and his indescribable desire to know what Alice had tried to show him next played a big part in his sympathy for her. But he would never be so protective of her. He didn't even really know her!

His whole mind seemed foggy. He was losing his sense of self. Who was he really now? He had no idea himself, yet his body moved of its own volition, advancing towards the nearest river while keeping Alice on his back.

The plain in which he wandered no longer seemed at all the same as before. The vast majority of the tumuli swarming over the area seemed to have been destroyed. Blood covered the ground as far as the eye could see, and the stench of corpses rotting in the sun filled his nostrils. On closer inspection, a multitude of routny corpses, each one gutted, now populated the plain. Salvatoris' worries had been in vain, as the army hadn't even searched the entire area, doubtless leaving satisfied once the Queen routny had been killed. It was ideal terrain for a necromancer like himself. However, he didn't have the time to reanimate every corpse, nor the energy to do so. What's more, if the exterminated routny were to rise up and arrive near the village as the undead, it could create confusion and chaos among the inhabitants of his village.

Salvatoris paced slowly across the plains, nearly stumbling several times as his vision became blurred. However, he soon came close to the small river he was looking for, leaving Alice to her puppets. The water wasn't particularly clean, and the villagers usually used it for washing or doing their laundry, but it was enough. Salvatoris bent over hastily, quickly taking several gulps of the water, which had a slightly reddish tint to it, to the point where he almost choked. However, when the taste of iron spread across his mouth, he stopped himself. It was the taste of blood.

Salvatoris straightened his head, instinctively looking in the direction of his village. From there, he could see the water becoming increasingly reddish, to the point where it looked crimson, as if corpses had been stored in the river. It was then that a thought crossed his mind.

[What if-?]

Savatoris then ran off in the direction of his village, not even bothering to look at how his puppets were transporting Alice. He had to know whether his thought was right or wrong.

But when he could see his village, only bloodied and sometimes destroyed houses awaited him. It wasn't the work of monsters, everything was too clean. No corpses resided in the village, and some people even seemed to be still holed up in their homes, terrified. What's more, a flag proudly bearing a scarlet phoenix was waving extravagantly above the village chief's house. This could only mean one thing: the Empire of the Scarlet Phoenix had invaded, and the village was now under their military occupation. As Salvatoris approached the chief's house, he felt a strange sense of apprehension rise in his chest.

He hadn't even tried to go home. The traces of blood around his home terrified him. The thought of going inside and seeing his mother's corpse was nipping at his heels. However, a part of him strangely didn't care, as if his mother were just another stranger, like all the corpses he reanimated on a daily basis. However, he didn't have time to think about it any longer. The door to the house had opened, revealing an old man trembling slightly.

"Sa-Salvatoris? Where have you been!"

the old man stammered. All the hostility he once bore him for being a necromancer seemed to have vanished, leaving Salvatoris to ask a simple question, his hands trembling.

"What's happened? Why is the village like this?"

The old man's gaze flickered as he opened his door wider, letting him speak in a feverish voice, matching his snow-pale complexion.

"They... The Empire of the Scarlet Phoenix. They invaded us. They proclaimed that the half-humans of our village were blasphemous and exterminated them. I...I couldn't do anything. They disarmed me in a matter of seconds. Even the soldiers who had killed the routny...even them. Then...they...they killed my little girl in front of me in retaliation, on top of everyone else who resisted. I'm...I'm sorry... They left after taking all our food...leaving us with their flag...we don't have a single provision for winter."

The old man's gaze was blank as he pointed to the flag flying over his house. He who had been so proud, boasting daily of having been a great soldier in his youth, now seemed a shadow of his former self. Tears threatened to escape his trembling eyes at every turn, and although he did his best not to cry, his suffering expression gave him away.

He knew that removing the flag might lead another foreign soldier to invade the village again.

So he was forced to keep the enemy emblem over his own house, and swallow what little pride he had left to protect the last inhabitants of the village. There was nothing else he could do, except try to keep a clear mind to protect those who still could. 

"What about Hildaya? My mother?!" 

Salvatoris asked.His voice sounded panicked, yet he seemed strangely calm, his expression even slightly relaxed.His attitude didn't fit the situation at all, nor his appreciation of his mother.It was...disturbing.He himself couldn't understand why he was so calm.He felt as if he was no longer the same, yet unchanged.All his thoughts were becoming increasingly muddled as contradictory musings collided in his mind. His thoughts, no, the one he thought came from Reiner, dictated that she was just a stranger. But his own memories, everything that made him who he was, screamed that it was his mother. He was torn between his two contradictory thoughts. But not knowing this, the village chief bowed his head in reply.

"I don't know what happened. It was chaos, and they took several women with them... Hildaya must have tried to stop them, and ended up badly cut on the leg...I'm sorry. She's resting in your house, and should survive with a large scar, thanks to the village priests... But nothing's certain yet, she...she may face death if all doesn't go well. You'd better go and see her as soon as possible."

Salvatoris' mind became a mess. He could no longer determine who he was, what he thought or didn't think, who was right and who was wrong. He felt as if thousands of thoughts, each more contradictory than the last, had been added to the fear and panic that had already taken hold of his mind. He was torn between mocking the primitive army of the Scarlet Phoenix in the eyes of Reiner and Alice's memories, and fearing the almighty army he knew by name. The emotional shock he'd just endured had almost broken him. And as if thoughts not his own were waiting for this very moment, they filled the cracks in his reason. It was as if he'd lived two lives, and each of them was fiercely clashing over which one would decide who Salvatoris was, refusing to let him live with the memories of two lives. However, in the midst of this torment, both agreed on one point, even if it wasn't necessarily their respective priority. Deep down, Salvatoris wanted to see the rest of the vision. It was the one and only subject on which his two trains of thought agreed, creating a balance in his mind so fragile that anything seemed likely to shatter it.

If he saw the rest of the vision, his curiosity would be satisfied, he'd know all about the old world! If he saw it, the thoughts that weren't his would become stronger, he'd know better who he was! At least, who Reiner was. But first, he had to go and see his mother. There she was, a few steps away from him, so...what was he talking to the village chief about?

"Where would the nearest android-populated ruin be? I need electricity."

The already shattered village chief suddenly felt a tremendous sense of guilt overwhelm him as he stared into Salvatoris' empty eyes. He clutched his heart, holding back tears as he mistakenly thought Salvatoris had lost his mind over what he'd told him. He caught him in a delirium, ignoring even the incomprehensible words Salvatoris had said. He replied, trying to appear as friendly as possible, placing his hand on the shoulder of the young man facing him.

"Don't worry, she'll get better soon. I promise."

However, Salvatoris ignored what the old man facing him was doing, preferring to repeat his question in a blank voice.

"Where's the nearest ruin?"

"But why do you want to know that? You'll die if you go there... your mother isn't dead, I'm sure she'll need you at her bedside when she regains consciousness. She was worried about you right up to the end... "

declared the village chief. He was genuinely worried about Salvatoris. He had learned that it was he who had scared off the Arcanic wolves. It was he who had warned them of the routny when he was openly despised. How could he not worry and feel indebted to him when he hadn't even managed to protect his mother?

However, Salvatoris' subsequent threat sent a chill down his spine.

"I have a plan.

Now give me a map with the ruin of annotated on it. I know there's one less than half a day's walk away, not that far from the border with the empire of the red phoenix." 

"You're going to use the metal golems for revenge? But that's too risky!" 

the village chief wrongly assumed. Salvatoris reassured him, however, pointing to his undead.He intended to use this misunderstanding to his advantage.

"It's not me, it's them who'll do it."

Seeing Salvatoris' stoic face, the old man couldn't find anything to complain about.If Salvatoris was that determined, he knew he couldn't resign him.A few minutes later, he returned with a card made of tanned animal skin, which he handed to Salvatoris.He spoke only a word as Salvatoris left without so much as a farewell, his face showing an expression of regret. Deep down, he wanted to grab Salvatoris to stop him leaving.

"Be careful! We've lost enough people as it is...and...I'll tell your mother you're all right!"

Salvatoris didn't even look at him, instead starting his advance towards the ruin. His thoughts were so disordered that he immersed himself in reading the map, making it his top priority. He even unconsciously abandoned his own mother. All thoughts of her had been put on hold, as if they were mere parasites