Dense jungle and marshland brimming with stagnant, half-putrid water. A tongue of flame rose in that primeval land, which had denied human footsteps for untold ages.

Of course, this was not the first time fire had appeared here. Lightning sometimes fell from the sky to strike a tree, bringing heat to the land.

But this fire was not something the moisture-laden air, sodden trees, or pools on the ground could stop. Fueled by an immense quantity of mana, it grew without limit, spreading in every direction.

“Well, would you look at it burn.”

Fire magic unleashed at full strength by a great noble of the Sun bloodline was more than enough to subdue primeval nature. With a sizzle, the pools on the ground evaporated in moments, while waterlogged trees and aquatic plants crumbled to ash.

Naturally, the countless creatures that called the marsh home also suffered from the inferno: everything from tiny insects to lizards, frogs, otters, fish, and several kinds of birds.

Countless lives winked out in vain as great billows of steam, ash, and smoke rose with an acrid stench. Had people from some highly advanced civilization witnessed it, they would surely have cried out at this appalling destruction of nature.

[HISSS!]

Just then, a gigantic marsh viper some five meters long burst through the flames with a piercing hiss and lunged at Solif. With the mechanical quickness peculiar to reptiles, it sank its fangs into his arm in an instant—or tried to. Unfortunately for the snake, its fangs could not even pierce his skin.

“Ugh, you filthy thing.”

Solif flicked his hand, smashing the enormous snake's body against the ground with a crash.

He would never have fallen prey to a lower-tier monster like that to begin with, but now that he had awakened the guardian bloodline as well, it took at least the strength of a high-ranking noble to land a meaningful blow on him. Anything less could not leave so much as a scratch, even if he made no effort to defend himself.

After burning several more monsters that charged through the flames to death, Solif shouted at the sky.

“All done! Blow it away!”

At his shout, the immense clouds of steam rising skyward suddenly began moving south, as though caught in an invisible giant's hand.

Maysa was responsible, flying through the sky as she hung from Vije's legs. Working in perfect harmony with the wind-commanding black eagle, she formed a barrier of wind and blew the byproducts of Solif's flames over the earthen wall to the south.

To finish the process, Turan, waiting beyond the wall, used the Karmine bloodline's power to infuse the incoming steam with cold. It instantly condensed into water and poured down into the river.

Turan then flew over the wall, extended a hand over the ash-covered ground, and drew out even the water that had seeped deep into the soil.

“Solif, a bowl.”

“Here.”

Beside him, Solif created a bowl of light dozens of meters across, and Turan directed the emerging water into it. Finally, all three combined their telekinesis to empty the bowl into the river beyond the wall, more or less finishing the cleanup.

“Good, that's this section done!”

“Shall we stop here for today? We've used a lot of mana, and the sun will be setting soon.”

“Ugh, all that hard work's made me hungry. You too, right?”

At Solif's question, delivered as he rubbed his stomach, Vije snorted and pulled a piece of jerky from the pouch on her chest to eat. Maysa flew briefly into the sky, then descended and said,

“I've checked. No leaks anywhere.”

“Good. Let's head back and rest, then. Vije, if you would.”

Climbing onto the swing Vije pulled, Turan rose into the sky and looked down at the land below. A bare patch stood out amid the dense jungle like a gaping hole. This was the result of the party's diligent work reclaiming the marsh over the past three weeks.

First, they had built a levee beside the river to the south, cutting off the flow of water into the marsh. Then they raised the surrounding earth to enclose a rectangular section for reclamation, incinerated the entire ecosystem within it using overwhelming firepower, and extracted the remaining water before compacting the newly dried ground.

Ordinary wizards would have struggled to alter the environment on such an enormous scale. Even if they somehow managed it once, they would have been utterly exhausted. But with their extraordinary mana, the party could repeat the process over and over. The monster attacks it provoked did not even qualify as a threat.

As a result, the land the three had reclaimed already stretched more than ten kilometers in every direction.

“How much do you think we've reclaimed by now?”

“I'm not sure. I haven't measured it exactly, but probably more than a tenth.”

“At that rate, we really will finish in a few months.”

“Mr. Yoz might faint when he gets back and sees this.”

“You call him Mr. Yoz even when it's just us?”

“Ah, damn it. It's become a habit.”

The three chatted leisurely as they flew north across the unreclaimed marsh. Just as the wetlands gave way to cultivated plains, Turan narrowed his eyes and, with a single gesture, sent several thunderbolts crashing into the ground.

“Monsters?”

“Yes. More of them fleeing north than before.”

As the party gradually reclaimed the marsh from the south, some monsters felt threatened and fled to the open land in the north, just as these had. Remote as this region was, it still had a few towns and villages. To prevent any unforeseen tragedies, they needed to deal with the monsters in advance.

* * *

After several stops to hunt monsters and deal with their remains on the flight north, the party arrived in Koloa City, the only city in the Koloa region.

Its population was roughly fifteen hundred, and its only wizards were three knights. It was much like Murei, where Turan had stayed when he first ventured into the world. This place was at the farthest edge not merely of Ravista's territory, but of human society itself.

“The gods have arrived!”

“O masters of the world!”

“Oh!”

Every commoner who saw the party fell flat with their forehead pressed to the ground. Turan had seen the sight time and again, but still could not grow used to it. Inwardly clicking his tongue, he walked past them into the city.

Here, high-ranking nobles like them were not merely considered godlike; they were worshipped as actual gods. Most commoners were ignorant folk who could barely read and knew only what theology they had picked up by hearsay. Their reasoning was that noble lords, whom they had never seen in all their lives, were surely no different from gods.

As the party approached the mansion in the city center, a particularly bedraggled crowd of commoners greeted them. Some were missing an arm, a leg, or a finger or toe; others were wrapped head to toe in bandages because of dreadful skin diseases. All of them prostrated themselves before the party and cried out.

“O great and glorious gods! Please look with mercy upon these wretched souls!”

“We heard the rumors and came!”

“Please save my daughter! I'll give you everything I own!”

Solif looked thoroughly sick of the sight, but Turan and Maysa walked toward them without any change in expression.

[“Form an orderly line, all of you. Healing will be granted to everyone.”]

Despite never having been taught to form an orderly line, the commoners immediately obeyed the god's command. A few frowned, thinking someone had cut in front of them, but no one shouted or lost their temper. How could they dare commit such sacrilege in a god's presence?

At the head of the line, Turan handed Maysa the restorative-potion magic tool. As she poured mana into it, liquid sloshed inside.

“What's wrong?”

“M-my hand here. A venomous snake bit it, and it rotted away...”

“This will hurt. Bear with it.”

The man held out a wrist ending in a blunt stump, as though the hand had been cut off, probably to stop the rot from spreading. With a quick motion, Maysa sliced away the end using the enchanted dagger Turan had lent her, then applied restorative potion to the fresh cut.

The man choked back his screams, only to stare in astonishment as a pale new hand grew, entirely unlike his sun-darkened skin.

“My hand... It's back! Thank you, Goddess! Thank you so much!”

Of course, as their treatment of Bisen's victims had shown, a single mouthful would have made such measures unnecessary. But there were far more people in need of treatment now, and they did not have enough mana left to give every patient a dose to drink.

With Turan and Solif's help, Maysa continued treating each patient with restorative potion, healing everything from amputations like the one she had just seen to skin diseases, fevers, and all manner of other illnesses. Watching quietly from behind her, Turan stopped one patient.

“What ailment brought you here?”

“I-I was bitten by a poisonous insect, and I've been shivering all over...”

“You must have heard that anyone who seeks treatment under false pretenses when they are not ill will suffer a terrible punishment.”

At Turan's words, the middle-aged man stared at him, his face draining of color, then flung himself to the ground.

“Forgive me, forgive me! I only wanted to receive your blessing...!”

“Get lost.”

The Holy Relic's senses allowed Turan to detect even the meager mana of commoners—barely enough power to sustain life—and easily judge whether they were healthy. He could not, however, tell precisely what ailed them or where.

After he exposed the impostor, several whispering patients quietly slipped away, but many still remained. By the time they finally finished treating everyone, the sun had already set.

“O Goddess, more beautiful even than the Earth Mother, I shall worship you alone forever. You have saved my daughter, so all that I own...”

“Yes, yes. Go home. We ask no payment.”

At Solif's intervention, the young man weeping as he clutched his little daughter finally left, though not before bowing over and over again. Solif gave a small sigh and looked around.

“I thought hardly anyone lived here. Why are there so many sick people? We treat them every day, and there's no end to them.”

“If you count everyone living within a few days' walk, that's still tens of thousands of people. Word must have spread that they can get treatment here.”

In Ravista's heartland, nobles regularly toured the towns and villages to hold healing events for commoners. But Koloa was so remote that nobles powerful enough to do so never visited.

Indeed, there was no doubt that these healing sessions had played a major part in the locals' worship of the party as gods. Healing was the quintessential power of Ravista's nobles, after all.

Behind the party as they headed back, chatting casually, the healed patients embraced one another in joy. Even amid their celebration, they bowed reverently toward the mansion, remembering the grace they had received.

* * *

At the mansion in the city center, one of the knights who had previously ruled the city greeted the party as they strode through the main entrance.

“Thank you for your labors today, O great one!”

“Where are the others?”

“Patrolling the surrounding area as you instructed. We will report immediately if any powerful monsters appear!”

“Well done.”

In truth, the party's presence was nothing short of a natural disaster for the knights who had previously ruled the city. The advantage of a posting in a backwater like this was that, in exchange for enduring poor living conditions, they could lord it over everyone without worrying about anyone above them. Now, out of nowhere, they had superiors to bow and scrape before.

Worse, the visitors had brought instructions from the main house requiring cooperation: any resources or labor they needed for reclamation were to be provided at a fair market price. The knights could not simply treat them as guests. Whatever had brought such nobles to work in this backwater, they clearly had connections to the main house.

If the knights refused an instruction like Turan's recent order to watch for monsters coming from the south, and he later let slip to the main house that “the knights weren't doing their jobs,” they would have no recourse.

“Then, if you'll excuse me, I have work to attend to...”

“Carry on.”

The party washed and changed in the mansion's finest rooms, formerly occupied by the knights, then gathered at the dining table. A woman who looked like an unassuming country housewife served roasted marsh-boar ribs with apples, along with a steamed dish of fish and crabmeat.

“Oh, this is good. This place may not have much else, but it certainly has a variety of food.”

“Marshes do have more kinds of creatures than other regions. Didn't you nearly have a fit over the frog dish the other day?”

“Because I'd never eaten it before! And it wasn't just me, you know. You're the only person who's not from here who can put something like that in your mouth without batting an eye!”

While Turan and Solif chatted, Maysa carefully chewed and swallowed the food before her, one bite at a time. With her eyes closed as she quietly savored her meal, she looked almost reverent.

A little later, after finishing a portion that would have satisfied an ordinary person, she wiped her mouth.

“That's enough for me. It was a lovely meal, Lute.”

“To hear the goddess say so brings this humble woman nothing but joy.”

The middle-aged woman called Lute smiled contentedly at Maysa's praise and cleared the dishes.

This was precisely why the party had spread word and gathered the sick for treatment even while working on the reclamation project. One way to treat Maysa's persistent eating disorder was to build her self-esteem by helping others like this.

Having healed hundreds of people since the first day, she could now eat with relative ease. Of course, she still could not manage a normal portion for a high-ranking noble, but at least she no longer needed to have food forced into her while unconscious.

“The thing is, we don't know whether this effect is temporary. The improvement you made after healing those burning people didn't last long before you were back where you started.”

“Well, I need to get into the habit of eating like this. I can't spend my whole life doing nothing but helping people.”

“Would that really be so bad?”

When Turan and Solif looked at her as though to ask what she meant, Maysa continued.

“I mean, I don't think it would be so bad to keep living in the countryside like this, reclaiming land and helping people.”

Looking a little bashful, she added that she did not heal people merely out of desperation to eat. Giving someone a new life brought her a deep sense of fulfillment. Was it because of that nature that healing people could improve her self-esteem?

Turan, who had privately been basking in the superiority and pride the commoners' praises inspired, quietly turned his gaze to his food to avoid revealing his childish true feelings. Meanwhile, Solif heaved a sigh and shook his head.

“Ugh, I could never live like this forever. How could you spend your whole life somewhere without a decent tavern, gambling house, theater, or library? I'm only putting up with it because we'll be working here a few months at most.”

As he said, Koloa City offered virtually no opportunities for cultural pursuits. That was only natural for a city that amounted to little more than an oversized village.

This was another major reason nobles did not flock here to reclaim the land despite the mines. Even the Head of a great house would provoke resentment by sending blameless nobles to a place like this and ordering them to reclaim marshland.

Had the theater-loving Asiz been here, he would probably have been writhing in misery. For that reason, Koloa's knights often whispered that the party must be nobles exiled for some grave offense.

“Don't you feel anything when you see how happy people are? Can't you share in that a little?”

“It's not that I don't. I just don't want to live somewhere like this my whole life for the sake of seeing it. I left home because I wanted to travel the world, remember? Seeing the same scenery and doing the same things for months on end bores me to death.”

Letting their bickering pass in one ear and out the other, Turan looked up at the great moon in the sky. Certainly, spending peaceful days like these put him more at ease than struggling against scheming gods or over the secrets of the world. He still did not know whether he would enjoy living this way forever, but for now, at least, he wanted to savor this time.