"What do you think of it? Is it impossible?"
Orion asked the girls. This was a conversation with Orion, Amelia, and Karteira at the center, so Kamala, Dramia, simply listened. Drania was still talking to the sirens further away.
"I understand now..."
Pondering, Amelia began to see where Orion was going from.
"I mean, it's possible, in theory."
She quickly pictured what that option entailed.
"Finding a spot, creating a living area, securing food or creating an area that produce it, displacing them..."
These were all the necessary procedures to maintain a comfortable living space for the sirens.
"That's going to require a lot of resources and energy."
Karteira knew how much energy Amelia needed to created the required amount of soil to transform one chunk of Horizon.
"We need to create a false sea in Horizon. Something large enough for twenty underwater inhabitant to live in."
Amelia looked at Orion with a blank expression.
"I can do it. That's going to take a while though. Maybe ten days without stopping. Digging the soil is not that hard, it's how I'm going to do it that will take time. The device is quite precise in creating ponds and deeper reservoirs."
Knowing that Amelia was starting to get into the idea, Karteira entered.
"If Amelia is going to create the area, I'm going to gather the necessary things to make it more realistic. I'll go talk to the sirens if they can help."
Quickly, she left the group, rushing toward Drania, who wasn't that far away. Explaining that she needed a few plants for some reason, they agreed without knowing the reason for it.
"Orion, what about you?"
He wasn't going to stay idle, right?
"Once the digging is done, I'll bring part of the sea water to Horizon. I'll be the one to secure food for them too. All we need is various types of fishes, and a lot of seawater. A portal here and there should be able to resolve everything."
Shocked, Amelia realized that it drastically reduced her burden.
"That's just like you. I can't believe you thought of taking part of the sea with you... even I thought I would have to create seawater from scratch."
He shook his head.
"There's another problem though. We need more than simple seawater, underwater plants, and fishes. We need corals, mollusks and sponges. Without them, the water quality will never be the same as the real sea. That could endanger not only the biodiversity in the false sea of Horizon, but also the sirens."
"We will have to constantly watch over them, until it stabilized."
They all were left speechless.
"You are right. I sometimes forget how much you know about our world. This would mean nothing if the place we create only turns into a dead zone."
Kamala finally entered the conversation.
"Are they alright with moving out of this 'world' and ending up in yours?"
Once again, Orion shook his head, and smiled.
"No. But I'm sure they won't mind. Horizon is a better place for them than this harsh part of the world."
Agreeing with him, Amelia smiled.
"They will become our first permanent residents."
'I wondered what to do with this absurd space that was left untouched, but since it will help creating some sort of scenery, I have no problem with it. They seem like sweet people too, so why not. If Orion wants to save them, who are we to refuse?'
Both Amelia and Karteira understood that Orion decided that, not because this was a choice, but because he wanted to. He could have forced them to do it, but Horizon was a shared place between them. He might have created it, but he gave full creativity over it to the girls.
And creating a sea, which in fact was going to look more like a gulf, was directly under their supervision.
"You might be right. I can't do nothing about them, when I already have the fairy introduction plan to deal with currently. We don't know a single thing about them, and they could attract the attention of others that would went to capture them."
Kamala was disgusted just by thinking that it could happen to the fairies.
"They said that they rarely interacted with humans, right? They might be like prized possessions for pirates, or something between those lines."
"I'll be placing guards around the fairies the whole time they are here. I should also investigate a few documents, I heard some beastmen disappeared some time ago."
After that, an idea came to Orion. A bad thought lingered in his mind.
"We might have an organisation of outsiders abducting Triazils' faction members other than humans as prized possessions."
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"That can't be..."
Dramia couldn't believe it.
A conversation that started simply with the desire to help the sirens, ended up leading them on something that could put danger on all beings in Hocride.
"If what you say is true, then I've failed my status as Lord of Hocride. I need to find more evidences on that before anything, but I'll come to you if I ever find anything."
Dramia was disgusted, as was Amelia.
"Is this how people from other continent acts?"
"This is bad taste at its peak."
As much as Orion wanted to agree, his mind was somewhere else.
'If I ever hear of something like this existing, other continents or not, I'll burn everything to the ground.'
'This is worst than bad taste. There might be something that we are ignorant about.'
His thoughts kept circling around in his head.
'Something's not right. There's definitely more to it than what was found. I should've kept that man alive. I made a mistake.'
By letting his emotions and self-justice take over, he destroyed what could have been a precious information.
Internally, he shook his head.
'It's too late for that. I'll simply wait for any leads coming from Kamala. If that organisation exist, no amount of tries toward coexistence will work.'
Kamala broke his thoughts by speaking.
"This is a good thing to learn right now. It could have been bad if something like this ever happened. My head would have to be cut off the moment I would betray the expectation of a Remnant."
Dramia chuckled next to her.
"I don't think she would go this far, but she would sure be in a bad mood afterward. I'm even sure she would definitely stop that 'coexistence plan' the moment she heard some of her children disappeared."
Orion clapped his hands together, getting everyone's attention.
"Alright, let's stop this terrible conversation there. This is going to be dealt with in time, but now, there is something else we need to worry about."
"But you're the one who started the conversation."
Making a little jab at Orion, Amelia smiled. In return, Orion turned his head and coughed.
"Let's return to Horizon now. Kamala, you can take the portal to return home if you want, I'm sure you have a lot of work that needs to be done with."
He hinted at the 'research' she had to do.
"Yes, I'll return immediately, but there is another topic that is not related to this one to discuss. At first, it was supposed to be Florian that had to tell it, but since he has left to conquer the two cities in the north, I will in his stead."
Orion opened a portal.
"Drania, Karteira! We're going back to Horizon. Take this portal when you are done to join us."
After watching them both nod, and wave at him, he turned to Karteira.
"Let's talk inside. I want to sit down."
With the exhaustion of the day settling in, all he wanted was to relax a little.
"Right."
"Dramia, are you coming, or are you staying with your sister?"
Amelia asked, intrigued about her choice.
"I will follow."
An unexpected answer.
'I've never seen these two separated from each other.'
Orion thought, watching Dramia and Drania exchange a warm gaze. Both nodded, as if understanding each other, and looked away.
"Alright, we're returning home right now."
They all entered the portal together.
~
Inside Horizon, in the living room of their house.
Kamala finished explaining what she and Florian talked about.
"Corruption? I've already dealt with that the moment I've healed you during our first encounter. Same for Florian, I've cleaned his body when I healed his injury in Lahro."
Kamala opened her mouth in shock.
"You knew?!"
Crossing his arms, he stared at her as if she was stupid.
"I've learned about it before coming to Hocride. I've already saved someone with large amount of corruption encroached in her body. Finding yours and Florian's wasn't that difficult either."
"We won't turn corrupted? Ever?"
"You won't. You are clean of corruption."
Amelia glared at him.
"Couldn't you have told her before she had to find out by mistake?"
Still his arms crossed, he answered.
"Why? To had to their worries? I avoided bringing up the matter because there was no reason to. Them finding out was the same as me waking up after my encounter with Miasma in my dream."
"But they could have changed at any moment, doesn't that make it scary?"
"I don't know about that. What I removed from their body was more like a broken down grain of sand of corruption. There was absolutely no way they would have turned from that. If I had missed it, nothing would have happened anyway."
"I have a feeling it grows when ingesting the corrupted sludge. Yes, Apostles are born with the seed of corruption in their body, but without feeding it, ultimately, it will not grow."
Understanding his points, the worries Kamala had began to vanish.
"We haven't thought like this. The idea didn't even cross our mind that it could only be a seed."
For Orion, his idea on the matter was forged.
"This seed might be the 'point of no return' you spoke about earlier. The assimilation process might be different for each Remnant doing it, which is why all humans, or humanity as a whole, has its members birthed with that seed inside them nowadays."
"How easily the soldiers turned during the Ceremony, I'd believe it to be close to the truth. A little spark, and their core ate away at their mind, transforming them into broken beings."
But there was something Kamala didn't understood.
"Why did we not change even though we were in that place?"
"Did you make contact with the purple mist? I remember seeing a few of them bathing in it, but not you nor Florian."
"!"
The realization finally came.
"We went elsewhere after you killed Kiel. Second floor to be precise. Are you saying that we have avoided turning because of that?"
Orion stayed silent, not answering. It was her own choice to believe that or not.
The mist that Elliot released at that time came from the meeting room. No one was inside at the time, and only Kamala, Florian, Eric, and Olivia stayed in a place the mist never accessed. Kelvin had also left earlier, so the chance he was corrupted was low, which meant that his craziness was genuine.
Out of nowhere, Orion's face darkened.
"Kamala, please, tell me something."
A weird aura could be felt around him, and even Amelia found it strange.
"Y-Yes?"
Stuttering from the sudden change in mood, she had trouble looking into his dark eyes.
"Did someone recovered, or buried Kiel's corpse at the time?"
"Why?"
Amelia, who only listened until now, frown.
"Orion, are you thinking that he might have revived as a corrupted Apostle? That can't be, right?"
Freezing on the spot, Kamala began to sweat.
"N-No, we did not confirm that. The Apostle Laylah took care of it..."
He immediately pressed against his brows.
'I have a bad feeling about this too.'
With this thought, the conversation came to a close.
"Alright, are you satisfied knowing you won't be corrupted? Because we have a sea to create."
Recovering her bearings, she nodded.
"Yes, thank you. We are incredibly indebted to you."
Accepting her thanks, he answered.
"You are not. Simply follow your own beliefs, and we will walk on the same path. Aren't friends made to help each other?"
'Even though at the time, I only did it as a way to pressure her in case she turned against us.'
Always cautious, that was Orion. In the end, this plan was quickly scrapped, and he never thought about that again.
She wasn't an ally for him at that moment, but now was different. His words once again entered her heart, strengthening a bond that shouldn't have been made originally.
"Yes, friends... That's why we all support each other. Alright, I will return home. There is a lot to do."
Standing up, and smiling at Amelia, Orion and Dramia, she quickly said goodbyes, and exited the house, before entering the portal to her house that was at the portal hub.
"She's in a hurry."
Dramia smile sarcastically.
"It's no wonder."
After saying that, Amelia stood up, and walked to the entrance of the living room.
"Alright, I have a place to transform. I'll go change and pick up the tablet."
With that said, Orion changed the flow of time inside Horizon again, so that Amelia could finish rapidly, not leaving the sirens in that place for too long.
In ten minutes on Triazils side, the whole thing was finished, and only the finishing touches were left.