A strong urge to flee from that cairn filled my body. This was wrong. Something about my presence in Ferrum had changed the cairn. That should have been impossible. The cairns were built thousands of years ago. My birth fifteen years before should not have caused the statue to be any different.

I backed away from the statue and exited quickly through the entrance to the cairn.

What is a statue of me doing in there?

The voice in my head wondered out loud.

I don’t know.

You don’t know? Great. Sounds like we need to turn around and head back to the camp.

I considered following Thale’s advice for several long seconds. There were clearly factors in that cairn that I hadn’t foreseen, but I was still certain that the basic layout of the cairn would be the same.

I wanted to give up on the cairn, but I couldn’t. The reward at the end would be indispensable for my time in the capital. Lightly, I placed my wand and shield bracelet on one of the steps outside of the cairn.

If I don’t acquire the reward at the end of this cairn, Thale, there is a very high chance both of us will die in Etron.

What? Are you talking about the Lich Cult? Why would they want to kill you? They loved me.

I’m sure they did. My point is that they’re going to attack us within the next week.

Oh, don’t you start getting all judgmental. I’ve seen the “grand plan” you’ve been working on. How many people do you think you’ll have to kill before you’re done? One hundred? Two hundred?

I didn’t answer the question. Instead, I took my pocket watch and placed it down on the step next to my other two pieces of equipment.

Now without my most valuable possessions, I re-entered the cairn. If I were to mess up the puzzle and activate the fire trap, I would only lose the traveling clothes I was wearing. My possessions I had placed outside of the cairn were probably worth about fifty gold coins together, and the clothes I was wearing couldn’t have been worth more than a few silver pieces.

Inside of the cairn, I once more inspected the three statues. When my pocket watch showed me the way north, it pointed toward the inner door. Considering that the three statues pointed toward the entrance, I knew that they all faced south. My statue was to the west, the “God of War” statue was in the center, and the “Goddess of Nature” statue was to the east.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Trying not to look at my own statue, I turned my attention to the statue in the center. This statue depicted Kal, the God of War, in the game, but it too had changed. Whereas the original statue depicted a man wearing a helmet and wielding a shield and warhammer, this statue depicted a man wielding a scimitar in one hand and nothing in the other.

It was only when I inspected the middle statue’s left wrist that I noticed he was wearing a shield bracelet. The man depicted must have been an Arcane Knight or a Spellblade. The middle statue did not wear a helmet like the original, so I could make out the man’s features. He seemed to be in his early thirties, and his hair was long and unkempt.

Based on the man’s armor and thick traveling cloak, I figured that he must have been a mercenary. Well, that certainly fit with the “God of War” motif, but there was still one thing about the statue that seemed strange to me. Something was off about this man. His features didn’t quite match those of a native Etronian. Could he be Caligan? Could he be from the deserts of Mitrikova?

By the man’s features, I would assume he was a foreigner, but he wore the rose crest of the King’s armies as a latch on his cloak. He was certainly a soldier of Etronia, yet I knew the Etronian army loathed the prospect of allowing non-Etronians into their number.

Knowing that I would not be able to come to a conclusion without meeting the man myself, I turned my attention to the final statue. The final statue depicted a girl who couldn’t have been much older than me. She had long hair, and she held a shortbow in one hand. The girl was dressed in the leather armor of a Hunter, and her features bore a striking resemblance to the scions of House Polaris.

As I was looking at the statue’s face, something in its eyes caught my attention. There was an awareness in those eyes that contrasted heavily against the girl’s youthful face. The juxtaposition was less obvious compared to the one present on my own face, but it was there nonetheless.

Could she have been a reincarnate like me? Sure, the intelligence and greater awareness in the statue’s eyes could have been caused by a harsh upbringing. Sure, I might have been looking for something that wasn’t there. Yet, the context clues told me that I could be right. Her statue was depicted right next to mine, and she was the same age as me. We might have both reincarnated at around the same time.

I looked at the three statues and considered what I should do. The statues were different, but they all portrayed something similar. Like before, the statues depicted a mage, a fighter, and a hunter. The clues would still apply. The Mage would still face north toward the mind, the Fighter would still face south toward the body, and the Hunter would still face east toward Caligo.

Silently, I grabbed my own statue and started to rotate it. Some mechanism built into the base of the statue allowed me to rotate it, even with my low physical stats. I turned my own statue to the north, and I turned the girl’s statue to the east. The mercenary’s statue stayed where it was since it was already facing the right direction.

Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I started walking toward the inner door.