Ch.315The Luster of Black Shadow. Crater Wild Mountain (3)

The hissing sound…

Clatter! Clatter!

Tap-tap-tap-tap!

Noises so loud they hurt your ears just by hearing them. These were all sounds coming from the kitchens of restaurants built on posts driven into the mountainside.

Serving a massive crowd of 200,000 people at once brought these establishments enormous profits, but simultaneously subjected them to horrific labor intensity.

If they were willing to sacrifice food quality, they could compromise by serving cold food, but since these soldiers were devotees of a god, serving cold food would obviously cost them their heads, so sacrificing quality wasn’t an option.

That left only one choice: grinding themselves to the bone to feed the soldiers.

The restaurant owners resented the leisurely military cooks down below who were merely stirring pots of soup, but wasn’t it their own greed that led them to agree to prepare food for 200,000 people?

“Argghhh! My arms can’t take it anymore!”

“Then use your feet to hold the frying pan! If we just endure this once, we can live comfortably for at least a year!”

“All that money will probably go to treating our rhabdomyolysis!”

In truth, preparing meals for 200,000 people wasn’t such a big deal for them.

If this were just a local tourist spot, it might be different, but as a place visited by pilgrims from all thirteen continents with over a million people passing through daily, the chefs here were certainly capable of preparing meals for 200,000.

The problem was having to prepare it all “simultaneously.”

The aforementioned million visitors were manageable because they came and went in rotation—one person eats and leaves, making room for another. If 500,000 people entered at once and 500,000 left at once, the chefs’ muscles would dissolve like slime.

But should a god concern themselves with such matters?

No. If gods took responsibility for calamities humans brought upon themselves, humans would be no different from divine pets.

“Work, you fools! This is what you’re getting paid for!”

“HAH!!! Is it reasonable to demand meals for 200,000 people in three hours?!”

“We’re not making all 200,000 portions alone! All the restaurants combined are making 200,000, so we’re just doing our fraction!”

“Even that fraction is killing us, boss!”

“All of you are fired as soon as this job is done!”

The merchants of Crater fought like clerics trying to interpret divine gospel to suit their own tastes.

But the promised hour drew closer, and finally, meals for 200,000 were prepared.

Upon receiving word, the Army of the Sun, salivating at the news of delicious food awaiting them, began their hike up the mountain, while the chefs and staff fainted to the gradually approaching sound of military boots.

*

“The air is certainly clearer here in the mountains.”

“Indeed it is.”

“We can’t breathe the upper air inside the ship, after all.”

What they felt most as they climbed the mountain was the fresh oxygen released by the plants.

One might expect the air aboard the Sky Warden to be clean given the clear upper atmosphere, but that wasn’t particularly the case.

Though the Sky Warden might appear sluggish, it was a battleship easily capable of 300 km/h, so opening windows would create tremendous air pressure and deafening wind noise, turning everything into chaos. Therefore, the windows were designed to be permanently fixed and couldn’t be opened. Moreover, being originally a battleship, there weren’t many windows to begin with.

Above all, the air above the clouds differed in character from mountain air, so the Iron Walker party members, who had been living like grubs inside metal armor, savored the natural fragrance they were experiencing for the first time in ages.

All the places they’d been recently were developed urban areas, so seeing such pure natural scenery was truly a rare treat.

“Simon. Doesn’t this remind you of Waterfall?”

“Ah… now that you mention it, it certainly does.”

“That chicken we ate while floating on the river under the trees was so delicious.”

The Iron Walker party laughed like children, reminiscing about past memories.

While the soldiers weren’t invited to the outing of the god and his close friends, fortunately, there was a separate haven prepared for them—the mountain spirit restaurants their master had arranged.

“Civilian fooooood!”

Though they’d eaten tasty soup just yesterday, it was still military rations in the end.

No matter who cooked it or what was prepared, food that wasn’t destined for the slop bucket—civilian food—was something soldiers craved even more strongly than women, and the restaurant chefs, busy rushing patients with dissolved muscles to emergency care, couldn’t stop the soldiers from storming into the restaurants.

In truth, even if they had been present, they couldn’t have restrained the soldiers anyway.

“Civilian food! Civilian food! Civilian food!”

Like wolves howling, the soldiers flung open the restaurant doors like a tsunami.

It was quite chilling how they maintained perfect ranks and files even in this chaos, but with non-commissioned officers watching them with hawk eyes, it wasn’t particularly strange.

“Everyone eat with dignity! We who follow the god must set an example for all!”

“Eat with gratitude! This food was made with the blood and sweat of people born under the sun—not a single grain should be wasted!”

After the solemn prayers of the NCOs and officers ended, the privates happily began devouring the food before them using spoons, chopsticks, knives, and forks.

The food wasn’t bad in that typical tourist-trap way, but its somewhat ambiguous flavor was transformed into excellence through the chefs’ desperate skill. If they had served mediocre food, the sergeants major and senior sergeants would have grabbed the chefs by their collars and rolled them until they turned into broth, even before the Sun God could say anything.

“First squad, meal complete!”

“Second squad, meal complete!”

“Third squad, meal complete!”

“First platoon! All meals complete!”

“Platoons that have finished eating, assemble outside!”

Soon the meal ended, and it was time to view the night scenery from the mountain.

The current time was 26:00. The sun would set at 30:00, so if they started climbing now, they could see the night view from the summit.

*

And finally, the sun set.

As the cosmic sun faded, it was time for the earthly sun to shine, but Viktor suppressed his power deliberately to view the night scenery.

“Oh. It’s starting to glow.”

“Luminescent moss? The world is truly full of wonders.”

As night approached, the mountain slowly began to illuminate itself.

As if telling the people of the night that light had not yet ended, moss and plants with luminescent properties began to illuminate the mountainside with their own colors.

As if sharing the sun’s grace they had absorbed with the creatures of the night, the brilliant forest vista driving away the darkness was magnificent enough to captivate even a god’s gaze.

“How beautiful and majestic! Even I, the master of light and heat, am enchanted by this sight—what feelings must have filled those who first witnessed this?”

As Viktor spoke thus, everyone nodded.

Those who first saw this spectacle named this mountain Crater.

It was taken from an ancient language that formed the foundation of Earth civilization, particularly Western culture, meaning a vessel for mixing alcohol—a container for mixing spirits with water to create drinkable alcohol.

As things created in stationary places are carried into the embrace of flowing things that nurture growth, this symbolizes the grand flow of nature that humbles humanity. Thinking this a truly appropriate name, Viktor simply gazed at the glowing vegetation.

“How sorrowful. Soon this world will become a battlefield—will this place withstand the ravages of war? Even the mighty civilization of the Empire eventually collapsed due to the madness of gods and humans who desired destruction. This tranquil scenery is but a candle in the wind before the great war.”

As he spoke sadly, the Legion Commander who had been silent beside him opened his mouth.

“Lord of Fervor, please do not worry too much. Is that not why we, the Army of the Sun, exist?”

“Leader of my legion, your words are true. But remember this: Humans flourish under the sun, but if the sun never sets, they will inevitably decline. Water boils into storms, land melts into wastelands, and people flee from the endless daylight. Sometimes, the very steps taken to avoid destruction become harbingers of destruction themselves.”

Gently countering the Legion Commander’s words, Viktor looked around at his party members.

His precious companions whom he met in Waterfall and Amaranthine, the true apostles of the Sun God who would lay the foundation of the Empire, were reflected in his retinas.

“So for now, let’s not worry and enjoy this magnificent view. The world is this beautiful, telling us that people’s lives are worth continuing. We must respond accordingly.”

“How so?”

“With our lives.”