Rex knew his words were risky, but no one would question them given his position.

Iris looked at him with the full expression she had been working on since the gate. It wasn’t the calm, collected look she usually had, but rather the look of someone who had been carrying a weight and just learned that it would be different from what it had been.

She didn’t say anything else, which was her way of showing that she understood.

As she always did when she heard something she didn’t fully understand, Nerith paid close attention to what was being said. The leaves in her hair were a warm green, which meant she was busy, not an amber color, which would have meant she was feeling something.

In this case, she was thinking, not feeling.

Rex looked at her.

’What’s with that attitude...?’ Rex thought. ’She could at least join in the conversation.’

She saw the look and turned to the window instead.

Rex looked at Aisella to give her a signal. And she immediately noticed it.

Aisella, who had been sitting quietly with the same look on her face that she had when she was taking a long test, said to Nerith, "The ventilation shaft network."

"The change in depth would affect your connection to nature."

Nerith turned to her.

"The natural channel runs shallow in the canyon’s upper levels," Aisella went on. "At the third level, you’d be below the main root system."

’The connection doesn’t break, but it changes register."

Nerith asked, "How do you know that?"

"I read Elizabeth’s reports on the surveys from the first mapping trip." Aisella said, "The geological data includes profiles of the soil type and depth for the whole canyon system."

"By comparing it to the botanical reference texts in the archive, you can get a good idea of what a nature-affinity practitioner would feel at each depth."

Nerith looked at her for a second.

"That’s very thorough," she said.

Aisella said, "Most field outcomes are decided during the prep work."

Rex watched this conversation and let it go on because it was giving Nerith a sense of what was going to happen. A druid who knew what was coming would be better prepared than one who was caught off guard.

After letting their conversation settle for a moment, Rex moved closer and stood next to Aisella with the calmness of someone who had chosen to join a conversation that was already going on rather than cut it off.

"She does that with everything," he said to Nerith, nodding once toward Aisella. "Reads the prep material before anyone else thinks to ask for it."

Aisella gave him the look she used when she was acknowledging a compliment without making it into a thing.

Rex gave Nerith his full attention, the kind of attention he used when he wanted someone to feel like they were the most important person in the room without making it clear that was the goal.

"The register change at the third level," he said. "Does it affect output, or just how the channel feels to you?"

Nerith took a single blink. The question was detailed enough to require a precise response. The specificity of the question also indicated that he had been paying attention to their conversation rather than just rushing to finish it.

"Both, potentially," she said. "The channel responds to what the environment gives it. If the natural energy at that depth runs differently from what I’m used to working with, the output could shift in ways I wouldn’t be able to fully predict in advance."

Rex nodded slowly, like someone who was filing that rather than just hearing it.

"So you’d be working with less certainty on the third level," he said. "Not less capability, just less predictability."

"Yes," Nerith said. "That’s the more accurate way to put it."

He said, "Then it’s useful that you know that now," but his tone wasn’t exactly reassuring.

It was more like a statement about logistics, like how he talked when something had moved from the "unknown" column to the "known" column and wasn’t a problem anymore.

"You’ll have time to adjust your approach before we get there."

Nerith looked at him for a moment.

The leaves that were near the edge of her hair had changed color. The color change wasn’t very noticeable; it was only on the edges and showed the exact amber color that popped up when her emotions were getting the best of her.

"You’re not worried about it," she said, but it didn’t sound like an accusation.

Instead, it sounded like something she was noticing and trying to figure out.

"About the register change?" Rex said. "No."

"Why not?"

He looked at her with an open face in a way that not many people actually have. It was the kind of face that makes the person looking at it feel like they are being taken seriously instead of being judged.

"Because you already know what it is," he said. "That’s the part that matters."

"The rest is just adjustment, and adjusting is something you’re clearly good at."

It was a simple sentence. It was not poetic, and it was not elaborate, and it did not ask for anything in return, which was precisely why it landed the way it did.

Nerith said nothing for a second.

Before she looked away toward the tree line, the amber in the leaves got a little darker. That’s how she looked when she was doing something inside her that she didn’t want anyone to see.

[Nerith Sylvarune—Desire Level: 52 to 58/100]

He saw the number and then just stood there and watched her look at the trees. He didn’t say anything else because he knew that stopping at the right time was more important than saying anything else.

Aisella glanced at him from the side with the expression she used when she had observed something and concluded it had gone well.

Rex looked at the road ahead.

...

The road east of Aethelgard looked like a travel route that people used all the time instead of just occasionally. This meant that it was kept up in the way that people relied on instead of just adding to it, ensuring a smoother and safer journey for travelers who frequently used the route.

The first hour was spent on farmland, designed for easy crop growth. After that, the farmland changed to the island’s outer edges, where the plateau’s edge started to drop down to the lower ground that eventually led to the canyon network.

And of course, the road didn’t proceed smoothly after that. The first attack occurred at three o’clock.

Rex saw it before the carriage stopped, which the Foresight gave him ten seconds to do. He was looking at the road ahead when the line of figures came out of the trees on both sides.

There were about twenty individuals, which was more than a typical bandit group but fewer than a well-organized military unit. Some of them were the kind of people who were very comfortable with their animals, and the animals in question were not pets.

Three large creatures resembling wolves, but significantly bigger and possessing the armored hide of a bred species rather than a wild one, moved along the sides of the roadblock with the calm energy of animals trained for this task.

The carriage came to a stop.

Rex opened the door to the carriage and stepped out onto the running board. He looked at the road ahead.

He could hear the door of the first carriage opening forty meters ahead.

He told everyone in the carriage to "stay in the carriage," and then he stepped down to the road.

He looked at the blockage.

The lead figure, who had the bearing of someone who had done this many times, said something that Rex filed as the standard version of this kind of declaration, which was an assessment of odds, a threat about resisting, and an opening offer for the kind of compliance that involved valuable things changing hands.

Rex said, "Move the animals first."

The lead figure paused.

"The animals are going to be a problem," Rex said. "Not for me, but for themselves."

"Move them off the road and I’ll only deal with the people."

The lead figure appeared to be processing this response, which was not the response they had been prepared for, indicating a moment of surprise or confusion about the unexpected nature of the reply.

"I... I understand."

Rex reached into the Elemental Magic Creation and began building.

He had been thinking about the ambient-mimicry frequency application while driving, and the build time had already gone down from four seconds to three since Lilith’s practice session an hour ago. He had also been combining it with the Creation’s compound element architecture by putting a thermal-displacement frequency under the ambient-mimicry base.

The result, when he released it, was something that looked like nothing until it was approximately two meters from its target, at which point the thermal-displacement layer activated.

It didn’t burn. It created a specific sensation of intense heat that seemed to appear suddenly very close, a feeling from which large animals with a well-developed danger response were instinctively driven to flee.

The three armored constructs at the road’s flanks turned and left the road in the unhurried but definitive manner of things that had just decided to be somewhere else.

The lead figure was now looking at the space where the animals had been.

"Good," Rex said. "Now the people."