Half a year ago, due to the emergence of the Three Goddess Alliance, Uruk nearly lost contact with cities across Mesopotamia. Though contact was gradually restored afterward, and some cities besieged by Demon Beasts were even rescued, many cities remained out of touch to this day.
Ur was one of them.
According to Tomoe's initial thoughts, Ur should have been under the dominion of the Forest Goddess, and perhaps not a single person was still alive.
However, after landing in Ur with the help of the wind, the sight before her was almost unbelievable.
"The residents… are safe and sound?"
Just as Naoki had sensed, not only was Ur free from Demon Beast attacks, but it was entirely peaceful. Although the buildings were affected by the dense forest growing everywhere, with some covered by vegetation, Ur as a whole showed no signs of abnormality.
There were no indications of harm to the residents, and everyone seemed safe and sound.
"What a relief…" Tomoe let out an unconscious sigh.
But Naoki laughed: "Is that really the case?"
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"You're overlooking one important point. But we'll talk about that later, so don't think about it now—"
Approaching a woman tending to a child, Naoki asked politely: "Good afternoon, beautiful lady. Could I have a moment of your time? I'd like to ask a few questions."
"Eh?"
The woman was slightly surprised: "You… came from outside the dense forest?"
"Yes, we came from Uruk. Since King Gilgamesh said Ur hadn't sent any news and might have met with misfortune, we were specially sent to investigate." Naoki casually gave a perfectly reasonable excuse.
Hearing that Naoki came from Uruk, the woman immediately lifted her child onto her back and gave a slight bow: "You two must be tired from traveling so far from Uruk."
"No, the journey wasn't tiring. However, Ur's situation is truly unexpected. We thought it would be dire, but it looks peaceful. Could you explain what's been happening here? Has the Forest Goddess ruling this place harmed you?"
"Thank you for your concern. Ur is very safe now." the woman said. "The Forest Goddess has never harmed us. Everything is peaceful, and we don't need Uruk's concern—just please convey this to King Gilgamesh."
No need for Uruk's concern?
Naoki gave a faint smile: "That's good to hear. Also… it might just be my imagination, but the population of Ur seems a bit small? Did something happen? And the proportion of women is unusually high. There are hardly any men."
After Naoki pointed this out, Tomoe immediately noticed it too.
As far as the eye could see, almost everyone was a woman. Men were extremely scarce—perhaps only one man for every twenty or so people. Moreover, it was mostly women and children.
This wasn't a normal situation for a city; this wasn't the Land of Women from Journey to the West. And humans couldn't just vanish. The likely conclusion was that something had happened.
"Were they offered to the Forest Goddess?" Naoki asked gently, subtly weaving simple Suggestion Magecraft into his words. "If you don't mind, please tell me everything you know, beautiful lady."
"Yes…"
Though they were humans from the Age of the Gods, they were fundamentally ordinary people. Hypnotizing them with Suggestion Magecraft was easy.
"Where did the men of Ur go?"
"One person each day—they were all taken into the depths of the forest by the Great Goddess."
"As a trade for the Goddess's protection, right?"
"Yes. The Goddess promised to protect us as long as we followed her rules."
Sacrificing one man each day in exchange for the Forest Goddess's protection. No matter how you looked at it, this was a profitable deal—the residents of Ur must have thought so. Though some might have opposed it, as long as the majority opinion in Ur agreed, individual dissent wouldn't matter much.
Thus, Ur could maintain its current state.
"Hmm… More or less as I expected."
"Did you already know, Master?" Tomoe asked.
"I figured it out when I sensed the situation from the cliff earlier. The number of men was very low, and there were no Demon Beasts. Connecting those dots led to that conclusion."
Though, in truth, he had essentially read the script from the start.
After asking a few more questions about the rules set by the Forest Goddess, Naoki used Suggestion Magecraft to make the woman in front of him leave.
"No leaving this place, no resistance of any kind, and one man must be offered each day… plus a few other rules. As long as they follow these, they can survive in the dense forest and receive the Goddess's protection."
"This is a bit different from the Three Goddess Alliance we know."
In Tomoe's understanding, the Three Goddess Alliance was supposed to consist of evil Goddesses intent on destroying Uruk, like the Magical Beast Goddess. But based on these rules, it seemed the Forest Goddess wasn't purely evil.
"Well, she is Quetzalcoatl. As the main deity of South America and the pinnacle of goodness, it's fundamentally impossible for her to be an evil Goddess." Naoki smiled. "Her actions against Uruk are based on her own reasoning. As for the details of the situation here, we can ask her directly later."
"Directly… Wait a moment, Natsukawa-sama, how do you know the True Name of the Forest Goddess?"
Because Naoki said it so casually, Tomoe hadn't noticed at first—he had directly mentioned the True Name of the Forest Goddess.
And this was an entity they had known nothing about until now.
"Hmm? Didn't I mention it?" Naoki raised three fingers. "The specific members of the Three Goddess Alliance are the Magical Beast Goddess Gorgon, who keeps attacking Uruk, the South American main deity Quetzalcoatl, and the Mistress of the Underworld, Ereshkigal."
"You didn't mention it!" Tomoe couldn't help but exclaim.
"Why didn't you share such important information earlier?"
"I only arrived in Uruk yesterday, okay? Besides, even if I didn't say it, it would naturally come up as the battle progresses. No need to mention it beforehand. And also, instead of that, you'd better pay attention to what's coming next…"
As he spoke, Naoki grabbed Tomoe's arm, and without giving her a chance to say anything, he pulled her into his embrace and leaped backward!
The next moment—
*BAM!*
A flash of lightning-fast movement suddenly shattered the ground where Tomoe had been standing.
"—A rather troublesome enemy is coming."
The second half of Naoki's sentence arrived a moment too late.