First contact had ended in failure.
Gazing off at the savages fleeing in headlong panic, Du Yi felt no small regret. For this one fine spread of dishes he had prepared the better part of a day—but plainly, his vast bulk was still a touch too frightening, so much so that the savages hadn't even dared come near him.
"All I managed was to scare them off."
Glancing at the grand dishes draped over his body, the ones he'd prepared with such care, Du Yi felt it more of a waste than ever.
If the savages didn't want to eat them, then he'd just have to eat them himself. Happily, everything he made tasted quite good; eaten now while still hot, it wouldn't really go to waste.
"As for these savages...... I'll have to think of some other way."
Munching on the still-warm dishes, Du Yi turned the matter over.
Getting the information he wanted out of them, without scaring the savages to death in the process—that really was a rather troublesome thing.
Still, Du Yi was in no rush over a moment or two. He'd come through such a long stretch of time already; he could surely afford to plan for the long term now. Who knew—maybe the savages would take an interest in his cooking and come looking for him of their own accord?
Du Yi had real confidence in his craft.
So he set the matter aside for the time being. Wracking his brains wouldn't conjure up a better idea anyway; better to make the most of having just woken and go see whether any new plants had sprung up nearby that he could use for seasoning.
He'd need to lay in more firewood, too. His cooking method burned through a touch too much of it.
Day turned to night and back again, over and over, and Du Yi went on with his work of stockpiling supplies. In idle moments, he sometimes wondered whether he ought to try some other way of making contact with the savages—they'd run a fair distance off, but he still remembered their old trail, and finding them would be easy enough if he wanted to.
Yet what Du Yi never expected was that, before he could go looking for them, the savages came looking for him first.
***
"I will carry on my father's unfinished will!"
So spoke Lightbringer, the Nineteenth chieftain of the Ignivas family, as he took up the spear that was the emblem of the line's leadership.
As for his father, the Eighteenth Ignivas chieftain—after leading the people to the safety of the plains and watching them rebuild their village, he had fallen gravely ill and taken to his bed, and soon departed the world.
Some said it was the hidden injury left by that valiant rearguard stand. Others said it was the overdraw of casting too much magic, which had drained the chieftain's body dry.
But as the Nineteenth chieftain, as that man's son, Lightbringer knew very well that it was nothing of the sort.
His father had been frightened to death—literally, alive.
"This is a calamity our forebears left us...... our forebears stole the power of God."
Lightbringer still remembered how his father, in his dying hours, had clutched his hand and said this to him before all the assembled people.
"Our forebears stole the power of God and provoked the God in the deep mountains, and so He sent down divine punishment upon us, and our family met with such ruin...... After I die, you must remember: you must show our sincerity to the God, must win the God's forgiveness."
"And don't grieve, child. I am only going down beneath the earth, to be reunited with your grandfather—with my own father."
Having said all this, the Eighteenth Ignivas chieftain had even gripped Lightbringer's hand fast, charging his successor that he must, must win the God's forgiveness, and must never, ever think of provoking the God's majesty.
Luckily, Lightbringer was not the rash sort.
As the Nineteenth Ignivas chieftain, Lightbringer was young, yet rather cautious and clear-headed.
He had only to recall that terrible beast tide to know that the God in the mountains was not something the Ignivas family, as they now were, could deal with.
At the very least, not something they could face head-on.
"Win the God's forgiveness, is it......"
Lightbringer thought it over, and soon hit upon a fine idea.
That was, to present offerings.
Just as, when you want someone to forgive you, you'd best call on them with a little something in hand—so, to let the God see the sincerity of the Ignivas family, they naturally had to offer up a few things.
Luckily, before his end, his father had told him what the God looked like, which gave him at least some notion of what offerings would be fitting.
"Some food to start with can't be wrong...... and didn't Father say the Snake God once wore white bones as adornments?"
Recalling the late chieftain's words, Lightbringer set about his preparations.
A full five mammoths were slaughtered by the mages, their huge bones stripped clean; the flesh and blood, too, were taken as offerings, and hauled together with the dressed white bones to the place of the sacred mountain.
Yes—the sacred mountain. That stretch of hills had originally had no name, but now that they knew a God dwelt there, it had naturally become the sacred mountain.
To make sure the God in the mountains would notice them, Lightbringer even had his able-bodied men build a tall altar of stone and earth, with all the offerings set upon it, awaiting only the God's coming to take them. To draw the God's gaze, they even lit a bonfire whose rolling smoke shot straight up to the clouds, visible at a single glance from far away.
But the God showed not the slightest sign of coming.
Three days and three nights passed, and the legendary giant Snake God did not appear—did not so much as come for a single look.
This left the mages who had followed Lightbringer here in a fret.
"Maybe we should...... head back first?"
One mage offered his thought.
"Go back first, and think of some other way—perhaps we should try a different time, or different offerings......"
"You all go back. I'll be fine staying."
So Lightbringer instructed his men.
"This is a matter of devotion to the God. We must prove our sincerity. If we haven't even the courage to face the God, how could we ever hope to commune with Him...... you go on back, back to the village."
Faced with his mages' attempts to dissuade him, Lightbringer spoke with reason and proof on his side.
But what he thought in his heart and what he said with his mouth were two entirely different things.
As chieftain, it was true that putting himself in danger was unwise. But as that man's son, he had to see with his own eyes, at the very least, just what it was his father had died of.
So, to avenge that blood debt, Lightbringer had secretly slipped poison into those offerings.
It was the only means he had to oppose that God, the only act of vengeance within his power—but given that the dreaded God was a Snake God, he couldn't be sure whether the poison would have any effect at all.
That was why he chose to stay. He would watch with his own eyes as the offerings were devoured, even if it cost him his life; he would not flinch from it.
But after another three days of waiting, the Snake God still did not come.