Hakama decided to save the rest of the pleasantries for later and started dragging Jin along, explaining that her village was just around the corner. She was desperate to bring their newfound guardian god home so he could fend off the invaders currently menacing them.
Tragically, by the time they arrived, the village had already been raided and devastated. Several of the settlements were completely engulfed in flames.
Shandy lost it at the sight and rushed ahead in a panic to find her mother. As they surveyed the damage, Jin took a moment to consider the situation. He immediately noticed how flimsy the town's fortifications were. Both the boundary walls and the houses were built from plain wood. That detail alone made it glaringly obvious that this new civilization was technologically far behind the human era he remembered.
Pushing deeper into the village, Jin spotted a woman actively fighting off a bizarre monster. From a single glance it was obvious she was barely holding her own. It did not take him long to realize that the creature she was facing looked identical to the Corruptors from millions of years ago.
The surviving Corruptors were not the only unusual thing here, either. Little Hakama apparently knew some kind of magic technique that made her physically glow.
In the end, her attempt to step in was not even needed. Jin dashed forward and knocked the living daylights out of the monster with a single devastating kick. Moving without a pause, he scooped the injured older woman up in his arms and carried her out of the danger zone, leaving Hakama a clear opening to deliver the finishing blow.
Channeling her magic, she unleashed a tiny fireball that packed a massive punch, officially putting the monster down for the count.
Observing the dead creature, Jin confirmed his theory. The atmospheric nanomachines had indeed stripped these monsters of their legendary healing abilities. What he did not understand was how a local girl had been able to wield those same nanomachines.
His educated guess was that these people drew nanomachine particles directly out of the atmosphere and channeled them into offensive spells, much the way he did himself. The glaring catch was that, historically, only pure humans had ever been capable of manipulating that technology.
He put the question directly to the woman he had just saved, asking whether everyone in this era possessed such magic.
She was not entirely sure what he was getting at, but she clarified that only a select handful of people could actually wield the ability. In their culture it was believed that individuals blessed with divine powers were the only ones privileged enough to use this magic. In their village specifically, there were no more than four people who held that distinction.
Jin did not have to think hard to piece it together. Divine powers was simply their primitive, fancy way of describing nanomachine manipulation.
Hakama rushed over to the older woman, who turned out to be her grandmother, and anxiously asked about the rest of the villagers, only to learn that they had already evacuated. The statement washed a wave of relief over the trio, though the grandmother was deeply worried about why the children had returned to the dangerous village instead of evacuating with everyone else. The beast they had just fought was merely a larva compared to the massive adult monster currently terrorizing the area.
Suddenly a voice of reason cut through the tension, assuring the old lady that there was absolutely nothing to fret about. That giant invader she had mentioned — the newcomer confidently claimed he could slaughter it single-handedly.
The grandmother was shocked to see those familiar faces back in a war zone, and immediately demanded to know about the other villagers. The blue-haired warrior confirmed that the rest of the civilians had safely reached the shelter. As it turned out, the older man accompanying him was Hakama's father, and the two of them shared an emotional reunion. Naturally, he demanded to know where she had run off to.
The girl honestly admitted that she had gone straight to the sealed door, much to her grandmother's absolute shock. The older woman was furious that Hakama had wandered into that godforsaken territory. According to local legend, the domain beyond that door belonged strictly to the guardian god of the village.
Hakama explained that she had felt utterly threatened by the monster invasion, and that she had only gone there because she wanted to ask the deity for help. And, as she proudly pointed out, the literal god from their legends was standing right beside her.
Understandably, the grandmother was highly skeptical, flatly refusing to acknowledge this random young man as their divine protector. Worse, based on his appearance, they assumed he belonged to an inferior species, which made the idea of granting him such a sacred title downright ridiculous.
Little Shandy stepped in and tried to convince her blue-haired brother that Jin was the real thing. Her highly prejudiced brother was quick to dismiss the claim, pointing specifically at Jin's ordinary human ears. In their society, anyone who did not inherit distinct animal traits was classified as a lesser being. As far as he could tell, his little sister was simply operating under a massive, naive misunderstanding.
Still, the girl stood her ground, proudly revealing that this man had easily defeated the invader that had been chasing them.
Unimpressed, her brother brushed the feat off, arrogantly claiming he could take down an invader just as easily. Then he turned his attention to Jin, who by now looked thoroughly exhausted by all of this unwarranted nonsense, and threatened him. He told the intruder to leave the village immediately, because they had no room to accommodate a being of inferior blood. Then he walked right past Jin, still running his mouth.
He was so painfully full of himself that he voluntarily took on the suicidal job of killing the giant invader all by himself. This arrogant blue-haired warrior, by the way, went by the name Sars.
The grandmother became visibly distressed by the reckless, spur-of-the-moment decision Sars had just made. Then she turned her attention back to Jin. Even though she still could not care less about who he actually was, she admitted that it would be incredibly rude not to express genuine gratitude to the man who had saved her life.
Following her thanks, she asked one final favor of him. She wanted him to escort the children back to the safety of the shelter while she went to make sure Sars did not throw his life away out of sheer arrogance.
Unsurprisingly, Jin flatly refused to comply. They had directly questioned his pride, and he was not going to just stand there and let them trample all over it. He decided he was going to make damn sure they realized he was not some useless bystander, and that he was definitely not an inferior species.