The ceiling of the single-story structure was quite high; therefore, the hall prepared for dining seemed to possess a very spacious atmosphere.
What first caught Nafız's attention would be the ceiling adorned with small domes; decorated with paintings and reliefs, this place possessed a beauty that would make the heads of onlookers spin.
Actually, the entire great hall was equipped with valuable works, each competing with the other; statues, paintings, and scenes depicted on the walls were eye-catching.
"Master Leonardo, they called this place your residence, but to me, it looks more like an exhibition hall where unique works are displayed!"
The man with messy hair seemed a bit stunned after the words of the orc opposite him; no matter how warmly he tried to behave from the beginning, his prejudice developing based on his previous knowledge revealed itself from every corner.
"Blood God Nafız, if you wish, I would like to show you something special!"
Taking courage from his guest's interested attitude, the master seemed to want to be proactive to further strengthen the communication between them.
"Of course, only do not address me by that name again!"
The female orc would release her rage only for a moment while speaking; she didn't like hearing this title she hadn't used since the Great War.
"As you wish, please come this way!"
When the female orc turned to call out to her friend, wanting to accept the invitation, she saw Alyon, who couldn't see any chairs around the table positioned right in the middle, looking at her with slightly strange eyes.
The table was designed in an open buffet style; it was normal for the grey-haired orc, who had only experienced eating on the floor in their tribes and the served dining table in Parthenia until now, to be surprised.
"Master, would you excuse me for two minutes?"
Leonardo was a smart man too; he had figured out what the problem was at a glance. While nodding his head in affirmation, he would move toward another place so his guests wouldn't be embarrassed.
"Ainle, listen to me too; this style is called an open buffet. You take one of those plates over there and put as much as you want from the food on the table into it!"
"What do you mean, is there no limit to the amount we can eat?"
"No, you take and eat as much as you want until your stomach is full!"
After a brief explanation, Nafız would go to Master Leonardo, who was waiting for her in a far corner; the duo entered through a door right next to them and set out toward another room.
While advancing through a narrow and long corridor, the female orc felt a slight slope; evidently, their journey was toward the underground. Every twenty steps or so, the short man stopped and disabled some mechanisms.
Leonardo didn't hesitate at all even though Nafız was behind him; the things he dealt with were so strange and complicated that Nafız had lost her desire to figure them out by the third time.
"Here we are; it wasn't possible for me to display this work of mine without asking you. Please tell me sincerely, what do you think?"
The floor of the rather large room they entered was round, and its ceiling was dome-shaped; while looking at the drawings covering the floor and walls, the female orc had forgotten to answer the messy-haired man's question.
Nafız couldn't believe her eyes; the story of the Great War that took place on the Orc Steppes was depicted in the entire room.
The process starting from their siege of the Main Orc Tribe lasted until the slaughter of the Fifth Hellhound, including the forces of the other two civilizations coming to help.
The awakening experienced by the Khan and Sangre sacrificing himself were also processed down to the finest detail; when it came to this part, Nafız wouldn't be able to prevent two drops of tears trickling from her eyes.
There were many details that no one other than the orcs present there that day should have known; even the existence of Mora, who slaughtered all enemies by surrounding the battlefield with the massive Blood Dome, was seen.
"Who else besides you knows about the existence of this place?"
When the female orc called out to the master to whom she turned her back, a storm formed by ideas in her mind was wreaking havoc everywhere; perhaps for the first time since setting foot on the Wild Swamp continent, she was at a loss for what to do.
"Only me!"
When two blood-red daggers shot out from her bracelets simultaneously with the answer, Nafız had already taken the short man's head between her hands.
"I had included this end among my options too, but I have one last request from you. Strangle me to death so my blood doesn't splatter and ruin this last and greatest work of mine!"
"You don't need to destroy the room either; if you exit through the door and proceed along the tunnel, the mechanisms will re-engage. No one other than me can solve them, and if even one of them doesn't open on the first try, the liquids hidden in the walls will render the entire painting unrecognizable!"
The messy-haired man was very calm for someone saying his last words; explaining not for his own life but to protect the existence of his work was the point Nafız found most strange.
"Why did you feel the need to do such a thing?"
All other questions in the female orc's mind paled beside the one she was asking right now; neither how he obtained all the details nor his seeing the events in the area surrounded by the Blood Dome was important.
"Emotions, orc warrior; emotions that practically tortured me every day to create this work after what I watched. It was a hurricane, as if a natural disaster occurred; what wasn't there? Family love, revenge, jealousy, rage, holiness, rebirth, self-sacrifice... they were all intertwined!"
"I neither ate nor slept until I finished this place; do you know why? Everything I needed to live was in my memory, because all the emotions that made me exist as a human were here, inside this room!"
Nafız was in shock; in addition to what she heard, for the first time, someone wasn't trembling with the fear of death while in her hands.
"I was born and raised on the Empire of Machines, in lands where emotions were disregarded, where pure truth was numbers and functionality. I had to keep up with the order; in fact, I was so good that while my peers were busy learning the basics, I was designing the mechanical tools the whole world uses right now!"
"Then one day something moved inside me; I started dreaming that there could be other colors in my world painted black. At first, I couldn't even admit these feelings to myself; I was ashamed of my state overflowing outside what I was taught!"
"When I couldn't hide it inside me anymore, I started to attract the attention of the Grand Masters; the rest is known, I opened my eyes to find myself exiled to the Wild Swamp continent!"
"Those fools feared I would destroy the conservative and bigoted approach they maintained for generations; making it look like they were giving me a reward, they actually sent me very far from my homeland. Who would have known that the punishment they thought they gave would actually provide me with the opportunity to create a brand new movement here!"
Leonardo's words were like a heavy rain suddenly falling on a sunny day; he had poured out unsparingly like buckets. In these moments when he thought he was living the last minutes of his life, an extremely satisfied expression had settled on his face; he had left his entire fate in Nafız's hands with the comfort of a tired child leaving himself to the arms of sleep.
"It wouldn't be bad at all if we returned to the hall before the food gets cold, for I am actually quite hungry too!"
Perhaps the messy-haired master wasn't aware, but the hands gripping his neck to kill him had already let him go.
The two people would reach a silent agreement; what happened here would stay here, just like the magnificent work depicted on the walls and floor.