"What's going on?"
The three of them immediately went to inspect the pile of ashes, but after the red "Life Fire Seed" vanished, nothing remained among them. The phrase "Life Fire Seed" had also appeared in Shade's and the two old gentlemen's minds on its own, as though they should have known it all along.
"You felt that strange, twisted life force too, didn't you?"
To prevent the infectious nature of the two malfunctioning machines from lingering after their destruction, none of the three moved from where they stood. Mr. Finch asked the other two, and Shade and Old Mr. Munoz nodded together:
"I felt it. So those 'seeds' caused the mechanical animation? I've never heard of anything like this before. What exactly are they?"
Shade shook his head as well:
"I've been to many places on the Old Continent, and this is the first time I've encountered anything like it."
Old Mr. Finch hesitated for a moment:
"This does remind me of something from the past, though I can't be certain. During the early days of the Steam Revolution, Arcadia City, the City of Scholars, could be considered the most renowned city of inventors of that era. New inventions were born in that city every single day.
"The organization I belong to recorded some events from that period. There were also cases where machinery suddenly went out of control and displayed animation abilities it should not have possessed. The most famous accident at the time left three workers seriously injured and five dead. But the official investigation later concluded that flaws in the machinery itself, compounded by operator error, had caused the severe accident."
Seeing that both men were looking at him, Mr. Finch continued recalling:
"My predecessors also investigated those old incidents in depth, but the Creation Church