"Sorry, I'm not feeling well right now," Reed suddenly looked very tired. She was trying to create a chance for us to meet.
She asked a nearby soldier who was guarding her: "Is there a quiet place nearby where I can rest?"
"Of course! The walking street has good rest facilities for visitors. I can take you there," the guard replied. Then he turned to Irene, "Would you like to go rest as well?"
"I'm not tired yet. Many shops here are selling interesting things, so I want to keep visiting." Irene understood Reed's plan. To distract the guards' attention and give me and Reed the best chance to meet, she went off in another direction with the other guards and the reporters following behind.
Outside the visitor rest room on the walking street:
"I'll wait here by the door. If you need anything, just call me," the guard told Reed, then let her go into the rest room alone.
As soon as the guard turned around, Reed quickly cast an anti-detection spell. With the magic in place, Adrian and I could safely become visible and meet Reed. Even though there was just a glass wall between us and the guard outside, he couldn't see anything strange at all.
"What's going on here? Never mind Katarina's group, but how did you two end up strolling around Earth too?" I asked right away.
"Oh, it's simple! Since I helped the Earth people solve the language barrier, they sort of owe me a huge favor. And Irene was really curious about Earth. So when Katarina's imperial delegation was getting ready to visit Earth, I asked Wayne Peng to help us apply to go along too. They agreed. Of course, during this visit I'm also acting as Irene's temporary guardian now."
Reed explained straightforwardly, not holding anything back.
"That works?" I was surprised and couldn't help asking more. "Didn't we just have a fight with the H-country army at their base? They still trust you?"
"They've figured out that incident was a misunderstanding. After all, even though we angels have strong powers and could have easily escaped from the base, we didn't try to hurt any Earth people. So in a way, that showed our good intentions. Plus, the angel race already has quite a high status and influence on the Eldoria Continent. Later, the Earth army even came to the light elf village specially to apologize. I guess letting me and Irene come through the space portal this time is also their way of making up for what happened!"
After briefly explaining what happened after we left, Reed turned it around and asked us:
"What about you two? How's your mission going? Elara asked me about you later, she's worried! Have you found Cyra and Nicola?"
"We found Cyra, but still no sign of Nicola," Adrian quickly answered, then focused on the thing I cared about most.
"Before we left, didn't we mention that the portal connecting the two worlds would close soon? Did you tell the Earth side about that? How come they're still letting the imperial delegation visit Earth like nothing's wrong?"
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Honestly, this confused me the most. The link between the two worlds was about to be cut off. Even if there was still some time before the final closure, the H-country army should have started pulling their people out after getting this news.
But everything we saw today showed not only were there no signs of evacuation, but H-country's diplomatic relations with the empire seemed to have gotten even closer! Like that reporter earlier - they didn't seem worried at all about the portal possibly closing. Don't they care?
"Of course Elder Gwendolyn and I told Wayne Peng about it!" Reed shook her head and explained. "But the Earth's response has been: their experts haven't found any signs of the portal shrinking. At least on the surface, the space portal's condition is still very stable. So they could only say they'd keep monitoring, but they haven't made any changes to their long term policies. Besides, we only heard this news from you, we couldn't actually provide any evidence. That's one of the reasons I decided to come to Earth, to personally check the portal's condition when crossing over."
"So what was the result?" I quickly asked.
"Unfortunately, I really didn't feel any changes!" Reed looked at me seriously and sighed. "Even though it's only been a few days, things are exactly like the Earth experts said - there are no signs at all of the space portal shrinking!"
What's going on? Wouldn't the portal disappear after losing energy from the Cycle of Rebirth? Could Galadra have been wrong? But that doesn't seem possible!
Unfortunately, now that I'm on Earth, almost impossible to contact Galadra. Not to mention, after just going through such big events, that guy is probably still focused on the Cycle of Rebirth and doesn't have time to worry about the main world.
"Are you sure you didn't make a mistake?" Adrian frowned and asked again. It's understandable if Earth experts who aren't familiar with elemental magic principles got it wrong, but Reed is an expert on this stuff. If she came to the same conclusion, it means the problem isn't simple.
"I'm over 90% sure!" Reed nodded seriously. Then she seemed to suddenly remember some details and added:
"But maybe it was just my imagination? Unfortunately it's not related to light elements, so I can't say for sure. The only thing I can be certain of is that the portal's elemental supply hasn't been completely cut off like Galadra said. Even though the portal's size hasn't grown, when I was passing through I had a vague feeling that maybe some other energy source are keeping the portal stable. Or maybe some changes we don't know about yet have happened inside it?"
"What does that mean?" I was even more confused. Other energy sources supporting the portal? Or changes inside the portal? If even Reed can't figure it out, how could I possibly understand!
Opening a space portal connecting two worlds needs a huge amount of energy. As far as I know, only the Cycle of Rebirth that Galadra controls has that kind of power. If Earth people were behind this - since they definitely don't want the portal to close so quickly - I don't think Earth's current technology could do something like this.
"Let's change the topic. Tell us more about what's happening on your side," Adrian said, giving up on trying to understand.
"Do you know the details of the imperial delegation's visit schedule? When is Katarina's group planning to start negotiations with Earth? What conditions has Earth given the empire?"
This is also a tricky topic. Even though it looks like just negotiations between the Ilandra Dominion Empire and H-country, the interests involved actually affect both worlds. If the space portal can't close automatically as expected, both worlds will inevitably face impacts from the other world head-on. We can even predict that someday in the near future, H-country will have to tell the whole world about this.
"The content of the negotiations is still classified. How could an outsider like me know!" Reed couldn't give us the answer we wanted, but she did add an important reminder:
"But I can tell you, the negotiations should be finished already! Yesterday H-country's top leader came from the capital, signed an agreement with Katarina in person, then quickly left overnight!"
"H-country's top leader already came?" This news was really unexpected. I had even thought today's controls in the city center were prepared for H-country's top leader. Now it looks like things developed much faster than we imagined. Katarina's group is visiting the walking street because they've already finished their main tasks. Following that logic, the delegation probably won't stay much longer before going back.