I felt like going to the bathroom from the anxiety as we were approaching the palace. It was on top of a small hill, and I couldn’t help but look at the tall white walls, and long towers that decorated this palace all over the hill. According to the information I found online, this place was the biggest castle in the world.

It used to be a normal old castle before the people of Arretia came here, but after the old emperor took the territory, it was rebuilt to look like the original Imperial Palace of Leyfall back in Arretia. Though, only the people from that world actually knew if that was the case or not.

Luckily, I had someone from that world right next to me, so I turned my attention to her. “Hey, Althea…”

“Hm?” she replied. Althea was currently sitting with her legs crossed, and leaned on her fist as she calmly looked at the buildings on her side of the car. It was as if she was just taking a ride home, or to a mall, or something like that.

“Was the Imperial Palace like this back in your world?” I asked, turning to look back at the palace.

“I don’t remember exactly how the palace was… I didn’t spend too much time in it. Most of the time, I was outside fighting and making sure the Dark Forces didn’t get near the empire. So the only times I looked at it were on some rare, special occasions,” she said without a change of attitude.

“Ah, so you don’t know if it was this big, or if it looked exactly like that,” I followed up, leaning back on the car seat as I tried to calm myself.

“Hardly anyone had the opportunity to properly enter the palace, even back in our world,” Theo, the car driver, replied instead, “It was, and still is, the place that holds the holiest of people; those chosen by the Holy Gods to lead the world.”

“I see…” I said, “Then can anyone be really sure that it looks like that?”

“Eh… I also don’t know exactly how it looked. All I can say is that in terms of scale, the thing looks the same as back in our world,” he answered without turning his eyes away from the road.

“What did you do in your world, were you close to the Imperial Palace?” I asked.

“I was nothing more than a peasant, driving people in a horse-pulled carriage,” he replied, followed by a chuckle. “To think I would end up doing the same here.”

“Really? Is it the same?” I asked, leaning to the side so I could have a better look at the side of his face.

He was an older man. Not super old, but he had a few wrinkles on his sun-burned skin and some gray hairs already.

He laughed out loud this time. “No, not at all. I used to carry adventurers and merchants from town to town. Nothing as special as the fellows I carry now in this amazing artifact.”

“Do you miss it? Being in your world, with your things, doing the job that you used to do?” I asked.

He pondered for a moment, his eyes still focused on the road without even turning to look at me in the rearview mirrors, which he only used to look at the road as well, never at any of us.

“I can say that it is much more peaceful now… there’s no fear of being attacked by bandits on every trip… the artifact is very comfortable, and my current way of living is something I could compare to a noble—not that I actually know how a noble lived,” he said, carefully turning on a corner as we set on the main road to the palace.

I had somewhat forgotten about the Imperial Palace as I was talking to Theo, but now that it was right in front of me at the end of the road, my anxiety rose once more, and I couldn’t help but swallow.

Theo didn’t notice it as he continued, “Though, I must say, I do somewhat miss the sound of the moving horses, and the air of the nature of our world… There’s just something different between this one and ours that I can’t quite pinpoint.”

“H-haha, yeah… I bet there wasn’t as much contamination in the air…” I said with a wry smile, turning to look away from the palace.

“Hm… no, it’s not that… I mean, sure, it does smell weird sometimes when one of these artifacts passes by, but I just can’t be sure if it’s that or not,” he said, then laughed. “Though, I must say, I don’t miss the last few months in our world. Having to transport war supplies while fearing that at any moment I might be blown to pieces by demons was quite the terrifying experience, let me tell you!”

“Hehe… yes, I can imagine…” I said, the wry smile on my face hardly fading as I turned to look at the unconcerned Althea. “Hey, do you feel the same? Like the air is different?”

“Hm… I don’t know. I never really paid much attention to that back in our world. What was important was whether the air was poisonous or not,” she said without looking this way, “But it is true that I can smell the burning fuel of these artifacts in the air—mostly in the large city, where all the artifacts moving create that strange dark fog over the city. It’s worrisome to see it and live in it… but I guess that the health problems might not be so bad that they can’t be healed with magic.”

“Ah, hehe, yeah… I wonder when they’re going to start making magical cars,” I pondered, remembering how some people were already creating magic batteries and stuff like that.

“Soon, I think,” Oliver followed up on my inquiry, “Global Magic Technologies are fairly close to having competitive magical engines. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to mass produce them, and the old internal combustion engines can be turned into a thing of the past.”

“Is it really that easy?” Althea asked, “I’m not sure that whoever owns the construction of those cars is going to be happy about being replaced by someone else.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, turning to look at her.

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She lowered the fist she was leaning on and tilted her head from one side to another before answering, “Unless the people that are making those magical cars are the same people who already own the sea of cars there already are, then chances are that they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure they don’t lose their power. Almost nobody with power is ever going to give it away, regardless of how much damage they cause.”

“Ah, you’re right,” Oliver followed up with a nod. “I’ve gotten so used to things being easy to get with the help of Asteora’s name, that I almost forgot about that… but then again, magic is a completely new thing, and as long as we can make it better and easier for everyone to use, then people are going to want it more than anything else… regardless of how much damage or good that thing does, as you said.”

“Hm…” was all that Althea replied as her eyes focused on the outside world and we all went quiet.

“We’re approaching the Imperial Palace’s entrance,” Theo said, interrupting the bit of awkward silence that was building.

Leaning to the side so I could see forward, I took in the sight of the massive palace that was standing further ahead again, still looming over everything despite the enormous metal gate, and the tall walls that stretched to the sides of that door.

Theo slowly drove to the gate, where a couple of knights in huge golden armors approached the car. The armors had large metal wings on the shoulders, and on every part of the surface of the metal suit, intricate patterns that I couldn’t really tell what they were supposed to be stretched all over it. In their hands, they carried spears that were even longer than the men themselves, with a tip that anyone could confuse with a large axe attached to the golden pole.

“Um…” I couldn’t help but let out as I turned to look at Oliver.

As if understanding my fears without looking at me, he quickly shook his head. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Everything’s handled.”

Theo rolled down the window and one of those large knights spoke to him, “Identify yourself.”

Without a worry in the man’s commanding voice, Oliver rolled down his side of the window to face the knight that stood on the other side, before taking out an identification card and presenting it to the knight. “Oliver Hanssen, Assistant Director to Lady Asteora.” He half-turned to look behind, “And the people accompanying us are her disciple, Lady Nicole Lain, and a close friend of Lady Asteora, Lady Althea.”

“Lady Althea?” both knights asked at the same, and if they had practiced it, the two of them leaned down to look into the car.

“I’m sorry fellas, but I’m currently not at liberty to answer questions regarding Lady Asteora’s contacts,” Oliver calmly said before the knights had a chance to say anything. “So if you would?”

He presented the ID even closer to the knight, who appeared to be focused on Althea. I couldn’t see either of their faces, as they were covered by a thick metallic helm that had something like… a metal mohawk? I didn’t know exactly what that was called, but it made them look terrifying.

Althea on the other hand, didn’t seem to be one bit nervous or scared about them, as she looked at them with an unreadable expression. After a while, Oliver cleared his throat, trying his best to call the knight’s attention.

“Gentlemen, please. We don’t have all day. We’re meeting with His Majesty, and I don’t think neither him nor my Lady Asteora are going to be pleased if we’re late because of entrance issues,” he said.

As if being hit on the head from that statement, the knights quickly stood straight once more, with the one at Oliver’s side taking out a small piece of rectangular metal. “Right.”

A flash of light, just like the one you’d see coming from a scanner, shone on Oliver’s ID for a second. The metal piece then flashed green a couple of times and the knight put it aside with a nod.

“We’ve confirmed your identity. You’re clear to go in,” he said.

Both knights stepped away from the car, and then suddenly hit the floor a couple of times with their spears. There was nobody I could see on the walls, or near the gate, no matter how much I stretched my neck to see ahead. There wasn’t even a camera, so I didn’t understand why they did that.

However, somehow, the large metal gates that were blocking the inside of the Imperial Palace opened. They were slow, and due to their size, I could hear a rumbly noise coming from the hinges of the door, making me feel as if the place was shaking.

As slowly as the gates were opening, I could see bit by bit what lay beyond it.

The first thing, as it always had been, was the imposing Palace with its white walls and golden tile roofs, which being this close, made me wonder if there was a different name that could be given to it, since it was more akin to a world wonder than anything else.

Under it, from what I could see, was yet another wall, even taller than the one we were currently waiting by with a building in the middle that separated the walls. And in front of this building, was a huge open plaza with a stone floor.

In it, I could see a few knights patrolling with their golden armors, and shiny weapons at hand.

“Wow…” I couldn’t help but let out.

Oliver chuckled and half-turned to look at me. “And you haven’t seen it all yet.”

Once the gates were completely open, the knights gave the go-ahead to Theo, who slowly moved the car to pass by the gates. I was gripping at the skirt as I looked at the place, and feared that maybe I shouldn’t be here. That maybe… juuuust maybe, I should’ve listened to my dad when he said that I should focus on a normal university degree rather than magic.

Before, it was because I had no talent for magic, and since a lot of people that do magic go on to do dangerous things—like fighting the few monsters that appeared in the wild, or clearing Magic Red Zones—I was told that I would end up dead sooner rather than later.

But now… looking at these buildings and realizing that someone really powerful owned all those things and that I was supposed to go meet them and not make a fool of myself… the idea that perhaps I should’ve stuck to a normal life floated in my mind.

I could feel my breathing turn hard for a moment, but I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself. Everything’s going to be fine. I was asked to come here, so there’s no reason to be scared… or so I told myself…

As I was having doubts, I could feel a hand softly touch mine, and I opened my eyes in surprise to see Althea’s hand on mine. I urgently turned to look at her, since it was rare for her to do these sorts of things, but she was calmly looking at me.

“Calm down. It’s going to be okay. As long as I’m with you, everything’s going to come out just fine,” she softly said, before throwing me a smile.

Althea was such a tease sometimes. She was such a serious woman, who appeared to only be thinking about fighting and who-knows-what else. But she would occasionally do these sorts of things that made you doubt what her intentions were… Oh, if only she was a man. I bet she would be a hunky hot dude that would make every woman fall in love with him as soon as they laid eyes upon him.

Especially when she was this reliable. She wasn’t perfect, but she did try her best to protect others, as I saw many times during our incursions to the Magic Red Zone where she would get in the way of anything dangerous that was coming my way. She didn’t have to do that, since Asteora was protecting me, but she doesn’t trust Asteora a lot.

Looking at her soft smile, I realized that she was right. If a God-killer like herself isn’t worried about anything, then there really wasn’t anything to be worried about either.

With a nod and a couple of soft taps on her hand, I smiled back at her. “You’re right.” Then I decided to tease her myself. “But you better make sure that nobody bullies me, y’hear me!”

She widened her eyes slightly, before chuckling and removing her hand. “I’ll make sure that nobody does so—not even that boy of an emperor.”

I heard Theo suck in air, and for the first time ever, look at Althea from the rearview mirror with widened eyes. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but before I did so, Oliver said, “We’ll get off there—at the entrance of the Imperial Barracks—and then we’ll walk to the Palace itself.”

I looked ahead for a moment, and after a deep breath, I prepared myself for whatever was coming.