The first thing that entered my view was the large white castle towering at the center of the wide, open space. Wait, it was below us, to be exact. Looking around, the landing point of the teleportation array was on a cliffside overlooking the entire Royal Palace and the town surrounding it.
"There's actually a town inside a town?"
And here I thought that the Capital City was the main city of this kingdom. What a scam.
Seeing Ember looking around curiously, I can confirm that this space should be another pocket dimension. I'm not sure if it's a sealed space or just a normal one, but either way, it's still something that was made with space energy.
"What are you waiting for? Follow me."
Yu Na, who was already dozens of meters away from us before we noticed, called back in irritation. Not wanting to earn her ire for no reason, the rest of us quickly did as told and followed her along the narrow path leading down the cliffside.
It was a long downward slope circling around the small hill where the cliffside was. Since the slope was pretty slanted, about 30 degrees. It's not that steep, but losing your footing for a little would end with you rolling down the slope like a marble and maybe even breaking the small fence and falling to your death. Just imagining the scene gave me chills.
"Why is this teleportation portal placed in such a precipitous location anyway?"
I sighed in exasperation, wishing that we would reach the bottom quickly.
The hike took us approximately half an hour, and that's just us going down the sloping path the whole time without rest. After reaching the bottom, we would still need to walk a few kilometers from there to the gates of the town.
A lush forest brimming with energy was acting as a buffer between the cliff and the town, with a paved path in the middle leading us straight to our destination.
Yu Na didn't even let us take a short rest to gather our wits; she quickly proceeded ahead. Having no choice, we followed her back without saying a peep.
The forest path had a stunning view, which, if we were allowed, I guess would be nice to have a picnic on. However, with how fast we were walking through it, we didn't even have much time to admire its beauty.
Another thirty minutes later, we finally managed to break through the forest and reach the gates of the town. As I looked around, I realized that there were a few more similar teleportation arrays near the gate, identical to the one we used.
I turned to Yu Na, who had been ignoring us the whole time, and asked while pointing at the tall cliff visible from the town's entrance.
"Couldn't we just use these instead of that one?"
For the first time, I saw her expression twitch. It wasn't to the level of her ultra-rare smile, but her troubled look was pretty amazing too.
"These... Are connected to the neighboring kingdoms. Their counterpart would be about a thousand kilometers away from the capital."
"A neighboring kingdom?"
I looked at the teleportation arrays with doubt before looking back at Yu Na.
"And they get to place their portals AT THE GATE while we need to walk AN HOUR just to reach here from that place. Why?"
Yu Na's frown deepened as she turned to me. Seeing her expression, I knew that she had no intention to answer, so I just raised my hands and slowly backed away. Seeing that, she heaved a sigh before heading towards the gate, where nobody was standing guard.
"City Lord Yu Na, here to guide the Clan Head of the Luo and Seimei Clan! Open the gates!"
Her voice echoed loudly, almost deafening those of us who were right beside her. After a short wait, the gates opened with a loud, grating sound, as if the two sides of the gate were weighing hundreds of tons. From the gap, we could see that each slab of the ten-meter-tall gate was about a meter thick, and looked completely metallic.
The gates didn't open fully, only with a gap that could fit about two people side-by-side without problems. Seeing this, Yu Na quickly entered. While we were dallying behind, the gate seemed to twitch before slowly starting to close.
"Wait, we haven't entered yet!"
I yelled as we all began to dash forward, slipping through the gap and entering the town with cold sweat on our foreheads. I quickly checked the girls and saw that we weren't missing anyone. Even Fina, the slowest among the group right now, and Judy and Yorm, the smallest, were safely able to cross the gates.
"Why did the gates close that fast? Are they trying to kill us?"
With how thick the gates were, if we got caught halfway through, then we'd have been flattened like pancakes for sure.
"I told you to follow me closely. It's your fault since you dallied for too long that the gates almost closed on you."
Yu Na sneered before walking down the main road and heading to the large white castle visible in the distance. What dallied? We were literally three steps behind you!
I'm slightly fed up with her prickly attitude, but I'd rather not start a fight that I can't finish. I started thinking happy thoughts, calming my nerves as we followed her much closer than before.
As we walked along the main road, we couldn't help but notice the passersby and the stalls and stores here and there. With just a glance, anyone could tell that everything here was at least ten times, if not more, expensive than the Capital City's goods.
Even the citizens that we passed by were wearing clothes that looked so f*cking expensive that I had the urge to kidnap them and strip their golden garments to sell.
"They all must be relatives of high-ranking nobles, seeing that they live this close to the Royal Castle."
I muttered to myself with resignation.
Nobles...
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