"What are you doing?"
"Just lost a bet."
"I'm weirded by you guys, but I'm glad you were finally able to finish the delivery."
Stepping outside the dark tunnel, I never thought we will see a very familiar place. We have been here just before we left for a ten day journey. And in under a few minutes, we were able to reduce that time and return to the Gain Hall of Isaac's castle where his king's throne is situated.
The four of us were stupefy by this weird transition of events. Jackson was better off in recovering since he needs to fulfil the end of his bet. Or rather, he was too flabbergasted that he unconsciously slapped Isaac who greeted. Nonetheless, only Isaac seems to know what just happened.
"What is the meaning of this, Isaac?! How- We just- Demo- Why are we here?!"
"Passionate as usual, Helena. Don't worry I'll explain it slowly… Ara? Why is Knight Arwen here? Never mind, I can imagine what happened on your end."
"Tell us immediately! You won't be able to leave here unless you tell us what the fuck is this thing."
Helena was grabbing Isaac by his shoulders while she shakes it vigorously. Arwen who has already recovered from the initial shock was aghast again by the scene Helena was causing. Besides her, I can barely think of anyone who can do the same thing to the leader of this Kingdom.
Both me and Jackson do not care what she is doing since we know the line between friendly gestures and signs of disrespect among us Children and Isaac. What Helena was doing right now may seem far from being friendly, but Isaac's face does not show so. He was completely fine even with his head shaking back and forth forcefully.
Although we should probably stop her since Isaac will not be able to talk at this point. I will handle the conversation right here since I have many things to ask.
"Aha~ That was a bit dizzying. Ok where do I begin?"
"Explain to us why you are involved in opening of Gates."
"It hurts that you word it that way. Yes, it's true that what you witness is a Gate opening. But it's not what you think it is, it doesn't connect directly to the Netherworld."
"That wasn't the Netherworld? But we fought some demons on the way."
"To be precise, what you just went into is one of the many rifts our world and Netherworld are connected through. Unlike the Gates which spawns demons and seldomly Devils, this rift is broken and abandoned by the Netherworld itself. That's why there are demons left to be swept before we can pass safely to one end to another. There's also no need to concern about future demons spawning inside it since like I told you, it has been abandoned."
"That's a lot of information I never heard about before. Gates has always been a mystery for us forever, but for some reason, you know all of these?"
"It's not me who knows all of these. I was simply taught by the Pope."
"The Pope, huh? If there is anything stranger than the Gates, it would be him. Because of his divine protection, we can't really force him to do anything."
"He's really troublesome. Even for a King like me, I cannot help but follow his words."
"And one of his sermon was telling you to open these gates for what purpose?"
"I know you've already noticed the landscape between the cities and Opidelhm. Travelling from one city to another will be difficult for our normal citizens especially the merchants and traders. Not only that. In case of worst case scenarios, the long journey will be detrimental for backing up our cities whenever problem arise."
"I see. All in all, this will greatly reduce the travel time. Even faster than our Royal Gryphons. Isn't this thing amazing?"
I look back at the fissure on the empty space that is still present even after we have left out of it for quite a while now. Extending my arm to cross the entrance of the Broken Rift again, I felt nothing. Pulling it back was also no problem, so using this like Isaac plans to do is safer than I thought.
The people who were silently listening at the back was still hesitant about it. I cannot blame them since I still have a lot of questions in mind concerning this Rift. But from his words, I think the best person to ask would be the Pope however, that will be impossible.
Jackson who is unusually quiet after slapping the king, starts rummaging something from his own dimension bag. He did not bring anything out but instead put his head inside the whole bag. Helena especially was weirded out by his actions.
"Did you go crazy, Jack?"
"No, I'm just testing maybe these bags are related to what Isaac has been telling us."
"You think our bags are same with the Gates?"
"Well, Senior Jade was the creator of both, so maybe she did the same with these rifts."
"Hahaha. I already done that, Jackson. Unfortunately, this and that is totally different. I tried asking Senior Jade about this, and she told me creating these devices to created artificial rifts are more complicated than a simple spacious room compressed in a small space. Both of the bag and rift device sounds extremely difficult to comprehend, but I understood that our bags are nothing like these gate opening devices."
"Last question for me."
"Oh, I thought you were going to barrage me with questions, Vaughn."
"I know you won't be answer any of them."
"Aw, okay go ahead."
"You're planning this to use this for Travellers and make a huge profit right?"
*Smiling* "You got me, Vaughn."
"So relation between the nobles of the cities is getting more complicated, huh. I guess we should have expected this sooner."
I can imagine question marks popping out of the head of Jackson and Helena when I said that. There is a reason why I have concluded it to that after thinking hard by myself.
The Rift in our eyes is what supposed to be a breakthrough on dealing with our main problem which is demons, Devils, and the Netherworld. But now I understand how Isaac is planning to use this creation, Opidel- no, us Children will be having a lot of troubles ahead.