Casper had been surrounded by all those people. There was nowhere to run. Casper could not fight as well. And even if he did, he would get beaten pretty badly for sure.
He thought he saw happiness in the eyes of the group of people who were surrounding him, but thinking better now, he noticed that it looked more like relief.
Casper could not believe his own thoughts but, all this time he was there, everyone was keeping an eye on him… And fearing him.
He had no idea how cautious all those warriors had been, until that point.
"Maybe the Princess made me walk along with her because she was concerned with me being all alone and completely free in the city, and without no supervision at all.
"But, hey, the masks are so important like this? I would buy one for me as well if I knew where the hell I could buy it, y'know!? Though I don't have money, but…"
He stopped to think when he realized that the circle was closing even more. Each second he lost pondering and making jokes, more near of a really bad situation he was.
"And again… There we go… This world seriously wants to piss me off, really…"
Casper looked at the eyes of one of the Aesir, trying to look calm and composed, making his tone clear and did not show signals of reaction.
"I don't want to fight anymore… And, even if I wanted, I can't." He pointed, slowly. "I will cooperate but… If you touch a finger on me in an aggressive manner I will need to do 'that' thing again."
Casper, as per usual, could not see through the maks, but, judging by the way their bodies reacted after that argument, it was not difficult to imagine everyone going pale.
"As I thought, they don't know a thing of how a human being can act or what they can do when they aren't wearing a mask. Probably they think that the explosion caused by Nach was my fault, alongside the reactivation of the tower.
"The question is: what Nach knew that they don't know? Is she more than I thought she was? Or she found out something about my capabilities here since I am without a mask?"
The Aesir with the shotgun, who together with his other comrade seemed not so affected by Casper's words, walked a step more closer, giggling a little.
"You are interesting, White warrior. You did it well." He murmured. Then, he handcuffed Casper.
At the same time as the soldier thought of how to get out of that situation again, considering finding a way to run or something, the handcuffs sent a light shock wave through his body that made him nearly jump frightened.
"What the hell…?" He cursed, looking towards his hands in confusion.
"This was the first alert, White warrior. Once you seriously think about running away or fighting again, the handcuffs will keep sending shock waves and increasing the intensity each time."
"Hmm… It would be useful on earth. Maybe those jerks that keep struggling and cursing after handcuffed would shut up." He thought.
The two Aesir made the crowd disperse and then walked towards the Princess.
"Canute, you know what to do." The Princess ordered, in a firm and imposed tone.
"Yes, my miss. Wait a second."
Canute took his staff and activated it. The red dodecahedron shining on the tip of the staff got brighter.
The Aesir hit the ground twice with the staff while murmuring something, and then all the images around distorted in front of Casper's eyes. The colors mixed, split, twisted, and disappeared. All the scenery features seemed to melt.
It was not a bad feeling, just confusing. But it was far from an experience that Casper would beg to do again.
"Hmmm… So this Aesir here can teleport, right? I had a vague feeling that this world would be advanced enough for it, but it's still a surprise." Casper could barely imagine what type of technology they needed to do that sort of thing. Probably it was very expensive and mostly used as Belic power.
Casper did not see in the city any hints of some way to travel by transportation. The vehicles were incredible, although very poor looking, but none of them had this type of ability as well.
When the teleporting was ending, Casper's vision got blurred by the same red light as before.
When he opened his eyes once again, he found himself in a huge entrance hall that had several meters of width. The walls were made of stone and marble. Hugepillarss were supporting that part of the construction. About 6 on each side of the hall.
There were paintings and statues there as well, making it an entrance hall that would impress whoever the people who crossed the entrance of that local.
Casper really was amazed by that hall. He had never seen such a beautiful and enormous place. He was not an architect, but the minimal details of that place caught his eye, and he was not sure, but some architectural techniques and standards could possibly don't exist yet in his world.
Of course, the culture of those people changed the design of that Hall as well. It was always a beautiful sight to Casper to see futurist things mixed with Nordic culture.
"How… How it can be? This District was supposed to be broken economically for sure! How can they have such amazing buildings?" Then, he remembered the steel castle. No need to be a genius to realize that he was inside the only good-looking building of that District.
"Hmmm… A monarchy, huh? Not just centralizing the power but monopolizing the money as well, since huge amounts probably go just for the maintenance of this colossal castle."
When he said "colossal", he meant it, or even more than it. Seeing the castle from the outside, and far away, one would doubt if it was so big. Maybe it was because of the different architecture, but Casper never realized or cared for how big it really was (also, maybe because he never got so close to the castle to begin with).
If he could guess, Casper would say it had at least, twenty-five floors. Each floor seemed to have the same height and width. The central building of the castle was quadrangular.
There were huge towers on each vertex of the quadrangular main building, and one could just imagine how many floors it had, and for what purposes.
There were also some flying robots and Casper did not know why they were there, flying around the castle the entire day. Maybe they could serve as cameras or something.
Breaking the silence that befell on them, the Princess started to give orders.
"You two can get out of here now, I can take care of myself for the time being." The two nodded without hesitation, moving to a circular platform near there and stepping on it. They stayed there for a little while, then disappeared after being surrounded by an intense blue light.
The princess grabbed Casper by his shirt and dragged him along to the same platform. She forced him to step on it, then mumbled some words. As soon as she did, the same thing that occurred with the Aesir happened to them as well.
The same experience from before repeated and the second time was not less strange than the first one in the slightest.
This time, they appeared in a corridor that led to a lot of doors. There were double doors, single ones, and even rooms that had no doors at all. All of them were adorned in different styles, seemed to be made of high-quality wooden, and let the imagination of Casper go wild thinking of how the freaking rooms would seem on the inside.
It seemed that he was in a sort of house (or, better, in a mansion) due to the huge amount of rooms and the extensive corridor, let aside the walls that were made of a different material from the Castle's walls.
"A house inside a Castle. What the heck…"
The corridor stretched for fifteen meters. In the final of the corridor, there was a white double door room, that was surely way more outstanding than the others, even though the others did not seem simple either.
The Princess reached the silver doorknob and twisted it, opening the two doors and entering.
Casper, who had been like a puppet until now, got puzzled as to why a princess, a high prestigious noble full of authority, would let him enter her room.
"Maybe it actually is a torture room? And the torture starts when your expectations got smashed after you enter in it and realize that it was not what you were hoping for…?"
But in the end, the room had no wooden chairs in the middle. Nor had blood spilled in the ground and walls. And he could not see any sharp object as well, so it probably was safe!
The Princess's room was definitely the stereotype of what a spoiled young lady's bedroom was supposed to be.
The furniture was mostly made of wood with the same cream tone of her mask, the walls were painted in a similar color as well.
There was some technological equipment here and there, but nothing too outstanding.
Without explaining anything she liberated Casper from his handcuffs.
She took off her boots, throwing them aside. She removed all the accouterments and jewelry she was wearing, except the bracelet on her forearm.
She threw herself on the fluffy mattress of her huge bed, belly up.
"Aaawwwn, what a day… I wish I could have had more hours sleeping…" She complained, stretching her arms.
"It was not funny at all. I got really scared with those dumb Frelsi. Why do the Aesirs cannot do it by themselves? I am a political figure, they say… So what? Political figure or not, I don't wanna walk all this region just to see some boring Ridire invading buildings and killing ordinary people, y'know!?"
Seeing the behavior of the Princess changing from water to wine, Casper could just stand in the middle of the room, dumbfounded.