(3rd POV)
Arthur calmed the excited ancient elf down and led her through the office, triggering the hidden mechanism behind the bookshelf.
The passage beyond had long since been expanded — what had once been a single concealed room was now a network of them, running deep beneath the Hellfire HQ and holding the things Arthur didn't particularly want the world knowing about.
The most visible of his secrets was Area 67, the advanced research facility. But the Secret Rooms were in a category of their own.
Saza followed with open curiosity, then went still as her senses hit a wall. The rooms were shielded — whatever she'd been passively reading about her surroundings simply stopped registering.
She said nothing about it and kept pace with Arthur down the hall until they reached Room 404.
Inside, a row of portals sat dark and dusty, untouched for long enough that they'd started to look like relics. Arthur felt something pull at him seeing them like that. The moment he'd developed the ability to teleport freely across the world, the portals had simply become redundant — left behind the way old hardware gets left behind, forgotten in a corner like an obsolete GPU gathering dust in a box.
He sent a thread of power through them. One by one they lit up, the room brightening as each portal hummed back to life.
Saza's composure cracked completely. "This is exactly what I've been looking for." She moved through the room, taking them in. "And there are so many."
"Take however many you need," Arthur said.
"Three will do." She was already thinking through it. "Along with those, I'll need meteor dust and a leaf from an Ancient Tree. The meteor dust I already have — that IEA Director Layton was surprisingly useful for something." A brief pause, then she turned to look at Arthur with an expectant tilt to her head. "As for the Ancient Tree — I noticed it in the park at the center of this building. The tall one. I can sense what it actually is, even through whatever you've layered over it to obscure its nature."
Arthur kept his expression neutral. "You're right. It is an Ancient Tree. How did you identify it?"
"Elves carry an ability called «Blessed by the Forest». I can determine the true nature of any tree or plant simply by being near it." She looked at him steadily. "Ancient Trees are functionally extinct. The fact that you have one growing in the middle of your headquarters is not a small thing." A beat. "Are you genuinely not a Demon King?"
"No," Arthur said. "My father is a demon king — of a large country, not in any ancient or legendary sense. Just a king."
"Oh." Saza absorbed this without much fanfare and moved on.
With everything accounted for — meteor dust, Ancient Tree leaf, three portals — the materials were in place. But the work wasn't immediate.
Saza set about inscribing magical runes across the floor of the room, careful and precise, and explained that the full array would take three days to complete.
Arthur mentioned the situation to Firfel. Her reaction was immediate enthusiasm — an elf from another world, older than almost anything she'd ever encountered and yet nowhere close to showing it.
The two of them fell into conversation naturally enough, though Saza's genuine puzzlement about the elves of this world kept surfacing. They were so much weaker than she expected. Their lifespans so much shorter.
Firfel explained what she knew of the ancient history. Together, they pieced it together: the elves of this world had been altered, quietly and deliberately, by the Moon Goddess. More populous, faster-aging — a larger congregation generating more faith, more consistently. A population optimized for harvest.
The conversation moved on. Then Saza's gaze settled on the amulet at Firfel's neck.
"That's not ordinary." She nodded toward it. "Where did it come from?"
Firfel touched it lightly, a faint color rising in her expression. "It was... my husband bought it for me." She glanced toward Arthur, who had crouched near the edge of Saza's rune-work and was studying it with quiet attention.
"The two of you are together." Saza observed it as simple fact, then returned to the amulet. "The craftsmanship is Giant Dwarf work. Ancient, by the feel of it. From this world's earlier age."
Arthur looked up. "You can tell that from a glance?"
"I've handled the ancient works of the Giant Dwarves before. The signature is distinct." She paused. "There's also a sliver of consciousness inside it. Still forming, but present."
Firfel stilled slightly. It was true — she'd already begun to sense the connection developing between herself and the amulet, something growing quietly in the background of her awareness.
She simply hadn't expected anyone else to perceive it so readily, let alone from across the room.
---
Several days later, Room 404 had been transformed.
Meteor dust coated the array in a fine, luminous layer, and Ancient Tree leaves sat arranged at the center — more than strictly necessary, but Saza had been precise about the reasoning.
A single leaf was sufficient to open a path; additional leaves allowed her to communicate with the spatial location of her world, to reach out and confirm the connection before committing to it. Given what was being attempted, the extra leaves were worth the cost.
She began the chant.
The array responded slowly at first, the glow building from the edges inward, filling the room with a quiet, sourceless light. Arthur watched from the side with Kaiser and Keanu flanking him — two beings who between them had lived through more of this world's history than most written records covered, and yet both of them were visibly absorbed.
A connection to a completely separate world, achieved through nothing but materials, runes, and spoken resonance. Even the longest-lived had their thresholds for novelty.
The portal opened gradually, swelling as the chant continued, the magic cores embedded in the array dimming in proportion as the portal drew from them. The exchange was visible and direct: energy out, connection in.
Ten full minutes of unbroken chanting. Then Saza, seated cross-legged before the leaves, lowered her voice and went still.
"It's done."
She rose and walked to the edge of the portal, and stopped. Behind her, the Ancient Tree leaves at the center of the array had dried completely during the chant, their edges curling inward before crumbling to fine dust — spent, their purpose fulfilled.
She looked back at Arthur. "The array has linked both worlds. That part is permanent — it holds until you sever it or destroy these portals entirely." She paused. "However, every time you activate it to make the crossing, the cost is substantial. The energy draw is not trivial."
"I have enough magic cores," Arthur said. "Don't worry about that." He glanced at the array. "Do I need to perform the full chant every time I want to open it?"
"No. The «Quantum Chant» is a one-time process. Both worlds are already linked. From here on, activation is just a matter of the energy cost." She turned back to the portal. "And to sever it, you'd need to either destroy the array or cut the connection by force."
Arthur nodded. "Go through first. Make sure it lands where it's supposed to."
Saza didn't appear even slightly concerned. "The portal is already synced to a Quantum Array inside the academy where I work. I can sense it responding from the other side." She said it the way someone confirms a known fact. "I'm confident."
"All the same," Arthur said. "We'll wait for word before anyone else goes through."
"Fair enough." She moved toward the portal, then paused once more. "I'll communicate through the Quantum Array on my end — my voice will carry through to this room. Keep the magic cores loaded." Another pause. "Also, I have no way of knowing the time differential between our worlds. It may take longer than expected before you hear from me. Or it may be much sooner."
With that settled, she stepped through.
The portal contracted behind her, the light tapering to a dim pulse before settling into standby.
Keanu broke the silence. "Arthur." He looked at the dormant portal with barely concealed impatience. "Can we come with you? When you go?"
"I need to see it too," Kaiser said. "I lived through the Golden Days of this world — gods everywhere, mages at every corner — and not once did I get the chance to cross to another world entirely. I find I want to."
Arthur looked at the two of them. Ancient. Powerful. Thoroughly, unmistakably bored. "Sure. Fine. Whatever you want."
Firfel hadn't said anything, but she didn't need to. The anticipation was written across her face clearly enough.
Kaiser eyed the portal for a moment. "But do you actually think she will communicate back?"
"I do," Arthur said. "She spent some time here and grew more fascinated with this world's technologies by the day. She'll call back." He added, "Besides, it's a good opportunity to expand the company into a new world."
Kaiser and Keanu stared at him. A inter-dimensional portal to an entirely unknown world, and his first thought was business expansion.
They felt helpless at his incurable capitalist nature.