Third Person POV
Re-Estize is the capital city of the Re-Estize Kingdom, and naturally the wealthiest place in the entire nation. At its centre stands Ro-Lente Castle, the massive fortress that houses the royal family, surrounded by a fortified wall enclosing nearly 1,400 meters of land.
The city itself is unofficially divided into two parts. Closer to the centre lives the upper class the nobles, wealthy merchants, and influential families. Their houses stand side by side in neat rows, large and imposing, radiating luxury and old money.
But the farther one moves from the heart of the capital, the more the scenery changes. The paved stone roads give way to uneven dirt paths. The air grows heavy with the faint smell of garbage and livestock. The buildings become cramped, worn down, and patched together with whatever their owners could afford.
A clean, unavoidable display of the kingdom's inequality.
Still, despite the low status many people hold here, countless families willingly spend their life savings to move to the capital. After all, this was the safest place in the kingdom far away from villages and towns where monsters could attack at any time.
Clip-clop. Clatter. Creak.
A carriage rolled out of the castle gates, its wheels rattling quietly on the stone road. The royal crest painted on its side, along with the knights escorting it, made it obvious that someone of royal blood was inside.
And inside sat a short, portly boy with blond hair, staring out the window as the scenery passed by.
"I don't think anyone's foolish enough to attack me right now… but in the end, fate never listens," Zanac muttered, eyebrows drawn together.
After his conversation with Renner, his nerves had been on edge. He'd been so tense he again didn't leave his room for the next few days, choosing instead to bury himself in exercise and training. But eventually, even he realised he was spiralling into paranoia.
So today, he decided to step out, breathe some fresh air, and tour the capital if only to keep himself sane.
"Should I try to… fix her?" Zanac wondered, thinking about his sister's condition. But he quickly shook his head, brushing the thought away. Getting involved with Renner on that level was a dangerous rabbit hole. One he had no intention of falling into. Her being called "spiritual heteromorph" wasn't a Joke.
"Still… I can't deny she's someone worth investing in," he muttered to himself.
Because regardless of her twisted tendencies, Renner was brilliant. Truly brilliant. Her reforms, her plans, the way she tried to drag this rotten kingdom into something resembling efficiency even if her motives weren't pure, even if ethics or virtue had nothing to do with it her actions still mattered.
People remembered who tried. Even when nobles sabotaged her at every step, she still pushed forward.
Zanac exhaled slowly.
"She struggled more than anyone in the kingdom in anime," he admitted quietly. "Even if half of it was for her own amusement… the results were real."
And in the end, she was the one who got exactly what she wanted. A life with her beloved commoner pet.
Zanac clicked his tongue lightly.
"After all, who knows if I'll even get a summon?" he muttered. "And even if I do, will they be useful? Loyal? Or just another variable waiting to stab me in the back?"
He leaned his head against the window frame, watching the capital outside blur past.
"But… if I were in some other world, I'd be eyeing the people here as potential summons too," he mused. "So now that I'm actually here, it'd be stupid not to consider the same."
A faint smirk tugged at his lips as he thought of that noble girl who ran away to become an adventurer, patriotic, hardworking, and far more reliable than most nobles in this kingdom.
"I wonder if she's already registered as an adventurer," he muttered. "She should be… around this age."
His gaze shifted toward the streets outside, but his thoughts didn't stop there.
"And that loli vampire…" Zanac frowned slightly. "There's no mention of her in my memories. She should be famous, even as a rumour. Strange."
…Or maybe I'm the one who simply hasn't heard anything yet. Not that she doesn't exist.
He pushed the thought aside as the carriage slowed to a stop. He glanced outside just as the wheels settled and the guards announced their arrival.
Along the long perimeter walls were three five-story towers. There was essentially multiple two-story tall structures that were taller than they were wide, had shut their grid-shaped gates. To the sides of the gate were two two-story tall gatehouses.
Although nowhere near the luxury of the royal palace, but still imposing in its own way.
It was the Magician's Guild.
Despite the Kingdom looking down on magic, they couldn't completely deny its usefulness. So, while magic wasn't respected, it wasn't entirely erased from society either.
There were still mages here, few, but present. And magic tools were still legally traded, though expensive enough to bleed a commoner's wallet dry.
The Magician's Guild served as the central hub for all such things.
An association of every magic caster in the Re-Estize Kingdom.
Their primary purpose, research magic, create magical items, and provide magical services.
Because of them, enchanted equipment still existed in the Kingdom. Expensive, rare, and only affordable for the wealthy or the desperate adventurer who needed one to stay alive.
Naturally, the Adventurer's Guild relied heavily on them too. Their work intersected so often that both guilds were practically siblings magic and adventuring went hand-in-hand.
Moreover, almost every major city in the Kingdom had its own branch of the Magician's Guild, each with a guildmaster running the place.
Zanac stepped out of the carriage, looking up at the building thoughtfully.
Are they connected to the Slane Theocracy like the Adventurer's Guild?
He questioned himself silently.
It did bother him.
The Magician's Guild operated independently. They weren't funded by the royal treasury. They weren't pampered by nobles. And they definitely weren't treated with respect by the Kingdom.
Yet… somehow, they survived. Not just survived, it thrived.
For a medieval-style kingdom that considered magic "inferior," the fact that a guild like this could sustain itself spoke volumes.
"Let's see how it is from inside"
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