“Get a golem and haul this thing out of here. And bring me some of the workers from the other passage.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
“And don’t call me—ahh, forget it, just hurry!”
Eldant Castle. This building, which shared its name with the country as a whole, was the center of politics, economics, and culture in the Eldant Empire, not to mention a veritable symbol of the state itself. Created from a hollowed-out mountain, it redefined the word massive, and was in fact just about the biggest building we knew of here in this alternate world.
This being an empire, the castle was the home of the empress. A thriving castle town sprawled around it, and notwithstanding the nearly five thousand people who worked at the castle, as long as there wasn’t some very special reason—like an enemy attack on the one hand, or a big festival on the other—commoners were very rarely permitted inside.
Needless to say, the first time I showed up for a visit, I was pretty nervous. The place was crawling with soldiers and knights, all carrying swords that I knew were perfectly real. And I knew they had a license to cut down any commoner who ticked them off. This was the first alternate world I’d ever visited, and I had no idea how to speak the language or even what was polite or impolite—in short, I had no clue how to comport myself. Maybe I would unconsciously scratch my cheek in embarrassment and discover I had accidentally challenged some enraged other-worlder to a duel to the death.
With enough visits, though, my anxiety started to get better. It helped that I was learning what was considered common sense around here, including how to behave politely. As I got more comfortable, I started to be able to enjoy just walking around this humongous castle, which was like something out of a history book or a fantasy story. It was elegant and ornate, but this was no mock-up or movie set—this was the real thing. It wouldn’t disappear just because nobody was looking at it.
There were the huge, prominent portrait paintings. The suits of armor that lined the hallways. Stone everything: stairs and walls and floors and ceilings. The lamps that burned here and there for light. And on and on. All of it real. A real, functioning castle. And I was in it!
I chewed over that fact as the knight of the royal guard led me down the hallway, just as usual. I wasn’t alone, of course. I was with the other employees of our alternate-world general-entertainment company, Amutech. Kanou Shinichi-san, our general manager. And Koganuma Minori-san, military officer and bodyguard to me and Shinichi-san. The three of us were headed for an audience chamber.
“Amutech General Manager Kanou Shinichi-sama, accompanied by Ayasaki Hikaru-sama and Koganuma Minori-sama, has arrived,” announced the knight standing guard by the doorway. Again, standard procedure.
We were in the smallest of the available audience chambers. This wasn’t for official, public audiences with ministers and VIPs in attendance; it was for quiet, comparatively private—or even secret—conversations with Her Majesty the empress, when we didn’t want too much of a, well, audience.
“So you are here.” We all looked toward the source of the voice: the adorable, silver-haired Petralka an Eldant III (a.k.a. the empress) and her handsome, similarly silver-haired knight-attendant, Minister Garius en Cordobal. So far, everything was exactly the way it always was when we came to deliver our regular reports. We met with these two almost daily as representatives of Amutech, to let the empress know what the firm was up to. Although, to be honest, a lot of times we ended up just shooting the breeze.
But today was different.
“Romilda? Guld-san?” I heard Shinichi-san mumble.
Waiting for us in the audience chamber along with the two royals were a pair of dwarves, a father and daughter. Rydell and Romilda Guld. Rydell was head of the biggest workshop in Marinos—named after his family—and Romilda was his daughter. She also attended the school Amutech ran. They both bowed to us and smiled.
“What’s going on?” Shinichi-san asked. We didn’t normally see Romilda and her father here in the smaller audience chamber—in fact, this was the first time. I’m sure Shinichi-san assumed there was some reason for it.
“Just listen to this, Shinichi-sensei!” Romilda exclaimed. “And you, Hikaru-sensei!” She was practically glowing. As a dwarf, she was what you might call vertically challenged, and it made her look much younger than she was. Her cherubic face and effusive behavior added to the impression of youth. “Our workshop found this weird thing and—”
“Romilda, we are in the royal presence. Be silent,” Rydell-san admonished her. He was a dwarf, too, but as a man, he had a stupendous beard and seemed as craggy as a cliffside. He might have been smaller than us, but his entire body rippled with muscles, making him an intimidating presence nonetheless.
“Oh, right...” Romilda, remembering herself, went quiet and glanced uneasily at the throne.
In actuality, this was hardly her first time meeting the empress by way of Amutech. She’d been involved with a movie we’d made and a backyard barbecue we’d had. Maybe it had all made her a little too cavalier about how she behaved in front of Her Majesty. For her part, though, the empress didn’t seem bothered; she showed no sign of anger, and even Minister Cordobal had a wry grin on his face. Romilda was evidently going to get away with her little faux pas.
“We suppose formal introductions are not necessary. More importantly, Shinichi, there is something which we wish you to see,” Her Majesty said. She pointed at something on a stand in the middle of the room: Romilda’s “weird thing.”
It was a metal box, about two meters long.
