Sophia told Nathan and his group about her slightly peculiar magic and how the artificial limitation of magical elements was slowly being changed thanks to her. However, the prince had a hard time believing that she could use uncategorized magic. Going for the quickest approach to make them understand, the blonde then simply transported the entire group to the royal capital as a tried-and-tested method.

  “I assume some of you already know this place, but for Luca and Vivi specifically, welcome to the royal capital of the beastfolk, whose name I totally remember, but I’ll omit here because it’s common knowledge.” Sophia heartily welcomed them to the new place they had just arrived at.

  “Tirago.” Ari rolled her eyes.

  “Thank you very much!” The blonde was glad about her help.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “…” Nathan continued to stare at the capital in the distance with an utter flabbergasted expression. “Seriously, what did you put in our food, Vivi?!”

  “This is so cool!” The puma-girl got excited for a second before shaking her head. “I mean, I don’t know! I was fairly sure the food was good!”

  “It’s not a hallucination.” Sophia was getting slightly tired of that bit.

  “What just happened…?” Luca was the first to recover slightly. “How are we suddenly here, thousands of kilometers away from where we were supposed to be?”

  “Magic~.” The blonde had an easy explanation for the events.

  “That doesn’t explain anything at all!” The cat-boy disagreed with her reply.

  “You’ll get used to that being an actual viable answer with her.” Ari let out a sigh.

  “This is a special type of magic I came up with.” Sophia lightly clapped her hands to get the attention of the four again. “The pink and purple particles you saw when we changed locations came from something I call portals. With them, I can connect two places directly with each other without the need to go there. After I’ve been there once and placed a return portal, that is. I can’t go anywhere where there isn’t one. I’m not that powerful.”

  “That last sentence is pretty rich coming from you.” The black-haired jaguar just stared at her.

  “Should I tell them about Chloe’s multi-tailed mother?”

  “Okay, compared to her, fair point.” Even Ari agreed that Mira was on a level of her own.

  “How is that even possible…?” Luca couldn’t wrap his head around the information he just heard.

  “It’s the power of uncategorized magic~.” Sophia gave him a thumbs-up. “With enough power and control, the only limitation on magic is your own imagination. I’m quite good at coming up with things, so here we are.”

  “Is… Is this really our capital…?” Nathan was still rather confused. “I mean, it looks like it, and I can see the castle, but…”

  "What else do you think it could be?"

  "How am I supposed to know?! I have no idea what's going on anymore!"

  “It is the capital. Your capital.” Sophia smiled at him. “We can head over there soon so you can meet everyone, too.”

  "Is this actually all true, and you aren't just messing with us in a super elaborate way?”

  “I like to mess with people every now and then, but I’m not that good at it.” The blonde scratched her cheek. “We’ve actually switched places. Our group does that all the time while traveling because it’s quite convenient.”

  “Super convenient!” Ari and Anna corrected her.

  “Do you have any idea how this would alter the entire world if this could be used on a large scale?!” The prince was finally understanding the situation. “Something like this would change the way we live completely!”

  “This is the plan and also the reason why Father has given her absolute freedom in doing and acting however she wants.” Anna looked at her brother before gesturing left of the capital, right outside its outer walls. “Do you see that massive construction site right outside the south gate?”

  “Yeah.” He stared in the direction she was pointing. "Are we building a new outpost for checkups or something like that?"

  "It's going to be a portal hub," Sophia answered him instead. “While we’re traveling, I offered to place a portal in every bigger city we visit and link it with the capital. It will connect those two places instantly and eliminate the need to ever travel between them again.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “This will be a complete revolution of how travel and trade inside the kingdom will be handled!” Nathan raised his voice again.

  “I’m on a quest to improve the quality of life of everyone, so that was my intention.” She gave him another thumbs-up. “I want to be able to eat good food wherever I want, after all! Not everything being available everywhere is quite the burden!”

  “I have my doubts about your motivation, but that does not matter in the slightest.” He scratched his cheek. “This is singlehandedly one of the biggest services everyone has ever done for our folk! I have no idea how to express my gratitude for that. I hope Father gave you a fitting reward for this. Fellow tiger or not, this goes far beyond standard service.”

  “Well, I’ve imposed some limitations, and I demanded a cut of the monetization big enough to never have to worry about gold ever again. I probably could’ve asked for more, but at the end of the day, I like helping people, and I’m happy with what I’ll get.”

  “That’s quite generous on your part, and I applaud your motivation.” Nathan looked rather impressed by her. “Can I ask about what limitations you imposed on them?”

  "People with malicious intent can't use the portals, and they’re not allowed to be used in wars and the like.”

  “Do you want us to screen the people traveling through those things?” The prince attempted to comprehend how this rule would function.

  “They actually just can’t go through.” Sophia shrugged. “My portals can sense things like that, and I can set them up however I want to exclude people from passing through them.”

  “Wow.” He wasn’t sure what to say at first. “I guess it works the same way for wars, as well?”

  "Not quite." She shook her head. "The consequences there are a lot more severe. If a city sends an army to attack the capital for whatever reason, the portal in that city will erase itself forever.”

  “Okay, I’d say that’s fair enough.”

  “However, if the capital ever decides to use my portals to attack a place, every single portal will instantly be gone.”

  “That’s, uhh… rather harsh. Those portals would be an amazing defense line if used by a central army.”

  “Ah, let me clarify that.” The blonde understood his reasoning. “This limitation or punishment only applies to attacks or wars started by the parties in question. Using my portals to defend the other side or an area nearby from an attack, that’s alright and encouraged by me. Only aggressions are sanctioned."

  “Oh, alright, I take everything back then.” Nathan nodded a few times. “I feel there’s a need to write down what counts as what in which situation and general details like that, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me. In fact, it adds an extra layer of security for everyone involved.”

  “I was mostly thinking about me not wanting them to be misused and adding a punishment for doing so, but that’s another good point.” Sophia liked his deduction.

  Afterward, Sophia continued to tell him a bit more about her portals and how they planned to use them in the kingdom while Anna and Luca listened in on them. The princess wanted to help out when the blonde forgot about some details, and the cat-boy was just fascinated by the topic.

  ----------------

  “So~.” While the four were busy with that, Ari shifted all her attention to Nina and Vivi sitting next to each other on the bench opposite her, while smiling at them.

  “Yes?” Her sister tilted her head. “What can I do for you?”

  “Back in Agola, we heard some rumors about you two from multiple sources!” The black-haired jaguar sounded rather excited. “I’d like to know everything about that!”

  “When did you become this nosy?" Nina looked right at her. “I remember you being a lot more shy and reserved.”

  “I’ve always been nosy!” She shook her head. “Shy and reserved, yes, but with every single one of my friends being the very definition of an extrovert and chaos incarnate, it’s hard to keep that up.”

  "I guess five years is a long time to change a little, huh?”

  “No changing the topic now!” Ari was having none of that. “This is not about me.”

  “I think I’m becoming a fan of your sister.” Vivi smiled at Nina before looking at the other jaguar. “She’s a fun one~.”

  “Would you like to tell the fun one more, then?” Ari changed her gaze to the puma-girl.

  “What would you like to know, dear?”

  “Are you two really dating?” She got right to the point.

  “We sure are~.” Vivi smiled at Ari before affectionately grabbing and hugging Nina's arm.

  “Yes.” The golden jaguar also confirmed it.

  “Awesome!” Ari lightly clapped her hands. “How did that happen? From what I remember, when you left home, all that was on your mind was babysitting Nathan and making sure he wouldn't do anything too stupid.”

  “To be fair, that’s still pretty important to her.” Vivi let out a small chuckle.

  “Can you blame me?!” The golden jaguar glared at her.

  “He’s a bit of a work, that’s true.” She could not.

  “It was just a matter of meeting the right person.” Nina let out a small sigh before looking at her sister. “Which I did.”

  “Aww~!” She liked that a lot. “How did you two meet?”

  “Luca and I were traveling together for a little while already when we ran into her and the prince in the middle of nowhere.” Vivi smiled at her. “As neither of us had any goal or fixed route and just wanted to explore, we decided to become a group of four because it’s easier and more fun in a slightly bigger group.”

  “That makes sense.” Ari could follow her logic.

  “After that, things went rather fast.” Nina scratched her cheek. “Vivi and I got along so well that we ended up dating before we even realized.”

  “Pretty much~.” The puma responded with a cheeky smile.

  “That’s so cute!” Ari liked the story. “Well, the people we met so far that told us about you also all said that you two were incredibly obvious about your relationship even in public, so it makes perfect sense that you get along that much.”

  "…" The couple suddenly fell silent while having an awkward expression.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We constantly get teased by Luca and Nathan about not thinking about our surroundings. Hearing that even strangers picked up on that is rather embarrassing…" Vivi hung her head.

  “Very.” Nina had the same reaction.

  “Ah.” Ari froze for a moment. “Y-Yes, getting outsiders involved can be very embarrassing…” As she had gone through the worst way of announcing her relationship, a good portion of the castle having heard her first time with Anna, and earning the title of the loud couple, she took quite a lot of damage from that.

  Once she recovered from that, the black-haired jaguar continued to ask many more questions because she was way too curious about learning more about her sister’s relationship and Vivi as a person, as well.