Sophia introduced Vivi to Aura, Kel, and Mira, who was also still with them. While the puma was overwhelmed for a little moment, she got over it fairly quickly and was able to have some casual conversations with them. In fact, she was so fascinated by them that she simply kept asking questions and fully forgot about just how special they were. Sophia also learned about the elder dragons from the wolf, which became an instant priority for her.

  “I have a bad feeling about this.” Menzor, Sophia, and Nathan were in the king’s office when Menzor looked at the blonde while sitting on his big leather chair as he rubbed his temples in anticipation of the pending headache.

  “I’m here to discuss politics with you~.” Smiling broadly at him, Sophia then sat down in one of the chairs opposite his massive desk before crossing her legs to get comfortable.

  “Oh no.” The king’s face lost all its color.

  “Ohh, I look forward to learning something from the gifted tiger everyone in the castle had nothing but praise for.” Nathan energetically nodded a few times before sitting down in the chair next to the blonde.

  “My poor son, you still have so much to learn when it comes to her.” Menzor let out a strained sigh. “The last time we talked politics, Sophia ended up spearheading a war and beat an army consisting of multiple thousands of humans into submission and forced them to capitulate.”

  “What…?” The prince turned to look at her with big eyes.

  "Don't worry about it~." Sophia lightly waved her hand, and while she sounded playful, something in her voice made it more than clear that his only option was to definitely not worry about it.

  “I-I see.”

  “It will give you a massive headache, but it’s a good thing.” The blonde shifted her attention to the king again. "A headache is a small price to pay for the betterment of the kingdom, is it not? Especially if I can heal it in a fraction of a second afterward.”

  “Go on.” Menzor hung his head as there was nothing he could say there.

  "First of all, I need Nathan to continue traveling the kingdom.” She briefly looked at the prince next to her before facing the king once more. “I want to put him in charge of placing my portals in notable cities. To make it easier on him and you, I’ll provide Nathan and his group with their own private portal to the castle so they can return whenever they want and or are needed for prince duties or whatever.”

  “Nathan already informed me that he wants to continue traveling, and while I'd like him to stay, it’s not for me to decide.” The king glanced at his son. “Him being able to return at will, just like you, Anna, and the others do all the time, certainly would be a big help.”

  "Her extremely generous offer was the reason for me to decide to continue traveling so quickly, too." Nathan looked back at him. “I want to be more involved in ruling the kingdom. It seems like I missed a lot.” He briefly glanced at the blonde during the last part. “There’s still so much more left I want to explore, though. I’m very grateful to Sophia for making it possible for me to do both."

  “You also wouldn’t be here yet without her, so it’ll work out just fine.” The king nodded a few times. “How is that going to work out, though? Nathan placing the portals in the cities he visits, that is. Aren’t you the only one who can create those portals?"

  “Creating, yes. Activating, no.” Sophia smiled at him. “Everyone whom I allow to can open the portals I provide them with. In theory, you could also open the deactivated portals, as the hub isn’t done yet, to the cities I visited so far.” She then scratched her cheek while shifting her gaze between the king and the prince. “There’s a bit of a catch, though. Opening them takes a bit of magic power. The two of you barely have enough power for it. You need to pour your entire magic power to open the portal big enough to walk through it.”

  “That much?!” The two got loud.

  "A premium product costs a premium price~.” The blonde let out a small chuckle.

  “I guess so.” Menzor could accept that.

  “You don’t have to worry about being handicapped with your travels, though.” Sophia then smiled at the prince. “The portal for you to return to the capital will need significantly less power because it works in a different way, but I’ll get to that later.”

  “Oh, that’s reassuring!” Nathan looked relieved over that. “How does all of this work logistically, though? How do I get those closed portals? How exactly do I activate them? How do they even look in the first place?”

  “That’s where those come into play~.” Saying so, the blonde reached into her storage, pulled out two small wooden boxes, placed them on the desk, and opened them. Inside were ten differently colored keys, each with a matching pair in the other box. “I felt like making them a little fancy, so I went to a key smith earlier today and bought a bunch of them.”

  “Uhh…?” Menzor and Nathan looked a little confused.

  “I’ve enchanted all those keys with my portal magic, and every pairing of the same color is linked to each other, so it's easy to see which belong to each other. I felt like using a key to open a gate, which is basically a door to somewhere else, would make sense and make it seem more official or something like that.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “It certainly has a professional feel to it.” The king reacted with a nod. “It will be slightly easier to explain, too.”

  “How exactly do they activate?” Nathan curiously looked at the two boxes.

  "There really isn't much to explain." Saying so, Sophia grabbed a dark blue key from one of the boxes, and a moment later, a pink-and-purple portal frame roughly the size of a door appeared next to her. “You just pick them up and think about opening a portal. It’s relatively similar in feel to using a magic oven where you also pour your power into, just that it takes a lot more." She then grabbed the same color key from the other box, and a second portal appeared right next to the previous one. Both then opened, and each showed the room they were in inside their frame. "They automatically connect to each other once both are activated."

  “That certainly seems easy enough.” The prince agreed with her. “If you can call anything you do easy, that is.”

  “I’ll just pretend I understood all this, but I’m still not really sure why you want Nathan to take over your portals, though?” Menzor looked at the blonde with a confused expression. “You, Anna, and the others aren’t done with traveling already, are you?”

  "Absolutely not." She vigorously shook her head.

  “So, it’s more of an effort to reach more cities? With Nathan and you taking different routes?”

  “Ehh.” Sophia scratched her cheek. “I’ll still be placing at least one portal when we get to Maya’s hometown, an outpost city bordering the monster country, but afterward, we won't be visiting any other cities for a good while. That's the reason I want Nathan to continue doing it in my stead."

  “Why aren’t you going to visit any more cities after you reach the outpost right next to the monster country?” Menzor needed a second to think about it. “No.”

  “Yes~.” The blonde smiled at him. "I've been there before, and if you're strong, it's really not much of a special place. In fact, it’s rather boring. There simply aren’t any monsters that could take on our group, so they won’t even try. If you’re worried about Anna, you still know whose daughter Chloe is, right?” She remembered how Mira had met the royal family and told them about Chloe. “Do you think she’d let anything or anyone hurt the group her daughter’s traveling with?”

  “You’re insane.” Nathan had no better word for her.

  “Haa…” The king let out a sigh as he massaged his temples. There was nothing he could say, though. “Why are you going there, though? You just said yourself that it’s boring there.”

  “We’re just traveling through it because it’s the shortest route to our actual destination."

  “Hmm?” Menzor looked even more confused. “The monster country is completely surrounded by the ocean, and the only land border is with our kingdom. There’s nothing on this continent where crossing that place would be a shortcut for.”

  “Nothing on this continent, yes.” Sophia smirked at him.

  “W-What are you planning?” The king had a bad feeling about this, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

  “We’re going to the demon continent~!” Her smirk turned into an excited grin. "The coast of the monster country just is closest to it, so we don't have to cross too much ocean."

  “WHAT?!” Naturally, both male tigers got extremely loud.

  “Ehehe.” The blonde liked their reaction. “Does anyone want some souvenirs while we’re there?”

  “What do you even mean?!” Menzor stared at her with wide-open eyes. “Going to the demon continent?!”

  “Yup!” She kept nodding. “Well, technically, we sail there, but you get what I mean.”

  “No, I really don’t!” He rapidly shook his head.

  "You don't just head over to the demon continent! The ocean’s full of monsters!” Nathan was just as shocked. “Do you have any idea how many have tried and never returned?!”

  “As I said before, I’m not concerned about monsters because they can’t hurt any of us. I can literally punch a dragon and send him flying to a different place without him being able to scratch me, you know?"

  “W-Why does that sound so… specific?” Menzor’s expression turned even more complicated.

  “Do you really want to know?” Sophia just looked back at him.

  “…”

  “There are so many instances of expeditions trying to reach the demon continent, and no one ever returned. Even if monsters aren’t a problem for you, there are still many more dangers.” Nathan chose to ignore the implications of her having punched a dragon before.

  “The worst that could happen to us is to get lost on the open sea.” Sophia shrugged. “If that happens, I'll just open a portal that brings us back home. Our boat sinks? Portal back home. Out of food? Shopping trip to the capital with my portals!"

  “Hah.” The prince had yet to get used to her ridiculousness.

  “Also, why is everyone assuming that just because no one came back, it automatically means they all died while trying to get there?” Sophia tilted her head.

  “What other reason could there be?” Menzor didn’t understand the question.

  “Maybe they just liked it there better and just didn’t want to come back? Like, was there ever an official task to go there and return with information?"

  “Uhh, that’s…” He wasn’t sure what to say. “There never was an official mission because we deemed it to be too dangerous.”

  “You remember Aura, right? My female wolf friend.” She looked at the king again. “She has been to the demon continent and has returned. Do you know what she also told me? There are a bunch of fellow beastfolk living there.”

  “WHAT?!” Menzor jumped off his chair. “Is this true?!”

  “There’s no reason for her to lie, is there?” Sophia just looked at him. “Naturally, I’ll also make sure of that myself once I get there. After all, I’m also quite curious about that~.”

  “I can’t believe this…” He slowly slumped back down on his chair.

  “Alright, with this, let’s get to the part where I wanted to discuss politics with you~.” The blonde smiled at him.

  “HUH?!” The king got loud once more. “What was all this, then?!”

  “Logistics.” She gave him a thumbs-up.

  “I’m concerned.” Menzor let out another sigh. “Go on.”

  “We’re going to the demon continent. Full stop. When Aura was there, she was also in the service of the demon queen for a while because she helped them with a small problem.” The blonde made a slight pause. "We’ll very likely be meeting said queen when we’re there, too. Does the king of the beastfolk have an interest in meeting the demon royalty of another continent to form whatever relationship between the races with the use of my portals?”

  Hearing this extremely loaded and even more important question, Menzor froze for a moment because this topic required some serious thinking. He even decided to call for all available ministers and advisors to go through every pro and con of this suggestion. Naturally, Sophia didn't want anything to do with that and instead decided to kidnap Nathan for another one of her tours.

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