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Early Afternoon - Late Winter : The Coast of Eastern Bahamut

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*WOOSH* Zipping through the upper atmosphere, trying to avoid the dark storm clouds as a blizzard from the south rolled in, Hera and I flew side by while Krystallo sat on my back like Ilios used to.

It had been a number of days since she initially woke up at that point.

After taking an elixir to recover from such a serious injury, it was important that she got accustomed to her new body before we went anywhere, so over the last few days, we had been working on training her, not just physically, but with her magic and aura as well to make sure she wouldn't disintegrate her surroundings or freeze herself the moment her mind drifted.

Unfortunately though, while we made rapid progress, regulating her body's temperature subconsciously was something that was going to take time, and after being cooped up in the tiny beachfront estate for so long, we all needed to stretch our wings.

But it ended up working out. By the time we left, the Festival's monthly city rotation had already passed, and next on our stop was a city I had actually never been to despite the cabinet only being about a thousand kilometers north of it.

Ampelos, the City of Magic.

Compared to Eikasía, it was unbelievably massive, being one of the most populated cities in Bahamut, even surpassing Akri and Emporio, so with the festival, there were going to be all sorts of interesting things to do.

But Krystallo's excitement seemed to stem from something else.

"So what is it?" Popping her head up, she looked up at my face with gleaming eyes. "Can I get a hint? Is it an Acardi artifact? Maybe a gun?!"

Because she was knocked out for so long, we actually missed her birthday, so in the meantime, I made her a gift.

Thankfully she hadn't actually realized it was a gift for her, but after seeing it, she never stopped asking about it. "Could it be something Grandmother gave you? Maybe something for communication.

"Hah..." Letting out a chuckle at her relentless barrage of questions, I glanced directly upward before looking back at her. -I guess I can show her now...- "It's actually your birthday gift. Although I was planning to save it for when we got over Ampelos."

"Ack-" She instantly tensed up.

"Haha, it's okay! It looks like the storm is gonna still be over the city when we get there anyways." Quickly pulling out a tablet with a small device plugged into the bottom of it, I wasted no time powering it on and handing it to Krystallo.

"Huh?" Krystallo's excitement was drowned with confusion in an instant.

"What is this?" Taking it with her aura, she quickly hunched over it, watching as distant clouds moved on the screen with a mix of fascination and disbelief.

"What am I.. looking at..? Is this like.

. an artificial eye? But if that's the case, what is it looking at. .?"

Watching her lift it up and look under it, Hera couldn't contain her laugh. "Pft-hahaha! I guess in a way it is kind of like an eye."

A smile immediately spread across my face. "The device is just a tablet, something like an electronic artifact that I can program to do a bunch of cool stuff, and the moving image playing on it is a 'video' of what another device way up in the sky is seeing."

Her eyes instantly went wide. "That's so coooool!!" Looking back at the screen, her eyes gleamed like stars. "So where is that 'sky eye' looking?"

Nearly bursting out laughing again, Hera moved up over me to look down at it. "You see that black speck on the screen? Pull out that weird needle-like thing out of the bottom and press it to that dot."

"Huh? This?" Quickly pulling out a simple stylus I made with her aura, she gave it an odd look before gently pressing it to the screen.

*Tap* Almost instantly, the image started to zoom.. more.. and more.. and more...

Until the unrecognizable dot hidden beneath the pen expanded and turned into the figure of two dragons stacked on top of one another.

It still took her a moment to realize what she was seeing though.

However, as soon as Hera moved to the side so the satellite could see us better, she went crazy...

"IS THAT US?!" Jumping up to her feet, she spread her wings without a second of thought, eagerly watching the screen before seeing the white shape in the middle of a black figure expand. "WOOAAHHH!!"

Over the time she was knocked out, I had actually been working on trying to get my satellite array in a more functional state, not only working on the satellites themselves, but also improving the tablets and getting more of them hooked up.

At the end of it all, I wanted the Thunderbird Branch of the Cabinet to use the array to improve how they gather intelligence, but after some advice ended up moving the hub to the Foreign Intelligence Branch being captained by Leander.

-Although the area I'm going to install everything will take some time to construct, I've made the switch that will manage all the inputs from the satellites, and gotten way more of them up and running. - So it was now just a matter of time.

But sometimes it wasn't all about things like progress. "THIS IS SO COOL!!!" Seeing Krystallo's excitement as she looked up and waved at the satellite was simply priceless.

The rest of the flight, she never took her eyes off the tablet, zooming in and out as we moved farther and farther from the center of the screen, and eventually asking about why that was happening.

Before I knew it, I was giving a lesson on orbits, gravity, and how the upper atmosphere interacted with space, which, by the end of it, made Krystallo bring up resuming or old nightly lessons again, something Hera was surprisingly eager to join in on.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

However, time continued to tick by as we talked, and before long, we had reached Ampelos.

Even if we couldn't see a whole lot from the sky. "Geez, this is one hell of a snowstorm..." Stretching all the way up to Eikasía, the storm was easily a thousand kilometers long, and it only got thicker and taller the farther south we went.

And below the clouds, it was just as bad as you could imagine. With snow so thick that you couldn't see more than a couple of meters in front of you, there wasn't a single dragon in the air over the city.

At least with the exception of a few that seemed to be coming to and from a rather unusual-looking spire.

"Who are they?" Flying around with purpose, inspecting the clouds while flying out toward the horizon in every direction, my curiosity escaped through my voice.

Hera was quick to speak on them though. "They're a group of dragons that study the weather. They're probably going out and collecting data on the storm to try and give a forecast."

"Oh." -How fascinating...- Looking down as one of them spotted us, I quickly started slowing down before using some wind magic to speak with them. "Hey, is there an issue?"

He quickly slowed to a halt, hovering while keeping his eye on me. "I just wanted to let you know that all air travel in the storm is prohibited. I doubt it will matter to someone of your stature, but if you need guidance to a landing area, I could guide you."

-How kind...- But, "That won't be necessary. Thanks for the offer though."

"No worries!" Getting a little flustered, he bowed his head. "I apologize for interrupting you two! Just wanted to make sure you guys weren't going to get stranded! Please enjoy your time in Ampelos!" Quickly turning away he dove back down to the clouds before resuming his route to the horizon.

"For him to not give an estimate on the storm passing... How odd..." Hera was quick to mumble.

"What's odd about it?"

"Well, normally they give estimates, regardless of how inaccurate they may be, but I guess they stopped giving them out after the storm continued for probably close to a month.

" Looking down at the other dragons flying out, she fell into thought for a moment before turning troubled.

"We might need to go check out what's causing it if it continues much longer.

This kind of storm is.. odd for this time of year. .."

-Is it though..?- Looking out to the horizon, all I could see were dense snow clouds, even out well over the ocean. -I guess we are a bit far north for it to be this cold...- But with the ocean frozen so thick, this place was essentially the arctic.

But Krystallo seemed a little more interested. "What if we look at it with the satellite?"

"Not a bad idea, actually." Giving her a moment to turn on the tablet and zoom out, she rather quickly found that the satellite was over the island just south of us, and while it was indeed all covered by thick snow, to the east, the clouds actually looked to descend all the way to the water, looking more like a plume of steam or smoke than a cloud. -Maybe that is worth checking out...-

But for the time being, we just needed to get situated in the city, so after agreeing that we would check it out after strolling around the city and making sure we weren't going to waste our time investigating it, we made our way to the ground, landing on one of the many designated landing areas that were only visible as a warm orange haze, even as my feet touched the ground.

*Puff* -Good lord, I knew the snow was thick, but damn. ..-

Having to use my aura to even look around while I stood in some nearly 20-meter-thick snow, I felt someone run up to the edge of the landing area before hollering at us. "Sir! Please come this way! We haven't installed the barriers over the plazas and landing areas!"

Quickly following his voice, Hera and I tried to make our way towards the man without kicking snow everywhere before ducking our heads down into what our auras felt was a 'bubble' of sorts.

*Vwoom* But the sight we were met with was completely unlike anything we had ever seen. -Woah...-

Inside the barrier, the space was clear and shockingly bustling, with fire-like lighting, a comforting warmth despite the few centimeters of snow on the ground, and the smell of tasty food filling the air while the blizzard ripped over the rooftops, keeping nearly all the snow out. -How comfy...-

It was as if the entire city was simply draped in a warm blanket, a mesh that connected all the rooftops and made it so hardly anything reached the ground while the streets were lit with glowing orange vents that released warmth into the air like a system of heaters.

"Haha, sorry if it's a little cramped for you guys!" Speaking from below, we quickly looked down to see a group of dragons in their humanoid form, drinking around one of the many vents.

-They must be the guards...- "It's alright.

" Looking out over the city, it looked like fifty meters was as high as the barrier got, so after motioning to Hera, I let Krystallo down to shake off the snow before shrinking down with Hera and going on inside.

"I wasn't sure how things would look from the air, but it looks like you guys are weathering the storm pretty well. "

"Haha, of course!" Throwing his mug in the air for a cheer, the young man stood up and chugged it without even giving Krystallo a glance. "With nearly all air travel restricted, we get paid to drink and socialize! Who wouldn't love it!"

"Hah, are you not worried about running out? It looks like trade has been cut off."

His excitement quickly settled, if only slightly.

"Well, yes, but the weather groups are saying they've identified the source of the storm and will be gathering a group to handle it in a week or so.

Given the city can live isolated for probably another month or so, most of us aren't too worried, but it's made things more troublesome with the festival.

People can only come and go on foot, with local escorts.

" Looking over at Hera, he shrugged. "Or at least most people. " *Sip*

-I see...- "Well, sorry for landing without any notice."

"No worries! We have had a few nobles and executives landing here over the last few days, and they all come and go as they please. We were ordered to still ID people though, if you could show them to us."

And well, after Hera flashed hers at them, they all instantly jolted before jumping up to their feet and bowing. "P-Please forgive our rudeness! We weren't aware of your status and would like to apologize."

Quickly waving them off with my wing, I felt Hera give me an odd look. "~You reached for your Ragnarok ID?~"

"Haah..." Letting out a heavy sigh as I put my ID back under my wing, I looked back at her.

"~The Aesir already know about me and my family connections, so it doesn't really matter.

..~" Thinking back to the day I met the Holy Kingdom's envoy in the Thunderbird's nest, I wanted to bite my tongue.

-The hell was I thinking letting that woman live. ..-

Even when I did it, I knew leaving the apostle alive was going to be a gamble, but if I wanted to win over Elizabeth, I had to hold back.

But as I looked out into the city, letting out another breath to try and change the subject of my thoughts so I wouldn't sour the mood, I really questioned my decision. -I just hope Elizabeth makes that leaked intel worth the trouble...-

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