“Feels like just a month ago when I wore something as formal as this,” Aziz muttered, pulling on his suit.

“When you’re swamped in paperwork, time flies, eh?” Marie rolled her eyes, only to shake her head. “It’s like peaceful times pass so much faster. It’s been nine months since the Conference of the Four ended, and so many holidays just slipped us by.”

“Sad that we didn’t do anything for the new year, though.” The colonel sighed. “But at least I’m a full colonel now.”

“But you haven’t collected your pay yet.”

“We’ll still be friends if you don’t bring that up,” Aziz shot back. “You never did find time to go down to Accounting with me, remember? I don’t know who’s having fun at my expense, but last I checked, there was a solid vault of bronze coins waiting for me to bring back.”

“Bronze coins?” Marie covered her mouth. “Why?”

“How would I know?” Aziz retorted. His words, laced with emotion, drew a few curious glances as they approached the boundary between Lower and Upper Elysium. The colonel felt for the invitation letter that Vasily had issued, and touched it lightly. Although they had been assured that producing their identification documents would allow them entry into Upper Elysium, Aziz had done his own homework about the place.

Upper Elysium was the place of the rich and the famous…of the entire Five Lands. As an illustration, the average net worth of people in Lower Elysium was slightly higher than the upper-class in the capital cities of the other nations. Upper Elysium, on the other hand, had an average net worth that was double that of the inhabitants of Lower Elysium, which just went to show how insanely rich the people who lived there were.

The things here were sold with gold coins as the basic currency, which was a huge source of distress for Aziz. A sour taste entered his mouth as that thought flashed through his mind, and he turned his attention away from the little things that had distracted him.

“Anyway,” said Marie, “just look important and act important. As far as I know, passage between Lower and Upper Elysium doesn’t require identification. They only pick out suspicious-looking fellows.”

“I’ve been stopped at the gates of Interregnum many times,” Aziz replied.

“That’s different. The informal culture of human profiling is exclusive to the Republic, so you shouldn’t face this treatment—”

“Excuse me, ma’am, sir.” A guard walked up and saluted. “You two have been selected for a random check.”

Aziz shot a glance that said ‘You were saying?’ at Marie, rolling his eyes a few times for good measure to rub it in. Following the overly-apologetic guard into a small outpost, she began to ask them for their identification and purpose, which the pair promptly produced.

She let out a little hiss as she looked at the documents the two soldiers had produced for her, and Aziz smiled weakly in reply. The status of Republic personnel in the North had been upgraded to that of a low-level diplomat after a bunch of wrangling during the Conference of the Four, but this was the first time that it had been put into practice.

“Ma’am, sir…”

“I am well aware that there has been little actual precedent with regards to the entry of personnel hailing from the signatories of the Friendship and Mutual Co-existence Treaty,” Marie replied gently. “And more importantly, we are here to visit someone sitting up high on the totem pole. Any ceremony will delay us.”

“I-in that case, I’ll report your arrival to my superiors and let you two through first,” said the guard.

Marie nodded. “Thank you.”

“I apologise for the delay, ma’am.”

“No worries.”

Leading the two of them out, the guard whispered a few words to a middle-aged man, whose eyes widened slightly. After scribbling down some notes, he waved the two of them through, drawing a few eyes to both Aziz and Marie.

“Looks like we’re going to be popular now,” Aziz muttered. “Everyone’s wondering if we’re big shots or something.”

“We are technically big shots,” Marie replied. She was about to add on another quip when she fell silent, and Aziz understood why a moment later. It wasn’t just a physical boundary that divided Upper Elysium from Lower Elysium; there was a drastic change in atmosphere too. A silence so oppressive that it seemed to be somewhat physical had taken root in Upper Elysium, something that made the colonel unwilling to even entertain the notion of speaking loudly.

“What’s with this…pressure?” Aziz whispered to Marie.

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “It’s incredibly intense, though. It might be the effect of an artefact or something.”

“A Zeroth Armament meant to make everyone shut up?” Aziz asked back in a whisper. “Does that even make sense?”

“How about you think of an answer yourself then, smartass,” Marie replied. “Point being, I don’t know anything about this. Let’s put this aside for now. We need to hurry up, or else we’ll be a tad late.”

Aziz glanced at the invitation in his hand, which had initially directed them to…a small house near the gates that divided Upper Elysium from Lower Elysium. There was only one problem — no such house existed. The colonel glanced at the invitation once more, and was about to pass it over to Marie when the words on it shifted.

“Looks like this invitation is an artefact,” he whispered to Marie. “We’ve received new directions.”

Marie looked at the invitation’s new instructions and narrowed her eyes slightly. “The guards of the Mortal Light Republic are quite special, aren’t they?”

“Maybe.” Aziz looked at the invitation, which said ‘Show this to the guards at Twilight Elysium’, and wasn’t sure what to make of it. There was little he could do, however, save for following instructions, and as a soldier, that was his speciality. Shuddering from the glances others were sending his way, Aziz pulled Marie along as they headed to the area with the largest number of tall buildings.