Limitless

"Are you sure about leaving?"

Saki reached out and accepted my handshake. Her gaze was sharp but understanding. We had all been through quite a lot.

After defeating the Architect, I had bonded with the Earth as a replacement core for revival. But somehow, I was spit back out. I found myself climbing out of some waters near the city that the Architect, now simply 'Joe', had created. Sistina and he were surprised that I had sudden reappeared so soon, as my companions had only just left the day before.

Contacting a similarly surprised Katalina, she scanned the Earth and discovered that there was something sleeping deep within that had taken my place. At that point, all I could do was head back to Leguardia via summoning circle and continue to monitor the situation.

Six months had passed since the fate of the planets turned for the better.

"Yeah, there's not really any point being grounded to a king-less and queen-less country, now is there? Particularly for Katalina, there's so much that we want to check out, now that an entire world is free game for exploration."

Since the kingdom of Sistina had ran perfectly fine in the absence of the king and queen, Katalina made the decision for both of us to abdicate the throne, now that the dangers had passed. With my prompting, we declared an open government with publicly elected officials – the start of a new age for a new world.

"Still, I'm surprised that you would just run off after seeing that new leaders were put in place."

"Ha ha, that's just how much faith we have in them."

As for who stepped forward… the popularity of the debonair Cornelius von Reichenstein stole the hearts of the people by a long shot. She was now the newly-elected prime minister of Sistina. Katalina was more than happy to hand over the reins to her, so she could focus on dissecting each of the ancient sites and all of their treasure troves of lost technology. I had no choice but to follow along, promising my heart to her. Someone had to make sure she remembered to eat between all the science.

"I had expected that you would've joined our exploration crew. After all, the world is so much larger now. Since normal people can set foot upon the once Forbidden Lands, everyone is eager to see what treasures await."

"Well, I did see quite a few nice places, you know. If we piece together the different sites with the rest of Leguardia, the world is going to change super fast."

Saki smacked me on the back.

"Not everyone has seen it all like you have. Try not to spoil everything for us."

I looked out toward the horizon. The numerous sites that had continued to operate in isolation would soon collide with an expanding civilization that was no longer bound. Even if the people there were reproductions, that didn't mean that their lives were any less real. After all, they didn't even know that they were manufactured. And from outside appearances, everyone was just 'human'.

"They are waiting for us out there. There's no reason to abandon them simply because they were created for the purpose of handling us Electi. Once we get ahold of the lost tech and after some time, the lines between us will blur. Just like how no one notices Chrys's ears, people will stop caring about any differences. We'll all become one people in the future. Let's make sure of that."

I turned to Saki and patted her head. She gave me a pout for treating her like a kid and took a swing at me. Her fist clocked me right in the face, causing me to turn with it. However, it didn't hurt nearly as much as before.

"You're lucky that our powers are no longer with us. A swing that hard would have sent you through the outer wall."

"Thank goodness that our levels are still intact. That punch would've still killed a low-level grunt."

"Who was it that said not to hold back anymore?" Saki stuck her tongue out at me.

"Now, now. You best run along now before someone catches us 'flirting' and tattles to Rika on you."

"Hmph." Saki spun around and walked a few steps before turning back. "Take care, okay? Though, I doubt anything has that much of a chance against you."

I waved as the former Electi of Attack walked back toward the city center, now shouldering the responsibilities of forming a coalition to expand outward. Rika and she were eager to return to the site that was once their home. They had plans to restore Site 304, the place of their memories, by cleaning up the tragedy that had once taken place there. From there, they would finally be able to move on together.

In fact, Saki was the only one to see me off as the others were already incredibly busy with their roles. Though Ludmila had lost the ability to stop time, she could still move like a blur, making her an invaluable scout for exploration.

Lamps had taken over the research division of Sistina, sending the girl out to retrieve various things that piqued his interest while scanning the world with his drones. Ludmila was in charge of training new scouts as well, with many recruits such as Gwendolyn and Orwitz. I sighed as I took notice of Orwitz following her along with bright eyes. I had an inkling of what was going on there….

Speaking of training, Lau was back to recruiting people for the family dojo. Jiro and Lau were making up for lost time. Not to mention, they had younger bodies to deal with all the techniques that they had gained over time.

I wondered briefly what they would do about the apparent age difference between Lau and Kanade, but apparently, the Kinkou family had a secret technique that reversed aging by a few decades. They simply didn't have a need for it until now… aside from the few times that Lau used it momentarily to give himself a quick boost in strength. Being 'old' was apparently an identity that he refused to give up. I wondered what other secrets their techniques held.

As for aging, Chrys and Yi Long had experienced some of that for themselves, returning as teenagers instead of elementary school kids. That meant they were old enough to go exploring like they had done in the dream world. With the innovation of a compact, mobile workshop – thanks to Katalina combining spatial distortion magic with cauldron shenanigans – they could bring their stage and their bakery with them on their world tour.

I had to shake my head at the ridiculousness of the concept, but apparently, another companion had similarly weird plans.

Koujiro and his wives had returned to Macali, but they formed a platoon of mobile suits to aid in the exploration, doubling as defensive measures for any hostiles.

"What hostiles?" I asked them.

Koujiro smiled and pointed up to the stars. It seemed like they weren't going to simply stop at exploring Leguardia. They were eyeing the expanses of space as well.

"Great… you're forming a 'Space Force'," I said with a facepalm. "What's next? A 'wall' around the planet?'

The most normal of my friends were Wen Lu and Wen Zhi, who were simply homebound now as they catered to the whims of an expecting Kaguya. And as it so happened… it was going to be twins! I had heard that twins made the likelihood of twins stronger, but it was funnier to joke about how the two even 'competed' with being the father of Kaguya's first child and both won out.

All in all, everything was rapidly changing around us. With no more strange gods looming over our destinies, it was now up to us to move forward with what we wanted this world to be.

I exited the city gate, gave the guards a final salute, and walked briskly out onto the open road. Not far from the gate was a parked vehicle, the Jeep that Katalina rebuilt from some junkyard. The inventor poked her head from the driver seat, seeing me finally catch up.

While we could have gone to any site instantly via portal, there was no urgency to do so. For once, we could leisurely ride wherever we wanted – without being on the run from the kingdom, without mobilizing to battle, and with no real agenda but to simply enjoy ourselves.

"You kept me waiting!" Katalina grumbled as she gave me a pout.

I smiled at her, knowing that she was far too used to moving things along.

"If I don't slow you down somehow, the world will change overnight."

"My successes aren't instantaneous, they are built-"

"Upon failures. I know. I know." I had seen more than anyone the hard work that she put into her creations, never giving up on making the impossible. I had learned quite a bit of her tenacity because of that. Touching my eyes, I knew that I'd need it more than ever now.

Sensing what my issue was, Katalina questioned.

"Do you miss having the ability to solve your problem in an instant?"

She reached over and stroked my cheek, staring into the set of eyes that could no longer see the weaknesses of this world. I had lost my 'Eyes of Providence'. Just like how the others had lost their Electi skills.

"That just means that I have to learn how to fight properly then."

However, the curse of having near-zero attack and magic seemed to disappear with it. Although my stats were still low for my level, I discovered that equipping weapons now affected them. And training allowed for those values to increase like anyone else.

"Mhm, I have faith in you."

"I'll protect you, regardless of special powers or not… but I kind of doubt that you would really need any help defending yourself. At this point, you could totally destroy me."

Katalina had been able to go toe-to-toe with most of the Electi, even without special abilities of her own. The tools that she made were just that powerful, and they even helped us out of tough situations. I had to work hard to catch up to her level now.

"Then, we would be even for all the times that I've had to sit on the sidelines while you fought. The 'Hero of Leguardia' can sit back while others create legends of their own."

"So says the 'Queen of Spatial Domination'…"

"DO. NOT. CALL. ME. THAT!"

I had to laugh as Katalina often seemed to get weird names attached to her. This time, it was due to how easily she could zip around the world with her portals. Not to mention, she could dominate an opponent by fully controlling the space around them with that. She was so annoyed by that title that she had chosen to retire such convenient measures, unless it was an emergency. People still had their 'gates' to fast travel though, so it was enough.

"Shall we move out then? In a 'normal and casual' way." I plopped down in the passenger seat and decided to relax.

"If you can call this contraption 'normal'. I recall you mentioning how ridiculous it was for a self-propelled vehicle from your modern era being used upon such a 'fantasy' world."

"That was a Hummer. This is a Jeep. There's a difference," I joked.

Katalina shook her head, the wisecrack lost on her. She turned the ignition and let the engine hum.

"Where to, Claude?"

I thought for a moment before feeling something poking me in my pants pocket. Pulling it out, the glimmer of a hair clip shown in my hand. I raised it in the air, pointing the ornament at the sky.

"Earth, maybe?"

"As if I could drive there- though maybe, I could attach some rockets to it…."

I could see gears starting to whirl in her head at the thought. I chuckled as I reached over and stopped her imagination with a kiss on the lips. After I was sure that her plans had been thrown into the back seat, I pulled back.

"If you really want to, then sure. The sky's the limit. Actually, even beyond that. Let's go wherever we want. I know we can reach it together."

Slowly, the Jeep sped off. Down the road and past the forests. Into familiar lands and out into the unknown.

The journey was ours to make now. However we wanted to measure its success – that was up to us to decide.