Chapter 24: A Different Nation

Air Nest, Capital City, Glorian Empire.

'What the hell is this place?' Leo was really shocked when he had observed the place through the glass pane of his cabin as they landed at the Space Station.

He really didn't have words to describe this place.

The place had a lot of vegetation around and Leo had even managed to catch the sight of the evolved fauna species out open in the forest roaming around.

Wasn't that dangerous? Did these people lived like early humans?

On Earth, they either put these evolved species in zoos or wildlife sanctuaries. After all, even the cuter one of these guys could chomp of the dinosaurs.

When Leo asked Aaron about it, he just laughed it out. It seemed Glorian's really cared for natural balance in the environment so they had left most of the natural species untouched. And yes there were occasional problems with these dangerous animals running around but they had their Wildlife rangers to deal with it.

Aaron suddenly realized that Leo was lacking much more knowledge than he initially thought him to have. He was basically no different than a foreigner visiting the place for the first time. Hence, he decided to give a quick intro about Gloria as they waited to get off the Spaceship.

Leo was baffled after listening Aaron talk about Gloria. He knew some of the stuff but most of it was new to him and yet he somehow felt all of it to be familiar as if he had this kind of conversation before. But no matter what he did, he couldn't recall it all.

The Alien geography and politics of Gloria was really different then the one that Leo had seen on earth. Gloria wasn't a Democracy but a Monarchy and it seemed that every thing that came under the Glory Way Galaxy was the part of its Empire.

He had heard that the Gloria's Emperor, Regan G. Lynchfield, was a good friend of Edgar Silver and was a fellow comrade in the raid team 30 years ago. He was the Long ranger of the team and was named the Ranged Hero due to his specialization in long ranged weapons.

His Mech was definitely a beauty and it honestly didn't look like one made for a male pilot.

The Mech was named Artemis and was renowned for having the best sniping support system built in.

"Let's go," Aaron suddenly said when it was time to get off for them and slowly led the way while Leo nervously followed behind him.

…

'Huh?' Leo was surprised to see that no one from his family was here. He had expected a drama on this Space Station to begin with. Why was it so quiet now?

"Its not that they don't want to come, its just that them coming out would be a disaster for you," Aaron said seeing Leao's expression and then pointed towards the people in the distance. "Those paparazzis there are ready to capture any drama. There are already rumors going around that you ran away. If anyone comes here then that would be kinda confirming it. And you will be out in the paper again being turned into a joke by some scheming guy."

"I have just stepped in this place and people are already scheming against me? What did I do?" Leo was really speechless.

"This is what it means when you are the part of Aristocracy. Since they can't do anything to father due his strength and fame, they would find other ways to attack him." Aaron shook his head and sighed.

Well, it seemed that this was something which came with wealth, fame and power. It wasn't so uncommon back on Earth as well but Leo had never got a taste of it.

"But still, they got me in this bandages and a missing arm. Are you sure it won't affect anything?" He couldn't help but ask while pointing at his missing arm and Aaron's face flinched.

"Yeah, the accident can't be hidden for sure," He said with a nod before sighing, "And I still haven't informed anyone about it."

Aaron really didn't know how to say it to them. This guy just didn't ran away but even managed to lose his memories and left arm at the top of it.

Aaron really felt an headache thinking about what was going to happen when they would return, "I bet Mom would have come running here if she knew about your condition.."

"Most moms are creature like that after all and I am sure your Mom is the same.." Leo replied with a smile while inwardly thinking if his mom was the same or not? Did she even knew he was alive?

"What do you mean my mom? She is yours too," Aaron said with a frown pulling Leo back from his thoughts.

"I said I am not Aiden," Leo denied it.

Aaron opened his mouth to retort but knew it was futile.

The two soon arrived out to the streets and Leo was once again surprised to see strange animals out there with people riding on them.

Just what in hell was wrong with this place?

There were no cars and bikes on the street too.

"Don't look so surprised. In Gloria when children reached 18, they are given a pet by their parents. Its a tradition to allow one to understand what it meant to taken someone's responsibility." Aaron said as he noticed the surprised look on Leo's face.

'Right!" Leo remembered seeing some weird survey results on Galactic Net showing that Gloria was the nation with most pets around in one family.

"And you won't find any vehicle on the streets. The streets are here used for short distances travel and also for riding on your animal companion." Aaron further said with a smile.

"What kind of rule is this? What will people do if they are in a hurry?"

"If you really are in hurry then take it to the sky," Aaron said pointing above when something zoomed past a few hundreds of metes above them at an terrifying speed.

Leo looked above and his eyes widened. He had only heard about it but it was his first time seeing flying cars. Back on Earth he had heard that a few nations were successful in making it and Earth was among them too but it was too expensive to be of actual use as most people wouldn't be able to afford it.

And for a few people it really was going to be a huge expenditure to create an entire system from scratch just to manage these flying vehicles and all related things with them like, Air traffic, Pathways, accidents, insurance, rules and many more.

Besides, they already had cars running on the street and then there were Light Speed Circle for fast long distance transport and hence the project was called off due to lack of feasibility. But now here…

"This place is really different." Leo was really feeling uncomfortable, he might have been enjoying it if he was a tourist but he clearly wasn't one.

"We are not humans. If you want to relate us to human then you are in wrong. Even though we look the same, we have different history and have followed different developmental path. Still, after such a long time, I guess the differences are shrinking with Universalization and Free trade at its peak." Aaron's words were indeed true. Each race had affected one another and this had led to exchange of new technologies and knowledge from one another. "But, you still need to remember to differentiate between two races because what you think is normal for one might not be the same for other."

Leo understood what he meant. Each species had different style of living and history. What is a certain given to one, can be unreasonable to other. So Leo had to be careful or he would be treated as a mad man or rebel.

"Come on, our ride is here," Aaron said as he walked towards one of stationed semi sphere shaped like vehicle with a flat bottom. That thing was levitating an inch above the ground.

As the two got inside, Leo was surprised to see that it had the control system with A.I. support. And obviously it was indeed strictly for support as there was still a steering for driver to handle.

"Do we head back straight at home Master Aaron?" The driver asked looking at the two. His eyes seemed to have stopped when he saw Leo's missing arm and then looked at Aaron.

"Just take us home," Aaron replied with a sigh and his expression said it all to the driver.

On the way, Leo kept his head out and observed the place to the best of his ability.

It seemed it exactly wasn't like Earth in terms of infrastructure, but the air was fresher here and there were no huge sky scrapers around. Instead the luxurious business houses and public offices seemed to conduct their work on those mansions and castle like structure according to Aiden. But it reminded Leo's earth's history books, as structure like those didn't exist anymore on earth.

But apparently, it was the norm here as these people were used to such type of houses.

But Leo didn't know if these old relics were the same from inside as well as they had been shown in his books.

"We are here, Master Aaron.."

And it seemed that they had finally arrive back home.