(3rd POV)
Layton watched her from a distance, expression grim. He already had his Hellphone out.
"Suspicious individual in the air," he said. "Female, elf. Extremely powerful — she put me down without breaking a sweat. I'd estimate she outranks anyone out of Lunar Kingdom, possibly by a considerable margin." He paused. "Handle this seriously."
The agency moved fast. Layton was a Supreme Mortal — a human elevated by the Sun God's blessing — and his position as Director made that plain. For someone like him to report a loss was not a small thing.
Within ten minutes, the two other Supreme Mortals stationed in Angel City had reached his side. Ali, dark-skinned and broad-shouldered, and Kaya, Layton's secretary, who landed beside him with her jaw already set.
"Three of us," Layton said. "We have a chance."
They didn't.
The results were exactly the same — all three of them blasted back without Saza appearing to put any thought into it, tumbling through the air before catching themselves. They regrouped in bruised silence.
"Boss." Ali's voice was strained. "She's above Supreme Mortal. There's no question."
"We weren't even close," Kaya murmured.
Layton's expression had gone somewhere complicated. In thirty years as Director — and a lifetime of field work before that — he had never stood in front of something he couldn't measure. He was measuring now and coming up with nothing useful.
"Could it be..." he said slowly. "Demi-God level?"
Ali and Kaya went still. But neither of them argued. Given what they had just experienced, it was the only thing that fit.
Layton was eighty years old — past his prime, and he knew it — but he stood at the absolute peak of Supreme Mortal nonetheless, the product of a lifetime spent pushing against his own limits. That he had been swatted aside like an afterthought said everything.
Then Saza appeared before them.
All three tensed, bracing for whatever came next.
"You three," she said, looking them over with mild interest, "are the most powerful people I've encountered since arriving in this world. That means you're probably the most knowledgeable as well." She tilted her head. "Everything here is unfamiliar to me. Be my guides."
Nobody moved for a moment.
Guides?
"If you'd rather not agree," she added pleasantly, "I can simply cast a control spell—"
"We'll do it," Layton said.
Saza blinked. Then a small smile crossed her face. These three had come at her swinging — powerful, for this world, genuinely the best it seemed to have — and still hadn't managed to make her take a single step back. In her world, second-year academy students gave her more resistance.
"You mentioned you're a director of something," she said, looking at Layton. "That should make you a reasonable representative." She tilted her head. "You can introduce me to the things I don't recognize here. Can you do that?"
"O-of course," Layton agreed, the words out before he'd fully thought them through.
'If she truly is a Demi-God, and she truly is from another world as she keeps claiming — and given what I just witnessed, I have no good reason to doubt her — then having her favorably disposed toward us is not nothing. This could be an opportunity.'
Ali and Kaya exchanged a glance and fell into step behind them as the four descended into the city. Layton kept his pace careful and his tone measured, the way he did when he was navigating something he hadn't fully mapped yet.
"Oh — I haven't introduced myself," Saza said as they walked, glancing over her shoulder. "I am Saza Krähmer."
'Saza Krähmer.'
Layton turned the name over quietly. As Director of the EIA, he maintained a working knowledge of every confirmed Demi-God — names, faces, last known locations. A precaution. You didn't want your agents stumbling into one blind.
That name wasn't in any of his records.
'But if she's genuinely from another world entirely... that would explain it.'
He filed it away and said nothing, watching her take in the city around her with the calm, unhurried curiosity of someone who had all the time in the world and knew it.
"What is that small thing people keep holding?" Saza pointed at a passerby gripping a slim rectangular device, speaking into it. "They keep talking to it."
Layton followed her gaze and cleared his throat. "That's called a Hellphone. It allows long-distance communication — you can speak with someone cities away, or send them a written message from anywhere in the world."
Saza stared at it. "That small thing can do all of that?"
Layton, Ali, and Kaya couldn't really fault her reaction. They'd all worn the same face the first time they'd held one.
As they continued down the street, they passed a row of shop fronts, one of which had several televisions mounted in the window display, each showing something different. A small cluster of people had stopped to watch.
"And that box showing images?" Saza asked.
"A television," Kaya said. "It broadcasts dramas, movies, news — whatever the channel is airing."
Saza nodded slowly, filing it away.
She drew stares as they walked. Her robes were centuries out of fashion, and the staff she carried had prompted more than a few people to slow down and look twice, apparently debating whether she was in costume.
"That is a vehicle called a car," Ali said, gesturing at the road.
"And that thing in the sky — is that a metal bird!?"
"An airplane. Carries passengers between nations. Faster than any flying ship."
Saza watched it until it disappeared behind the skyline, then murmured to herself: "Interesting. The people of this world may be weak, but the world itself is far more advanced than mine."
She also noticed the elves. They were everywhere — faces in the crowd, walking the same streets as humans without a second thought. In her world, elves numbered in the dozens across the entire continent. Here they were simply... people.
She stored that away too.
Then her gaze drifted back to the Matrix billboard overhead.
"Where can we watch that movie?" she asked, pointing at it. "I'm curious."
Layton glanced up. "That one? It's been quite popular. You want to see it?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Kaya, go ahead and get tickets. We'll head to the theatre."
"Understood." Kaya peeled off immediately.
'A good choice, pulling these three along,' Saza thought, watching her go. 'Very convenient.'
---
The theatre was dark and cool, the projected screen enormous. Saza sat between Layton and Ali and watched in silence as the film began.
She hadn't expected to feel anything.
By the time it ended, she wasn't entirely sure what she felt — only that something had moved in her that hadn't moved in a very long time.
The concept was staggering. She barely knew what a computer was, but the story hadn't required her to. This world was advanced enough that such a thing was plausible — reasonable, even — and the implications of it had settled into her chest like a stone.
"...So this is a movie," she said, when the lights came back up. Her voice came out quieter than she'd intended.
Layton and the others looked at her. They recognized the expression. Their own first viewings hadn't been far off, though perhaps less dramatic.
As they filed out of the theatre, Saza spoke again, more to herself than anyone.
"That was interesting," she said finally. "Impressive that the people of this world can capture something like memories and let others experience them." She glanced back at the theatre entrance. "And the fact that their world is fake — I'll admit, I was surprised how calmly the audience took that. Sitting there watching it as though it were perfectly ordinary."
Layton and the others nearly choked.
Saza looked at them. "You three don't have anything to say? You're codes — programs — aren't you? Is the real world outside truly that terrible that nobody seems bothered?"
"Lady Saza." Layton's voice came out very carefully. "The film is not real. It is fiction — a story invented entirely to entertain people. This world is not a simulation. We are not programs."
Saza went quiet. Something crossed her face that sat somewhere between surprise and mild embarrassment.
"...It isn't a true story?"