Everything Is Under Control

At the summit of the Red Line, the holy land, Mariejois.

If someone could turn their memories back twenty years and compare the holy land of then with today's, they would surely feel as if they had stepped into another lifetime.

Under Ross's will and the World Government's terrifying construction efforts, poured out with the resources of the entire globe, the Mariejois of today had already transformed into a divine city spanning the whole Red Line.

As the absolute center of world power, the World Government headquarters building had been leveled without the slightest hesitation over the past twenty years, then rebuilt twice in full.

Each time it rose from the ground, it was grander and more magnificent than the last, as if, by piercing straight into the heavens, it meant to proclaim its status as the one true god upon these seas.

Around the main building stood six slightly lower yet equally imposing complexes, clustered around it like stars around the moon. They were the headquarters of the six great departments that controlled the lifeblood of the world.

High-altitude clouds and mist that never dispersed all year round coiled around the waists of these beasts of steel and glass. Under the refracted sunlight, the entire holy land seemed to drift with immortal air, like a true divine realm in the highest heavens.

This was the stunning sight Makino looked up at the very first moment after Shirahoshi took her hand and led her through the spatial gate.

For a country woman who had spent most of her life without ever taking half a step beyond the borders of the Kingdom of Goa, wiping glasses day after day in a small tavern, the bustling capital of the Kingdom of Goa had already been the limit of her meager imagination.

Yet