The North Sea's dawn held a perpetual bleak desolation, as if it could freeze one's soul. Thick gray clouds hung low over the water, almost blending into the heaving leaden waves. This was a forbidden land for magi—the last vestige of the Age of Gods: the domain of the Wandering Sea.
Even the most advanced radar became mere scrap metal here, emitting only empty static. Not even seagulls lingered long in these waters, above which a massive crimson ship hovered quietly within the thick fog. From its engine nozzles glowed a faint, steady light, turning the surrounding mist a strangely warm hue.
"Aren't we there yet?" Goredolf shivered on deck beneath the Asteria-class's windbreaks, bundled tightly into the spare army uniform Steve had kindly lent him. The buffer did little against the bone-deep cold as he gritted his teeth. "Fog everywhere! Where is the entrance to the Wandering Sea? Are we supposed to jump in and swim?!"
"Please calm down, Director." Though clearly nervous, Mash stood in front of Ritsuka, saying, "Steve brought us here for a reason—there must be a solution."
"A solution? Of course!"
Steve strode to stand before the group, his bright red uniform a brilliant splash against the gray vista. With a self-assured smile, he exuded the air of a man in complete control.
"The Shadow Border is too large to directly board at the Wandering Sea's entrance, and besides… it would hardly be gentlemanly to leave all the ladies freezing while the gateway opens."
As he spoke, the self-proclaimed hero from the future surprised everyone with his next action.
Reaching to his waist, he dug into what looked for all the world like a drab, childish, white clamshell pocket.
Ritsuka blinked. That pocket… It looked awfully familiar.
"Uh—Steve?" Ritsuka ventured hesitantly. "Is that pocket… could it be—"
"Heh, just watch." Steve gave no answer. Instead, as if performing a magic trick, he slowly drew from his palm-sized pocket… a door.
Yes—a door. Plain, old-fashioned, painted pink, like something out of a children's cartoon.
Thud—the door landed squarely on the deck. Standing upright without any visible brace, it seemed to defy physics in the ocean breeze.
A deathly hush fell over the deck. Even the ever-composed Sherlock Holmes nearly dropped his pipe in shock, eyebrows raised. Da Vinci Lily's mouth hung open, her tablet's datastream forgotten.
"This… this is…" Ritsuka pointed at the door, voice trembling. The name was right on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't say it aloud.
"This is one of my treasures—a spatial transfer portal." Steve announced with a perfectly straight face, his sunglasses glinting. "It's a portable space-folding device developed in the future to solve the problem of long-distance commuting."
"Just picture your destination in your mind, open the door, and you're instantly there."
"Liar!" Ritsuka finally couldn't hold back. "That's totally the Anywhere Door! It has to be! And why is it pink? Have future aesthetics regressed a century?!"
"Ahem…" Steve coughed strategically. "This design is just a homage to ancient cultural heritage. As for its functions—as omnipotent as it may look, it's actually highly limited."
He raised a finger, switching to a more serious tone (though his explanations remained just as nonsensical).
"Due to causality constraints and magical energy limits, this door can only open to locations within a 10 kilometer radius that I've visited and recorded already. In other words, it's just a short-range tactical transport option—nothing that could replace a long-range vessel like the Shadow Border or certainly this near-lightspeed Asteria-class battleship."
This was a lie.
As a reincarnated being who possessed both phenomenal wisdom, this door was, in truth, a causality-defying artifact that could span ten light-years, bypassing barriers of space itself. If Steve wanted, he could open a door and send everyone back to the moment before Chaldea's explosion—or transport them straight into the heart of the Alien God's lair.
But he didn't.
For that would be far too boring.
Just as the greatest king Gilgamesh, who once owned the glorious Vimana: a conceptual-class vehicle that could outrun light itself, yet chose to slow it to subsonic speed when dogfighting a humble F-15 piloted by Lancelot—inefficient, yes, but romantic and fierce. And as in the movie, he crashed due to a rogue wave.
It was about process. If everything could be solved with the Anywhere Door, what point would there be in the Shadow Border, avatar of Chaldea's hope and sweat, or this cool spaceship manifested just for them?
The journey is everything. Only after hardship does the destination mean anything.
Instant teleportation to clear the level—that's for cheat-code players. Steve wanted to experience life.
He'd already provided the Chaldea group plenty of stress relief support; if the narrative relaxed much more, it'd turn into a children's movie.
"I see…" Ritsuka breathed a sigh of relief after hearing that rationally nerfed version explanation. "If it really was a god-item that could go anywhere, we wouldn't need to fear the Alien Gods in the first place."
"Exactly. Too much dependence on tools just stunts human potential." Steve nodded, as if imparting wisdom to a young child. "Alright, the door is set up. Please, go on through."
He grasped the pink doorknob and turned it gently.
Click.
Beyond the door was not the misty North Sea, but a brightly lit hallway lined with white tiles, humming with the atmosphere of technology and magic. Familiar lighting, the unique drone of the air purifiers, and on the wall, Chaldea's iconic logo…
"This… this is…" Mash's pupils shrank, her shield sagging. Instinct took over; she stepped forward, passing through the pink door. The instant her feet touched the solid corridor floor, tears streamed down her face. Chaldea…?
"No, this is a base deep within the Wandering Sea," Sion entered behind her, smiling. "Originally, it was just a ruined mage workshop and cave, but with Steve's… well, sneaky future construction techniques actually he used Engineering Robots, the inner structure of Old Chaldea was faithfully recreated in no time."
One after another, the group entered. Goredolf, certain of his doom, sprinted through with eyes closed, but found himself not in the ocean, but in a spring-like, warmly lit corridor—he nearly collapsed with relief.
"Thank goodness… we're saved."
"—Welcome to New Chaldea."
Last of all, Steve stepped inside, then tucked the pink door back into his four-dimensional pocket.
Ritsuka's eye twitched involuntarily at the sight.
Steve spread his arms as if unveiling a masterpiece.
"Here you'll find the familiar control room, a fully equipped infirmary, the canteen where the microwave always used to fill with smoke, and your individual rooms—all recreated in one-to-one detail."
He approached Mash, searching out the ever-anxious demi-servant girl. "Right now, I bet a home like this, rather than some grand unfamiliar palace, is what you would find most reassuring?"
Mash looked around. The familiar white walls, the scent of the air. Reason told her she was now tens of thousands of kilometers away in the Wandering Sea, but inside, her emotions screamed: We're home.
The rootless sense of drifting that had weighed on her like duckweed, her deep fear, melted away like spring ice.
"Yes… yes." Mash looked up, eyes brimming with peaceful tears, and gave Steve a radiant smile—the first he'd seen from her since they'd gone into hiding.
"It feels… just like Chaldea."
"Thank you, Steve."
"Don't mention it." Steve waved and started down the hall. "Alright, I bet you're all dead tired. The rooms are ready, the baths are hot."
"Take a shower, get some sleep first. We'll talk about saving the world after you wake up."
Watching the red-clad man recede, Ritsuka let out a deep breath.
The man called Steve was mysterious to the core: owner of strange devices, fond of cryptic speeches, and delighting in small acts of theatricality—
But that day, on the first hopeless day of the new year, he'd given them what they wanted most—a place to belong.
—A place to call home.