The dust had yet to settle. This war between Mortal Civilization and the Wasteland Legion was still raging fiercely on the front lines, and no one could say for certain what the future held—but for those with especially keen instincts, its hazy outline had already appeared in their sight.
There were only two possible paths ahead for this world. Either mortals suffered total defeat, in which case the entire Civilized World would vanish and all plans for the future would become meaningless; or humanity won, in which case the once-lifeless wasteland would become a vast, unclaimed territory spanning nearly half the continent, free from the hazards of pollution and waiting to be developed.
Without the Alliance and the powerful restraint imposed by the three great empires, such a vast and fertile land suddenly appearing before the world would likely plunge the entire Loren Continent into deadly chaos. Even with the Alliance, the division of this land would become a protracted wrangle—though that was a matter for the more distant future. For now, the most immediate effect of the wasteland's purification was that the vast Contaminated Zones once belonging to the "Four Border Kingdoms" would turn from nominal territory into land that could truly be cultivated.
The mortal nations were at war with the wasteland, but mortals could not do nothing but fight. People still needed to live, and the Empire needed to prepare for economic recovery and a shift in social focus after the war ended. A grand "pioneering movement" was the best choice. Young Carly might not have thought that far ahead. She had merely decided to head for the borderlands with the temperament of youth, but her father, Viscount Perlo, saw further than she did.
It was the first time in years that her father had agreed to