Magic-infused Vehicles bearing the imperial insignia rolled over the still-unsoftened frozen ground of the far north. The melody of wheels and engines broke the wilderness's silence as vehicle after vehicle, loaded with personnel and supplies, traveled along Imperial Avenue, winding into a dark brown torrent of steel on the newly overhauled road.
The outlines of the northern mountains grew ever clearer on the horizon. The clear, lofty blue sky hung like a curtain behind them, glittering beneath the radiance of the giant sun.
Byron gazed through the window at scenery utterly unlike the southern lands, at mountain ranges blanketed in ice and snow. Duchess Victoria sat opposite him, as quiet as an ice sculpture.
Byron had been ordered north to build the Empire's coastline in those lands at the continent's utmost edge and, as the Empire's representative, welcome guests from the Holy Dragon Duchy. Duchess Victoria had completed her report at the imperial capital and was returning north as well, so the two happened to be traveling together.
As the increasingly distinct foreign landscape came into view, even rough-tempered Byron could not help sighing. "I never thought I would one day visit the northernmost part of this country—and as a general, no less... Fate truly is impossible to fathom."
Victoria looked over at his words. "I heard that you were once a mercenary who traveled far and wide, General Byron."
"Traveled far and wide..." Byron smiled and shook his head. "Back then, dealing with petty bandits and wild beasts in the forests and valleys around a town counted as battle-hardened. Visiting two or three cities was enough to call yourself a world traveler. The most outrageous boasts a group of mercenaries could make in a tavern wouldn't even measure up to a single railway line from Pepo to Cecil today.