News from the North

It was said that in the distant, frigid Frigid Sea, an organization known as the "Northern City-State Alliance" was taking shape beneath the night.

The legendary "Iron Admiral" had led his army of the undead to take control of the night, seizing the situation before the tensions accumulated between city-states due to insufficient sunlight reached their breaking point. Cold Harbor and Port Murphy had been the first supporters, and under the witness of the Sea Mist, they had forged an alliance—

Now, a powerful joint fleet had been established, protecting the sunlight-starved city-states amid the increasingly dangerous and distorted night. Meanwhile, the "Sunlight Allocation Committee," jointly established by the various city-states and Churches, was closely monitoring the Sun Shards that had fallen into the sea, ensuring that these final remnants of daylight could illuminate the darkest places in the long night in time.

Heidi set down the newspaper and looked up at her mother, who was seated beside the candelabrum. The city's generator had been repaired, and bright electric lights once again illuminated the living room, yet her mother had still asked her to place a candelabrum there and make sure that at least one candle was always lit.

"No city-state in the north is allowed to keep a Sun Shard for long now. The 'Sunlight Allocation Committee' rotates those shards among the city-states to prevent abnormalities from occurring in places left in darkness for too long," Heidi said, recounting what she had heard during her earlier visit to City Hall. "So the northern city-states are essentially taking turns 'having daytime' now. Large engineering vessels towing Sun Shards cruise the Frigid Sea, and those little 'suns' keep the city-states safe..."

She paused, then continued, "And because of that, the maritime trade that had once stopped between city-states has resumed as