Pharus City.
Within the vast territorial expanse of the Mind Flayer Empire.
This city was, by location, essentially one of the empire's northernmost cities.
It stood amid a lush, frigid forest tinged ice blue.
It was sealed off from the outside by walls nine meters high.
Without exception, the stone used in them was all a kind of hard, special granite.
It had all been hauled from mining areas dozens of kilometers away by Frost Barbarians and even White Dragons.
Due to its exceptional hardness.
Ordinary mining tools could scarcely quarry it at all.
Normally, merely chiseling out a single block of stone that met specifications required several slaves working together for days!
If transportation time and the time needed to inscribe magical barriers were included, the total construction period would have to be extended dozens of times over...
Thus, the construction of this city had taken a total of four hundred and twelve years!
The number of slaves directly killed or injured alone exceeded three hundred thousand!
That was through deaths and injuries accumulated over time, rather than all being lost at once.
Otherwise.
There might not actually have been enough slaves in this city to die...
As for the city's rulers, they were more than eight hundred Mind Flayers.
At this time period, they were holding a routine banquet in the city's central district, one much like a festival celebration.
Nearly half of the Mind Flayers, led by a Mind Flayer Elder, wore magnificent attire and strode elegantly through a vast manor.
On both sides of their gathering place, soothing music was continually being performed.
Without exception, the performers were musicians who had received professional training since childhood.
Indeed, because all their time had been devoted to training.
Very often.
Lacking even basic common sense, they were practically