Third Kind Encounter

Mounted on horseback, the sheriff smugly looked over the convoy of nearly a hundred people before him. They drove carriages and rode warhorses, heading deep into the wilderness.

"Hey, Sheriff."

Just as he was about to turn back and count heads, an old man rode up beside him from nearby. Seeing the old man, the sheriff could not help but smile.

"Old man, I never thought you'd come too."

"Of course. The lord stressed this again and again. How could I possibly not come?"

Hearing the sheriff's words, the old man smiled and patted the Pioneer Badge on his chest.

"To be honest, when I heard that the poisonous mist over the northern canyon had dispersed, I even thought I was so old I'd started hallucinating... Tell me, are we really going to develop a new territory?"

"Of course. That's why we're here."

Faced with the old man's question, the sheriff nodded firmly. Then he reached into his clothes and took out a pipe, placing it between his lips.

"We haven't expanded our territory in years. If not for this accident, in a few more years there probably wouldn't even be enough room for everyone to live."

"Yeah..."

The old man sighed at the sheriff's complaint. The Western Continent was vast, but many places were dry wildernesses, with no rivers and no lakes. Such places were simply uninhabitable and could not grow crops. Even using them for grazing would leave livestock starving and dying of thirst.

After so many years, most fertile and resource-rich regions had already been firmly controlled by the nobles and merchants of the Fire Nation. For ordinary people like them, the only way to rise in the world and change their fate was to hope for the discovery of Unclaimed Territory.

Whether fortunate or unfortunate, a