Wandering Swamp, in the distant far north.
The frigid wind and snow were like countless flying shuttles, weaving the boundless white expanse into an endless river of stars.
This was not only the northernmost border of the Academy, but also the northernmost edge of the entire Central Continent. Temperatures remained below minus twenty degrees year-round and could even reach minus one hundred at their coldest.
The extreme climate was a natural barrier, like the desert embracing the oasis of Sunset Province.
Only a few mutant species with thick fur and heavy layers of fat could move about in this region.
Yet in this bitterly cold land frozen for thousands of miles stood one of Wandering Swamp's most prosperous settlements.
Its name was Ice Sea City.
As the name implied, the settlement stood on the shore of a perpetually frozen sea.
The several-hundred-meter-tall settlement was forged entirely from alloy, like a gigantic axe draped over an iceberg, its metal walls gleaming with an icy chill amid the blizzard.
It was said that more than two centuries ago, this place had been a seed vault of the Human Alliance. It was not converted into a settlement until a century and a half ago, housing the earliest group of technicians who had broken away from the Post-War Reconstruction Committee.
Later, when the Science Committee was established, the place was placed under its administration.
However, although the Science Committee managed the settlement, the people living here did not have particularly difficult lives because of its unique nature.
The howling snowstorms and bitter cold were kept outside by the settlement's walls. Apart from the seed storage zone embedded within the iceberg, where one could still feel the chill of dozens of degrees below zero, the other production and residential zones could practically be called springlike