The only drawback of Thunder Beast-drawn carriages was their slow speed. They could not match the lightness and speed of horse-drawn carriages.
A horse-drawn carriage could generally pass through three or four Cold Spring Points a day, while a Thunder Beast-drawn carriage could only cover two from dawn to dusk.
A trip along the Shanhe Trade Route originally took only three or four days by horse-drawn carriage, but five or six days with a Thunder Beast-drawn carriage.
The longer the journey, the more variables there were.
Thus, Thunder Beast-drawn carriages could only travel the trade route for a brief period around the height of summer. During the Ice Age and the periods before and after it, Thunder Beasts rarely traveled the trade route and only hauled goods within the territory.
Yet even with only a few short trips by Thunder Beast-drawn carriage, the cargo transported was enough to equal an entire year's worth of horse-drawn carriage shipments.
This was especially true for bulk resources such as coal and grain. Nothing but Thunder Beast-drawn carriages could handle them.
The sky had not yet darkened, but there was not enough daylight left to reach the third Cold Spring Point, so the caravan set up camp at the second one.
Russell stood idly in the ice-and-snow watchtower above the courtyard, gazing into the distance.
He had only passed through this Cold Spring Point before and had never camped here.
"Over there, to the west-northwest... is that a snow forest?" He saw a dim gray line around the snowline in that direction.
"Yes," Eric answered gruffly.
"A snow forest..." Russell looked at the sky. He wanted to take a stroll through the snow forest, but decided to wait until nightfall, then ride Little Dream Dragon over to search it.
Just then.
A faint, strange