In Alya Duchy, several hundred li from the border of Pamiji Plateau's uninhabited region, stood a frontier city.
Its local name was "Ephesuswei," but outsiders preferred to call it Shepherd City. That was because it produced the icefield rock sheep that had swept through Alya Duchy's entire food industry, and nearly every herding family who lived here owned their own sheep farm.
Precisely because of the sheer number of sheep farms, Shepherd City was not surrounded by towering walls like other cities.
Shepherd City was a semi-open city. It had no city gates, only guarded checkpoints on certain main roads, somewhat like Watergrass in the Fairy Tale World.
Yet being a semi-open city did not mean Shepherd City was unsafe. Mountains hemmed it in on two sides, and they were snow-capped ranges at that. To the west lay the Snow Agate River, fed by melting snow from the Eternal Frozen River on Pamiji Plateau. There was only one side from which one could enter the city by level road.
That side also happened to be crossed by several steam train tracks. Not only did the transport companies guard the tracks, but Shepherd City's soldiers also kept them under strict control for security reasons. All in all, safety here was still reasonably assured.
Near a square in the center of Shepherd City, three figures appeared out of thin air.
The surrounding area was a commercial district, bustling with people, yet after the three figures appeared, no one cast so much as a glance their way, as though they did not exist.
Only after the three began moving did a few people nearby notice them. But there were simply too many people here. Even if some saw them appear so abruptly, they merely assumed their eyes had played tricks on them and