"Quite a few restaurants in the Imperial Capital." As Ian left the café with Hua An and Frost Butterfly, he was still in a fairly relaxed mood. "It seems that if you have enough money, you could eat your way through the delicacies of the entire world without leaving this one place."
But very soon, he could no longer feel relaxed.
Because Ian witnessed a traffic accident.
It happened in the Sixth Layer District.
The eastern side of the Sixth Layer District housed a great many civil administrative offices, while the western side was a warehouse district, so transport convoys frequently carried supplies through the area.
Even armor existed in Terra, so claiming there were no vehicles would naturally be absurd.
It was simply that nowhere in Terra was there yet a nationwide highway network. Even where roads did exist, Magic Beasts and all manner of strange natural disasters made it impossible for the various nations to maintain a stable transportation network. Thus, alchemical vehicles had never seen large-scale development.
Vehicles that could only be used within cities and became utterly useless once they left the urban network were far less cost-effective than Terra's dragon-horses and pack beasts.
Of course, that applied only to ordinary passenger vehicles... For the military industry, armored transport vehicles capable of crossing terrain, hauling huge quantities of supplies, remaining stable, and offering a degree of self-protection had always been a rigid necessity. That field was actually quite advanced.
The vehicle that had caused the accident was precisely a quasi-military transport truck. It lacked the heavy outer armor required beyond the city walls, sacrificing it for greater cargo capacity. Judging by its route, it had picked up supplies from the warehouse district and was delivering them elsewhere.
It had probably failed to notice the pedestrian beside