After several more days of sleeping rough and living on the road.
Everyone in the party had become haggard and ragged. The nobles who had once stood so high above others were now left with nothing but exhaustion and numbness.
Their faces were caked with dust and fatigue, yet a faint light still flickered in their eyes.
Because at the end of the horizon, the outline of the kingdom's capital—Eloria City—stood towering like a mirage!
The long, brutal journey was finally nearing its end.
The soaring city walls stretched endlessly like mountain ranges, built from massive blocks of stone that gleamed with an unyielding luster beneath the sunlight.
Above the walls, densely packed guards stood like statues, while a watchtower rose every hundred meters.
Faintly visible rune formations flowed across the walls, radiating a dim halo.
Spired churches and towering castles appeared and disappeared in the depths of the city. Between them, one could even see residential districts with cooking smoke curling upward, as well as the occasional beam of magic soaring into the sky.
"Look! It's the Royal Capital! We've arrived!" Count Reinhardt pointed with a trembling finger at the enormous city silhouette in the distance, his voice hoarse with the wild joy of surviving a disaster.
Like a child, tears even welled at the corners of his eyes.
Baron Fabio and General Brandon excitedly poked their heads out from the carriage as well.
At the sight of the not-so-familiar Royal Capital, their eyes instantly filled with hope and relief, as though all their exhaustion had been washed away in that moment.
"We... we finally survived!" Baron Fabio muttered incoherently, his fat face now overflowing with excitement and joy.
All the surviving nobles in the party burst into irrepressible cheers. The exhausted guards followed with ear-splitting roars, raising their