"..."
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Some troublesome little girl was fast asleep in the dragon carriage, while the carriage itself had come to a steady stop on a broad stone bridge. Her maid seemed to be negotiating with someone, and no one wanted to wake her at a time like this.
"..."
Emilia naturally didn't want to wake the little girl, who was sleeping sprawled out in every direction without a care in the world. So she turned her gaze away and looked instead toward the huge tower gate and the towering city walls.
After several days on the road, they had finally reached their destination.
This was the natural border between the Kingdom of Lugunica, protected by the Dragon, and the free-trading city-states of Kararagi. The great river in the distance, which flowed endlessly into a lake as vast as the sea, was a tributary of the Tiglasy that stretched across the continent. And the remarkable city before them, the Watergate City called Priestella, had been built right in the middle of that enormous lake.
Emilia could see that Priestella was surrounded by towering city walls high enough to enclose the entire city. It looked truly imposing!
There were also four enormous watergates, each resembling a castle, at the northeastern, southeastern, southwestern, and northwestern sides of the walls. Four bridges, built over the lake, connected them to the gates. Anyone who wanted to enter the city had to pass through one of those four easily defended entrances.
If Emilia could look down at the city from the sky, she would easily see that the imposing Watergate City of Priestella looked more like a gigantic basin!
That's right, a basin—and one that sloped inward!
The city's buildings and roads were all inside that enormous "basin."
At the same time, the fortress towers at