Sure enough, this place had become even more prosperous.
John could not help but sigh with emotion, and a rare smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Ever since he had formally handed the family business entirely over to Elisa eight years ago, he had lived in the Bay District of Water-Drawing City to recuperate.
It was closer to the south, where the mild sea breeze and sunlight year-round made his increasingly frail, aging body feel somewhat more comfortable.
He raised a shriveled hand and pointed northward, his voice filled with nostalgia. "Elisa, perhaps you don't know this, but when your grandfather first came here forty-six years ago, this was nothing more than wasteland.
"See that first wall to the north, the shortest and narrowest one? Back then, there was only that one newly built wall. They said it had been painstakingly raised atop a mound of earth after the subjects of His Excellency Levis, the Silver Dragon, paid a grievous price to defeat the Orc tribe known as the Shadowmoon Clan, all to guard against another Orc incursion.
"Now, though... this place is simply beautiful."
"Isn't it, though?"
Elisa gazed at the splendid sight before her, her eyes likewise clouded with fascination as she agreed.
John had repeated such words to Elisa countless times, even back when he had not been this old, and Elisa herself had come here countless times as well. Yet even so, whenever she stood on the deck and looked westward at that majestic city basking in sunlight, seeming to merge with the Griffon Mountains, she still found herself sincerely marveling at the beauty and vitality it radiated.
From where she stood, she could see a city wall stretching more than forty li from the foot of the Griffon Mountains before turning back again,