Zoe Babbitt

After the butler left, Count Mallen, who had relaxed somewhat, frowned again.

"Zoe, that child..."

"Why can't she be as sensible as Mei?"

Count Mallen sighed inwardly.

He had two daughters. His eldest, Mei Blair, was twenty-six this year and already the mother of three children. She had married a young member of the Blair family from Adburg, the most important mining city-state in the south, known among his generation as the sunset warrior.

Adburg was the most important mining city-state in the south.

Its strategic significance even surpassed Wentro Bang City's.

Adburg bordered the Steel Sand Gobi to the south, where Nord Kingdom's largest southern mining region was located.

Besides Adburg, that mining region contained many city-states and a Great City.

Like Wentro Bang City, Adburg stood along the Nivarei River.

The rivers near the mining region were all a reddish color, with vast amounts of fine mining slag settling into their beds.

The situation only began to improve after the Nivarei had flowed several hundred kilometers downstream.

The Steel Sand Gobi lay at a higher elevation than the lower reaches, and its mineral reserves were exceptionally abundant. During the previous era, the Three-Fort Dwarves had built furnaces there and carved out numerous mine tunnels.

After the Nord people took over, they continued mining for several thousand years, yet the deposits still had not run dry.

As a result, the nearby city-states all had quite a few [blacksmith Shops] and [Workshops].

Many of them were directly controlled by the kingdom.

Adburg was an industrial city-state that combined ore extraction, smelting, equipment forging, ironware production, and the manufacture of engineering mechanical components.

Combined with the advantage of water transport along the Nivarei River, it had become incomparably prosperous.

The city was home to countless master craftsmen, even grandmasters.

They included