In the early days of the Human Empire's founding, Sunset Forest to the west was the empire's western border.
The present-day Western Frontier of the empire—the region west of Sunset Forest—was still untamed wilderness awaiting development back then.
As the largest natural forest within the Human Empire, Sunset Forest covered an area comparable to nearly half of the Eastern Frontier.
Because the forest was rich in all kinds of resources, it attracted wave after wave of speculators hoping to strike gold during the empire's early years.
Tansang City, the closest city to the Imperial Capital on Sunset Forest's eastern border, had even been known as the "Golden Bridgehead" back then.
It symbolized that entering Sunset Forest through Tansang City meant reaping vast quantities of gold.
However, as the stretch of Sunset Forest near Tansang City became overexploited, its resources rapidly dwindled.
Around the fiftieth year of the Imperial Calendar, with the nearby forest resources completely exhausted, Tansang City gradually declined from its former peak and slowly became the ordinary, unremarkable town it was today.
Especially after the great development of the Western Frontier began, speculators turned their eyes toward lands farther west, reaching even the Manchester Mountains, which were rich in mineral resources.
As the Western Frontier's high-quality resources were extracted and continuously shipped out to other regions, Tansang City's status declined even further.
Its location on Sunset Forest's eastern border was especially disadvantageous, as an entire Sunset Forest lay between it and the Western Frontier.
As a result, resources from the distant Western Frontier generally had to be transported around either side of the forest.
And they mostly did not pass through Tansang City at all, instead being shipped directly to the Northern Frontier, Southern Frontier, and Imperial Capital.
So when the convoy arrived at Tansang City at dusk