Theus did not answer at once. Instead, he braced his hands on the concrete windowsill and looked out through the fortress's observation window.
A raised train platform stood not far away. The Expeditionary Force was loading and unloading goods from the stopped carriages, while spare locomotives rested on several branching tracks nearby.
Beside the platform stood the Expeditionary Force's camp. Supplies that were inconvenient to store near the fortress were kept in the camp's warehouses, and the Resistance Army, along with civilians who had come to seek refuge, had also been settled there.
The camp walls had been repaired several times and were now poured concrete, just like the train platform. The surrounding roads had been leveled as well.
It was already beginning to resemble a small town.
Given some more time, this place might become a city.
The railway had become the Northern Territory's new artery. Wherever Castel's railways reached, prosperity followed. Thanks to the trains, even Blood Port, a thousand miles away, no longer felt much farther than the neighboring town.
Theus looked into the distance. Inside several barracks, Expeditionary Force soldiers resting between shifts had gathered with copies of the Holy Scripture in hand. The Holy Scripture had grown thicker and thicker, roughly covering all kinds of knowledge. Finding a section that interested them and then spending time studying it had become something many Expeditionary Force soldiers enjoyed doing.
Outside the barracks, several children were pestering an Expeditionary Force soldier to tell them stories. Theus could not help recalling the days when he told stories to his fellow workers at Rhine's factory.
Only now, no one from the Holy See would come to arrest them. On the contrary, the ones telling them stories were believers in Empire Truth.
Farther away, the newly built school of the Expeditionary