Clover Town lay deep within West County in the Southern Fief. It was an utterly ordinary place, no different from the Empire's other small towns, where the residents lived the same dull, monotonous lives day after day.
That was precisely why a luxurious carriage traveling down the road into town soon drew the residents' curious attention.
The carriage stopped outside the town's inn. Its door opened, and Li Wei stepped out with his cane in hand.
"The Empire really ought to start a project to connect every village by road. I've had enough of these damn roads."
Li Wei complained irritably as soon as he got out. Then he turned and offered his right hand to Katie, who took it and stepped down from the carriage.
The rider was naturally the last to get out, and she was also the most energetic of the three at the moment.
"I thought it was all right..."
"Of course you did. You ride horses for a living. That makes you different from us."
Li Wei stretched a little. Getting to this town had been an ordeal. First, he had taken an airship to the capital of the West Fief-that part had gone smoothly enough, but everything afterward had been a hassle.
He had then needed to take a four-hour train ride to Chrysler City, the city nearest Clover Town, followed by a carriage ride to reach the town itself...
Yes, it had been pure torture.
Li Wei remembered that it had been much the same in his own world. First a plane, then a train, then a long-distance bus... In places that even the buses did not reach, you had to take a donkey cart. The more remote the place, the worse it was.
But that had been in the past. If you