The completion of Anvil Railway Station was like a meteor crashing into a still, dead sea, raising towering waves in an instant.
Those waves swept through the neighboring countries. The Minicia Kingdom, the Retalia Empire, and the Bohemian Empire all acted on the news, sending envoys and diplomats to the Kingdom of Bagnia.
Their objective was both simple and complicated... to acquire the steam train, that steel behemoth. If they could not obtain its construction plans, they at least wanted to purchase a finished one.
No one was a fool. While the steam train existed only on paper, people had considered its prospects uncertain. It might prove useful, or it might be an expensive white elephant.
But when someone actually built it, and it came roaring out of Bagnia's mountains pulling thirty carriages loaded with enough supplies to form a small mountain, everyone with any foresight trembled at its arrival.
It was inevitable. With Chris supplying the materials and the players doing the work, the steam train they had built together was far too technologically mature, while other countries either had no steam trains or possessed similar machines of little practical use.
The arrival of the Kingdom of Bagnia's steam train was nothing short of a bomb, leaving them reeling from the blast.
"Whooo...!!!"
A whistle shrill enough to pierce his eardrums exploded overhead without warning. Seated in the carriage, Prince Hohenlohe jolted, nearly losing his grip on his exquisite cane.
The sound was far more aggressive and penetrating than his spies' descriptions had suggested, carrying the brute force of a declaration that power had arrived. Then a deep rumble rose beneath his feet, like a roar from the depths of the earth...
"Chuff... chuff... rumble! Rumble! Clack! Clack!"
The prince could feel surging power coming through the floor