Under its new king, the Kingdom of Bagnia burst with astonishing vitality after the Harvest Festival. Every sector recovered, transformed, and even grew unchecked at an unprecedented pace.
Agriculture, mining, industry, education, culture, and commerce...
The kingdom-building players were ecstatic. Whether they enjoyed actual farming, running factories, trading, or serving as officials, they had opportunities to spare.
It was like the reform and opening-up of modern China-the winds of opportunity were blowing strong!
Yet amid all this prosperity, Chris had not forgotten the man-made catastrophe in Suvano. The Mechanicus Cult's Holy Crusade Army was also being assembled at an accelerated pace, and was finally ready by mid-autumn.
The wheels struck the rails with a monotonous, forceful clatter. The steam engine's heavy panting penetrated the thin carriage walls, mingling with the faintly acrid smell of coal smoke throughout the third-class carriage traveling from Votradnoi to Tavitsky.
Lydia sat beside the window, its frame coated in a fine layer of coal ash.
Outside, the familiar fertile fields raced backward and blurred, giving way to more and more sights she found alien.
Factory chimneys belching black smoke stabbed into the gray sky like enormous tombstones. Open pits exposing reddish-brown soil resembled scars on the earth, as did the outlines of neatly planned industrial towns that nonetheless looked cold and rigid.
Her destination on this journey was the frontline headquarters of the Mechanicus Cult's Holy Crusade Army.
Nothing in life was certain.
The thought cast ripples across the still lake of her heart, like the shadows of telegraph poles flashing past the window.
Just two months earlier, she had still been the Goddess's highest representative in the mortal world.
Now, she had become a prisoner of the Kingdom of Bagnia.
Yet the despair brought by that tremendous fall had not swallowed her.
For