The Kingdom of Bagnia was undergoing earthshaking changes.
Marquis Dirac Siso felt this keenly.
As his four-wheeled carriage rolled over Ankandela's newly laid, hard gravel roads, its wheels producing a steady, monotonous rumble, the man inside lifted the silk curtain slightly and gazed out with mixed feelings at a city transformed beyond recognition.
Three years earlier, when he had last visited Ankandela, it had still been an ancient city in the typical Minisian style.
Soaring noble spires, ancient temples to the Earth Mother Goddess, winding narrow streets, and the familiar mingled smells of spices, leather, and horse dung in the air.
And now...
At Dirac's request, the convoy had taken a detour, avoiding the residential neighborhoods and entering the Industrial District. It was now traveling along a broad street so straight it felt unsettling, lined on both sides with uniform red-brick factories that looked as though they had been stamped from the same mold.
Those factories were huge, ponderous, and square, without the slightest beauty to speak of, but that also signified a kind of cold efficiency.
Here, towering chimneys stood as densely as a forest, endlessly spewing thick columns of black smoke that stained the sky a hazy gray. Even the sunlight seemed to pass through a greasy filter.
The familiar smells in the air had long since been completely overwhelmed.
Now there was the sulfurous smell of burning coal, the scorched odor of smelting metal, the scent of machine oil, and a certain... indescribable, pungent smell that belonged to "industry." It filled his nostrils with domineering force, impossible to shut out entirely even when he covered his nose and mouth with a perfumed handkerchief.
The marquis's convoy passed a vast open factory compound. Through its enormous open iron gates, Dirac could hear an overwhelming, deafening wall of sound.