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Having arrived early, Melissa and Benson were able to choose a reasonably good spot. They could directly see a strange object that had been added to the grayish-white stone pillar in the middle of the square. It was large at one end and small at the other, painted dark blue, and connected to some sort of cable.
Beneath it stood a squad of soldiers in red coats and white trousers. They carried grayish-white metal backpacks and complex, large-caliber rifles, vigilantly watching their surroundings.
As more and more citizens arrived, the square grew crowded and increasingly lively.
At precisely nine o'clock, the strange object on the pillar suddenly emitted crackles and hisses, which eventually turned into a deep, resonant voice:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am your emperor, the ruler of Loen, East Balam, the Rorsted Archipelago, and nations including Lenburg, Masik, and Segar, the protector of the people, George Augustus III."
...That thing can talk? Is it based on the principles of the telegraph? Melissa's eyes widened abruptly, her attention instantly shifting from the speech's contents to the strange object.
She remembered a speech given several months earlier by a woman belonging to a terrorist organization. Through some kind of apparatus, that voice had spread throughout Backlund simultaneously. Supposedly, it had even led many uninformed workers and poor people to believe it was a miracle.
So our country has this technology too, not just those terrorist organizations... Boundless curiosity arose in Melissa's heart.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am your emperor, the ruler of Loen, East Balam, the Rorsted Archipelago, and nations including Lenburg, Masik, and Segar, the protector of the people, George Augustus III."
In the city square of Hillston District, in the western area reserved for nobles, Audrey stood with her father, mother, and elder brother near the