Steel and Mana

Chapter 130 – Visitors (1)

"Are we sure of this?" Merlin asked, sitting at the oval table within the throne room. An emergency meeting was called up, and this time, it was headed not by Leon but by Sasha. Her husband was still at the castle, overseeing the repairs, installing the newly made cannons, and keeping an eye on the corpse of the giant monster they killed, so it was the first time she took complete control of Avalon and its businesses.

"Yes, I talked with my husband about it." Sasha nodded, and no ministers opposed her decision. "The letter we received in advance was detailed enough! We were almost discovered, but we avoided it thanks to the Empress's incompetency and the quick intervention of Duke Kustov. But..."

"Elena is a headstrong woman..." Merlin finished for her, sighing, making Sasha's lips curl into a smile.

"It would seem so. She took the opportunity and set out with a small group to visit Avalon, adhering to her father's 'orders.' Smart, if you ask me."

"Can't we deny her entrance?" Yuri asked, sitting amongst the ministers, stepping in for Oleg, who was also at the castle with the bulk of their army.

"We think this is even better." Sasha continued, explaining it in detail, "Let her come! The winter is the harshest it has been in centuries! She will see something that I don't think she expected, including heated homes and an organized city. Then, we can take her to the castle and show her what type of monster was trying to break through, yet it still died. As my husband once said: shock and awe."

"I have only one question, My Lady!" Merlin said, standing up in his chair, "Who shall greet them?"

"We will," she promptly answered. "And I mean you and me! And the royal guards, of course. I want all of you to stand ready, too, and ensure the city is in tip-top shape! We will do the awe, and the monstrous corpse plugging in the Pass will do the shocking part."

...
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......

"This wasn't the best idea in hindsight..." Elena whispered, sitting in her carriage, donning three layers of clothes, watching her breath linger in the air as they traveled.

"The weather is treacherous, but we are already nearing their border. I am surprised Baron Elliot's territory has such well-built roads!" Iria, her headmaid, answered, trying to divert their thoughts from the freezing weather. "Even though they are not well maintained in this weather, that part is understandable."

Their surprise only increased after passing into the territory of the Frontier. They realized that the roads were still there, and even more shocking was that they were maintained and kept clean of fresh snow. They were surrounded by two-meter-high snow walls on both sides as they traveled, but the surprises did not end there.

"We see some smoke in the distance! Maybe bandits?" Shouted Borbossa, who was now their carriage's driver.

"Probably an outpost? Maybe they are workers looking for shelter in this weather! We shouldn't worry about our safety!" Elena yelled back, leaning out the window, letting the biting air waft into the carriage.

"We can't be sure enough!" Borbossa argued while the four horsemen beside the carriage subtly readied their bows. "This is still the Frontier, a barbarian patch of land, My Lady."

"I have been hearing nothing but the changes enacted by the Little Minister." She countered, rolling her eyes, "If we get attacked, I could rub it under his nose for an eternity, but don't make them attack us! Then it would be the opposite, and he could call me an uncouth lady until the end of times!"

Nobody had any answer for Elena, who felt a bit stifled as she never talked like this about anyone. Not to mention letting a child, no matter what rank he lied to have, speak to the duke's daughter in the way he did. Yet Elena seemed not to mind it, not in the slightest, so they had no chance to protest against it.

"Do you hear that?" she asked, and sure enough, the wind seemed to be blowing a weird noise towards them from the direction of the smoke in the distance.

As they got closer and closer, the racket became even louder, so much so that their horses became nervous and feisty, no longer wanting to continue traveling forward. They had to force them to obey as they neared the thing, toiling along the road, blowing thick, white smoke into the air from its front end.

"What... is... that?" Elena asked, her eyes growing twice their size, almost popping out of her head as she leaned out, nearly falling out of her carriage.

Nobody could answer her as they faced a metal construct with long tracks along its side instead of wheels. While trying to keep the horses from throwing them off and pushing them to go around the... thing, they finally noticed the two men dressed in heavy coats sitting atop it. Clearly, they were the ones steering the weird carriage with a giant metal shovel attached to its front, pushing the snow to the side.

As they passed by, the two on the machine looked at them with a bit of confusion, but they did not stop or wave; they just looked at them. It was hard to tell if they were nervous as their faces were hidden behind goggles and thick fur hoodies, but at least they seemed unarmed.

"Stop, stop!" Elena shouted, but Borbossa refused to obey this time.

"We can't! It could be dangerous, and the horses would be terrified! If we stop now, we will lose control over them!"

"Damn it! Stupid animals!" She grunted as they passed by the sluggish metal creation, heading further away from them until it disappeared behind them.

"What was that...?" Borbossa asked, not expecting an answer, but Elena seemed to be fired up so much she no longer cared about the cold air.

"Marvelous! Did you all see that?! That carriage was being driven by... by... hm, it was either magic or by some kind of other contraptions, I couldn't tell! But for sure, it was man-made! Did you see how it had spinning and rotating bits? How did it transfer the generated energy to its wibbly-wobbly and spinny things, making it move forward?! How marvelous!"

"Marvelous?" Iria asked, still a bit shocked, pulling her clothes together, shivering, "That thing was beyond noisy and slower than our carriage in the snow!"

"I agree; we could outrun it easily!" Borbossa agreed, making Elena roll her eyes and scoff at them.

"Use your heads a little! Didn't you realize it was shoveling the snow? What do you think? How many men would you need to do this work? How many men would you have to force out here to do the labor by hand to keep the road clean? That thing, toiling along the road, could do what a dozen men would be needed for!"

Borbossa wanted to argue, but then again, he could see Elena's point. True enough, in this weather, the workers couldn't stay out for long, and the biggest issue was sweating hard under the multiple layers of clothes, then sweat freezing and possibly killing them. Getting medicine this far away from any civilization could be easily deadly, not to mention, where would they get enough clothes for themselves?

As they traveled ahead, they passed by another one further out, heading in the opposite direction. Instead of the tracks, this one had a giant wheel with chains strapped to it, puffing just as big of a white cloud from the chimney built onto its front side. Just like before, the horses were deeply terrified, making it impossible for them to stop, causing Elena to try and observe it as much as possible while leaning out of her carriage.

"What... the... Look at that!"

"What is it?!" Yelled Elena, already halfway out when hearing Borbossa's voice before looking ahead, noticing the giant wall in the distance and the billowing flags atop it.

"I don't remember hearing about a city like that being built here... isn't that made of stone? Isn't the secret behind building with stone... unavailable here? It shouldn't be standing without the Imperial Freemasons building it!"

"Avalon..." Elena whispered, her pink eyes brimming with curiosity and the feeling of being on an adventure. "That little twerp wasn't lying... Listen up! Keep your tempers in check and your tounges within your mouths! Don't you dare ruin my reputation, got it?"

Her warnings were sincere, and she wasn't joking. She wanted to know the secret behind those snow-plowing machines and knew that her visit was wholly unexpected. Even if her father had provided her with the chance, a brilliant move to give her a valid reason to come, she knew full well that they for sure saw through it. Anything more would be akin to a slap in the face, so they had to be conscious about how they acted.

The closer they got to the city, the more amazed they were, as everything was made of stone, built in a way that was reminiscent of the capital city in the heart of the empire—which should have been impossible. Arriving at the front gate, well-dressed soldiers were waiting there, halting their convoy.

"Oh? A familiar face." Elena chuckled, recognizing Pion, who was leading the soldiers with Polo at his side, acting as his helper and writing down inventories as they examined the carriage and its cargo. Borbossa was about to say something, but Elena's simple clearing of her throat silenced him at once.

"I was ordered to welcome you into Avalon, as originally, I was designated to escort you here in the spring. Albeit, it seems that Lady Elena was missing our Prime Minister more than we thought." He answered jokingly, and while Elena's retinue felt it as an attack, their lady simply laughed out, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

"What could I say? I can be selfish sometimes... and a bit impatient! So... Is there a problem?"

"No. Nothing; we are just writing down what comes in and what goes out," Pion answered, smiling and pointing toward the entrance. "Please enter through the gate, one by one." Elena already could guess something was going on, which made her guards nervous and twitchy, but she was expecting something whacky but not dangerous.

"Do as asked. What are you waiting for?" She grunted, impatient to start, and her soldiers first walked through the gate... Then... Nothing. Nothing was happening. It was a bit disappointing, but then again, she didn't even know what she was expecting. "Oh... finally!" She giggled when it was their turn.

The moment their carriage passed through the gate, multiple weird cone-shaped tubes above the gates began blaring with a droning sound, quickly alerting everybody around them. Borbossa was about to stand up on the driver's seat and pull out his sword when Elena, without warning, opened the door, jumping out of the carriage and looking up at the speakers with childlike curiosity.

"What are those...?"

"A warning that the carriage is carrying magical items within itself."

"...?"

Turning towards the elegant female voice, Elena was stunned to see a beautiful woman walk down from the walls with long, flowing red hair and brilliant emerald-colored eyes. Looking at her, she was momentarily stunned as the deep, caring, and motherly aura, mixing with her unmistakable authority, stunned her like nothing before. She immediately knew she had to be the mysterious Sovereign's Queen because Little Merlin was following her with a posture that showed a kind of respect she had not seen in his body language before.

"So what-" Borbossa said after taking Elena's silence as a signal that he could speak this time, which resulted in the cacophony of swords being drawn around them.

"It's okay." Sasha raised a hand before Elena could berate Borbossa. They saw all the soldiers around them immediately lowering their weapons, but none sheathed their swords and continued watching Borbossa and his men like wolves. What made Elena's guard captain nervous was that none of the avalonians blinked at the same time, always making sure that one pair of eyes was always locked onto their bodies. "I assume you have items with CC with you?"

"Yes." Elena nodded, showing her bracelet, the same one that had told her Merlin's identity when they first met.

"And what about the other three within the carriage?" Sasha asked, keeping up her amicable smile, shocking Elena but also intensifying the light in her eyes.

"One is a one-time-use shield for the carriage. It automatically activates if a spell would hit us. The second is a reserve CC to recharge said shield. The third is a personal variant, for my own protection."

"We would like to purchase it." Merlin spoke up at once, but Sasha reached out without looking, held his head, and pushed him into a bow.

"We will talk about business when we are seated at home."

"Ahaha~!" Of course, Elena couldn't hold back her laughter, feeling this scene alone was worthy of standing out in the cold. "I am more than happy to do that!"

"Then please!" Sasha nodded slightly as their soldiers surrounded the two groups. "Let me lead you to our home, and let me be the first to say... Welcome to Avalon!"