Chapter 1392 — The Dust Has Yet to Settle

"I will go see to it," Filna said flatly, turning toward the hall's exit.

...

The Alliance army advanced faster with each passing day. After pouring the strength of the entire Loren continent into this land, the mortal war machine began to display its astonishing might—great cannons swept away the mutant hordes, war machines crushed the wreckage of the Wasteland Legion, powerful legion spells set the whole earth steaming in the heat, and warriors of every nation and every race swept like a gale across the plains and mountains of the former Gondor Empire. Behind the great army, purification towers rose one after another, and the blocking walls stretched out like veins through the wasteland, creeping from all four directions toward the Deep Blue Well.

And in the course of this, the effects of the blocking walls finally began to show themselves—though they were still a long way from closing the final gap, in many regions of the wasteland the change in environment was already an indisputable fact.

The contaminated cloud layers were receding, the toxic substances in the air were diminishing, and the chaotic magic energy hanging over the surface was gradually calming. In some regions, observers found plants stubbornly sprouting from cracks in the stone—seeds carried into the wasteland by the air currents that had poured in after the collapse of the Great Wall, taking root in the soil as the contamination receded, beginning to grow in this season of spring warmth and blooming flowers, and becoming the first "residents" of this land after seven hundred years of barren silence.

And in the wasteland's border regions, at the foot of the Great Wall, in the buffer zones traditionally deemed contaminated areas, the observers even discovered broad stretches of land that had fully returned to normal—even without any protective gear, even ordinary people with no special powers could live safely in these purified zones and cultivate fertile fields.

The war was not yet over; the fate of the mortal world hung in the balance. Yet even with the dust unsettled, this world kept moving forward.

Kali Perlo ran across the courtyard like a gust of wind, her long skirt flying at the edges of the flowerbeds and lawn. The manservants and maids along the way had spotted the young lady racing over from afar and had already withdrawn to the colonnade ahead of time; a few of the attendants better acquainted with Kali could not help shaking their heads, resigned expressions on their faces.

Miss Kali was optimistic by nature and kind to others, and her lively temperament stood in especially sharp contrast to her stern father. Her only shortcoming was her want of composure and ladylike grace—when Viscount Perlo had sent her to study in Cecil, part of it had indeed been the "assignment" the Empire handed down to the children of young nobles, but another part had been the viscount's hope that his daughter might temper her character in a foreign land and grow a little more mature and steady through living alongside other noble youths. As for the results, however...

Miss Kali, returned from Cecil, had grown in every respect, save that she had rather regressed in the matter of ladylike grace—she had even picked up a great many "Cecil-style" ways of speaking and behaving that struck traditional Typhon sensibilities as thoroughly bizarre. It truly made one wonder just what they taught in that "Imperial Academy" of the Cecilians...

"Kali!" Viscount Perlo's voice suddenly came from the front of the courtyard, carrying a note of displeasure. "Running about the courtyard like that—what sort of sight is that?"

Wearing a crisp formal coat, bearded, tall and lean, Viscount Perlo frowned at his daughter as she ran toward him, his tone displeased yet also helpless. It had been some time since his daughter returned from her studies abroad, yet when it came to plans for the future, this flighty girl seemed to have no notion at all. Her head was full of restless, radical ideas; she was unwilling to enter the council and become a member, and she had little luck with men, so marriage looked far off; as for inheriting the title and the family estate—it was far too early for that.

In the matter of "having a headache over one's children's future," Viscount Perlo was no different from most ordinary fathers.

But Kali seemed not to notice the displeasure in her father's tone. She clutched a newspaper in her hands and thrust it before him: "Father, look at this!"

"What is it that has you making such a fuss..." Viscount Perlo muttered, taking the paper. His gaze quickly fell on a black-and-white image on the page—a plant, seemingly no more than an ordinary wildflower by the roadside, but the text beside it made his eyes shift slightly. "Plants discovered in the wasteland... contamination receding... purified zones found in the border regions?"

"This is a photograph sent back from the Winter Wolf Knights' Forward Base No. 27!" Kali's smile was radiant, and there was even a strange note of pride in her voice. "The very unit Mariannu is with—she's the one who found this flower, and the article even mentions her by name!"

"Mariannu... Mariannu, daughter of Count Raven?" Viscount Perlo quickly found the corresponding name in the noble genealogies, and after a brief flicker of astonishment his brow furrowed. "She is already able to establish merit, to have her deeds sent home for people to praise—and look at you. You were classmates! You..."

"Father, there is something else I want to tell you," Kali said suddenly, before her father could finish. "I heard today that there is a pioneer settlement plan for the Winter Wolf Fort's southwest exclave..."

"A settlement plan? That exclave southwest of Winter Wolf Fort?" Viscount Perlo was taken aback. "Isn't that in the contaminated zone..."

"It is no longer a contaminated zone!" Kali said, beaming. "The Obsidian Post published the news today, announcing several border regions confirmed to be fully purified. How the Gondor wasteland will be divided afterward is anyone's guess, but those border exclaves are one hundred percent Imperial territory. Now that the contamination is receding and the army has pushed the front deep into the wasteland, settlement there will begin soon. I spoke with Danna by transmission today—her father, Count Yuwen, has already mentioned it to her—and I want to go with her to the border..."

Viscount Perlo's expression finally turned grave by degrees. He looked into Kali's eyes and spoke slowly: "Kali, do you know what you are saying?"

"Yes, I know," Kali said, the smile fading from her face as she stood before her father with unprecedented seriousness. "I want to do what our ancestors did. Father, my classmates from the Academy are all doing what they believe is most important and right. Fendir Wilde joined the Wasteland Expeditionary Army and lived through the first battle; Ilven Franklin recently went to the western front as a research assistant; Mariannu is fighting under General Anluo... Father, I cannot fight, and I do not have such outstanding marks in magic or magitech, but I do know how to settle land and manage an estate—the Perlo family has been excellent pioneers since long ago, and you were very proud when you told me so."

"I do not want to go to the council and be a member who knows only how to raise a hand—there are many clever people there, and I would be quite unremarkable among them. Nor do I want to marry so soon; I have not yet met the right person. And I do not want to inherit the estate just like that, to be an ordinary, mediocre noble who spends the bulk of her time at balls and banquets... As His Majesty said in his last address, we are facing a special and difficult period, and the Empire needs every one of its subjects to fulfill their duties and give their worth..."

"Did you not just say that Mariannu is already able to establish merit? Now I want to..."

"Good. I agree."