Thus, Amora's visit to the clock tower resulted in an unexpected acquisition: an elderly coachman.
"You can call me Bart," the old coachman said, handing Amora a polished iron helmet. Amora carefully affixed the magic-resistant material to the inside of it before returning it to him.
"Oh… uh, yes, Mr. Bart," Amora replied, finding it awkward to utter a name other than "Lian" or "Menger."
"No, no, just Bart will do!" The old coachman polished an entire set of iron harnesses before equipping the large black horse. "Alright, now he's fully geared up."
Amora spent some time attaching the magic-resistant materials to both Bart and the black horse, while Bart busied himself organizing food and water supplies. Bart rarely left the clock tower, typically stockpiling supplies in the basement during his infrequent trips to town. As luck would have it, he had recently restocked before the attack, so the basement was well-stocked with smoked meats, fresh vegetables, an assortment of seasonings, and even a newly acquired refrigerator.
After discarding items contaminated by radiation, Bart managed to load nearly half of the basement into the carriage. Fresh food went into the refrigerator, seasonings and alcohol were left behind, while a large barrel of clean water, two sacks of horse feed, and a mountain of smoked meat were packed.
"Alright… that should just about do it," Bart said, hanging a sharp hand axe on his belt and setting up a small ladder. "After you, please."
The old man appeared every bit the gentleman, and Amora felt she should gracefully lift her skirt, revealing just a hint of a modest smile from behind a gauzy veil, and allow herself to be elegantly assisted into the carriage. Instead, she awkwardly stared at the long face of the black horse, clambered aboard using her hands and feet, and almost kicked the coachman in the chest.
"Careful there. Do you get carriage-sick?" Bart asked as he steadied her, noticing how small she looked compared to the carriage.
"Uh, no," Amora hesitated before correcting herself. "I don't know."
She had never left the old house she was born in, always watching from the windows as Lian played with other children outside. Menger, with his obsessive cleanliness, seemed to believe Amora should live in a sterile vacuum, far removed from the chaos of the world—just like his other experimental specimens.
Bart looked a little surprised. "Well, alright. No worries, I drive smoothly. Where to?"
"Let's head back to where I lived first," Amora said, thinking about the leftover experimental waste containers. The magic-resistant materials on them were still valuable. "It's over there, where the smoke is rising to the south."
Bart cracked the whip lightly, and the old horse started forward steadily.
As Amora directed him, she realized that his earlier claim of driving "smoothly" was a blatant lie. The terrain was impossible to navigate smoothly. The only stable elements were Bart himself and the old horse with its surprisingly wild gait. The carriage, however, jolted as if caught in an earthquake. With the seats removed to maximize space for necessities, Amora sat atop a thin cloth separating her from the piled supplies. She was repeatedly struck on the head by odd, unsteady objects.
It dawned on her that even with a carriage, the journey ahead would be far from easy.
The old horse finally reached the ruins of the old house before Amora could completely lose her wits from the jostling. Bart stopped the carriage in what looked like a relatively safe spot and once again set up the small ladder for her. Amora disembarked a bit more gracefully this time, glancing up at the sky. The once-thin clouds were now thickening ominously, and the darkening sky filled her with unease.
"It'll rain within an hour. We need to leave and find higher ground," she said as she rushed into the underground cellar, starting to peel the thin magic-resistant membranes from the surfaces of the iron boxes.
Bart stood at the cellar entrance, his large frame making it difficult for him to descend. He decided to stay above and called down to her, "You know how to predict the weather?"
"It's not about predicting the weather; rain clouds are just easy to identify. If you looked up, you'd see it too." Amora initially tried scraping the boxes with a bone, but the process was slow and inefficient. "Can I borrow your axe?" she asked.
Bart hesitated. "You might not be able to lift it…"
Amora lowered her head, picked up another sharp bone, and resumed scraping the box silently.
"Are you new around here?" Bart asked, attempting to make conversation. He was still grieving his son but refused to show any vulnerability. Talking to another survivor seemed like a way to distract himself from the pain.
"No," Amora replied, her voice intertwined with the grating sound of the bone against the box. "I've always lived in this house."
Campbell was a small town, and Bart had lived there for decades. He prided himself on knowing its people and events well, yet he had no recollection of Amora. The house, however, was old and had been standing since wartime.
"I've never seen you before," Bart said, suspicious. Though it wasn't a critical matter under current circumstances, his curiosity got the better of him.
Amora replied naturally, "Oh, that's because I never left the house."
"…Alright, if you don't want to say more, that's fine," Bart said, deciding to drop the subject.
Old Bart gave up probing further. He thought to himself that no one could live for over a decade without stepping outside. Amora's refusal to share her background likely meant she had a significant one. This realization prompted Bart to discreetly observe Amora as she worked in the cellar. Her chestnut hair, an oversized jacket that didn't seem fit for a girl, and her unusually petite frame all seemed ordinary enough. However, her behavior reflected a maturity that set her apart from an average child.
"Done," Amora announced, stacking the materials neatly into her pocket. The magic-resistant sheets were thin and barely took up any space.
Bart stepped aside to let her pass. "Where to next?"
This question left Amora at a loss. She knew neither the geography of the surrounding areas nor the layout of the empire. While she could calculate at least a hundred reconnaissance magic formulas, each required a magic system to function. Accurate terrain analysis would even require the collaboration of two or three military mages.
"Are there any mountains nearby?" she asked.
"No, this is a transition zone between plains and forests," Bart replied with surprising precision, earning Amora's respect. Most civilians would have just said something like "it's all flat around here."
"Then let's head toward the capital," Amora decided as she climbed back onto the carriage. She believed finding Len, her most reliable ally, should be her priority.
This decision was indeed a wise one. They were in Plonman Empire's territory. Even if the surrounding areas had become disaster zones, crossing directly into Saint Lanscat Empire wasn't feasible. The two empires maintained a façade of friendly diplomatic relations while constantly engaging in border skirmishes. As a result, border garrisons were highly active, and most would-be infiltrators were killed by magical defenses, with very few escaping detection.
Moreover, since the recent attack by the Emerald Lance, border management was likely to be even stricter. If Amora planned to retrieve the ring from Saint Lanscat, she would have to take a more indirect route.
As the carriage jolted forward, Amora asked, "By the way, what did you do before?"
"I was a handler," Bart replied, snapping the reins to set the cart in motion again. "I participated in some of the minor skirmishes between Saint Lanscat and Plonman."
Handler—a relatively new military role that had emerged within the past century.
Handlers were somewhat similar to riders, but instead of riding mounts into battle, they operated weaponry powered by mounts. Simply put, riders fought on horseback, while handlers used horses to pull heavy artillery or similar war machines, operating from atop the equipment itself.
Although Amora didn't fully understand the current state of the empire's military equipment, her knowledge of recent developments in magical corps was enough for her to deduce a lot.
In recent decades, the ability to remotely control lower-order animals had become a reality, while the emergence of sky fortresses rendered gryphon-mounted air cavalry obsolete. Under such circumstances, traditional cavalry lost much of its battlefield relevance, leading to the creation of new units like handlers. By equipping mounts with magical weapons and having handlers command them in battle, the empire was able to combine the flexibility of a mount with the destructive power of magical weaponry.
However, there hadn't been any major wars in the last century, so even with the introduction of new roles, they hadn't undergone real combat tests.
"Well, that's impressive," Amora remarked, feeling slightly more confident in Bart's ability to drive the cart steadily after learning this about his background.
"And you?" Bart called out loudly, "You're not like the kids who study literature and arts or get into street fights."
Amora thought for a moment. She had always studied under Mengel, but the scope of what she learned was hard to define. Mengel was a polymath, excelling as a pharmacist, biologist, geneticist, etiquette expert, mathematician, physician, military strategist, logician, and magical systems engineer, among other things.
He could masterfully tackle the most challenging tasks in any field Amora encountered, but unfortunately, he wasn't an educator. From him, Amora only gained a surface-level understanding of various subjects and a deeply ingrained sense of pain.
"I… uh, had a private tutor," Amora lied, finding it increasingly easy to fabricate stories. "He taught me quite a bit, mostly about magic."
"Well, I guess that makes you a true stay-at-home young lady," Bart replied, though it was unclear whether he believed her.
In the Plonman Empire, nearly every city had academies, large and small, with low tuition fees and generous subsidies. Except for advanced studies at higher academies, most education was affordable for commoners. It had become rare for people to stay home and rely on private tutoring, even among the old, proud nobility who had increasingly begun sending their children to elite academies in the capital.
So, for someone Amora's age, "not attending school" was indeed quite surprising.
Of course, Amora wasn't thick-skinned enough to admit she was a "stay-at-home young lady." She replied, "No, it's just… just my teacher's personal interest. He always enjoyed talking to me about these things."
"Come on now, I've served in the military. Magical theory isn't that widespread," Bart expressed his disbelief again.
That was knowledge monopolized by the military, only permitted to be taught at the Central Military Academy and its branches. Anyone receiving education in magical theory—whether they intended to serve the empire or not—was required to sign confidentiality agreements and pledge not to use that knowledge to harm the empire. Violating this would be considered treason and punished by death.
Amora wasn't aware of these details, so she could only argue, "It's just very basic magic… non-military, harmless civilian magic."
"One hour ago, you told me the disaster we're facing was caused by Death Radiation, and now you're trying to tell me that falls under civilian magic?" Bart sharply pointed out her inconsistency. "Alright, miss, if you don't want to explain, that's fine. I just hope you have a way to get us out of this mess."
Amora was left speechless.
She couldn't tell Bart that 50% of this catastrophe was her fault—and the other 50% was her father's.
"Death Radiation has a wide coverage area. In fact, it's probably the largest among all strategic-level magical techniques," Amora said after a moment's thought, deciding to be partly truthful. "Uh… relatively speaking, of course. But this also means that our magic-resistant materials will hold up for a relatively long time. If you notice it starting to degrade, let me know immediately, and I'll replace it as quickly as possible. Such a large-scale attack will definitely have caught the empire's attention. If we move quickly, we just need to reach the edge of the radiation zone to get assistance…"
It was impossible for the empire to send a sky fortress to search for survivors—this was a sensitive border area, and the presence of any major military asset would be seen as an act of provocation. Instead, the empire had likely deployed regular rescue teams and military investigators, who would work their way inward from the edges of the radiation zone. Camperl was undoubtedly at the center of this zone.
For Bart, reaching the edge of the radiation zone would mean he could receive aid from Plonman because he was a citizen of the empire. But for Amora, it was a different story entirely. She doubted Mengel had ever gotten her proper identification. If she rashly sought help and was discovered to be an undocumented outsider… the consequences were too dire to contemplate.
Amora's current dilemma was that the life-critical Black Jade Ring had been taken by the magical corps of the Saint Lanskat Empire, yet she was forced to head in the opposite direction—toward the Plonman imperial capital.
She needed trustworthy allies, legitimate identification, border permits, and—most importantly—a chance to meet the high-ranking officials of the Emerald Holy Lance.