Old World, East Dundorma, Hunter's Guild.
"Through this period of observation, we have successfully locked our targets onto three Elder Dragons. All of them show rather obvious signs of Elder Crossing. With the help of scholars, we have analyzed their migration routes. After communicating with the Kingdom, they hope we can dispatch enough Hunters to work together with the army to help the villagers relocate as soon as possible and avoid the disasters caused during the Elder Dragons' Elder Crossing."
The old man wearing glasses handed a document to the others at the table.
"In the first report, Lunastra's migration route is the clearest. Our people observed that during her migration, a village located beside her path was already set ablaze as she passed. Hunters nearby have already begun rescue operations, but how many can be saved is still uncertain. The situation is somewhat unfavorable."
The old man pushed up his glasses and sighed.
"The second report concerns a Kirin. Fortunately, along its migration route, there are not many human settlements. As a result, only one fortress, unable to defend itself properly under the thunderstorm, had its armory ignited by lightning and burned down by one-third."
"The good news is that no one died. Only two returning soldiers were accidentally struck by lightning and remain in a coma to this day."
"And then the last report—this one is somewhat special. It concerns an unknown Elder Dragon. It doesn't seem to exhibit any signs of natural disaster, and its migration direction appears not to be toward the New World, but toward the Land of Fire. The reason it was included in today's report is that the Kingdom hopes we can dispatch an elite Hunter squad to follow and see whether something unusual has occurred over there."
"After all, in that direction—whether in that Kingdom or that particular village—decades have passed, and we still haven't been able to find out what the problem is. This Elder Dragon's appearance is quite similar to that of the one previously observed, the Elder Dragon named Silver Duke Dragon, which might be related."
After the old man finished speaking, silence spread across the table.
The main reason was that the documents were very detailed. Each Elder Dragon, just by the natural disasters triggered during its Elder Crossing, had already caused immense destruction—this was the sorrow of all humankind.
"Sigh, so this time, the Elder Dragon you've chosen is the Kirin, correct? From what I see of its route, it seems more suitable as the target for the future Fourth Fleet to pursue."
"Kirin~" the old man said faintly.
"The most mysterious mythical beast, and also the smallest-bodied among the known Elder Dragons—unexpectedly, once it fully releases its power, it can also possess destructive force no weaker than any Elder Dragon."
"Indeed. To keep a fortified settlement shrouded in thunderstorm conditions for a full 2 days—if we hadn't judged Kirin's route in advance, stored enough food in time, and made the corresponding defensive preparations, this fortified settlement would likely have ended up just like that village burned by Lunastra, meeting a fate of destruction."
"This is the Elder Crossing~"
Voices buzzed around the long table, all marveling at the might of Elder Dragons and the hardship people face under these natural disasters.
"Alright. Since a decision has been made, then begin convening and screening personnel for the Fourth Fleet. Be sure to have the personnel ready within 5 years, and in the following 8 years, prepare the supplies and the long-range seafaring vessels sufficient to withstand Kirin's thunderstorms!"
With a single command, the chaotic conference room returned to the proper track, and discussion began on various issues concerning the Fourth Fleet of the Elder Dragon Investigation Team.
The Hunter's Guild is paying great attention to the affairs of the Elder Dragon Investigation Team. Even now, when humans of the Old World still face all sorts of problems, they continually draw top-tier personnel to form investigation teams—not only out of an academic desire to learn the reason for the Elder Dragons' Elder Crossing.
More than that, they want to know why the Elder Crossing has become so frequent, and to find corresponding solutions.
Every time an Elder Dragon's Elder Crossing occurs, it causes no small amount of damage to human settlements.
Large cities like Dundorma are comparatively fine; with sufficient supplies and defensive installations, even if they lie on the Elder Crossing's route, they have enough capability to repel an Elder Dragon and force it to change course.
But in this world, there are far more villages and fortified settlements with weak defensive capability. There are only so many top hunters; even if one appears every 10 years, they still cannot cover all the human population centers of the Old World.
This has led to the nations of the Old World being such that the strong can repel or even slay Elder Dragons, while the weak can be forced by just two map-boss-class ordinary monsters to shut their national borders, with trade and transport routes compelled to break off.
Therefore, every phase of the Elder Dragon Investigation Team bears a heavy mission—not seeking to end the Elder Crossing phenomenon completely, but only hoping to restore it to how it once was: happening only once in a hundred years.
...
New World, Astera.
Inside the forge that had already been expanded considerably and had completed its renovation, dense high heat filled the air at this moment.
A ring-shaped conveyor belt slowly turned amid the mechanical creaking, and two giant steel claws firmly fixed a glowing-red metal pillar that was a full 10 m long.
Under the Second Fleet Master's gaze, a mechanical sledgehammer dropped from the ceiling and hammered heavily onto the metal pillar. In this way, after continuously operating for half an hour, the metal pillar was completely stretched and formed.
Very soon, 4 Grimalkynes pushed over a specially made large flatbed cart, skillfully operated the mechanical claws, and placed the metal pillar onto the cart.
A year—it had been a full year, and the entire forge had been laboring for this kind of large metal pillar.
The assembly-line machinery that had taken half a year to build had not even forged a single piece of a hunter's equipment; it was all used to process this thing with no technical content.
Finally, today, this last one was finished.
Thinking of that empty-as-could-be warehouse behind the forge, while the Second Fleet Master felt relieved, deep down his heart also twitched.
That was the entire Investigation Team's accumulated ore stockpile, and on top of that were even those traded from the cats of the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan.
Fortunately, as of today, this has finally come to an end!
Outside the forge, Ahtal-Ka looked at the metal pillar that had been carried out by 4 cats of the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan, and for a moment actually produced a somewhat not-wanting-it thought.
It couldn't bear to part with it!
Accepting this metal pillar meant that its transaction with the Investigation Team would be concluded this time, and its walking fortress mechanized beast, which had already more than doubled in size and whose length had reached 35 m, would, in the short term, have no way to get such good parts again.
That's right, Ahtal-Ka had gotten addicted to fleecing the Investigation Team!
In just a single year—and even with Ahtal-Ka being so picky—by relying still on these metal pillars delivered one after another and on the buildings and machinery dismantled from Astera, supplemented by those engineers helping in their spare time to design all kinds of linkage components for the mechanized beast, it finally expanded this large "mechanical Nergigante," which had already changed greatly but had ample improvements on the practical-combat side, into what it is now.
As for the physical labor Ahtal-Ka paid in order to obtain the engineers' help—well, for a hardcore "Mech kit-bash enthusiast," what are those large buildings that need moving and assembling if not another kind of building-block toy?
Incidentally, not only did the engineers of the Investigation Team name this mechanical Nergigante "Annihilation No. 1," they even went so far as to add, inside the mechanized beast—at the control core originally belonging to Ahtal-Ka—an additional cockpit large enough for a person to enter.
Heaven knows what the Admiral felt when he watched Ahtal-Ka assemble "Annihilation No. 1," and then saw a Wyverian engineer, trembling, crawl into the cockpit under the pretext of testing its practicality—afraid he would be crushed by those things.
Fortunately, the test passed without incident. The only not-so-good thing was that, after the Wyverian engineer came out, he would always mutter about there still being room for improvement, and perhaps their Investigation Team could also make something like this.
In the eyes of old-school hunters like the Admiral and the others, such an idea seemed a bit fantastical, yet when the scholars heard it, they actually agreed very much—and even included it in their future plans.
For a while, the Admiral could not tell whether he himself had fallen behind the times or whether those scholars had gone mad.
At the entrance of the base, the Admiral and the Commander were bidding farewell to Ahtal-Ka—who was walking away with three reluctant backward glances—and to those Grimalkynes of the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan who had come to assist on this mission, fearing that Ahtal-Ka might suddenly have second thoughts and decide to build a nest and settle permanently in Astera.
Only after they completely disappeared into the deep forest did the two finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The Admiral and the Commander looked at each other.
This past year had felt like a dream, as if something had happened, and yet as if nothing had happened at all.
The existence of Ahtal-Ka and the Admiral's promise of those 30 metal pillars caused the Investigation Team's expansion progress this year to be almost zero, and a series of chain reactions also brought about considerable changes to the structure of the Investigation Team at this time.
First, inside Astera, many projects that had originally been scheduled for the future because they required a great deal of manpower were, in this brief single year, forcibly completed through Ahtal-Ka's precise assistance.
Leaving aside the current state of things, the future would be much more convenient, and the manpower of the upcoming Fourth Fleet could also be appropriately increased somewhat.
All in all, one could already proudly say: Astera's future is promising!
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