As the two days flew by, Jeanne—now feeling completely refreshed and clear-headed after her long, unadulterated streak of slacking off—packed her minimal belongings and joined Kal'tsit's vanguard unit. Together, they set off on the long trek toward Rim Billiton to finally claim her highly anticipated, priceless Originium core.
Their destination was a corner of Terra that Jeanne knew absolutely nothing about; she had never once heard its name mentioned during her previous travels.
During those two days of blissful isolation inside her private room, she had been so utterly consumed by her reading that she completely forgot to ask anyone for a basic geographical overview of the nation. It was only when the engines rumbled to life and the convoy prepared to depart that she realized she probably should have educated herself on the local culture.
Unfortunately, every operator in her immediate vicinity was sprinting around in a frantic, pre-deployment rush. She felt far too self-conscious to corner a busy logistics officer just to ask for a casual lesson on Rim Billiton's socio-political landscape, so she dropped the matter entirely.
In the end, Jeanne chose not to stress over her lack of regional intelligence. The physical security of the entire expedition was firmly guaranteed by Babel's elite vanguard, and if they somehow managed to lose their way, she could always rely on her ever-faithful, omniscient Revelations to steer them back on course.
Her entire knowledge of the country was limited to a single piece of trivia shared by little Amiya, who had once mentioned that Rim Billiton was her birthplace. Right now, the small Cautus child was sitting directly beside Jeanne, her tiny hands gripping her coat in a state of visible tension, looking as though the imminent return to her homeland was dredging up a flood of bittersweet, long-buried childhood memories.
Indeed, Kal'tsit and Theresa had made the executive decision to bring little Amiya along on this high-stakes operation. The choice was primarily made to guarantee the child's absolute safety; as the operation progressed, virtually the entire core military strength of Babel would gradually converge on this single excavation site.
As for who was left behind to keep the lights on at the main headquarters? Babel was a massive, multi-layered organization; it possessed an entire echelon of secondary administrators and logistics directors who were more than capable of managing daily operations while the primary leadership was deployed in the field.
Once the armored transport crossed the border, Jeanne received absolute confirmation that the Doctor had indeed traveled ahead of the main column. From the moment they departed until now, she hadn't caught a single glimpse of that signature visor.
Her absence made the journey incredibly tedious. Under normal circumstances, having someone with such a chaotic, unpredictable personality around meant there was always a bizarre topic of conversation to pass the time—unlike the current atmosphere, where everyone inside the vehicle remained locked in a suffocating, collective silence.
The interior of the heavy transport was profoundly quiet. Aside from the mechanical drone of the engine and the heavy thud of tires traversing the uneven terrain, even the faint sound of a passenger drawing a shallow breath felt intensely magnified.
This particular brand of quiet stems from the fact that a large portion of the elite operators chose to close their eyes and conserve their energy for the challenges ahead. Seeing their peers resting, the few soldiers who originally wanted to spark a casual chat quickly held their tongues, causing the entire cabin to devolve into a silent chamber.
Left with no other options to stave off the boredom, Jeanne turned her gaze toward the window to study the shifting landscape. They had officially crossed deep into the sovereign territory of Rim Billiton, and the view outside presented a striking, unfamiliar sight.
The terrain opened up into a vast, rolling savanna. Unlike the desolate, completely ruined wilderness fields that characterized the borders of other Terran nations, these grasslands possessed a strange, vibrant life, with herds of unfamiliar creatures sprinting gracefully across the plains.
The beasts resembled massive, long-legged ostriches—a species Jeanne had never encountered across any of the barren badlands she had traversed before.
Jeanne stared at the creatures, a sudden, stray thought drifting through her mind: I wonder if those things actually taste good?
She watched the carefree animals race alongside the convoy for a while, her mind wandering aimlessly through random scenarios until the rhythmic swaying of the vehicle took its toll, and she quietly drifted off to sleep around midday.
Traveling long distances across Terra was an exercise in pure boredom, especially when one was cooped up inside an armored metal box alongside a gathering of absolute stoics. Jeanne deeply regretted her failure to pack a book from her quarters; a simple novel would have done wonders to alleviate this crushing monotony.
At the very least, a book would have stopped her from spending hours watching endless flocks of creatures engage in bizarre, natural footraces. There wasn't even a single localized predator around to provide a bit of dramatic tension, leaving Jeanne with absolutely nothing to do but secretly summon a tiny, harmless fragment of her draconic magic to pass the time.
She wasn't reckless enough to manifest a massive, ostentatious wyvern inside a packed military transport, so she settled for shaping a tiny, docile draconic construct—hardly larger than a common house gecko—and began absentmindedly spinning it around in her palms. The surrounding operators briefly glanced at the tiny creature before averting their eyes, entirely unfazed by her eccentric hobby.
Oddly enough, as Jeanne stroked the tiny creature's tail, she realized the physical texture felt remarkably similar to the sleek, draconic scales of Talulah's tail! Since she wouldn't be able to feel the real thing anytime soon, she figured this inconspicuous little substitute would have to do for now.
Still, Talulah's actual tail definitely feels a million times better... Jeanne mused, a fond smile crossing her face before she remembered the Draco's terrible temper. Whenever she tried to playfully grab her tail back in the frozen north, Talulah would violently protest, occasionally resorting to biting her fingers or, worst of all, weaponizing advanced mathematics by forcing her to solve brutal equations out of pure spite...
The mere memory of those advanced calculus sheets sent a genuine shiver down Jeanne's spine. It was a terrifying form of punishment! But considering how incredibly smooth those draconic scales felt, she concluded that braving a mountain of advanced mathematics homework was an entirely acceptable trade-off. It was worth every single page.
By this point, Jeanne's internal monologue had completely spiraled out of control, shifting entirely onto how much she missed teasing her favorite Draco. She suddenly paused, a wave of self-awareness hitting her: Wait, why is it that whenever my mind wanders, the very first person I think of bullying is always Talulah? What kind of chaotic, miserable life did that poor girl inherit the moment she crossed paths with me?!
Far away, amidst the bleak, freezing tundras of the Ursus snow plains, Talulah suddenly let out a sharp, unexpected sneeze. She rubbed her nose in mild confusion, wondering how a person with her intense, flame-wielding physical constitution could possibly catch a sudden chill.
Or... could it be that Jeanne is actively thinking about me right now?
The sudden realization caused the fearsome leader of the Reunion movement to smile, a wave of genuine warmth swelling within her chest.
Even the sleek, elegant tail that Jeanne had been daydreaming about began to swish back and forth against the floorboards in a distinctly cheerful, rhythmic motion. The surrounding vanguard commanders glanced at their leader in utter bewilderment, completely unable to comprehend how a sudden sneeze could instantly transform her usual stern expression into a look of profound, radiant happiness.
Of course, if Talulah ever discovered that Jeanne's fond thoughts were strictly limited to the tactile texture of her tail scales, she would have immediately dispatched a high-priority courier to the Hippogryph host of Kashchey, demanding a fresh shipment of the most agonizing, high-level advanced mathematical textbooks available on the black market to keep Jeanne thoroughly occupied for the next decade.
Meanwhile, back in the heart of Rim Billiton, Jeanne's long, exhausting journey finally reached its conclusion after several days of relentless travel. The convoy ground to a halt, arriving at the coordinates of the massive archaeological excavation site where the Doctor's vanguard had been working night and day to unearth Rhodes Island.
The surrounding atmosphere was eerily tense. The very instant their transport crossed the outer perimeter, Jeanne's sharp senses detected no less than a dozen hidden surveillance nodes and concealed lookouts snapping their focus directly onto their vehicle, tracking their movements with intense, scrutinizing gazes.
The Doctor's assessment had been completely accurate. Ever since that catastrophic meteor had plummeted from the heavens, this desolate mining sector had transformed into the absolute epicenter of international intelligence, with various global factions practically drooling over the site, waiting for the perfect legal loophole to launch a violent raid.
Of course, this fragile diplomatic peace was heavily reliant on the fact that the local authorities remained completely oblivious to the true identity of Babel's sovereign leader—the legendary Lord of the Sarkaz. If word ever leaked out that the Sarkaz monarch of Kazdel was operating a massive archaeological project within their borders, the local government would likely choose to look the other way while outside forces wiped the sector off the map.
After all, Rim Billiton's standing military power was notoriously fragile compared to the massive superpowers of Terra. If they hadn't managed to secure a powerful geopolitical alliance by firmly embedding themselves under Columbia's economic umbrella, their national future would mirror the tragic, war-torn reality of Bolívar.
A corporate state of that nature naturally harbored a profound, deep-seated terror of the Sarkaz race. Even with a massive superpower like Columbia acting as their protective guardian, they possessed absolutely zero desire to provoke the wrath of those legendary, war-hardened mercenaries.
Due to these complex political dynamics, the excavation site currently existed in a state of bizarre, incredibly volatile harmony. However, the civilian miners and local laborers working within the trenches were visibly riddled with anxiety, a detail that Jeanne picked up on the moment she stepped out of the vehicle.
"Welcome to the front lines, everyone! I trust the journey across the savanna wasn't too grueling..."
As Jeanne stepped onto the dusty earth, stretching her stiff joints to relieve the aches of the long ride, a bright, energetic voice echoed out to greet the incoming unit.
It was the Doctor. Having arrived ahead of the column to spearhead the mechanical restoration of the ancient landship—an asset of paramount strategic importance for the future of Babel—her voice carried the distinct, slightly manic pitch of someone who had been surviving on pure caffeine and pulling consecutive all-nighters for days on end.
"I knew you'd make it here safely! Come on, follow me—I'm going to show you the ultimate pinnacle of my era's technological achievements! The finest, most magnificent masterpiece our civilization ever conceived!"
The moment her eyes landed on Jeanne, the Doctor offered a sweeping wave before immediately turning on her heel like an excited child eager to show off a prized treasure. She was bursting with pride, desperate to give Jeanne a firsthand look at the ancient, hyper-advanced vessel her people had meticulously engineered thousands of years ago.
Jeanne quickly followed the strategist, passing through the heavily fortified security checkpoints. The path led them into a massive, engineered subterranean tunnel that descended sharply into the bedrock. The sheer depth of the cavern was staggering, explaining why this monumental relic had managed to elude the detection of modern Terran survey teams for millennia.
It was a universally acknowledged truth across Terra that any ancient machine buried deep within the earth or sealed inside a prehistoric ruin was an absolute goldmine. It was the kind of priceless historical treasure that, even if Jeanne chose to completely dismantle it and sell the internal components as scrap metal, would still yield enough wealth to buy a small country.
A few steps later, the tunnel opened up into a breathtaking, cavernous expanse, and Jeanne's eyes widened as she caught sight of the titan resting within.
Before her stood a colossal, jaw-dropping landship. At a single glance, its structural dimensions easily eclipsed the massive Ursus imperial military vessel that their forces had successfully captured during the northern campaign. The entire hull radiated a sleek, almost ethereal metallic sheen, whispering of an era of unfathomable scientific mastery.
For a moment, Jeanne found herself entirely devoid of words, completely unable to find the vocabulary necessary to describe the sheer majesty of the vessel. The sight of this mechanical titan slumbering deep within the subterranean dark, illuminated only by a few scattered industrial spotlights and the massive beams of heavy tactical projectors, was profoundly awe-inspiring.
"Welcome to the world beneath the soil," the Doctor proclaimed, throwing her arms wide in a grand gesture as she introduced the iron leviathan. "What stands before you is an ark constructed by the hands of humanity's ancient past, and the final landship our civilization ever built—Rhodes Island!"
Despite the fact that her voice modulator processed her words into a cold, flat, entirely electronic cadence, Jeanne could easily detect the profound, shaking waves of pure emotion and pride vibrating beneath her words.