The two women drove straight into the glorious capital. This time, no one stepped out to bar their way; for all intents and purposes, they were treated as ordinary passersby.
Passing through a dark, lengthy tunnel, the real face of the city unfolded before their eyes.
Truth be told, the inner view didn't quite live up to the grandeur one would expect from an imperial seat. As far as the eye could see, the outer rim was packed with ironclad factories, their smokestacks spewing dark plumes that likely carried trace amounts of Originium dust.
Jeanne and Talulah both frowned at the dreary sight. Even with half the facilities shut down, the grim environment of the sector was unmistakable.
"So this is the outer district of Londinium?" Talulah observed, her brow furrowing slightly. "Honestly... it looks worse off than County Hillock."
In County Hillock, factories weren't crammed together quite so densely. Here on the city's fringe, spewing fumes defined almost every block.
"This is simply the necessary price paid to forge a nation as grand as Victoria," Lieutenant Colonel Leto offered from behind, trying to defend the city's honor. Hearing an outsider belittle the greatest metropolis on Terra sat uncomfortably with him. "Once you reach the inner rings, the air is treated properly. We have our ways."
Neither woman bothered to reply. Meanwhile, the noble who had ushered them inside had vanished into thin air without a trace.
With Jeanne at the wheel, their vehicle rumbled down the cobblestone road. Once the car disappeared down the street, Lieutenant Colonel Leto let out a long, heavy sigh of relief and returned to his post, resuming his daily duties as if nothing extraordinary had just occurred.
The soldiers nearby acted as though the encounter had never happened, though in quiet corners, whispers broke out about how terrifying the Draco woman truly was.
Some naturally wondered about the person beside her. Who was that girl? She doesn't look like anyone special, so how did she end up riding alongside a figure like that?
"What do you think those nobles are playing at?" Talulah asked, gazing lazily out the window at the passing streets. "Sending a single subordinate to greet us, then letting us wander around Londinium completely unchecked?"
"You've dealt with nobles before," Jeanne replied offhandedly, keeping her eyes on the road. "Why the sudden confusion over what this batch is plotting?"
"The nobles I dealt with were from Ursus," Talulah grunted in frustration. "They might be insufferable, but they have a direct, brute-force style. It's completely different from the Victorian habit of weaving convoluted schemes behind closed doors."
Though aristocrats were cut from the same cloth across Terra, regional flavors varied wildly. Had this played out in Ursus, no local noble would let them roam the capital freely out of respect for some unspoken political understanding.
"Who knows?" Jeanne mused. "Maybe they think now that we're inside the walls, Fafnir won't dare unleash her fire. In their eyes, without a massive dragon backing us up, we're just two unusually strong mortals—and mortals can always be dealt with."
As Jeanne drove, she noticed several workers along the roadside heading toward the factories. A few of them froze upon recognizing the pair, then offered subtle, quiet nods of greeting.
Jeanne vaguely recalled those faces—they were members of Reunion who had embedded themselves in the capital weeks ago. From the looks of it, they were blending in quite well.
The car pressed deeper into the district. Up ahead, shift changes were under way, and judging by the workers' muted conversations, a significant portion of the workforce bore the telltale signs of infection.
"I hear Infected laborers are assigned to the most hazardous workshops," Talulah murmured, her tone darkening as she watched the passing crowd. "Doin' the deadliest work for the absolute lowest pay..."
Whenever she witnessed such sights, her mind naturally drifted to the suffering Infected fighting just to survive another day. Part of the reason she had come to Londinium was to answer the quiet pleas for help from these very workers; she wanted to give them something to hold onto.
Jeanne kept silent on the matter, turning her gaze toward the sky above the cityscape. She wondered where that silly dragon had flown off to.
As if summoned by her thoughts, a small, familiar figure caught Jeanne's eye on a curb just a few blocks ahead—a miniature dragon that looked remarkably like a scaled-down version of Talulah...
Why is that silly girl sitting by the roadside waiting for us?! Jeanne's eyes widened in disbelief.
Fafnir had somehow snuck inside the city walls and was patiently waiting by the curb for them to pass by so she could hitch a ride.
Leaning out the window as the car rolled past, Jeanne reached out, snatched Fafnir by the nape, and hauled her straight through the window, dropping the creature right into Talulah's lap—an acrobatic, wildly reckless maneuver that would have ended in disaster for anyone else.
"Hey! Could you at least hit the brakes first?!" Talulah snapped, visibly startled by the stunt. She caught the slightly dazed Fafnir, set the young dragon upright in her lap, and gave Jeanne a stern earful about basic road safety.
Jeanne took the lecture in quiet resignation. She had acted purely on instinct without thinking it through; under normal circumstances, she would have brought the car to a complete stop.
She sighed softly, admitting her mistake until Talulah finally ran out of steam and let it drop.
"So, Fafnir," Jeanne asked, leaning back slightly. "Did you spot anything interesting during your flyby?"
Sending Fafnir on a aerial loop wasn't just a show of force; it was a quick way to map out Londinium's layout and check for hidden defenses.
"There's... a really tall tower!" the small dragon replied after thinking hard. "When I flew near it, the tower looked like it was powering up, but then someone shut it right back down! Other than that... Fafnir didn't see much!"
Jeanne and Talulah exchanged a subtle glance. So there was a high-value threat primed inside the city.
"A tall tower... Spire Building?" Talulah surmised. Unlike Jeanne, she had done her homework on Victorian infrastructure before heading south.
"What's that?" Jeanne asked. To her, the name just sounded like an oversized piece of architecture. What made it so dangerous?
"A specialized structure capable of summoning Catastrophes," Talulah explained gravely. "I heard the citizens of Londinium call the Spire Building the city's offensive spear. It's the primary reason these walls have never been breached."
Even Talulah found the idea of a man-made installation weaponizing Catastrophes deeply unsettling. Controlling the raw wrath of nature was a terrifying capability.
"To think Victoria built something like that..." Jeanne muttered in surprise.
It was her first time hearing of a nation capable of manually triggering a Catastrophe. Still, given how rare the installation was, the resource cost to construct and maintain it must be astronomical—otherwise, Victoria would be wielding spires on every front line across Terra.
I wonder if that thing was dug up from an ancient ruin from the Doctor's era? The thought crossed Jeanne's mind. Anything that drastically outpaced current technology usually pointed back to the same ancient origins.
"Stop daydreaming," Talulah interrupted quietly, her gaze locking onto the road ahead. "We've got company."
A group of finely dressed aristocrats stood blocking the intersection ahead. Leading them was a female Feline with white hair, who offered a polished, courtly smile as the vehicle came to a slow halt.
"They're finally here," Allerdale Cumberland murmured under her breath. Having received explicit instructions from a certain party, the noble leader took a deep breath and stepped forward to face the incoming car.