Chapter 3 Homecoming

Windsor made up a set of words sufficient to deal with her superiors as the only survivor of the squad. After detailing the whole process, she was finally allowed to return to the dormitory assigned to the soldiers. The soldiers at the bottom of the West Asian country were sleeping with both men and women and except for the separation of the bathrooms and toilets, there was no distinction between the genders in the arrangements.

I took a hot shower to chase away the chill.

Wiping the mist from the mirror and looking at the man in the mirror, Windsor felt a slight sense of gratitude. The first day in Val City hadn't been great, but at least surviving was nothing compared to dead teammates and a heavily thwarted mission, losing a weapon in a firefight.

Even though she was new to the area, Windsor was aware of how much the civilians here hated the army and the nobles, and the soldier she failed to save was feared to be dead. And it was a miracle that she was still able to make it out of the ghetto in one piece in her uniform without getting her neck cut.

The battlefield on the first line in Wall City is more dangerous than expected ......

Green eyes darkened momentarily, recalling everything he had once heard about Val Castle City.

The city of Val City City belonged to one of the most critical mineral regions of the West Asian Empire.

Seventy percent of the country's energy crystals come from here. The officials appointed by the council supervise the collection and transportation of the crystals and hand them over to the merchants approved by the nobles to sell them, so the crystals that are constantly exported from here support the energy consumption of the entire Western Asian country.

There are many kinds of crystals, some of which can be made into expensive decorations and jewelry. In contrast, others are worthless, and another type of crystal has natural crystal energy and can be stored for lighting and heating. However, these crystals are of mixed quality; the unstable quality makes it effortless to explode, and the quality of the veins and the price is costly, usually only for the upper-class nobles and wealthy families; poor quality crystals are used mainly by the general public, and the bottom of the poor people can only use the most primitive oil lamps and firewood.

With such rich mineral deposits, Vaal should have been prosperous. Still, the nobles monopolized the crystal industry, and the people who worked as miners were poorly paid for their hard work while the vast profits fell into the hands of the nobles and merchants. In the long run, the city of Vaal has been separated into two worlds: on one side is the extravagant upper-class society where the nobles and energy miners spend their money lavishly; on the other side, the people are overwhelmed by the overload of exploitation and can hardly sustain themselves. The slums are expanding, and the areas where the poor live are filled with garbage, dilapidated and chaotic, with rules that are different from the law, as if they were another dimension.

The breakdown of order in Val is so poorly policed that it is difficult to curb it, even with severe penalties.

There are burglaries all the time, thugs robbing at gunpoint in dark alleys, bandits openly looting carriages, and the forests on the outskirts of the countryside being ransacked by merchants and noblemen, with the police force unable to do anything about it. Although the judges are constantly handing out death sentences and the executioners are busy, the crimes continue to grow. However, not the thieves and burglars truly frighten the nobles; the riots in Val are challenging to eradicate.

The crystal harvesting orders issued by the Empire were quite harsh. EmpirewhippinEmpirehard labor occurred repeatedly, provoking unrest.

The army's several bloody and brutal crackdowns have caused the people of Vaal City to hate the military and the nobles completely, giving rise to an endless stream of rebels and underground resistance organizations. A particular mayor was even stripped naked and hung upside down in front of his mansion, which became an enduring joke. The intensity of the rebellion was such that no one from the nobility dared to take up a position in Vaal City. In the end, the council passed a resolution to draw back the most ruthless generals from the northern border of Western Asia to suppress the rebellion.

The resolution was realized with excellent results, and there was never again a great disturbance in Val.

After nearly a decade of calm, the General temporarily left his base due to an Imperial tour and a border rebellion. Val City was immediately attacked, targeting the nobili, ty. The city hall was set on fire by thugs, the mayor of Val City overstepped his authority in his rage, and there were numerous casualties and zero results, excluding the poor commanders; the strength of the insurgents speaks for itself.

Gently touching the bruise on her neck, Windsor's breath caught slightly as she remembered the close call earlier.

An enemy as fearsome as that was something she never wanted to face again.

With a long roar, the steam train pulled into the platform, and the noisy crowd hurried on and off.

The green-eyed woman stepped off the train and into a light carriage that drove halfway across the city, stopping in front of a lavish mansion. Well-dressed servants came forward to take the suitcase, and she stepped into the inner hall, where a fat older woman greeted her with a hopeful smile.

"Dear Windsor, you're back at last."

Embraced into a vast, warm embrace, the woman buried her head into the older woman's chest out of habit. "Sister Dia, I'm sorry; I should have returned the week before, bought the gifts, and canceled my vacation instead. Blame it on the damned Mayor of Val City, and may God make that half-bald head shine a little brighter."

The older woman coughed with laughter, the corners of her wrinkled eyes filling with love, and kissed the soft cheek.

"My little Windsor is as cute as ever; let me look closer." Stepping back a bit to scan, the older woman frowned. "Thin again, is the army stuff fed to pigs? The poor child has no meat at all."

Windsor rubbed her face, "It was tough to eat, and I dreamed of Sister's deliciousness."

The old woman was greatly distressed, "I'll make you delicious food right away. How many days can I stay at this time? Grandma will feed you and fatten you up before you're allowed to leave."

Hugging Sister around the waist in response, Windsor went to her room to freshen up slightly, changed into a long dress, and was immediately overwhelmed by the array of food.

Looking at the piles of food on the table and glancing at the grinning old Sister next to her, Windsor sucked in her breath and buried her head in her mouth, and by the time the last dessert was served, she could barely stand up.

"Sister-" It wasn't a pout; she had the presence of mind to do so, and she was again struck dumb as her eyes swept over the tantalizingly fragrant dessert. "Madeleine's flaming blueberry cake?"

Old Dia was quite proud. "Just little Windsor's favorite blueberry cake."

Madeleine's Flaming Blueberry Cake is an Empire Topper. Still, it's also quite challenging to make, testing both baking skills and the chef's patience, and it tastes completely different overnight.

"I just got back; how did Sister Dia get around to doing it."

"Windsor will return in the next few days, so I'll make one daily." The older woman was smug as a child. "It's good you got home before the treasured blueberries ran out."

Cut off a piece and put it in your mouth, as sweet as you remember.

Her nose grew a little sour.

After a long time of tossing and turning under the cozy silk covers, Windsor sat up anyway.

She ripped off the covers after having been home only a handful of times since entering the military and no longer entirely used to the layers of fluffy mattresses. She wrapped them around her body, sleeping peacefully on the carpet.

"Miss Windsor!"

What was a warm, friendly voice had a vicious undertone, startling Windsor into bouncing up from her sleep, her sanity still a little fuzzy. "Sister Dia?"

"I can't believe you're sleeping underground! You're a lady! How could the child I raised become like this? Goodness! The lady must be crying in heaven because her beloved child is sleeping on the ground like a tramp. " The old woman's spite poured out like a torrential downpour.

Must have overeaten yesterday and forgotten to crawl back into bed early in the morning, Windsor secretly regretted.

The torrent of complaints seemed endless, but she finally relented. "I'm sorry, Sister, the bus ride back yesterday was very crowded, so I was a little tired and didn't notice when I fell out of bed."

"Fell?" Old Dia froze for a moment, slightly muffling his fire. "Even so, you're sleeping ......" because the bed Sister made was so comfortable that it accidentally slipped off." Windsor lied without changing her face, looking very innocent. "I'll pay attention tonight."

"If that is the case--" Crossing her arms around her chest instead, the old woman stared at her with a stern face as if confronting a disobedient little girl. "Then it was my negligence, and I should have reacquainted the young lady with the manners expected of a lady. I will keep watch tonight so that I can correct her sleeping posture whenever I can."

"Huh?"

The markets of the Imperial Capital were as lively as ever, and after finishing a cup of roadside coffee that Sister Dia had once mocked as mud soup, Windsor threw down a few copper coins and walked out.

A passing man chanced to scan, stared for a long time to make sure he was not mistaken, clicked his hat, took a few steps, took up behind her, and was about to pull her arm when he suddenly lost his aim. The woman dodged the surprise attack, snapped a wrist strap, and hooked her foot; the man immediately lost his balance, felt like he would be thrown out of the room, and raised his voice in fear.

"Windsor, it's me!"

"Charlotte." Meeting her classmates from the Royal Military Academy, Windsor was born with surprise. "When did you return to the Imperial Capital?"

"Administrative changes two months ago." Turning her wrist, Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. "Still so vigilant."

Windsor smiled; the Charlotte in fr; her was uniformed and radiant, very different from the scattered and tired person she had been at the academy, and it was clear that several years of military service had made an invisible mark. "Transferred back? Congratulations on finally getting your wish."

I remember Charlotte's reaction when she was first ordered to assign the Border Army Plugs, which was painful.

Charlotte couldn't help but have a few moments of amusement. "What about you? I hear you're no longer in Bassa City; where are you now?"

"Val City."

"How the hell did we get to that hellhole." Charlotte was stunned.

"Father said I'd been a civilian for too long and had me retrained in Val City."

"You still need to be trained?" The fact that the elite, praised by even the most demanding instructors at the Royal Military Academy, still needed training was beyond Charlotte's comprehension.

"The academy and the army are two different things." Windsor downplayed the situation, not intending to talk about herself any further. "What branch did you come back into?"

"The Department of Constitutional Affairs, it took me a lot of work to get the ball rolling, and those old guys at the council are practically vampires." Charlotte graciously confessed, suddenly remembering. "By the way, have you seen Ash in Val City?"

"He's in Val City? I've never heard of it." Windsor was slightly surprised.

Charlotte shrugged. "He had too good a head on his shoulders and got into the Imperial Research Institute, with his job listed as extremely classified. It was only by coincidence that I learned that the research center was located at the Val City base, and poor Ash went in, but his family never saw him again."

"True ......," the woman shook her head and stopped talking.

Charlotte sighed. "Unlucky? Indeed, mentioning him again makes me feel downright lucky."

Windsor couldn't help but smile, the sunlight in the Empire was bright, reflEmpire the green eyes as if they were a bend of spring water.