Chapter 603: Unexpected Promotion

Stepping off the Raging River Legion warship, Christina took a deep breath as she scanned the massive dock around her.

It had been a little over half-a-month since she left Misty City on this mission, and she had now finally arrived together with the other members of the First Regiment Third Battalion.

There were a few new faces among the soldiers standing behind her, but most of them were familiar to her not just from the patrol mission a month ago, but also from their prior deployment to the South-West Province.

Since Allina was both Vice-General and First Regiment Commander, it only made sense that the entire First Regiment had been sent to reinforce Herald City during the early days of the explosion crisis.

Subsequently, the First Regiment’s soldiers, the Third Battalion included, had accompanied Allina basically the entire time the Raging River Legion had been stationed in the South-West Province.

Even the ship Christina had been riding on earlier today was one of the ones involved in the river convoy that shuttled her, Eris, and Lucas to Misty City from Iron Rock.

In other words, despite not having served for very long in the military, Christina was actually quite familiar with the Third Battalion, which might have been why she was suddenly and unexpectedly elevated to the position of Battalion Captain.

"Feeling nervous?" An older male voice called out from the side, shaking Christina from her daze.

Turning to face her ’adjutant’ for this mission, Captain Justin Cole, Christina couldn’t help smiling wryly, "How could I not be?"

"Heh," Captain Cole, who was actually one of the soldiers whose life had been saved by Lucas’ mother, Anna, on the night of the Spatial Storm, just shrugged, "You’ll get used to it, Ma’am."

"I hope so," Christina muttered quietly and sighed before patting her cheeks, turning on her heels, and addressing the assembled soldiers behind her, "I know you’re all tired after rushing here from Misty City, but we still have a mission to accomplish! The Piercing Sword Legion’s headquarters is a 10-k march from here, and the sooner we get there and report in, the sooner we can all get some sleep, so move out!"

In the light of the fading evening sun, the Third Battalion all saluted firmly before they began making their way down the docks and towards the city.

Turning back to Justin, who despite his youthful looks was approaching 50 years old, Christina followed up, "I’ll leave the Battalion to you, Captain Cole. Check in with the local Commanders, get our troops settled in at the barracks, then get some sleep yourself. I don’t know how much work we’ll have waiting for us starting tomorrow, but it’s better to rest while we can."

"Understood, Battalion Captain," Justin acknowledged before asking, "And you, Captain?"

Smiling helplessly, Christina’s gaze wandered to the towering silver palace in the distance, beyond the sprawling city laid out before her, and grumbled, "Unfortunately, even a promotion to Battalion Captain doesn’t mean I stopped being a princess."

"Ah, politics, got it," Captain Cole nodded, saluted, then hurried off to join the rest of the battalion.

As for Christina, after passing a few instructions to the ship’s crew, she reluctantly made her way over to the main street and hailed a simple, unassuming carriage.

"Where to, M’Lady?" The driver asked in a polite tone, not underestimating Christina just because she looked like a beautiful young girl.

The fact that she was wearing heavy armour and carrying a dangerous looking great-sword might have had something to do with his deference as well.

"To the Duke’s Manor," Christina replied succinctly, her words causing this ordinary carriage driver to straighten up even further, not daring to act even the slightest bit disrespectful.

Any guest of Duke Roth was not someone a nobody like him could afford to offend, and while Christina had been nothing but polite so far, who knows what might set her off?

Nobles were always unreasonable like that.

Whipping the reins, the driver got his carriage rolling, hoping to get this trip over and done with as soon as possible so he had could stop sweating nervously.

.....

Unlike the Balfour Family’s Manors, which were located right in the heart of both Misty City and Martin, Duke Roth’s residence was built a fair distance away from Amherst.

In essence the two places were completely separate, with a large track of rich, fertile farmland stretching between them, most of which was owned by the Roth Family itself.

The carriage she was riding was an open-air one, with a cloth roof, so Christina had an almost unobstructed view of her surroundings, which she had to admit were quite picturesque. This was especially true of the fields of ripened wheat gently blowing in the wind, a golden glow emanating from them as a result of the evening sunlight.

As she was staring out absentmindedly, however, Christina suddenly had her eyes drawn to a small group of farmers.

It wasn’t the farmers that caught the princess’ attention, however, but rather the interesting piece of equipment they were operating.

One of the farmers was driving a pack-horse forward, making sure it moved in as straight a line as possible, while behind him hundreds of stalks of wheat were cut, gather into a loose bundle, then deposited out the side of a shiny, brand-new mechanical harvester.

A pair of workers would move in every now and then to tie up the ejected bundle of wheat and set it upright to dry in the sun, but other than that, no other human labour was necessary.

It was a smooth operation that these farmers were obviously not doing for the first time, and it was fast. At least, much faster than the 3 humans currently working this task could do by hand scythe.

"Amazing, ain’t it?" The carriage driver, who had noticed Christina staring, commented. The man was still nervous, which was obvious from the slight tremor in his voice, but it seemed he was the type to get chatty when he was feeling anxious.

Smiling lightly, Christina rested her elbow on the side of the carriage in a relaxed manner and nodded, "It really is."

(Illustration in Chapter Comments)

"En, I hear it’s called a harvester," the driver continued to make small-talk, "A couple of em just showed up one day, but ever since then, the farm boys just won’t shu... won’t stop talking bout em. They go on and on bout how ’mazing they are and how much easier the harvest is gonna be this year."

Letting out a crisp peel of laughter, Christina smiled sweetly, "That sounds wonderful."

Keeping his eyes forward so as not to be charmed by this young lady, who he was sure was some big-wig noble daughter, the driver praised liberally, "I dun know who came up with thing, but they must be a real genius. Someone who really cares bout us lowly folk."

"He really is," Christina whispered quietly as the face of a young boy flashed across her mind.