December 6, 1614 Central Calendar, 14:00

Altaras Kingdom, Port of Le Brias

The Parpaldian merchant clipper Blijde Boodschap had safely docked at the first destination of her voyage after one day of sailing from Esthirant. The ship's large hull, which is a jarring sight among the ships from outside civilization countries that lined the harbor around her, nearly filled the entire docking space between at the wharf, with the ship's bow pointing into the cityscape of Le Brias. As the ramps were set up and the crewmen unloaded the crates of the ship's cargo into the harbor, Meyer was busy giving directions to his subordinates.

"Handle those ones with care."

The sailors obeyed their boss' words and proceeded with their work. Among the crates containing fragile pottery and other traded goods exported by the Parpaldia Empire to the Altaras Kingdom, were five 'special' crates with unique marks on them, carried by the Blijde Boodschap to Altaras as part of the deal that both nations signed in their (unequal) treaty after establishing diplomatic relations. These special crates contain items that demonstrated Parpaldia's lenience (and generosity, or that's what they think) toward Altaras, which is relatively wealthy and has something Parpaldia needed.

"You two, stay on the ship until I return, it shouldn't take long," Meyer said as he turned to the two young teenagers accompanying him on the trip.

"Eh!? What? Why, father?"

His son, Kaios, exclaimed in an incredulous tone. At this, Meyer let out a quiet sigh.

"Son... bringing you to this country is one thing, but stepping foot on it is another. Look, we will stay for one week in this country. Let me finish my work first. After I checked the city, we will go sightseeing together tomorrow, okay?"

And with that, Kaios' excitement deflated at his father's words as they were being denied stepping off the ship. Elto, however, saw reason in Meyer's words and whispered from the side.

"Your father has a point. I heard that cities outside civilization are not as safe as back home. What if your father is too busy to look after us, then you got overexcited and wandered somewhere... then a thug appears and snatched you and then—"

Her tone grew sinister as she continued, and without Kaios knowing, her hands hovered near his shoulders. Meanwhile, Kaios blanched at Elto's whispering and then he felt something suddenly grab his shoulders tightly.

And then he screamed.

'Wow... he actually jumped,' Elto thought with amusement.

As she described it, her friend was so terrified that he jumped to get away from whatever gripping him and ran behind his father for cover, all while screaming his head off, drawing the attention of Meyer's sailors nearby. When he peeked from Meyer's back, he saw Elto with a poker face and her hands lowered, staring back at him. Even though she wore an emotionless expression on her face, by listening to the faint sound of her irregular breathing, Meyer can tell that she is holding back laughter.

He sighed, "Sheesh... good grief... young lady, do not give my son weird ideas. And you, Kaios, calm down. I will never let that happen to you, but first, stay on the ship while I am away. Besides, it's only for one day, understand?"

Kaios nodded meekly as he still clung to his father's longcoat.

"Good boy, if you need something, just talk to the crew," he said, gently patting his head, "Well then... I'm off."

After that, he began descending the ramp and walked through the sailors and merchants crowding the harbor with his crew carrying the crates in tow. Although he kept moving forward without looking back at the two teenagers who were waving at him, Meyer raised his hand and lightly waved back. Not long after his father and the crew following him were out of sight, Kaios turned to Elto with a scowl on his face.

"What was that for?"

"...What?" Elto nonchalantly replied, playing with her hair.

"That...! Why are you scaring me like that?"

"Ah... that was a test."

"A test? What are you talking about?"

Kaios tilted his head in confusion. He can't read Elto's intentions.

"My father said that a gentleman must be brave and calm. That's why I did that, I just want to test you," Elto lied smoothly through her teeth.

Hearing Elto's words, Kaios' eyes widened for a second before the blood rushed to his face, turning his face bright red. Earlier, when Elto unexpectedly startled him with her action, he screamed like a little kid before cowering behind his father. Now he was so embarrassed more than ever after showing exactly the opposite of what she had said. The blonde then tried to find an excuse to defend himself.

"I... I'm not scared...! I was just surprised, that's all..."

"Uh huh..."

"Egh—I'm... I bet you're lying! There's no way you will do that 'test' so suddenly like that...!"

When he saw Elto did not seem to be convinced by his attempt of saving face, he switched tactics to accusing her.

"Do you think so? Nice argument, but where's your proof?" Elto retorted with a slight tugging on her mouth.

"Ugh... err... hmph!"

Kaios found himself on his wit's end and he can turn away from Elto with crossed arms and walked to a bench near the ship's railing to sit down on it. The sight of the boy gave Elto some kind of amusement as she watched him sulking petulantly. At least she found something to get rid of the boredom of not being allowed to step off the ship to walk around the city.

'Hihi, you're so funny to tease,' the girl inwardly giggled, approaching Kaios to sit beside him.

"Hey."

He only grunted in response to her calling him. A moment of silence later, however, Kaios, unable to stand the awkward situation, let out a heavy sigh and began to speak.

"This sucks... what's the point of visiting another country if we can't even step on them?" he complained.

"Heavens above, Kaios, be patient. Did your father just say we can go out tomorrow? Just listen to him wait here until your father returns, please."

"Mm..."

Elto can understand why Kaios, who is always enthusiastic and eager to see something new, acted like this, but at the same time, she also knows that he is an obedient child who will never go against his father's words. Still, when the temptation is laid bare just before them, Elto hoped that her friend's curiosity will not get the better of him and he will not do any shenanigans that will cause them trouble.

'Hmm... about things that Kaios likes, huh...'

As she was thinking something to distract his attention, Elto remembered something and looked beyond the railing into the distance. There, far into the west, was the large container ship that belonged to the Holy Milishial Empire sitting calmly near a wharf that was made of a different material than the one their ship is at. As she was getting up from the bench, Elto asked Kaios sitting beside her a question.

"That giant gray ship over there... why do you think it's here?"

"Huh...? Oh."

Kaios also got up from the bench and walked over to the railing, gazing at the ship. Then he continued, "I saw that kind of ship when I went to Runepolis, that is called a container freighter, a merchant ship that can carry many things to distant places by putting those things into the metal boxes called containers. That's different from the usual cargo ship that always come to the capital."

"I see. What kind of things, by the way?"

"I don't know, it can be anything."

"So, it's a merchant ship, then?"

"That's right... Wait a minute, if a merchant ship carrying goods from Milishial comes here, it means that they are selling things to this country, right?"

His expression suddenly brightened from the gloomy look he had earlier after this realization. Elto tilted her head at his change in demeanor, wondering what was Kaios implying.

"Maybe?"

"Then if I want to buy something from Milishial, then I don't need to go all the way to Cartalpas or Runepolis since they sell them here, right?"

Kaios was thinking that if the Holy Milishial Empire exported their products to the Altaras Kingdom, it will greatly save the time needed to import goods from the HME's mainland since their merchant ships will bring those goods here at a speed faster than any Parpaldian merchant ship going back and forth from Philades to the Central World. Maybe if his father's company can negotiate with local merchants to let them buy those imported Milishial products...

However, Elto quickly shot down Kaios' optimism, "Um... let's don't get too carried away. I don't think they will sell their interesting goods to an outside civilization country like this, Kaios."

Elto had learned from her father who worked as a diplomat that the Parpaldia Empire, the newest country that entered the rank of superpowers, had repeatedly negotiated with the Holy Milishial Empire to import Milishial's products and advanced technology, but was rejected each time, the Holy Empire preferred to limit the trade with Parpaldia to common trade goods such as spices, wine, food, furs, and others. However, they did not limit anyone who come to the Holy Empire and wanted to buy Milishian items inside their mainland, which for the people outside the Holy Empire, is ridiculously expensive and an instant turn-off for foreigners except for the privileged classes such as nobility and royalty. For comparison, the single book that Meyer bought for Kaios in Runepolis, a junior high school book, costs 44 zollarks, or 869 Parpaldian paso. Imagine buying jewelry.

From Elto's point of view, if a superpower like Parpaldia cannot offer anything that interests the Holy Empire to sell their products in return, then it would be impossible for an outside civilization country whose civilization level is far below Parpaldia to do the same.

"Come on... then what is that container ship doing there if not trading?" Kaios countered, pointing at the Milishian ship.

Elto just shrugged at his question, "Who knows? For all I know it may be dumping their garbage on this island and then get paid by this country or something. Milishial is a super power, after all, they can do whatever they wanted and no one will protest."

"Sheesh... that's kind of harsh."

"What's wrong with trying to be realistic?" she wondered, tilting her head.

"Seriously—haah, just... whatever, I'm going to wait inside."

With a disappointed sigh, Kaios grumbled and stomped to the cabin to get some rest and wait for his father to return. Elto stared at his back as he walked away.

"Sulking again...?"

Elto remained standing near the railing for a little while, and it was at that moment it happened. From the light gray sky that was becoming darkened as the sun beyond slowly tilted to the west, white flurry substances started to fall from it like a procession of fairies descending from the heavens. One such substance was caught by the girl's hand as she looked up at the sky. The cold air, the overcast clouds, and the plants losing their colors. It all led to this moment.

Snowfall.

The snowflakes, fluttering gently in the air before softly landing on the ground, drew the attention of not only Elto but also everyone present in the harbor. For the young girl, the cityscape of Le Brias is foreign, too different from what she used to see back home, but there's something very calming to her when watching the snow fall on this city.

Whether it was intentional or not, the capital cities of Altaras and Parpaldia are opposites of each other in many things. Whereas Esthirant is dominated by the warm colors of red, Le Brias is painted mainly in cool shades of blue and green. When Esthirant stopped growing outward and began to grow vertically, Le Brias still have plenty of room to expand. Even their architectural styles, demography, and general attitude of its residents are opposites.

The city of Le Brias is one half of the two trade centers that connected the Central and Eastern Worlds, with the other being Esthirant across the strait. As a result, it has amassed enough wealth from the merchant ships that came to this city that allow it to rival its counterpart. However, the international community that acknowledged the Parpaldia Empire as a superpower while classifying this island nation as an outside civilization country had cast a massive gap that is even wider than the strait that separated the two cities.

"But still, no matter the place, snow is always beautiful..." Elto murmured with a faint smile on her face.

Several minutes later, Elto decided to enter the ship where it was warm and continued looking at the scenery of the Altaras Kingdom's capital from the porthole of her cabin after finding out that Kaios was already asleep in his own.

Around the same time

Le Brias, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Building

Away from the harbor, in one of the rooms of the main office for the department in charge of the kingdom's diplomacy, a group of a dozen officials was gathered, sitting at the chairs arranged to look like a classroom of some sort. They were concentrating on a piece of paper arranged in front of them, with their fingers sometimes poking at it at an irregular rhythm. Meanwhile, a young man that belonged to a different ethnicity than the officials was walking around with a bored expression on his face, occasionally stopping by an official's chair to check on them while holding an open book.

Tak, tak, tak... taktaktaktak...

On a desk separated from the rest, facing the rest of the group, another official was operating some kind of machine with a serious look on his face. Other than the young man's clacking shoes, the soft clicking sounds in an irregular tempo from the machine as it was operated echoed within the room.

This young man, Gabriel Flyheight, is overseeing the training of these officials belonging to the Altaran Ministry of Foreign Affairs in using the typewriter, a device recently imported from the Holy Empire and introduced by the Royal Government on a trial basis. The Altaran government arranged for these officials to become the first to undergo training while Gabriel, who normally works as the aide for the Milishian ambassador for the Altaras Kingdom, Leonardo Mephilas, was dispatched by the embassy to provide instructions on how to use this device.

After the two countries signed an agreement that was proposed by the Holy Milishial Empire back in October, the Altaras Kingdom granted the mining rights of the NMC-22 ores and eliminated tariffs on imports from Milishial in exchange for the Holy Empire providing some of its technology, improving the country's infrastructure and its ability to develop resources, as well as giving the country international recognition on the upcoming Eleven Countries Leadership Conference.

As this agreement marked the beginning of the Holy Empire's expansion of its economic activities into the Eastern World, which was long neglected, the companies headquartered in Milishial, who anticipated this move, began to enter the country one after another. In addition, the Holy Empire's government considered that the Altaras Kingdom, despite its relatively small size, with its tremendous amount of wealth and more importantly, stability, is a more preferable trading partner compared to the Parpaldia Empire where one cannot wander too far away from their main cities without encountering rebels, bandits, or both at the same time.

The typewriter is one of those technologies that was exported after the lifting of some of the restricted technology. A typewriter is a device used for typing, an act of writing text by the means of pressing the array of 'keys' on the typewriter, causing the characters to be produced on a paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. It is a very convenient way of writing and is widely used by government offices and the business community in the Holy Milishial Empire, especially since it is much less time-consuming than handwriting and the documents typed by these machines look neat with their uniform letters, paragraphs, and spacing.

However, the typewriter technology is not exclusive to the Holy Milishial Empire, as the second superpower Mu also produces typewriters and put them to practical use. However, when Mu's typewriters only saw domestic usage, Milishial's typewriters were exported abroad to countries within the Central World (also known as the First Civilization Area). With the signing of the agreement, Altaras became the third country after the Magicaraich Community and Nigrat Union to receive typewriter export from Milishial outside the First Civilization Area.

The Milishian and Muish typewriters are vastly different in many things. The most prominent one is the layout of their keyboards. The Muish typewriter uses a layout named 'QWERTY' after the order of the first six keys on the keyboard's top letter row, while the Milishian typewriter uses their own layout, the Imperial Standardized Keyboard.

Another difference is that the Muish typewriter is what an Earthling would call the 'mechanical typewriter' using a basket of single-character typebars from the late 18th to early 19th centuries. Meanwhile, Milishial's typewriters use a system driven by a magical battery to move and rotate a spherical type element in order to type. Compared to Mu's, this so-called 'magical typewriter' never jams and the ability to change the type element allows multiple fonts to be used in a single document. As a result, although it's slightly more expensive, the more technologically advanced Milishian typewriter is more commercially popular than the Muish mechanical one.

Even now, the gap between Mu and the Holy Milishial Empire's machine was widened further when the Aikon Corporation's Typewriter Division recently introduced the 'backspace' mechanism which allows the user to correct typographical errors.

As Gabriel was about to move to another desk, checking the trainees practicing the typing on a paper arranged to look like a keyboard, the official typing with the actual machine called out to him.

"Master Gabriel, it's done."

At his words, the young Milishian man pulled his sleeve and checked on his watch.

'Five minutes, huh? This one finished it quite faster than the average,' he mused.

This day marked the third week after the training officially began with him in charge. Gabriel was tasked to teach the basics of operating a typewriter to a group of Altaran government officials after he was unilaterally appointed by Ambassador Mephilas. However, there is a problem.

Although the Holy Milishial Empire and Altaras Kingdom have no problems with spoken language, as they both spoke common, they used a vastly different script for written language. The Altaran alphabet has 28 letters and only uses consonants, meanwhile, on the other hand, the Central Continent's written language, which was derived from modernized Ravernal letters, is consisted of 26 letters with both vowels and consonants. Therefore, in order to use the typewriter, which is only available in Central Continent and Muish script, one must learn their written language first. This is why the officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were selected as they deal with international relations and are more familiar with the Central Continent script as the known world's most commonly used writing system.

On this day, Gabriel had decided to give these Altaran officials a test typing a passage from popular folklore in his hometown, while taking note of their typing speed and precision. Since there is only one older model typewriter at the moment, they have to take turns.

"Here, let me see."

The official unlatched his finished assignment and gingerly gave it to Gabriel. However, as soon as he read it, Gabriel scowled. On the paper, it reads...

"Fiveways that onnect you. Fou winds bless you. Three heds you kiss. Two fatful heels that will make you bowl feel under thew. On the Hill of Doran standing, stone of destyny.

I om tthe stone heart of Enysfalil. The dearh where secrets known are hidden. Th heart that recognizess all desres. The singer that sings only under the heels of a true King..."

He didn't bother reading the rest as the first two paragraphs alone already gave him a headache beyond compare.

"........."

"Master Gabriel?"

"You butchered it," Gabriel deadpanned, before scolding the official, perhaps a bit harshly. "There are so many typos and misspellings. It's useless to be able to type quickly when all you produce is incomprehensible blabbering like this."

"Ah... I'm truly sorry! Please let me try again!" the official cried.

"No. Continue practicing in your paper," he turned to the rest of the group, pointing to an official sitting near the corner. "You, it's your turn."

"Yes, Master."

The official stood up from his seat and walked to the machine, while the one who was just scolded by Gabriel walked to his seat with slumped shoulders.

"Alright, you're the last one. After this we will end the session for today. Take your time be on the lookout for mistakes. And... start."

With a sigh, Gabriel walked around the room again. Not long after that, the session ended for today and he returned to the embassy at around sunset. Riding the carriage as the snow began to blanket the land of Altaras.

…………

Evening

Holy Milishial Empire Embassy

The embassy of the Holy Milishial Empire in Le Brias is a magnificent three-story building located at the western suburbs of the capital city, built on a hill that gave it an unobstructed view of the entire Le Brias Harbor. Just like every other Milishian embassies, no matter the country where the embassy was built, it was very well protected. It was separated from the rest of the city by a tall wall surrounding the entire compound which included a separate building for the embassy staff's residence and was guarded at all times by armed personnel.

The road to the embassy building was being upgraded, causing it to be crowded by workers and construction equipment belonging to a Milishian construction company. However, the snowfall had put the works on halt at the moment, making the area around the embassy as quiet as the usual days other than the sound of the wind.

Inside the main office where the ambassador performed his duties, the Milishian ambassador to Altaras, Count Leonardo Mephilas, was preparing to finish his work for the day after an entire afternoon of signing documents, gazing at the scenery outside the window.

"The snow is picking up..." he mused, noticing the growing intensity of the snowfall. It was already dark outside, and from the window, the dim lights of Le Brias' night cityscape could no longer be seen from the worsening weather.

At that moment, the door to his office was knocked several times and opened without waiting his reply. Emerging from the door was the aide to the ambassador, Gabriel, who had returned to the embassy several hours ago. Mephilas, hearing the sound of the door being opened, turned to look at his young subordinate.

"Ah, Gabriel, do you have any news for me?" he asked.

"Actually, My Lord, yes. I have just heard that the construction of a new bridge south of Le Brias has been completed. I have come to inform you as you instructed."

"Good. Anything else?"

"And the person in charge of the construction said that they were about to proceed with building the road and the next bridge near Carifa, but was delayed because of the weather. As soon as the snowfall stopped, they will resume work immediately."

Mephilas raised an eyebrow at the construction personnel who seemed to not taking a break in their job, which was to connect Le Brias with Carifa and other mining towns in the Altaras Island.

"Well... they did say they are running on a tight schedule, but I did not expect them to be this quick."

"Yes. In fact, more personnel and equipment are scheduled to arrive with the next shipment, so the construction project may be completed sooner than scheduled."

"That's very interesting. Anyway, since we're trapped here until the weather improves, let's continue the talk on the lounge upstairs."

As he spoke, the ambassador finished tidying up his desk and walked outside the office with Gabriel in tow.

One week later, a Milishian freighter carrying more construction equipment and a special crew arrived in the port of Le Brias at midnight of December 14th.

Currently Publicly Available Information

IMPERIAL STANDARDIZED KEYBOARD

A keyboard layout for typewriter used by the Holy Milishial Empire. It was created by studying letter frequencies and physiology of hand and as a result, the current pattern is born. The above layout includes the new function of 'Backspace' introduced by the Aikon Corporation in September 1614 Central Calendar. This layout is intended for the Central Continent language using the Central Continent Script.

Order of keys:

Top Row: Exclamation mark [!], Hashtag [#]/1, Opening bracket [(]/2, Closing bracket [)]/3, Quotation mark ["]/4, Percent sign [%]/5, Underscore [_]/6, Plus sign [+]/7, Equals sign [=]/8, 9, 0

Row 2: Backspace, Colon [:]/Question mark [?], Comma [,], Dot [.], P, Y, F, G, C, R, L, Ampersand [&]/Slash [/], Tabulator

Row 3: Shift Lock, A, O, E, U, I, D, H, T, N, S, Hyphen [-], Margin release

Row 4: Left Shift, Semicolon [;]/Apostrophe ['], Q, J, K, X, B, M, W, V, Z, Right Shift

Bottom Row: Space