I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

While Mitia and the other excitedly studied the new gun, Unica McMillan led her four teammates and, after disguising themselves, successfully slipped into Sera’s territory.

It was not that their disguise skills were especially superb — this was a border policy Mitia had deliberately set earlier.

Through a large amount of espionage work and propaganda encouraging people to flee to Sera, absorbing Ovinia’s population, the border patrol naturally turned a blind eye when they discovered stowaways.

Sera’s border defense had set up many covert checkpoints equipped with landline telephones; unless a group exceeded fifty people in size, the Sera border troops would not intervene.

As for why Unica and the others wanted to sneak into Sera, of course it was because of Miwei — Unica thought that to catch the thief one must first catch the ringleader: seize Miwei directly and everything would be solved.

What happened afterwards — whether the higher-ups in The Church tried to redeem her or burned her — had nothing to do with Unica, a soldier.

They had not taken Sera’s official attitude into account; each of them carried a space ring loaded with their bodies, and there were no soldiers to slow them down. If they were exposed they were confident they could fight their way out.

With intelligence members inside Sera helping them, what was there to worry about? Naturally, skill gave them courage.

“This city... is so different!”

Dressed in hemp and pretending to be commoners, Unica and the others stood dazed on Alos’s main street; everything here seemed to overturn their understanding of this continent.

There was none of the garbage and the stinking excrement that could be seen everywhere on the streets of the Kingdom of Ovinia, and most people’s clothes and spirits on the road were worlds apart from those of the nearby Ovinians.

Passersby around them appeared unsurprised by their behavior — they must be bumpkin refugees who had fled from the Kingdom of Ovinia.

Alos had not actually changed that much; besides building a railway network and paving the main city roads with cement for wartime transport efficiency, other changes were not large — at most a reorganization caused by different practices.

After all, urban renovation and construction were not projects one could decide on a whim; unless, like the Federation capital, one built from scratch, that would actually be easier.

Take the common problems of dirty, messy streets and omnipresent excrement: excrement could be collected and fermented as fertilizer, so they built many public toilets.

And because there was not yet much non-degradable waste, garbage could be buried in the soil to decompose; when electricity transmission technology advanced in the future they could build incineration plants for power generation, and it would no longer be a problem.

As for how to get the populace to follow the rules, that was even simpler. Besides daily inspections by sanitation patrols organized by the Ministry of Health,

there were fines for those caught. If someone was not caught but people saw littering, the local street office in that area would be fined by the Ministry of Health. With a clear accountability mechanism, there was no need to worry people would not comply.

The red-haired nun muttered under her breath, “I always thought every place here would be the same — garbage scattered everywhere, disgusting excrement all over. Ugh! Just thinking about it makes me feel awful.”

“This place is nice, it’s a bit like our hometown. Looks like if they can beat the kingdom... they do have something unique.”

“Mm...” Unica nodded in agreement with the nun; this place did indeed look more like their country.

After asking around and making inquiries, the nun — using her good looks to her advantage — coaxed the route to the Federation capital from an uncle.

Unfortunately, they were given a big cold shoulder at the Steam Train Station; people without household registration could not ride Sera’s internal transportation.

But they had their own method, which was...

“Guys... boohoo... these big fellows are pretty fast!” the ponytailed man said.

Unica and the others had ambushed by the track in the wild, successfully clambered onto the train carriage and climbed to the roof to ride in the wind.

Because there were many road guards along the way, they had slipped into the rear freight car and hidden there.

Patting the iron of the carriage, the nun complained, “This thing is really great, it can carry things and people. Why didn’t Ovinia make more? That damned cart jolted my butt until it hurt.”

The brawny man chimed in, “They did — the one that exploded in the arms factory a while back was that! I thought they were inventing some new weapon...”

“Ah? That thing was that dangerous?”

“They said it derailed while turning and crashed into the gunpowder depot...”

“I just looked a bit and they look basically identical on both sides; I don’t know why Ovinia’s couldn’t work.”

While they chatted, delighted and thinking themselves clever for getting to the Federation capital this way, they had not noticed the placard under the passenger carriage read

【Alos–Sanghor】

“......”

By the time they finally wandered and finally set foot on the soil of the Federation capital, Sera, half a month had passed since they had boarded the train.

Unica looked at her teammates, their clothes filthy and giving off a sour stench: “......”

Although their space rings contained plenty of supplies, bathing was something they truly could not solve; none of them could use water magic.

And in the Federation, wherever there was water there were bound to be many stationed Federation soldiers, for those were naturally suitable places for living.

They did not want to kill soldiers and raise unnecessary alarm before their infiltration succeeded, so they had to endure it...

Unica sighed, “Fine, this is fine too — it won’t draw attention...”

The nun squatted and stared blankly at the single Federation coin in her hand — a passerby had pitied her and given it.

Fortunately, through the contacts Unica and the others quickly rendezvoused with an inside agent, enjoyed a proper bath at the agent’s home, and began to sit together and refine the operation plan.

According to the agent’s report, Miwei lived in the Federation Empress’s temporary palace and spent most of her time with the Empress.

However, she often left the palace to inspect the cathedral under construction; apart from two pontifical guard knights, Miwei had been mostly alone recently.

So the operation plan became clear. First, one team would create chaos in the Federation to draw the attention of government guards.

Another team would attempt a probing attack on the Empress’s palace; such an act would certainly trigger the garrison in the capital to send reinforcements to protect the Empress, and the final team would take that opportunity to deal with Miwei and then regroup outside.

They only had five main operatives, so they split into a 2-2-1 formation: Unica, as the commander, would handle Miwei alone; the other two pairs, together with the spies hiding here, would go create chaos.

They dared to arrange things this way because of the confidence their bodies gave them.

Moreover, they faced no pressure to press an attack or withstand heavy blows; as long as they stalled long enough to get her, they could quickly escape — with no threat to life, what was there to fear?