Upphaf Forest Ruins

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In the distant past, Lahai-Roi was a fjordland within the frigid zone, where countless forests and lakes lay scattered across the land.

Among them, two regions were of particular importance. The first was a vast forest that once served as a primary source of sustenance for the ancestors of the Roya. It was known as Upphaf Forest, meaning "the place where trees grow." The second was a great lake—the largest in ancient Lahai-Roi and the most vital source of fresh water for the people. It was called Ginnungamere, meaning "the boundless waters."

After the shift of the magnetic poles, Lahai-Roi became the new pole and was buried beneath heavy ice and snow. The trees of Upphaf Forest were sealed within permafrost and glaciers, while Ginnungamere, under the extreme cold, nearly became part of the vast ice sheet itself.

By rare fortune, however, geological upheaval had formed a salt-crystal hot spring along the high cliffs beside Ginnungamere. Its ceaseless warmth flows into the lake day and night, preserving it as a rare ice-free lake amid the frozen world.

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As the Pioneer Association set foot in Lahai-Roi, the land long sealed from the outside world encountered the so-called civilized world for the first time. Within the Roya, this encounter gave rise to two sharply divergent attitudes.

Most of the Roya remained unmoved by the outside world. They held fast to their mission and cultural traditions, preserving the way of life their people had upheld for generations. A small group, however, found their curiosity toward the world beyond ice outweighed the disciplines of their people. They attempted to barter fragments of the Exostrider and the Exoswarm, treating these relics as an "entrance ticket" into the civilized world. Such individuals were deemed to have forgotten and betrayed their vision. They were cast out by their kin and came to be known as the Outcasts.

During the chaotic early period when independent expedition teams flooded into Lahai-Roi, these Outcasts once styled themselves as the "enlightened" among the Roya, believing they alone were fit to bridge the gap between Lahai-Roi and the civilized world. Yet as the Polar Collective was established, and the Roya themselves took seats at the negotiating table as active agents shaping Lahai-Roi's future, the Outcasts were recognized by neither side and gradually became marginalized.

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As exploration of the Roya Frostlands advanced, excavation of the Upphaf Forest Ruins yielded significant breakthroughs, leading to the construction of the Upphaf Life Chamber. Through it, scholars reconstructed a vision of the vast primeval forest as it once was.

This discovery offered the Outcasts a new direction. Gathering near the Upphaf Forest Ruins, they sought traces of an ancient homeland, hoping to reclaim a sense of origin and to find a place of belonging for a people long without roots.