Volume 7, Chapter 37 – Preoccupied

Fia lightly patted Milu’s back, signaling her to stand up. She then rose herself and walked toward the direction of the children. She noticed the young elves’ eyes were fixed on the porcelain bowl in her hand; as she stood up, their gazes followed the movement upward.

The people of the land of exile lived from hand to mouth. Forget fresh stew with spices—even carrion had to be boiled before being eaten. Hunger could easily strip a person of their reason. Children, dizzy with starvation, could not withstand the temptation and would approach despite the danger, lured by the aroma of food. This was a common sight here.

Fia and Milu stepped forward, an action that immediately startled several of the young elves. Combined with the anxious calls from the adults behind them, they retreated together. Two of the older children turned and ran, while only a few stubborn ones stayed, biting their fingers and looking on longingly.

“I’ll go after them,” Milu’s emotionless voice rang out.

Fia waved her hand. “No need. I have another idea.”

Regarding the policy of sending minors from the land of exile to the Royal City, Fia held a small doubt in her heart. While this method ensured all children could grow up alive, the act of doing so against someone’s will made her wonder if it lacked humanitarian concern. Since these parents clearly didn’t want their children to leave the family, respecting their choice was also an option.

Considering that no competent parent wouldn’t want their child to have a better life, Fia thought it better to change the method of enforcement. Most parents didn’t want their children to leave because they distrusted the nobility, believing that taking them away meant turning them into slaves. Therefore, as long as they were convinced their children would be treated well, the problem could be fundamentally solved.

At this thought, Fia gave a wry smile. If Anastasia or Erin Slate heard this, they would surely say, “They are all irredeemable criminals; there’s no need to consider their feelings.” But they were them, and she was herself. Fia had Milu take the meat soup away, then used [Food Creation] to produce dried fish and bread, placing them on large leaves.

“Are you from the land of exile?”

Her voice was gentle, but the volume was not low. Rather than speaking to the three children before her, she was addressing the adults hiding in the bushes in the distance. The beastmen and elves there thought they were well-hidden, but they were actually quite obvious.

Seeing the three children look down in silence, Fia tipped the leaves slightly, letting the scent of the food waft toward them. “If you answer me honestly, all of this can be yours.”

“We are!”

As soon as Fia finished, a boy on the far right raised his hand and answered, his urgent tone suggesting he was afraid someone else would beat him to it. Following him, the remaining two girls also scrambled to answer.

“My name is Lily!”

“La… Lala… is fifty years old…”

I didn’t ask for that much detail.

An elf at fifty was roughly equivalent to a human between seven and nine years old. However, the girl calling herself Lala was so thin and small she looked only five or six; clearly, malnutrition had stunted her physical development.

Fia continued her questioning. “What are you doing here?”

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“Hiding from the soldiers. The Baron’s soldiers will catch us and feed us to the monsters. So Papa brought us here to hide. No one usually comes here.”

“Who said it was to feed the monsters? The noble lord said before that Siska and the others are already living a life where they eat bread every day and don’t have to do anything.”

“That’s why it’s a lie! There’s no such thing as a free lunch. The Baron must be intentionally fattening Siska and the others up to feed them to the monsters. I heard the Baron himself often eats children.”

“If I could eat my fill every meal, I wouldn’t mind being eaten by a monster…”

Hey now, everything about this is wrong.

‘As long as I can eat my fill, I don’t mind being eaten by a monster,’ that has to be an exaggeration, right?

Continuing the questioning made Fia feel a sense of guilt. She handed the leaf-wrapped food to the three children, and they immediately began to wolf it down. The thin girl named Lala even began to choke because she ate too fast. It wasn’t until Fia had Milu ladle a bowl of soup to feed her that Lala was pulled back from the brink of seeing her life flash before her eyes and returned to the world of the living.

This difference in treatment caused envy to bloom in the eyes of the other two children, so Fia had to serve them some stew as well. The two swallowed the soup as if they couldn’t feel the heat. Although they didn’t say “delicious” or offer any praise, it was clear from their ravenous, frantic movements that the stew was incredibly tasty.

Notably, when Fia asked Milu to serve more, Milu had a reluctant expression on her face.

“What is it?”

“That was for Fia.”

“It’ll be fine once we go back to Blossom, right? There are maids on duty at the Twilight Palace at night.”

“Hmph. We agreed I would do the cooking.”

Milu looked up, her puffed-out cheeks making her look like she was sulking.

Fia couldn’t help but laugh and reached out to pinch Milu’s wing-shaped ears. “Alright, alright. I’ll leave the late-night snack to you. It looks like Claire and the others have finished watching the recording; it’s about time we headed back.”

A picnic was nice, but choosing a summer night was a mistake; the sheer number of mosquitoes was irritating.

“The people over there are coming out.”

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“Hmm?”

Following Milu’s point, Fia looked back. The three children had run back to the bushes, happily presenting the bread and dried fish to the adults. The parents who had been hiding in the bushes now had complex expressions and slowly stood up. Initially, they thought Fia was in league with the soldiers—an evil person come to delude their children. But now that Fia and Milu were turning to leave, it showed they meant no ill will.

Even from such a distance, they could still smell the rich aroma of that pot of stew. They had been swallowing their saliva uncontrollably for a long time. In fact, the reason they didn’t leave with their children immediately was that they were waiting for the food scraps Fia’s group would leave behind—discarded bones, unwanted vegetable leaves, or even grains of rice dropped on the ground. These were delicacies unseen in the land of exile, and if they were a step too slow, someone else would snatch them away.

Seeing Fia look back, the adults being watched went stiff. One of the emaciated men gritted his teeth and stepped forward, bowing deeply to Fia.

“Thank you very much for your charity, young lady of the nobility.”

He’s actually polite.

Fia was somewhat surprised.

The man bowed even deeper and continued. “I beg… I beg you not to speak of our presence here… Otherwise, Lala and the others will be taken to the big city by the Baron. Lala and Lily are too innocent; life in the big city is not suitable for them.”

“Hmm…”

The man’s sincere tone gave Fia pause. She didn’t intend to explain that she was the one making the decisions, as that would only terrify him. She thought for a moment and tilted her head in feigned confusion.

“Are you that worried? Perhaps some young lady from the Royal City was struck by a fit of kindness and decided that children shouldn’t have to suffer along with the adults. I haven’t been to the land of exile many times, but I know it’s dangerous here—always living hand to mouth. If life in the Royal City is more prosperous, wouldn’t it be better for her to live a life where she doesn’t have to worry about her safety?”

“You must be joking. We can’t leave the land of exile, so how can we be sure what the Baron says is true? Heaven only knows what the Baron would use our children for. If they become slaves or someone’s plaything, it’s better for them to stay by our side; at least they won’t be mistreated.”

“I see,” Fia mused, a slight smile curling her lips. “It would be good if Baron Yarua allowed your children to come back and see you every year or two.”

“Heh. Why would the Baron do something so foolish? We are nothing more than commoners to be used and discarded.” Despite his words, the man looked down at his daughter, who was gnawing on the black bread, his cloudy eyes full of complicated emotions. “If the Baron really allowed Lala and the others to come back and see me… I suppose it wouldn’t be impossible.”

“Is the Crown Princess over here?”

“I… I just saw Her Highness and the others coming this way. Sniff—I can still smell the meat!”

As soon as the man finished, a commotion approached from the distance, along with the street lighting up. He immediately became alert and, after hurriedly thanking Fia, dragged his wife and two daughters away. The other boy’s family also followed, fleeing quickly into the wilderness.

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Watching them leave, Fia lowered her head to exchange a glance with Milu, then turned toward the direction of the noise. According to the soldiers’ report, they had gathered about fifty children. However, because many families were unwilling to cooperate—including those who resisted violently and those who simply fled into the wilderness with their children—progress was very slow. It might not be finished until dawn. They requested that Fia give them more time.

Fia let out a soft sigh.

“No need. Send these fifty back. Do you have an administrative officer in your unit?”

“Yes. What are Your Highness’s orders?”

“Have the administrative officer polish and convey what I’m about to say to everyone. The content is: ‘The Eldest Princess of the Empire has convinced His Majesty that, from now on, newborn babies in the land of exile will no longer be branded as criminals. Furthermore, they will be raised by the orphanage established by the Third Princess of the Empire. The children in the orphanage may return to visit their parents once every one or two years, depending on their performance. If the parents perform exceptionally well in the land of exile, they may also apply for permission to be escorted by soldiers to the Royal City to visit their children.’”

“Additionally, send someone to Baron Yarua to request some ingredients and chefs. Have them cook something for the children here. Once they’ve finished eating in the morning, they’ll leave with you. If you encounter families who aren’t willing to let their children leave, you can leave them be. Once they see the first batch of children returning from the Royal City to visit, they will naturally be swayed.”

“Understood. But Your Highness, why are you being so good to these beasts? Taking away the infants is understandable, but these people are all irredeemable scoundrels. There’s no need to care about what they think. If we let them go to the Royal City, what if they injure the soldiers and escape?”

“What? Are you disobeying my sister’s decision?”

As the soldier finished, Liti’s voice rang out from behind Fia. The soldier immediately looked embarrassed.

“Err, I didn’t mean it that way, Princess Liti. I was just thinking that if we’re too good to these criminals, how are we supposed to face the people they’ve killed?”

“This level of tolerance is fine. The ones receiving pardons are only the children who were caught up in this; the criminals must still face their punishment.”

Moreover, keeping their children in the Royal City would make them better behaved. The children in the Royal City could be educated to understand right from wrong and discern reason, while the visitation rights would give the adults more incentive to work hard and survive.

Fia didn’t say these words out loud.

Having reached this point, the leading captain stopped talking. He quickly led his men away, and the once-noisy clearing grew quiet again.

“Sister is getting better and better at understanding human nature; you even thought of visitation rights.”

“I’ve been in this world for almost a year; it would be strange if I didn’t understand by now, right? By the way, where’s Anastasia? I don’t see her.”

Fia scanned the surroundings. Originally, Anastasia, like Liti, had been sitting by Claire watching the recording of the Sea of Chaos, but now she was nowhere to be found near the stew pot.

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“It’s a girl’s secret, Sister. Your question is very impolite.”

She must have gone to “pick flowers.”

“Ah, come to think of it, I’ve lived with Sister for so long, and I’ve never seen Sister suddenly disappear… When do you usually take care of business, Sister?”

“It’s a secret.”

Fia acted mysterious, but she was actually incredibly nervous. When she first arrived in this world, she would pretend to relieve herself, but as time passed, she grew too lazy to even pretend. With the nanomachines, she had absolutely no need for a restroom.

“But Anna has been gone for a while; she should be back soon. Could she have wanted to be alone for a bit to clear her head? She still had that preoccupied expression when she was watching the recording crystal earlier.”

Claire walked to Fia’s side and handed her the recording crystal, her expression grave.

“With this much Chaos, even I couldn’t solve it. We must gather all the strength on the continent to face it together. I know where some of the Demon strongholds are; should we notify the Demons first? If we need the Dragons’ help, we can return to the Land of Dragonfall; the Dragon Princess there might agree to help us. In Anna’s world, the Queen of the Land of the Dead, the Darkborn, humans, and elves all formed an alliance; we should be able to do the same here.”

“Then again, with such a disaster looming, where have the gods gone? If they don’t come out to help, the whole world will be destroyed by Chaos. What a bunch of unreliable gods.”

“Even Claire can say such biting things… We’ll talk about the contacting part during the day. I want to go find Anastasia first. I specifically told her not to be alone, yet she still went off on her own. Honestly… which direction did she go?”

“Into the land of exile, toward the north.”

“Then I’ll go over first. Claire, wait for me here.”

“Mhm,” Claire nodded and took a quiet step forward, leaning in to whisper in Fia’s ear, her face full of concern. “Communicate well with Anastasia. She looks like she’s in big trouble; I’ve never seen her with such a lost expression.”

“Yeah, I’ll find out what’s wrong.”

Giving Claire a smile, Fia waved to her companions and set off in the direction Claire had indicated to find Anastasia.