Assassin
Maybe Sisi didn’t receive my letter, or maybe she couldn’t find a reason to persuade me to leave Veirya behind and go to the South. Either way, since I didn’t receive a reply, all I could do was assume she tacitly agreed.
I watched Anna, who was excited about moving back to the imperial capital, pack our luggage. Veirya’s pregnancy was the only reason for her joy. Anna seemed to also develop an interest for marriage in the imperial capital. She commonly met a man outside of the home. Well, that was her personal affair, so I didn’t butt in. As long as it didn’t create a negative impact on our family, it didn’t bother me.
In the past, Veirya never felt tired after a fight, let alone when packing luggage. As a matter of fact, she’d be full of energy the next day. Owing to her pregnancy, though, she needed to take several breaks just to pack a few small items into a chest. For that reason, Angelina had an urge to insult Veirya for her poor performance.
Veirya’s defensive mechanisms were on high alert all the time. She didn’t move about a lot anymore, even refusing to go to the flower garden. She also stopped stuffing her face and only ate to satiate herself. Additionally, she started to worry about nutrition out of the blue. No, it wasn’t just meat but even trying to balance her nutrition with vegetables and fish. That made it a tad more troublesome for Anna, who prepared our meals, since she had to prepare a separate meal for Veirya on top of ours. Whenever I saw Veirya’s plate of vegetables, I wondered if she could actually finish it. She finished it all without any whinging, not sparing a single crumb, nevertheless.
Veirya’s new approach to dining surprised Leah because Leah’s impression of humans was that they didn’t like fruit and vegetables. Leah wasn’t a fan of either. She saw humans as a species that should eat animal meat and things with milk. Perhaps she had a deep-seated hate and fear of plants as a consequence of eating nothing but grass-like stuff when she was in the Demon King’s castle. I was very touched when I saw Leah slice off a small piece of her own chunk of meat and put it in Veirya’s plate.
The South was in the middle of a war, one that even reached the internal structure of humanity’s empire. To put it into perspective, it was on the same scale as the war between humans and demons.
As the majority of the land was part of humanity’s territory, no enemies had brought a war to humanity’s lands since. The elves never ventured beyond their forest to fight a war, either. Things were different this time, having said that.
The reason it would inexorably be a war for mankind’s history books was that it would determine the direction of humanity’s development in years to come after the dust settled. If Sisi could win the war, then humanity’s future would entail phenomenal expansion and development. If they failed, then Sisi’s empire and the indigenous people would continue wrestling with each other for some time, rendering it impossible for humankind to expand. They would also be forced to invest loads of money into a war with an uncertain conclusion.
Given that it was so important, it baffled me that there wasn’t any news related to it in the North even when accounting for the limited news that reached the North. The people in the North continued to work as per usual. It was totally normal for that to be the case for there was no way the people from the South could reach the North regardless of how hard they fought.
While I didn’t plan to get involved with the war, I did care about to a certain extent. Attribute it to an occupational disease, I guess. I couldn’t say if there was any point in knowing about the war, but I wanted to think about it, anyway.
I knew humans had begun to use steam power. Unfortunately, the technology had yet to have the power to reduce the distance we needed to travel to reach the imperial capital. I suppose steam turbines hadn’t been inspired yet.
Should I give them a hint? That’ll save me having to travel almost an entire week to go from paradise to the imperial capital.
***
“Count Lin?”
Although they dressed differently to common attire she had seen, covering their faces with their hoods, the girl from the tavern didn’t mind their appearance as she had seen her fair share of strangers. The young girl assumed they were Count Lin’s friends since they immediately inquired about him upon visiting the tavern.
“Although Count Lin and Countless Veirya were here, they plan to head back to the imperial capital. They have their own house there; they only came back here to hold their wedding. I had never seen such a magnificent wedding. I saw so many nobles I had never seen before. Even Queen Sisi and the Elven Queen visited. I never thought I would get to see the two of them. It was so exciting! Also, Countess Veirya is so pr-”
“They’re going back to the imperial capital?” one of the men queried.
“Yes,” the young girl answered with a smile. “I think they will take the usual route. I don’t know when they will be back. It’s quite lonely without them here. Lots of people visit whenever Count Lin is here.”
“Yeah? Thanks,” coldly replied one of the men. He tossed a few silver coins onto the table and left.
The girl didn’t know what they had in mind. Howbeit, there was always people looking for Count Lin. She, therefore, wasn’t worried. She chased up to them and held out to them a warm bag, rendering them bewildered. With the corners of her lips tugged up, she requested, “This is our unique ear dish. If you are going to see Count Lin, please take this to him while you’re at it. Thank you very much!”
“Oh… umm… sure… sure.” The men reacted with awkward sentiments. They had accepted countless jobs before, but delivering food? That was a first.
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