Chapter 593: Different Opinions

It wasn’t just the young ladies of the Rockwell Kingdom who had suffered, either.

One of the Royal Council’s Ministers had also been killed by Lord Jeremiah, at the request of the man’s own daughter, no less.

Danika wasn’t very familiar with either of these individuals, so when she heard that they were both dead, she hadn’t thought much about it; after all, people died all the time.

Publicly, the story was that the father and daughter pair had been involved in a tragic accident and had perished, but when Danika’s father told her about what had really happened that day, not the propaganda version that was spread to maintain the Royal Council’s face, she had been complete aghast.

After recovering from her initial shock, however, Danika began to wonder who was really at fault for the whole incident.

Was it the Minster’s fault for selling his daughter like a prostitute?

Was it the daughter’s fault for being so unfilial as to want her father dead?

Was it the Lord Jeremiah’s fault for being so lascivious and tyrannical?

Was it the kingdom’s fault for being too weak to resist both the temptation and coercion of the Empire’s representative in the South-Central Region?

Perhaps it was none of their faults, but Danika leaned much more heavily towards the idea of it being all of their faults; that idea had only been cemented further after her stay here in Misty City.

Make no mistake, politics was still as present and complicated here as in the capital, but the percentage of people in positions of real power who were willing to stand up and do the right thing when called upon was certainly much higher.

Maybe it’s because that’s how Lady Celestina always chooses to act, Danika mused to herself.

In this regard, she was probably at least partially correct; after all, leadership mattered.

King Nathanial was a good man in Danika’s personal opinion, but even with the Rockwell Family having fairly firm control of the nation, the king still had to consider the opinions of the Royal Council and high nobles very seriously lest it disrupt the stability of his rule.

Marquess Balfour, on the other hand, basically had the final say in everything that happened in the South-East Province. She was a much more hands-off ruler, mind you, but all those who served her basically followed her example, so it wasn’t a surprise that they leaned towards her way of doing things as well.

.....

Danika and Eris’ relatives continued chatting for a quarter hour or so, with Amalia doing the vast majority of the actually talking, but eventually, the young girl excused herself to go freshen up.

Water for the showers might be readily available thanks to the extensive systems of pipes and tanks Lucas and his Urban Development Team had set up, but the boilers had limits, so residents of Disciples House always tried to shower at different times to allow the hot-water to refill properly.

And so they could take longer showers without feeling guilty...

Hot water wasn’t so much a problem right now in the middle of summer, but everyone could imagine it becoming more difficult once the autumn chill began to set in, not to mention when winter arrived.

.....

Farah and Danika were the first to encounter Edward, Amalia, and Braden, but they certainly weren’t the last.

Not long after Danika left for the bathhouse, a much larger and rowdier crowd arrived.

It was Jake, Jenny, Jessie, Jack, Jane, and Jeremy, the bakery siblings.

The older trio had just gotten off work at the various Princess Bakeries across the city, while the younger trio had finished up their lessons for the day at the Rising Phoenix Guild.

Toby, Mabel, and Elly would normally be together with Jack, Jane, and Jeremy, but at Elly’s insistence, they had stayed behind to observe one of the combat classes at the guild, something the younger bakery siblings didn’t have much interest in as none of them were looking to become fighters.

Of these 6 siblings, only Jake was old enough to really remember the former Baron and Baroness, and even he only had a vague recollection of the kindly old couple as they had left Redwood Town when he was 6 years old.

Still, Edward and Amalia were very familiar with the sibling’s parents, so the atmosphere was quite warm regardless of how unfamiliar they were with each other.

When Amalia commented on how lovely the cookies they had eaten were, Jake, Jenny, and Jessie all couldn’t help feeling proud and even bragging a bit as the recipe used to make them was something they had participated in developing.

Cookies were an expensive luxury item at Princess Bakery given how much sugar was necessary to make them, but despite the price, they still sold out every day with many people asking when more would be available.

In order to combat this problem, on Lucas’ suggestion, Princess Bakery had introduced a raffle system whereby if you wanted to buy cookies, you needed to buy one of the regular items first, then you would be given a small slip of paper with a number it, a ’ticket’ as Lucas called it.

A set number of cookie tickets were drawn at the end of each day at each of Tina’s 5 locations, and the winning numbers were then posted on a blackboard inside the shops.

Only by presenting a winning ticket would someone be able to buy one of the ’limited-edition’ boxes of cookies.

"But, how do you prevent people from simply claiming to have a winning ticket, or making a fake one?" Braden asked, as while this system was undoubtedly quite creative, it also seemed quite easy to cheat.

"Haha, we did have a problem with that at first, actually," Jake laughed, happy to speak with another boy around his age as most of Disciples House’s residents were either girls or much younger children.

Turning to his little sister, Jake patted Jessie on the head and explained, "It was actually Jessie who came up with our current solution. When we give the customer their ticket, we have them write their name on the back before tearing it in half. That way, when someone comes to claim their prize, we can check to see if the tickets match. We also use a bunch of different colours of ink at random to make it even harder to produce a fake."

"En en! Big Sister Jessie is so smart!"

"That’s right, that’s right!"

The younger trio chimed in.

Even the usually calm and composed Jenny offered her little sister some clear praise.

Jessie, on the other hand, blushed and lowered her head, "It was just a simple suggestion. Nothing really worth making such a big fuss about, at least not compared to the things Tina and Lucas always come up with."

"Don’t compare yourself with those two, or with Sister Eris," Jake said wryly, shaking his head, "Those 3 are just... different."

All the other siblings nodded in agreement with their eldest brother when he said that.

"Oh? How so?" Amalia, who had already listened to the opinions of Farah and Danika about Eris, Lucas, and Christina, was quite interested in hearing what these kids had to say.

This was partially because she enjoyed hearing stories about her grandchild and prospective grandchildren-in-laws, but another big reason was because she felt that Jake, Jenny, Jessie, Jack, Jane, and Jeremy would have a very different perspective on the matter.

Amalia and Edward had watched Jerry and his wife Dorothy grow up and have children, so they knew that while the biggest bakery in Redwood Town was profitable, it hardly made its owners filthy-rich. In other words, the bakery siblings came from a ’commoner’ background and would see things differently from, say, a former Commander of the Royal Legion or the daughter of the most powerful Minister in the kingdom.