Chapter 74: Fairy Ship

Liv invited Tess and Elena to the marina today to admire the results of her diplomacy.

They were seated on the second floor of the management office building at the marina.

Elena was there primarily because, as the Director of the Civil Affairs Bureau, she could supervise the distribution of grain on-site.

At the same time, it was a chance for her to see exactly how capable this ‘Elf Lady’ could be.

These were two whole ships of grain!

At the thought of this, Liv felt exceptionally cheerful.

On the day the residents had stormed the Kingdom’s consulate, Tess had assumed Liv hadn’t seen a thing.

But in truth, she had seen everything.

While Tess was up on the roof, Liv had signaled the maid to open the curtains for her.

The maid had weighed the situation for a moment before promptly tossing Tess’s instructions aside to obey the orders of her Queen.

Consequently, Liv saw exactly how the soldiers of the Republic slaughtered her people.

Grapeshot blasted the crowd into bloody fragments.

After volleys of rifle fire, people collapsed row by row.

Even as the crowd dispersed in a rout, the infantry and cavalry refused to let them go.

The streets were submerged in screams and blood.

Later, when Tess hurried down from the roof to check on her, Liv had pretended she had seen nothing.

Instead, she had asked what was happening outside.

That night, she suffered through nightmares.

She dreamed that she was the one commanding the Dawn Gilt-Guards to massacre the civilians of other nations.

In the dream, prisoners of war were bound and brought before her as she sat upon her throne.

With a cold sneer, she ordered them to be pushed into a pit and buried alive.

In that dream, she felt a perverse sense of pleasure, already calculating where to conquer or massacre next.

Plague, war, famine, and death.

Wherever her army marched, it faithfully brought those four things with it.

When she finally woke, she hugged her pillow and wept, unable to sleep for the rest of the night.

Thank heavens that tyrannical 10,000-Year Dynasty had finally ended.

“Miss Liv, you seem to be crying?”

It was Elena’s voice.

Liv snapped back to her senses, her vision refocusing.

She realized that droplets of water were indeed sliding down her cheeks.

Quickly wiping them away, Liv turned back to Elena.

“It’s nothing. I’m not crying.”

Deep down, Liv was beginning to suspect that she wasn’t just becoming sensitive or a simple crybaby.

It felt as though something was influencing her from the shadows — or perhaps, watching her.

This sensation had become increasingly obvious after she obtained that pistol.

This feeling would amplify her impulses whenever her emotions fluctuated.

It was like a voice whispering softly in her ear: ‘It’s okay. Just let it out.’

It was strange.

She hadn’t mentioned this feeling to Tess or Julia; she felt it was probably for the best that she didn’t.

Just then, between the sea and the sky beyond the mountains surrounding the deep-water port, the masts of two elven merchant ships gradually emerged.

These were the largest merchant ships of the Elves: the Royal Oak and the Eltharion.

However, they weren’t transporting Moonlight Silk or wooden furniture this time. Instead, they were two ships overflowing with wheat.

The residents, having heard the news, had already swarmed the marina.

Guards formed a human wall to prevent them from getting too close to the docking area.

Staff from the Civil Affairs Bureau and sub-agencies of the Ten-Man Committee had already set up several sales points to sell the grain at fair prices.

The silhouettes of the two merchant ships grew clearer.

Since they were currently sailing against the wind, the ships had furled their sails, leaving only the bare masts standing tall.

They did not travel in a straight line but instead moved forward in a repeating zigzag pattern.

This made the residents surrounding the marina wait with even more agonizing anticipation.

In their hearts, they were all praying for the ships to dock quickly.

They were still waiting for that wheat to settle their lunch.

Gradually, the merchant ships sailed into the harbor sheltered by the mountains, entering a windless zone.

Through coordination, other vessels and even warships moved out of the main channel, waiting in a side anchorage to give the merchant ships priority.

As they drew closer, the sound of the massive ship bells became distinct.

Braziers were lit beside the two largest docking berths on shore, sending columns of thick smoke into the sky to signal where the ships should dock.

The oars of the merchant ships began to pull in reverse to decelerate as they dropped their bow anchors.

Several barges sailed around the ships, assisting them in adjusting their angle for the final approach.

Finally, the Royal Oak and the Eltharion came to a steady halt at their berths.

Dockworkers and Elves on the ships worked in concert to secure the vessels.

Massive cranes made of wood, rope, and stone began to assist in hoisting the grain off the ships.

“Grain! It’s grain!”

The residents on shore seemed to catch the scent of the wheat.

They began to grow restless, and the guards were forced to push back more aggressively to prevent the crowd from breaking the line to seize the grain directly from the shore.

But the starving people couldn’t care about such things.

Their hunger for grain far outweighed their fear of the guards, even if that bloody suppression hadn’t happened very long ago.

As the situation progressed, things seemed to spiral out of control.

A few individuals took advantage of a gap to rush into the marina, only to be whipped by patrolling cavalry until they couldn’t stand.

It wasn’t until the cavalry drew their carbines and fired into the air that the situation gradually stabilized.

Liv realized there was a problem.

‘This is bad. If the residents are this fanatical, they might push and shove each other trying to get a better position once the paths are opened, leading to a tragic stampede!’

She quickly instructed Elena to go and speak with the Captain of the Guard on the scene.

She was to say that the Elves requested the Republic’s army to maintain order to prevent any stampede incidents.

Watching Elena jog toward the docks after leaving the office building, Liv grew increasingly tense.

Tess, meanwhile, stared at the berths where the grain was being unloaded in the distance.

These two merchant ships were originally large vessels used by the Elves to transport their own supplies.

After all, back then, not many were willing to trade with the Elves.

They could only maintain a basic level of self-sufficiency through various methods, including land reclamation in the eastern and northern parts of the Kingdom of Elves.

The capital, Elisarian, didn’t require many supplies because very few Elves actually lived there.

However, despite being sparsely populated, the Elves still had several major residential cities.

That was during the most glorious period of the 10,000-Year Dynasty, featuring the most elite and luxurious palace complexes of the Elves.

Dreamlike forest houses and crystal-clear suspension bridges were built between giant trees.

The main roads on the ground were wide enough for a dozen carriages to travel side by side.

Gold paved the main paths, and even the eternal lamps by the roadside were constructed of silver and jade.

Now, only decaying streets remained.

Most of the gold had been pilfered.

They could no longer afford the whale and sea lion oil to light the street lamps.

In the last 100 or 200 years, humans had begun to break the ice, gradually engaging in small-scale trade with the Elves, but such trade still had no need for giant merchant ships.

It wasn’t until this year, with the Hobrick-Elindria Friendship and Trade Agreement, that these two giant ships finally found their purpose.

According to her mother, the Elves were going to continue building giant merchant ships to satisfy the trade needs with the Republic.

After all, even the Republic’s own merchant ships were overloaded because of the mutual trade.

‘This is wonderful. Thank goodness for the trade with the Republic.’

Most importantly, because of the Republic, she had been brought the person she loved most.

Livyat.

Liv… yat… Liv… yat.