When Elena returned to the second floor of the office building after coordinating with the Captain of the Guard, she witnessed an extremely embarrassing scene.
Tess had Liv pinned beneath her, soliciting a kiss.
Every kiss was restrained; Tess would use her lips to lightly graze the air around Liv’s lips before gradually pulling inward, only pressing down as softly as a dragonfly touching the water once their lips finally met.
The soft flesh yielded slightly for a brief instant.
Then, Tess withdrew, and her lips bounced back like gelatin.
‘Whoa, is this… is this something I should be watching?’
Elena quickly covered her eyes, though she didn’t dare make a sound for fear of disturbing the two.
It wasn’t until Tess stared longingly at Liv with a gaze as thick as honey and reached out to caress her cheek that Liv hurriedly called for a stop.
“Tess, Tess! Elena is back. Don’t do this yet…”
Tess’s gaze instantly turned cold as she looked toward Elena.
“Why are you in such a hurry to get back? Did you finish talking to the Captain of the Guard or what?!”
Elena was so terrified by the reprimand that her legs went weak.
She stammered, finally answering with a sob in her voice, “Miss Tess, Miss Tess! I’ve already settled things with the Captain of the Guard. Waaaah, it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have come back so early and disturbed the two of you… doing your business. It’s my fault! I’ll leave right now!”
Tess beckoned for her to come closer.
Elena had no choice but to shuffle over with tiny steps to await her next instructions.
“What do you mean, ‘doing our business’? What business were we doing? Or are you saying you saw everything?”
Elena was so frightened she was nearly in tears, her large eyes brimming with moisture.
“I didn’t see anything, I didn’t see anything. I… I said the wrong thing. Wah.”
Liv didn’t blame Elena.
Instead, she spoke with a kind and gentle expression.
“Elena, it’s fine. Come, have a seat.”
“Regardless of whether you saw anything, as long as you don’t spread it around, it’s fine. Can you do that?”
Seeing how considerate Liv was, Elena nodded her head rapidly, like a chick pecking at grain.
“Rest assured, Miss Liv. My lips are sealed. I won’t say a word.”
Liv nodded.
“Good. Now, let’s talk business. What did the Captain of the Guard say? Has he decided on a plan?”
Elena hadn’t yet recovered from the previous intimidation.
She opened her mouth for a long time, not knowing what to say.
Tess urged her impatiently, “Speak! Or have you forgotten how to use your words?”
This time, Liv stopped indulging Tess.
She landed a precise palm strike onto Tess’s shoulder.
‘Heh, it seems the special training Tess gave me is quite effective. I can even use it on her now.’
“Tess, if you keep being so ill-tempered, I won’t let you do this or that anymore!”
Tess immediately shut her mouth.
With Liv backing her up, Elena organized her thoughts and began to speak.
“The Captain of the Guard just had the guards emphasize repeatedly that the grain on the Elven ships has already been calculated. The amount each person can buy is fixed. He won’t hold those who rushed the checkpoint earlier accountable, but if they dare to do it again, they will be thrown into the sea immediately on charges of violating the Republic’s military control.”
‘Is it still this same old routine? Using execution as a threat.’
Liv looked at the crowd below the building.
They still possessed reason and were willing to follow the rules because they respected the source of their food.
Once the day came that they no longer cared for the scraps being handed out, things would get serious.
At that point, would grapeshot and rifle volleys be enough to intimidate them?
At least for now, after the Captain of the Guard’s intimidation, the crowd was obediently forming long lines.
There were sallow, thin adult men holding wooden buckets meant for a family’s portion; there were skin-and-bones women carrying children on their backs; there were hunched old men and women; and there were older siblings leading their younger brothers and sisters.
They could be considered the ones who had survived the first wave of the unprepared famine.
Many others had died of starvation after going days without food, compounded by long-term malnutrition.
The harbor had once been filled with floating corpses.
Ironically, it was only when the bodies blocked the shipping lanes and threatened to cause a plague that barges began to dredge them up, transporting them to the outskirts to be burned.
Landingst’s anti-plague measures were quite well-executed.
It would have been even better if those funds had been used in advance to buy grain for free distribution.
The grain distribution seemed to have begun.
The residents were released from the marina and walked toward the distribution point.
Along the way, guards stood with loaded rifles, ready to intervene in the event of a stampede or a riot.
The grain piled up like a mountain behind the distribution point, and many more merchant ships were still transporting grain toward the docks.
Using Elven Eyes, Liv saw her fellow Elves moving grain on the ships.
This was the first time Liv had seen Elves other than Tess.
They were dressed in ordinary cotton clothes and the short pants common among sailors, not looking much different from human civilians.
It seemed they were commoner sailors from the Elven side.
They were agile and strong.
Regardless of gender, the crew members could lift extremely heavy bags of wheat and place them into the crane baskets.
They didn’t collide on deck, nor did they need to stay far apart; they could pass one another with elegance and speed.
‘Are these my Elven subjects?’
Liv felt a sudden impulse.
She desperately wanted to go and greet them — no formalities or protocol necessary.
She just wanted to see what her compatriots really looked like.
But such a small wish seemed so unrealistic today.
The Regent had not announced the Queen’s name at all.
Aside from the Council of Elders, the vast majority of Elves did not know the current Queen’s name.
However, according to Tess, they all knew that the Queen had been chosen by the long-lost Book of Kings and the rings of the Ancient Tree.
She didn’t know if they saw this as a good or bad thing.
Liv’s expression darkened.
She withdrew her gaze and continued to watch the queue distributing grain below.
At this moment, many people realized they could truly receive enough grain to last for a few days.
They joyfully carried their wooden buckets toward the wheat processing shops on the shore, striving to be at the front of the line to have their flour ground.
Liv checked her pocket watch; it was already 9:00 AM.
After grinding the flour, there certainly wouldn’t be time to send it to be baked into bread.
She knew how they would eat the flour.
Civilians would put it directly into vegetable soup to boil, turning it into a thick gruel or lumps of dough.
It could be eaten hot, or it could be eaten as cold flour cakes after cooling.
Regardless, their only goal was to get the flour into their stomachs as quickly as possible.
Those who were too late or couldn’t make it into the grinding queue might choose to boil the wheat grains directly into porridge.
This was also a common way to eat; many civilians who couldn’t afford the mill fees did exactly this.
Liv watched the families who were ecstatic as they held their buckets of wheat, wondering what they would have as a side dish for lunch.
Would it be leftover pickled cucumbers and turnips, or olives?
Or did they still have some stores of butter and cured meat?
The grain was distributed quickly, and the queue was slowly shrinking.
These two ships of wheat really allowed the residents of Landingst to survive a few more hungry, arduous mornings.
Indeed, unlike her previous life, the people here were accustomed to eating leftovers in the morning and eating the day’s fresh food for lunch and dinner — dinner especially was meant to be a feast.
But after the famine began, they basically had no leftovers to eat.
They usually went to work on an empty stomach in the morning.
The stalls on the street selling fried dough balls and oil cakes had disappeared; there was no flour available for them to make products for sale.
Currently, the most common thing sold on the streets in the morning was heavily salted pickles paired with diced fat.
It wasn’t expensive and could sustain a laborer through a morning of hard work.
The workers at the docks could only afford to buy that in the morning.
It wasn’t until the grain was completely distributed that Liv withdrew her gaze and looked at Tess and Elena.
“Elena, have your subordinates complete the statistics and send a copy to me. I must confirm that the grain was distributed in full to the commoners. No nobles must be allowed to send servants in disguise to buy up the grain.”
“If I find out, no matter who the person is, I will directly issue a diplomatic document demanding that Domenico execute that noble.”
“Just as I said when sentencing Bauer: The Republic must live, so they must die.”