Chapter 3116: Difficult Winter

After returning home from Green Lake, Xia De took the cat out in the snow again and donated the bonus given by the Ridgewich Yard after cracking the major human trafficking case to the local orphans through the Dawn Church.

The Five Gods Churches in the Tobesk Diocese were now providing relief meals to the poor at the church gates and in the suburbs, and because this winter was exceptionally cold, they also provided small bags of coal to poor families with at least two children at home.

The paper bag wrapping the coal was itself a flammable material for starting a fire, and it was uniformly printed with—

【May the saint's surplus grain warm the hungry and cold body】.

And the newspaper called the church's generous behavior "Ash Gospel", which Xia De felt was very appropriate.

When Xia De arrived at the church to donate, he happened to meet Priest Ao Gu Si and his party who were preparing to go out, so he was pulled by the priest to go to the charity porridge stall set up in front of the Three Cats Hotel in the Song Square in the poor area of the north city with the priests and clerics of the Dawn Church to distribute relief grain. Xia De even found that there would be a box of matches in the paper bag wrapping the coal.

"I don't know if there will be a little girl selling matches in this era..."

Those who came to accept relief were the poor who really needed relief. Women with thin clothes holding children, disabled people with physical disabilities, laid-off workers who were sad and lowered their heads not wanting to be seen by neighbors, and gray-haired old people supporting each other were the most common objects in the queue.

The young clerics of the church and the police maintaining order were responsible for supervising people to queue. Looking out from the shed, Xia De saw people wrapped in headscarves and shrinking their necks, gradually forming a long queue in the bustling square.

The snow in Song Square had been cleared, but snowflakes were still falling in the sky at this time. The singing of the bard from the Three Cats Hotel could be vaguely captured. The weather was very cold, and not many people were willing to talk loudly while shivering outdoors.

Xia De, wearing the scarf given by Iruna last Year-End Festival, was responsible for handing bread to people who had received hot porridge made of vegetables and rice with Priest Ao Gu Si. It was cheap wheat bran bread, and although the taste was terrible, it could at least fill people's stomachs.

Although the priest was happy that Xia De was really willing to come with him, he still told Xia De with worry:

"It's not just Tobesk. After this snow that affected most of the Old Continent started, the situation in all parts of the Old Continent this winter will be very difficult."

"Large dioceses like Tobesk can still maintain this scale of donation, plus the City Hall is willing, and the royal family has to take care of their face, so there is no situation where a large number of starving people fall on the roadside, but the situation in those rural places is really not good."

Xia De also learned about the impact of this sudden heavy blizzard from the newspapers in the past two weeks:

"I remember that in the summer of this year, people of insight had already expected the situation this winter. Yodel Palace issued a decree at that time, asking granaries everywhere to store grain in advance."

"Yeah, you were very busy in the autumn, so you probably didn't notice that the number of news reports about granaries catching fire all over the country this autumn was much higher than in normal years."

The priest handed the bread to the woman's hands, which were chapped by the icy water of winter, and after accepting the other party's low thanks, he lowered his voice and said to Xia De:

"I heard from the church that the southern region of Delarion has caused worker strikes and riots among the poor due to the soaring bread prices caused by the grain harvest failure."

Xia De bent down and leaned out of the porridge stall, stuffing two loaves of bread to the ten-year-old girl holding her baby brother. He quietly gave the girl two 1-shilling coins at the same time. The girl looked very surprised, thanked him timidly, and then ran toward her grandmother who was leaning on a cane while holding her brother and the bread.

Xia De lowered his voice again and continued to talk to Priest Ao Gu Si:

"When domestic public opinion discusses the grain shortage this winter, most of them are criticizing Karsenrik for stealing Delarion's fertile plains during the last total war on the Old Continent. Priest, this is not a good signal."

"The natural climate this winter is so bad, if they really fight, can the logistics supply really hold up?"

The priest couldn't help asking. Because Xia De had received news from Galina and Princess Lei Qianya, he knew more:

"There was originally a plan for a total war, especially after the funeral of the Southern Princess at the beginning of the month. But no one expected that the impact of this snow would be so large. This instead became a good thing. Neither country has the confidence to end the war in a short time. The blizzard will cause big problems for logistics, so the possibility of a total war this winter has almost disappeared."

Currently, it seems that the two countries will likely support small principalities on the border to conduct proxy wars to test their opponents first.

"Right now, the army has already massed at the border, and the naval vessels are just one step away from firing at each other. Starting from autumn, the shipping routes of the New Continent must not only guard against pirates but also against the navies of neighboring countries. In such a situation, no one can stop the Lion, Laine, and Larus III—unless the Church is willing to directly interfere in secular politics, but we all know that unless civilization faces a crisis, the Church almost never intervenes in secular politics."

"Yeah, the change of royal power and the replacement of power are as common as natural phenomena in the eyes of the church."

The priest sighed, directing Xia De to throw the empty basket behind him, and moved the new basket full of bread to the stall. He wanted to say something else to Xia De, but found that there was a commotion at the back of the queue for relief grain.

The man in the brown wool hat who had received the bread from the priest turned to look. Because he was curious, the frost on his eyebrows was shaken off. The young clerics responsible for maintaining order walked in a hurry to check the situation, and then found an old woman wrapped in a headscarf lying in the square.

Xia De signaled the priest to go and see what happened. No matter what kind of situation this was, the people in the lower city obviously respected the prestigious old priest more.

So Priest Ao Gu Si left the stall temporarily, and the noisy crowd also blocked Xia De's sight. But it didn't take long for the priest to come back, and he shook his head at Xia De:

"Already passed away. She had received the grain, this was falling on the way back."

"No rescue?"

The old priest sighed and continued to distribute bread to the people still queuing in the snow with Xia De:

"Mortals will eventually die... Perhaps in that eternal dream, she can return home with food and spend a warm night with a full stomach."

This bad weather that caused a serious snow disaster in the Tobesk area affected the central and western regions of the entire Old Continent. Even the Yalahan Desert in the south of Green Lake, where there was rarely rain or snow in winter, welcomed the heaviest winter snowfall in three hundred years.

Although the magnitude of the second round of snowfall starting this Monday was not as large as the first round, it still created a snow belt spanning two countries in the central part of the Old Continent in just half a week.

Reports on the disaster situation in various places in the newspapers gradually overwhelmed the discussions and accusations between the two countries about the "Princess assassinated" and "Tobesk slave trafficking" incidents, but Xia De still saw an article in the Southern newspaper that Galina didn't take away on Tuesday, where Lion Ryan vowed to retaliate against Delarion—

Saladir County borders Karsenrik, and the witch followers there always send important Southern newspapers directly to Tobesk through special means.

The subsequent repercussions caused by such large-scale snowfall will probably make this winter a difficult memory that many people will not be able to forget for many years to come. Karsenrik and Delarion issued decrees frequently to eliminate the subsequent impact of the disaster, striving not to cause large-scale turmoil before the Year-End Festival.

Galina, like Xia De, thought this snow was actually good news:

"Originally, Princess Lei Qianya's father was ready for a total war before the Year-End Festival, but this heavy snow cooled down the war fever of the two kings very well."

A total war before spring is unlikely to happen, but peace talks are also impossible. The proxy war I mentioned earlier will probably come soon. Wait and see the news. Something always has to happen recently to let the citizens know that His Majesty the King is not sitting in Yodel Palace eating roast suckling pig all day."

Whether Larus III likes to eat roast suckling pig, Xia De doesn't know. Anyway, he and Little Mia don't like it. This week means that the last month of this year has also entered the second half, and the big event this week is the group task.

During the day on Tuesday, everyone gathered at Dr. Shi Nai De's clinic in the snow again, and spent two hours watching the psychologist explain the experimental task assigned to the group tomorrow in detail on a small blackboard.

Five relic derivatives - 【Fate Observer Cards】 will be sent tomorrow, and after the task starts at night, the Academy has designated five specific locations in the Tobesk area, and the five people need to activate their respective cards one by one in order at those locations.

The Academy's suggestion is for the group to act together. After the group members complete one test, they will go to the next location together. And the order of the five people is arranged from low to high according to the level, that is, Priest Ao Gu Si → Luweiya → Dorothy → Xia De → Dr. Shi Nai De.

The doctor informed everyone of the meeting place tomorrow and the situation of the five locations, and optimistically thought that except for the road that might be difficult to walk tomorrow night, there should be no other problems:

"Except for the last location which is a cemetery in the suburbs, other locations are scattered all over the city. Like the last task, I have rented a carriage in advance. We will use this to move tomorrow night. The priest and I are responsible for driving the carriage in turns, and the Astronomy Academy requires the diviner to be responsible for keeping those cards that have not yet been activated. This is Anat's work."

"Do those relic derivatives with our information need to be handed in after use?"

Xia De asked again with worry, and the doctor shook his head:

"This doesn't need to be. These relic derivatives only have observation functions. They can only exist for 24 hours after activation. We are responsible for recording the accurate disappearance time."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 3117 =====