Under the clearing operations of the Second Battalion knights and squires, the hellish Ambratu gradually calmed down.
Just how many people died in this riot was a figure Cecilia's civil servants were still tallying. This task was truly a bit difficult for these young people who had never been on a battlefield.
The squire knights responsible for sweeping the inner city streets reported that they had shoveled over ten carts of disfigured corpses alone. Those bodies had been chopped up as finely as pork waiting for the pot; it was impossible to distinguish how many people were actually in a single cart.
Not to mention the children hung from the eaves, and the women whose intestines had been dragged halfway down the street...
"Once human evil is released, it is unexpectedly this terrifying," Cecilia said to Charlotte, letting out a long breath, her face pale.
Charlotte looked at the two civil servants who had just gone to vomit again and curled her lips. "What's so strange about that? Didn't you hear Lilith say that the Delmore people who live two doors down from us love to massacre cities all day long?"
"That is on the battlefield, after all..." Cecilia felt the two situations were somewhat different.
"Essentially, it is all the same..."
Charlotte wanted to express some profound insights and display her lucid understanding of human nature and the world in front of Cecilia, but before she could speak, a sharp cramp seized her abdomen.
Charlotte frowned and rubbed her stomach.
"Are you feeling unwell again?" Cecilia asked, noticing Charlotte's expression.
"It's nothing, just hunger." Charlotte waved her hand dismissively.
"Miss, would you like to eat a little?" Renee pulled a small pouch from somewhere. "This is fish floss I asked Linda to make using Silver-Winged Fish."
Charlotte's face darkened. "Do not mention any word containing 'fish' in front of me."
Lilith's conjecture was very accurate: the Silver-Winged Fish could indeed alleviate Charlotte's hunger, and her "Predation" was indeed the ability to absorb extraordinary power from food. Originally, due to diligent study since childhood, Charlotte was actually slightly nearsighted. After eating the Silver-Winged Fish continuously today, Charlotte clearly felt her vision improving. Obviously, the extraordinary power absorbed from the food was repairing, and even strengthening, her body.
However, just as Lilith had said, the extraordinary power contained within the Silver-Winged Fish was very meager, making it difficult to satisfy Charlotte's needs. Charlotte was now like a bodybuilder in a bulking phase who urgently needed protein but had only green vegetables as an option in her diet; eating too little simply could not meet the body's demands.
Unable to satisfy the body's needs, a peculiar sense of hunger lingered constantly.
However, the meat of the Silver-Winged Fish contained a certain toxicity. This toxicity wasn't particularly fatal—at least not for an Extraordinary—but eating it would cause symptoms like difficulty breathing and muscle pain. More importantly, it would cause diarrhea all day long.
How could a beautiful young girl have diarrhea all day long?
Charlotte could not accept it.
Therefore, starving became Charlotte's daily state recently.
"The main meals are already enough for me to suffer, yet you actually made it into snacks to carry around," Charlotte complained.
During meals, looking at the Silver-Winged Fish meat, hunger compelled Charlotte to uncontrollably want to eat a few more bites, but the toxins of the Silver-Winged Fish reminded her that she couldn't eat too much. Every meal felt like a torture of her willpower.
"Miss Lilith said that eating a little when you are terribly hungry can alleviate your pain," Renee said.
"Fine," Charlotte took the meat floss, ate a couple of bites, and then forcibly suppressed her appetite. Looking at the remaining meat floss, a sense of desolation suddenly rose in Charlotte's heart. "I'm so miserable... when will days like this come to an end!"
"Who knows? Perhaps it will end tomorrow," Renee said with a smile, taking the pouch back from Charlotte.
After consulting many ancient materials and researching repeatedly, Lilith reached a conclusion: the fact that Charlotte constantly felt hungry was actually a good thing. It indicated that her body still had considerable room for strengthening. Conversely, if Charlotte no longer felt hungry, it would mean the strengthening of Charlotte's body by the "Predation" ability had reached its upper limit.
The higher the upper limit, naturally, the better.
So, Charlotte should actually hope for her hunger to last a bit longer and be a bit more intense. The more intense and long-lasting it was, the higher the height of that upper limit.
It was precisely because of this that Renee was in the mood to joke with her young mistress.
Charlotte was just about to retort to Renee when she suddenly heard a burst of mournful crying.
The three of them turned to look and saw a woman with disheveled hair and clothes in disarray, lying on the ground, desperately stopping the corpse collection team from taking away her son's head.
Charlotte did not hesitate much; she immediately lifted her legs and walked over.
Seeing several nobles approaching, the corpse collection team hurriedly stepped aside.
Charlotte crouched down and helped the wailing woman up, not minding the sticky black blood and corpse fluids on the woman's hands in the slightest.
The woman's husband was instantly at a loss seeing this scene. Although he did not recognize Charlotte, the black-armored knight guards behind Charlotte were enough to explain the nobility of her status.
"Madam," Charlotte comforted softly, "Your child has merely returned to God's side. Under God's protection, he will be happy and joyful..."
"Waaah..." The woman continued to weep.
Charlotte crouched beside her, gently stroking the woman's back and comforting her until the woman's agitated emotions gradually stabilized. Only then did she speak again: "Let us bury your child as soon as possible, so his soul may rest in peace earlier."
Only then did the woman reluctantly let go of her son's head.
"This Lord..." The woman's husband wanted to thank Charlotte, but for a moment, he didn't know the appropriate degree of address.
Cecilia, standing to the side, tacitly introduced Charlotte for him: "This is the Viscount of Lanwan, Miss Charlotte Mellerfield."
"Viscount!"
The couple, who had just suffered a great misfortune, were startled and immediately wanted to kneel.
However, Charlotte hurriedly supported the two of them and said, "It is my dereliction of duty that such a tragedy occurred in Ambratu. I failed to protect my subjects well, causing you to suffer hardships."
The couple looked at Charlotte's sorrowful expression and were instantly incredibly moved. They shook their heads repeatedly and said, "This cannot be blamed on you. It is all the fault of those citizens, and that John Rice!"
For a whole day, Charlotte did exactly this—appearing in the streets and alleys of Ambratu, comforting the people who had been heavily traumatized in the riot everywhere she went.
With Charlotte's personal involvement, the reputation of the Viscount of Lanwan in Ambratu gradually became better and better, while in contrast, John Rice's reputation became worse and worse.
The reasons for this were not hard to understand—neither side of the riot considered John Rice one of their own. After the riot began, John Rice also failed to make any timely or effective response. As a Governor, John Rice's performance could be called incompetent.
The populace did not understand the separation of civil and military administration. As a civil official under Charlotte, the Governor had absolutely no authority to mobilize the city defense forces. If he wanted to use troops, he had to negotiate with military officers like Jarrod Garcia. If the military officer was unwilling to pay him any heed, the Governor could only stare helplessly. They only knew that John Rice was the person with the most power in Ambratu at the time, yet he watched helplessly as the riot occurred and spread, doing nothing, and in the end, the Viscount of Lanwan had to travel thousands of miles to salvage the situation.
John Rice followed the knights, civil servants, and corpse collection teams, working hard to settle refugees, treat the wounded, and collect bodies, yet wherever he went, he was met with eye-rolls. Everyone looked at him with eyes full of disappointment and hatred.
At first, John Rice felt very aggrieved, thinking he shouldn't have to bear the entire blame, but he couldn't defend himself. However, gradually, as he saw more and more tragic deaths and more and more families that had been wiped out, John Rice no longer wanted to defend himself.
"Mr. Rice, rest for a while."
A young man handed John Rice a flatbread for dinner and spoke.
"Thank you." John Rice wiped his hands clean, took the flatbread, and expressed his thanks.
This young man's name was Baby Wood, the former Mayor of Elm Tree Town. John Rice knew that Charlotte bringing this person over meant he was likely to take over his position as Governor. However, John Rice held no ill will toward this young man. After a day of working together, the feeling Wood gave John Rice was that he was willing to do any dirty or tiring work, completely unlike a young man from a high-born family.
Upon asking, John Rice learned that Wood was indeed from a peasant family.
"You don't need to take it too much to heart. This riot cannot be entirely blamed on you. The conflict between the City-State citizens and the freedmen would have erupted sooner or later. It can only be said that you... had bad luck," Wood comforted, seeing the old man's expression becoming increasingly desolate and haggard.
However, John Rice shook his head with a bitter smile. He raised a finger and pointed to a residence opposite them. The family living in that residence had all perished. The walls, the ground, and even the ceiling inside the house were covered in fresh blood. The corpse collection team found it difficult to clean, so they could only leave it to dry for now.
"The Viscount was right. I made a huge mistake. I always thought that protecting the citizens of Ambratu meant protecting the people of Ambratu, but I forgot that it is not only former City-State citizens who live in Ambratu County." John Rice sighed. "Even now, I do not know if that family was former City-State citizens or freedmen while they were alive. But does it matter? They have all died wrongfully in the riot. The whole family died wrongfully..."
Wood didn't know how to comfort John Rice anymore. In fact, the tragic state of the Ambratu riot had truly shaken this young man from a peasant family as well.
The next day, identical notices were posted at every city gate and at the entrance of the Governor's Mansion in Ambratu. The notice was personally signed by the Viscount of Lanwan, announcing the dismissal of John Rice from his position as Governor. However, since a suitable Ambratu person had not yet been found to take over John Rice's position, John Rice would temporarily act as Governor.
After posting this notice, Charlotte summoned influential figures within Ambratu County one by one inside the Governor's Mansion.
When Palacio was summoned, he was extremely nervous. The majority of the slaves who participated in the riot were his, and the mercenaries were also hired at his suggestion. He was very worried that Charlotte had already obtained evidence of his crimes and called him to the Governor's Mansion to chop his head off with a ka-cha. However, knights had blocked his door; Palacio had no chance to escape even if he wanted to, so he had to accept Charlotte's summons.
Fortunately, when Charlotte saw him, she did not mention the riot. Instead, she opened with a question: "Mr. Palacio, I hear you are the President of the Ore Chamber of Commerce?"
"Uh, yes." Palacio didn't understand why Charlotte brought this up, but he nodded truthfully.
"I have some matters where I would like to ask the Ore Chamber of Commerce to do me a favor," Charlotte added.
Hearing this, Palacio couldn't help but heave a sigh of relief. He bowed slightly and said, "It is my honor to serve you. Please, give your orders."
Charlotte smiled and nodded, saying, "Presumably, you should know that the summer grain harvest in the Lesalei Kingdom is about to begin soon. Under my rule, the Lanwan Viscountcy, Ambratu County, and Dorukocha County are all very short on grain. I hope the Ore Chamber of Commerce can help me purchase at least one hundred and fifty thousand Bitos of grain from the Lesalei Kingdom."
Palacio thought Charlotte would have more to say, but Charlotte stopped there, staring straight into Palacio's eyes.
"This... purchasing grain is not a problem."
The problem is you didn't say you'd pay!
"Nowadays, wars are frequent, and grain prices are not cheap."
Palacio attempted to remind Charlotte.
Charlotte laughed. She nodded to a knight beside her. The knight walked out of the reception room and returned a moment later carrying several black spheres.
Thud.
The spheres were thrown in front of Palacio.
Palacio was instantly scared into jumping up from his seat. What spheres were these?! These were all human heads! Moreover, Palacio recognized two of the heads; they were the Extraordinaries he had hired.
"I am using them in exchange for the Ore Chamber of Commerce acquiring one hundred and fifty thousand Bitos of grain. Do you think that is enough?" Charlotte asked again.
Palacio fell to his knees with a plop, saying repeatedly, "Enough! Enough!"
Charlotte's subtext was clearly to let Palacio use one hundred and fifty thousand Bitos of grain to exchange for her not pursuing the guilt of the Ore Chamber of Commerce merchants who participated in the riot as masterminds—the most important of whom was Palacio himself.
Perhaps the evidence Charlotte held was not detailed, but Palacio simply dared not gamble on whether Charlotte would refrain from hanging his entire family just because of insufficient evidence.
Charlotte nodded and asked again, "Additionally, are there any other locals in Ambratu suitable to be Governor? There are none left, right?"
Palacio was slightly stunned, then hurriedly answered, "None! Absolutely none!"
"That is good," Charlotte said with satisfaction.
On the third day, the notices posted at the city gates and the Governor's Mansion entrance were changed again.
In the new notice, the Viscount of Lanwan stated that she had received strong demands from many Ambratu residents and had decided to abolish the oral agreement of "Ambratu governed by Ambratu people." She dismissed John Rice from his position as Acting Governor and appointed the Green Plains Duchy native and former Mayor of Elm Tree Town, Baby Wood, as the Governor of Ambratu County. Additionally, she established the Ambratu Administration Office, Court, and Patrol Team...
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