The puppet silently raised the barrel of the rifle, and through the scope, she saw a corpulent noble leisurely sunbathing on the castle's terrace.
Interests, power, desire.
While farrs risked their lives for survival and commoners desperately prayed for a al, he callously cut off countless supplies of food for these very reasons.
And such individuals were plentiful within the empire.
From farrs to trading companies, from trading companies to city lords, what's more?
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There are even more powerful nobles, larger trading companies, and above all… the extraordinary beings who stood at the pinnacle of it all.
Ravenna... With your ignorance, how could you possibly change anything?
The puppet thought, her eyes growing dimr as she silently pulled the trigger.
Blood splattered within the scope, marking Ravenna's first true act of taking a life, yet she felt nothing.
"Nothing will change, will it?"
Ravenna, retracting Nidhoggur, spoke in a hushed tone.
"Even if he's killed, his offspring are likely no better. Nothing about this lord's city will change."
Ansel was montarily taken aback, then smiled with half-closed eyes, "You're as perceptive as ever, Ravenna."
"... But I can't change anything, father," Ravenna whispered, "Nothing at all."
Ansel didn't respond, simply taking Ravenna to their next destination.
Their third stop wasn't a lord's city but an ordinary, albeit not so ordinary, village.
It was ho to a farr who had beco the lucky one chosen to go to Pelican City.
He brought many things to the village, naturally, most were for his family. Ansel and Ravenna, in disguise, were guests in his ho. While serving them soup, the farr's wife lanted, "So, they're really insane... If it weren't for Jas becoming a big shot, his old man would probably be gone, and my family would be in danger too, sigh..."
She disdainfully criticized the violence and madness of so farrs from her village and the neighboring one, who attempted to kidnap Ja's father to pressure him into fear. However, the situation was resolved by the Pelican Trading Comrce's hired thugs, who rcilessly killed several farrs.
Since then, only a few young people remained in the village to tend to the unworked fields, with the rest either going mad or leaving, their whereabouts unknown.
Ansel and Ravenna knew where they had gone; they had killed their own kind and then died in that small lord's city, hailed as a place of miracles.
"The villagers are less and less... However, it matters not, for we are soon to move to the expansive abodes within Greenridge City, far removed from these madn!"
The woman mused thus, before offering Ansel and Ravenna a warm smile: "Take your ti with the al, it has been a while since we've had guests."
After satiating their hunger, the duo andered through the desolate village, where the fields lay largely abandoned, save for a few patches still tended by so.
By chance, two youths were seen laboring under the sweltering heat. Ansel, standing beside the furrow, inquired loudly, "Why are only the two of you tilling the land, where are the others?"
One lad, lifting his gaze to Ansel, responded with a voice as if from a jar, "No one tends the fields anymore, they've all fled or died."
"Died?"
"That scoundrel Jas, not only did he force us into a corner with his sorcery, making our crops unsellable, but he also had people kill the villagers!"
Another, wielding a hoe, spoke with a voice laden with hatred, "That damned bastard... Sooner or later, I swear, I'll kill him with my own hands! If there's no word from elder brother in three days, I'll go myself!"
"...I'll join you. After all, with our father dead from illness and if brother doesn't return, we might as well go and slaughter Jas, and destroy those cursed fields while we're at it!"
"By the way, who are you, and what brings you to our village?"
"?... I'm here to verify sothing."
Ansel said with a smile, turning to Ravenna, "Shall we begin?"
Miss puppet had yet to recover from the young n's family tragedy, asking subconsciously, "...What?"
"Did you not hear what they just said?"
The young Hydral raised an eyebrow slightly, "Destroying those fields, though unlikely, but what if they succeed?"
He placed his hand on Ravenna's shoulder, speaking earnestly, "This is a threat, Ravenna."
"How do you deal with threats to your ideals?"
Facing the puzzled gazes of the two young n, who appeared to be no older than eighteen or nineteen, Ravenna's body... began to tremble gradually.
"This... is not right."
She attempted to argue, "If they also owned that piece of land, surely they wouldn't—"
"If they also owned? What about the other farrs? Do you intend to provide every farr in the empire with such land?"
Ansel couldn't help but laugh, "Imagine the exaggerated amount of grain production. Would there be buyers for the surplus? And who would bear the loss in the end?"
"You see, dear Ravenna."
The young Hydral gazed at the increasingly rigid miss puppet, his tone turning instantly cold and detached: "You were unaware of the devastation that piece of land could bring to the farrs, and now, fantasizing about providing all farrs with such land, yet you are oblivious to the consequences of such a scenario."
"You wish to ensure that farrs have sothing to rely on even after losing the value of cultivation, yet you have no idea how to arrange it, how to realize it."
"You are as shallow as ever, as... void as ever."
"Given your ignorance," he slightly lifted his chin, "we must adhere to the most fundantal principles—do I need to repeat myself? When confronted with those who threaten your ideals, how… do you choose?"
The devil's lips moved slightly, silently uttering that word.
Sacrifice.
Bang, bang —
When Ravenna regained her senses, the vegetables striving to grow in the fields were drenched in scalding blood.
She stared blankly at the floating cannon perched on her shoulder, watching its slightly smoking barrel, her dim eyes trembling incessantly.
Why am I... I never, never intended...
"How splendid," Ansel chuckled contentedly, "This is already your instinct, Ravenna, to eliminate hazards, eradicate threats, and..."
"Sacrifice, everything that can be sacrificed."
"Ugh...ugh!"
The petite scholar collapsed to her knees, her eyes reflecting the two bodies shattered by the cannons and the fields strewn with flesh, vomiting everything she had eaten.
Their father... died, succumbed to illness, perhaps due to lack of money.
Their eldest brother… died, in an attempt to kill other farrs who left them no way to live.
And they... also died, because they posed a threat to the fields, so I killed them.
Did their entire family... die because of ?
Is this an isolated case?
Ravenna, continuously vomiting until she started to dry heave, questioned herself.
Why can't I… accept this? I was rely trying to ensure everyone was fed, I was doing the right thing, why...
"Isn't it because you are ignorant?"
Ansel tilted his head, his words piercing Ravenna's heart like a blade.
"If you knew what such 'revolution' would bring, you would have prepared in advance. If you had prepared, many things would not have happened."
"But you didn't, you are oblivious to the so-called revolution… you are filled with those vacuous ideals yet never considering how to turn them into reality, neglecting preparations beyond technology. Ravenna, you understand nothing, you know nothing..."
"You are nothing."
"And..." the devil lanted, "This is your absurd and pitiful nothingness, as if... you never knew why you were chasing those ideals in the first place."
"Ugh…no, no no! No…ugh, cough, cough…"
Ravenna's hands hung limply at her sides, as if they had completely lost control, naturally drooping.
Her body coughed instinctively, but there were no other reactions as she allowed the filth to trickle from the corners of her mouth.
The petite woman stared blankly at the sky, her eyes void of anything.
Ravenna rembered what happened afterward, but it no longer mattered.
Her world had turned to gray, as if reflecting her childhood, no... even more silent than her childhood.
Ansel took her through various lord cities and places, where she saw many people.
The dead, the living, those ecstatic, those driven mad, those seizing opportunities, and those completely numb...
It turned out that the Watson territory had undergone such drastic changes, that in such a short ti, people could be transford into such states.
Ravenna now realized all of this, but it was already too late.
Not everyone was fed, not everyone benefited; destruction, harm, and even annihilation… were constantly occurring amidst the salvation she had hoped for.
She could have avoided all this if she had truly understood, if she had contemplated what revolution ant, if she had observed and witnessed the world she intended to change.
But Ravenna Ziegler had neither contemplated nor witnessed.
She was rely chasing, unaware of why she was chasing.
Thus, when the brief journey ended, and Ansel brought her back to Pelican City—
The delicate and beautiful puppet's eyes had lost their light, those magnificent purple irises, like a dead gemstone.
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