Novel Full Chapter 1107: They Had Been On Their Own
Chapter 1107: They Had Been On Their Own
“Sister Millie? Who is pretty sister?”
“Ehehehe! That is big sister Aster! Call her big sister!”
“Hello pretty big sister!”
“Big sister Aster!”
“Pretty sister!”
“Yayyyy, new sister!”
Hnnnggg!! These kids so cute!!
Doing a quick head count, there seems to be seven other kids here. Four boys and three girls, all of them wearing rags and also looking quite malnourished.
The oldest amongst them was a boy who looked even younger than George, probably around ten or twelve years old at most.
I knelt down to bring myself closer to the kids but even then, the kids needed to tilt their heads back in order to look at my face.
“Hello there. What are all of you doing here?”
One of the boys pointed at the church building, “We live here! Home!”
“Just all of you? Are there no caretakers here?”
All of the kids turned to point at the oldest looking boy here.
“Tom! Tom take care of us!”
I looked at the boy in question and he smiled shyly at me, “Umm… I am the oldest here so… It goes without saying I should help them, right? Since there’s no one else here…”
“This is a church, right? Isn’t there supposed to be a priest here?”
He shrugged, “I dunno, big sister… He brought us to this temple and then disappeared after that. We didn’t see him anymore.”
I frowned, “Was this place already in this shape when you were brought here?”
All the kids nodded.
Millie chimed in, “Big temple broken when Millie found it. Big brother help with holes!”
George scratched his cheek, “I didn’t really do much… I just tried to cover up the holes as best I could with some planks…”
So the temple didn’t fall into disrepair because of the priest’s absence but he just didn’t even take care of this temple in the first place. He probably doesn’t even do his duties as a priest at all…
I turned back to Tom, “Which god does this temple belong to?”
All the kids shrugged.
“Hmm… How long have you all been living here then?”
Tom scratched his head, “Umm… I think it was a year or two? I don’t remember…”
These kids have been surviving here by themselves for more than an entire year?! And no one even noticed?! Just what was everyone in charge of taking care of this type of problem doing?!
“Have you not gone to look for the guards? Or maybe even the City Lord?”
The kids looked at each other, clearly having no idea of what I was talking about.
I guess they didn’t even understand what their position was and thought this was just normal or something…
But that was when I noticed the Tom kid hesitate and fiddle with his fingers for a moment before hiding his hands behind his back.
Before I could ask him what was wrong though, Carrey appeared behind me and bowed respectfully.
“Mistress, the food is ready.”
The kids got excited upon hearing the word ’food’.
“Food?”
“There’s more food?”
“Stupid, didn’t sister Millie just give us food?”
“Yay! Bread!”
The food Millie gave them was just simple hard bread that she most likely snuck out from under her parents’ notice.
I raised my hand at the kids, “We prepared more food for all of you as well. You can follow this big sister to get some~”
The children’s eyes all lit up and crowded around Carrey.
“Big sister! More food?!”
“Big sister! Where food?”
“Delish food?”
Carrey panicked a little from being swarmed by the children but quickly pointed in the direction of where Katsuki had set up the cooking pot, “Right… Right this way kids!”
All the kids including Millie ran off towards Katsuki, leaving me alone with George who I decided to question more about this.
“Why didn’t you tell your parents about them?”
George shook his head, “My parents would kill me if they knew I let Millie come here, much less allowed her to take some of our food without my parents’ knowledge to give them…”
“But she’s doing something good right? Shouldn’t your parents be happy about it instead?”
“Ahahaha… You don’t know my parents, big sister Aster. They would definitely not be happy about it.”
Hmm… I guess they’re the type of parents who would sacrifice strangers if it meant their own children were safe. I can understand that.
“So how long have you known them?”
George shook his head, “Not long at all… This is only our second time meeting them. The last time we came here was around winter time. Millie was playing catch with me and she just happened to come here to run away from me and… That’s how we knew about them…”
“No offense but… How are these kids surviving on their own without any other help?”
George shrugged, “I don’t know, big sister…”
Hmm… I suppose I would need to ask Tom for that. But since the kids were all occupied eating the stew that Katsuki had prepared for them, I decided that can wait until after they were done eating.
I told George to go ahead and join them while I went inside the temple to see which god this temple was dedicated to.
Ather, who had been occupied with sketching me the entire time, followed me in, her hands still flying across the pages of her sketchbook as she drew on it.
Unexpectedly, after the both of us stepped into the temple, Ather actually spoke without looking up from her sketchbook.
“Why do you even bother with them, Miss Aster?”
I turned to tilt my head at her, “What do you mean?”
“I mean why do you even bother doing all this for these children? It’s not like they are related to you, are they? There’s no benefit to you even if you were to feed them and arguably, they could be considered to be worse off since they would have tasted what a proper meal tastes like and be unable to go back to how they were before. Are you planning to take them along with you as well?”
“Is it a problem to help children who have done nothing to deserve their current predicament to just make their life a little easier?”
Ather finished sketching her current drawing with a small flourish before turning the page to give me a serious look, “You don’t know that, Miss Aster. They are slaves, are they not? That means something happened that put them in that position in the first place.”
“Didn’t George say that they are children of slaves which is why they are slaves?”
“That’s merely one of the possibilities, Miss Aster. I’m not telling you off for this, just so you know. I’m merely suggesting that there may be deeper reasons for the children’s situation than what meets the eye. As you have surmised, there is no way for this group of children to survive on their own for a week, much less an entire year or two. From what I’ve seen so far, the area around the temple isn’t being used to cultivate any crops and those two siblings don’t come here everyday to give them food. So they must be getting it from somewhere else.”
“Why don’t you just say that you believe the kids are stealing food from somewhere to survive?”
Ather shrugged, “That’s just a possibility as well. For all we know, that kid might actually be working somewhere and earning money to buy food, albeit just barely enough for them to survive.”
“Well… Everything is just speculation at this point. I’ll talk to the boy later to find out the truth.”
“Shouldn’t you do that before deciding to help them?”
“They’re just children, Ather.”
“This is the type of World where you have children learning to wield swords and killing monsters, Miss Aster. You might want to remember that the next time. Our old World’s morals do not apply here.”
I couldn’t even refute her because I was one such example… And even if you do not consider me, Odeta, Katsuki and all my schoolmates back when I was studying at Crown Capital City’s Aerialla Academy were all like that as well.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I relented.
Ather only nodded in response and went right back to sketching again as if nothing had happened.
In the meantime, I turned my attention back to the temple’s interior.
There were some holes that had wooden planks covering them but it was clear whoever covered it merely did a rush job since they weren’t even completely covering the holes they were trying to cover.
The children also seemed to be sleeping in the main hall of the temple by using the pews as beds which they had pushed together to one side of the temple.
Despite how rundown the temple appeared however, there was a single statue at the very back of the temple which was in perfect condition.
Unfortunately, it was a god I did not recognise so I don’t know which god has authority over this temple…
Hmm… Now what should I do about this?