Chapter 408: An Unfortunate Part Of Reality
That said, Misty City was still far better-off when it came to poverty and cleanliness than most other large-scale settlements.
Here, the local rulers put in more than just the absolute minimum amount of effort, establishing rules for how close waste could be dumped to the city and providing relief food and firewood when conditions were particularly hard.
Most major cities chose to instead sequester the less fortunate away, treating them as undesirables or expendable labour. In such places, the only time the poor saw officials and administrators was when something went wrong and punishment was about to be meted out.
Over the centuries, Celestina had tried multiple times to improve this situation, but so far, nothing had proven effective. Some ideas had improved things temporarily, but whether it was a couple months, or a couple of years later, it always returned to its original state.
It seemed like some amount of poverty was just an unfortunate part of reality.
One of the saddest parts of this reality, though, was that on top of being the poorest area of the city, the southern district also had the largest number of orphans.
If one stopped and thought about it for a moment, this actually made a grim kind of sense; after all, you had gathered all the poorest, sickest, and weakest people in Misty City here.
Whether it was succumbing to injuries, falling fatally ill, or just collapsing from exhaustion, dying was simply more common here than anywhere else.
When poor parents died, they left behind even poorer children.
Such children had a few choices at that point, be adopted by family friends, fend for themselves, or enter one of the orphanages.
Given how poor the southern district was, people being able to take in extra mouths was a rarity. As for surviving on the streets, that might be a viable solution if one was old enough, but most kids under the age of 13 ultimately took the third option, seeking help from one of the charitable child-care organizations.
Some of these orphanages were privately run, but most were again operated by the city directly.
The amount of money the Balfour Family allocated to these orphanages wasn’t insignificant, but it also wasn’t abundant.
It wasn’t that they couldn’t spend more to help these suffering children, but rather that no one ever thought to.
As harsh as it may sound, resources were limited, even in a place like Misty City, so spending huge sums to support children who would ’never contribute anything to society’ was deemed by most to be a waste.
A building with a roof that didn’t leak when it rained and was warm in the winter, had enough beds for all the children to sleep in, and offered sufficient food for them to not constantly be hungry was already considered extremely generous by most higher-ups.
Even Celestina herself didn’t think much about these kinds of conditions as they truly were much better than what orphans in other cities could expect.
All-in-all, there were definitely worse places to be an orphan child than Misty City’s southern district, but being one certainly wasn’t a pleasant experience either.
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Navigating their way through the narrow streets, Eris, Toby, and Mabel received plenty of curious looks from the local residents.
Some of the poorest people on the roadsides called out to them, hoping for some small amount of charity. No one dared harass them openly thanks to Eris’ flaming red ponytail, but there were more than a few who had unscrupulous ideas flash across their minds.
There was no shortage of down-and-out individuals who quietly cursed the Balfour Family, blaming them for their misfortunes, but none of these people were stupid enough to try to attack one of the local rulers’ kids.
Life was hard, sure, but at least they were still alive.
Eris, too, had learned the hard way not to interact too much with these people.
The first time she had visited this place, together with her mother, Lucas, Christina, and an old servant from the Manor named Hal, Eris had taken pity on a beggar woman holding a thin baby and tried to give her a Silver Coin.
1 Silver was a small amount of money to Eris, but to the residents of the southern district, it was a fortune, and the mere sight of a ’naïve wealthy child’ immediately caused a huge ruckus.
Within seconds of the coin appearing, dozens of people rushed over and began swarming the young girl, bombarding her with their own pitiful stories while pleading for money.
Eris was completely overwhelmed at the time and didn’t know what to do. She was also somewhat frightened by all the people grabbing at her and her family.
Forcing these people back would have been a simple matter for the members of Eris’ group, but perhaps because they were too soft-hearted, the thought of using violence to solve this problem simply never occurred to them.
Fortunately, a city guard patrol happened to be nearby and rushed over when they heard all the shouting.
Facing a dozen armoured guards, the crowed quickly dispersed, clearing the path for Eris’ group to leave.
Seeing these poor people being beaten back with staffs and sheathed swords only made Eris feel worse about what she had done, knowing that none of this would have happened if she had been more thoughtful.
Later, Eris had asked her smart Senior Brother if there was any way to help these people, but Lucas just wore complicated expression and shook his head.
Lucas said there was certainly many ways to help improve the situation, but none of these solutions would be quick or easy to implement.
Eris wasn’t surprised when her little brother told her this, though she was disappointed. However, that didn’t mean she was going to just give up and accept other people suffering as ’normal’.
Seeing the usual stubborn determination on his Junior Sister’s face, Lucas sighed and asked her to be patient while he came up with a plan.
Eris trusted Lucas implicitly, so she agreed to not act recklessly, but just sitting still and doing nothing had never been one of her strong suits.
She might not be able to lift everyone in Misty City’s southern district out of poverty on her own, but with her position and the generous allowance it came with, helping out a bit at the local orphanages shouldn’t be a problem, right?