"Thank you, Your Highness!"
The knight maiden walked away with a light step.
Looking at her back, I suddenly noticed that when she received the Divine Oracle just now, a relaxed smile I had never seen before appeared on her face.
It seemed this matter had been troubling her for a long time.
Furthermore, there was a small braid at the back of Yuna's head that was slightly longer than her other short hair, though not by much, appearing as if it were left there intentionally like a little tail stuck to her back.
This little braid bounced up and down with her light steps.
For a moment, I felt like I was looking at a puppy.
"Wait... is that an illusion? Could I be overworked from these past few days?"
I touched my forehead, but it did not feel hot at all, so it was likely just mental exhaustion rather than a cold.
Before the door closed, I thought I saw her turn around and bow respectfully to me.
Her mouth was wide open in a grin, revealing two rows of snowy white teeth, and though it lacked any ladylike elegance, it gave off a feeling of overflowing vitality and spirit.
"Did you... see Knight Yuna's smile just now?"
I was a bit uncertain if that serious girl was really the same silly, grinning girl I just saw.
I asked the young nun beside me for confirmation, and she nodded with a hint of surprise in her voice.
"It is also my first time seeing Knight Yuna smile like that, though rumors say she actually loves to smile and simply rarely does so in the Temple."
As she said this, the young nun noticed my gaze and was suddenly startled, quickly covering her mouth.
"I am sorry, Your Highness! I... I spoke too much!"
Looking at her panicked expression, there seemed to be a trace of fear in her eyes.
"Are you... afraid of me?"
"No... No."
The young nun's voice began to choke up, clearly terrified to the extreme.
Just as I watched her and prepared to speak, the young nun suddenly knelt before the bed with a thud and cried out.
"Your Highness, I was wrong! Please do not punish me! I know I made a mistake, I do not want to be exiled! Please forgive me, I beg for your forgiveness!"
What was going on?
Why did a young nun suddenly drop to her knees?
I looked at her in confusion for a long time before I finally reacted.
"Stand up first."
"Your Highness, I beg you, please do not exile me, I beg of you."
The young nun was already sobbing uncontrollably on the ground, and the terror on her face made me realize that at this moment, I might be more terrifying than a demon in her eyes.
"Fine, I forgive you, so stand up now."
"Thank... Thank you, Your Highness."
A look of pleasant surprise appeared on the young nun's face as she hurriedly wiped her tears and stood up.
Seeing her like this, I was curious why I, the Saintess, seemed so terrifying to her.
"You are very afraid of me? Can I ask you why that is?"
"I... I do not know."
She clearly knew but was too afraid to say.
"Tell me. If you speak, I will not blame you. This is a Divine Oracle, you must speak."
Panic flashed across the young nun's face again, and she suddenly knelt on the ground once more.
"Your Highness, I... I do not dare."
"Stand up."
The young nun rose unsteadily, her underage body even trembling slightly.
She was clearly scared to the limit.
"What... is your name?"
"In response to Your Highness... I, I am called Fanny."
"Fanny, do you have any family?"
I looked at her with a sincere smile.
Perhaps it was my expression, my eyes, or just a feeling, but the young nun gradually began to calm down.
"In response to Your Highness, no, I grew up in an orphanage..."
"Oh? Was the environment there good? Was the food alright? Did you have any good friends there?"
I asked with a smile, like an older sister next door concerned about her life.
She was a bit uneasy, but she still answered my questions.
"In response to Your Highness, the environment there... it was not very good, and the food was not great either, but everyone was very friendly and I had many friends there."
I nodded and gently patted the bed beside me, but she shook her head repeatedly.
"I do not dare... I will just sit here."
As she spoke, she walked to the side of the bed and sat on the floor right next to the bed frame.
I looked down at her from my position, and since she was close enough to touch, I reached out and gently stroked her head while asking another question.
"Do you still go back to visit often?"
Once someone entered the Temple as a nun, they officially severed ties with the orphanage, but based on her quick response, she had likely been there recently.
"Yes. Although there are no familiar faces left, I still occasionally bring some food over."
She was a good child who remembered her roots.
"Then what kind of delicious things do you usually bring? Can you tell me about it?"
"There are roasted wild chickens, ducks, eggs, raisins, strawberries, cod, and some candies."
I smiled as I listened to her list the foods she brought to the orphanage, gradually gaining an understanding of the people's livelihood.
It seemed that in this world... or at least in the Kingdom of the Moon, the food structure was still at the level of the early fourteenth century.
Wheat was the standard, bread was the staple food, and other items were mostly supplementary.
In this era, candy was already considered a luxury.
"What does the orphanage eat every day now?"
"Black pudding or black bread with some onion salad. Most of the daily food is like that. Once a week, the meals improve and we get a little meat, but each child only receives about four ounces."
In this era, an ounce was roughly equivalent to twenty-five grams, so four ounces was about a hundred grams, which meant each child got a small portion of meat.
"What is black pudding?"
I asked her curiously.
"In response to Your Highness, it is a food made of oats mixed with some pig blood and organs. It is considered a very delicious staple. We are very happy whenever we can eat something like that, but... we rarely get to eat it. We only have it when the nuns save enough money to buy some pig blood and organs."
I thought it was some kind of dessert, but it turned out to be this kind of hellish cuisine.
I could hardly imagine what the texture of that thing would be like.
"Then do you know how much a meal like that costs?"
"For one piece of black bread and a vegetable salad, it costs about three copper coins. If it is black pudding with onions and cilantro, it costs about five copper coins."
"If it is more lavish, it costs about twelve copper coins per person since there is meat involved."
In other words, if a person ate two meals a day, it would cost at least twenty copper coins.
Rate on N.U.
