Under the Oak Tree: Season 1 (4) by Suji Kim

Author:Suji Kim [Kim, Suji]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: RIDI
Published: 2022-05-18T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 140

Maxi did not visit the shelter out of a great sense of righteousness. It was mostly because having something to do instead of being idle at the monastery made her less anxious, and being physically tired helped her sleep. She had been suffering from severe insomnia recently. The gruesome faces of dead soldiers would fill her mind as she lay awake in the dark.

It was only on days she went to the shelter that she was able to sleep undisturbed by nightmares. Were it allowed, she would have visited every day. However, the women were required to ask the clerics for permission to leave the grounds and were obliged to use the basilica’s carriages and guards. Since they did not wish to burden the clerics who already had their hands full, they limited their visits to once or twice a week.

They would gather at the pavilion on days they did not have an excursion to sew tunics and blankets for the orphans. Even the maidservants helped with the sewing from time to time, but no matter how many new clothes or bedding they donated, they were all tattered or gone after five or six days.

The missing items were apparently due to thieving vagrants. Food and other necessities were also stolen, but the shelter did not have the resources to prevent it.

Word that the nobles were supporting the facility must have spread; more and more people came to seek help, leaving the shelter sorely lacking in food, clothes, and room. Maxi quickly realized that Levan was not as peaceful as it appeared on the surface.

The consequences of the monster invasion sprouted across the capital like poisonous mushrooms. The outskirts of the city overflowed with refugees from the north fleeing from the monster army, and the prices of goods soared.

Though merchants from each kingdom arrived at Levan’s ports with full ships, it did nothing to alleviate the food shortage. Most of the stock was sent as military provisions. It went without saying that it was the poor that suffered the most.

Whenever she visited the shelter, Maxi saw starving people wandering the city like ghosts. Although vagrants rarely gathered near the city center or port where security was tight, they took up most of the space along the city walls.

As the number of impoverished people surged by the day, the sighs of the clerics at the shelter grew heavier and heavier.

“If we fail to separate the sick from the general population soon, a plague might break out.”

One early afternoon, Maxi was at the shelter with the other noblewomen when she heard a cleric’s terrible prediction. She looked at him in horror.

Dozens of infirmed men and women lay crammed together on the floor of the wide room, their bodies reeking of vomit. One of the noblewomen struggled for air as she backed away toward the entrance.

“A-Are you saying… that they are all sick with a contagion?”

The cleric hastily shook his head. “Please do not worry, it is only food poisoning. Things have been spoiling quickly in this hot weather, so more and more people are coming down with stomach ailments.

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