Chapter 464

Chapter 464

A Heart Ninety-Seven Percent Pure

“Princess Mia, on that note... Even though it’s been a while, I’d like to offer my apologies for what happened in the Kingdom of Remno. It seems to me that my kingdom has given you a lot of grief.” King Abram lowered his head.

Mia replied by shaking hers in a quiet way.

“You don’t have to apologise to me, Your Majesty. We no longer have any problems with Remno because of what happened. Prince Sion has already apologised to me, too. It’s already happened, so let’s not keep going after it.”

“But...”

“I didn’t have to go through any trouble, and Prince Sion’s help was essential to solving the problem. There’s really no need to apologise.”

Abram sighed when he saw how kind she was.

“All right. Sion told me that Princess Mia of Tearmoon has a very big heart. I now realize that he was right.” VIssịT n0(v)eL/b(i)(n).com for the best novel reading experience

The queen consort seemed to agree with him, and they both gave a satisfied nod. So, it goes without saying that their assessment was a little off. Not Mia’s heart, but her stomach, was big. Right now, said gut was also very empty, and apologies wouldn’t fill it up. She was interested in the food, not apologies! Especially the kind with mushrooms!

“So, enough with the business stuff. Let’s eat. Due to how quickly this party came together, we could only make a few easy dishes. I really hope you’ll like them.”

Dinner was served when the king said so. Mia realized quickly that when he said “simple dishes,” he was being very, very modest.

“Wow, this is a great menu!” Mia let out a happy cry as dish after dish of gourmet creations were put on the table. Each dish was as good as or better than the food served at the Whitemoon Palace. The Sunkland bread was just right when it came out of the oven. Since this kind of bread was known to get hard over time, it was best to eat it right away to enjoy its crisp texture and slightly sweet smell. But her favorite, and maybe even the best part of the whole meal, was one of the first dishes she ate.

“For the appetizers, we have sunshine tomato gelatin salad and salt-fried champignons du soleil,” the cook said before putting the dishes on the table.

For the former, red, ripe tomatoes were cut into small pieces and used to make an aspic. It looked like a gem on the plate because it was clear and gelatinous. But the champignons du soleil were even more beautiful. Mia’s palm-sized mushrooms had been cut into thin pieces and fried with salt. That was all. The simplicity of the cooking process felt to her like a challenge from the chef.

No difficult handiwork, and no showy tricks. I understand what they’re trying to do. The idea is to cook the food as little as possible to bring out as much of its natural taste as possible.

Mia’s eyes sparkled with interest. First, she grabbed a nearby glass of water and drank a little of it to wet her taste buds. Next, she took her fork and, using smooth, measured movements, pushed the prongs into a slice of champignon.

“Oh? You say’slaphappy’?” Abram’s eyebrow rose.

“Yes. Slaphappy.”

Having lived through the hell that was the Great Famine, she didn’t know how else to describe how people felt. It was the worst kind of being lazy.

“War...” she strarted again. “In times of abundance, maybe... But when famine is knocking on my door, I don’t have much money to waste on such nonsense.”

It made no sense to go to war right now, so she didn’t even bother to think about it. Some people might suggest an attack to get more food, but no one would give up their land or crops for free. A war would destroy good farms, kill a lot of people who worked on them, and make everyone hungry the next year.

Even so, it might be worth it if we were so strong that we could scare our enemies into giving up before they got desperate and burned their fields...

For example, letting a hundred Dion Alaias loose in a nation might do the job. She had a short moment of fun by imagining how that would happen.

He is already a one-man army, so sending him would be like sending a hundred armies. In fact, I’m not sure I could look at a hundred Dion creatures all at once and not faint from fear...

In the end, she thought that war was not the answer to hunger. It was only good for a short time and didn’t solve anything; it just put things off until later. If it didn’t fix the problem, it wasn’t a good choice.

“If you have enough food and enough people, you might be able to seek fame and conquest. But the next time will be one of hunger and lack. Now is not the time to fight. Right now, we can’t afford to be killing people and destroying the fields.”

A thought suddenly occurred to her and she added, “Oh, but using that as an excuse could be very useful.”

“An excuse? What excuse?”

“Using what I just said. Tell your people that there may be an invasion planned by the Tearmoon Empire. Use this as an excuse to start stockpiling food. That’s my honest advice for you, Your Majesty.”

“Interesting... So you know for sure, Princess Mia, that there will be a famine,” the king said. “But if that’s the case, you should be busy. So, why did you bring yourself here to Sunkland? Is there anything more important?”

“Why, yes, there most certainly is...”

Mia thought for a moment about how to take advantage of a chance that came up out of the blue. This was the best chance to find out more about Prince Echard and why Sion was killed. She couldn’t say everything, of course, but she had a good reason to say just enough to get things going.

“I’m here because one of my best friends, Esmeralda, had received a marriage proposal, and I wanted to find out how good her potential groom is,” she said with pride.

Her voice was clear and pure. There was neither guilt nor deception. It was the truth. Just that... it wasn’t all of the truth. Esmeralda was important to her in some way. No matter what other reasons she might have, they couldn’t account for more than, say, 3% of the whole. The mistake in that number could be in the dozens, but that doesn’t matter. It was 3 percent. So, at that moment, Mia’s heart was as pure as a jellyfish is water, which is to say that it was 97% pure.