CHAPTER 474: CHAPTER 449: RIOT · THIRTEEN_2

And when they don’t have to risk execution to get a bowl of porridge to fill their stomachs, do you expect these ordinary people to resist the Empire’s war machine for the so-called beliefs propagated by heretical sects?

It’s somewhat overthinking it.

Of course, although the Empire has begun relief efforts and provided a considerable number of people with jobs to support their families, there are still some who do not enjoy this treatment.

After all, resources are limited, job opportunities are limited, and Perfikot does not wish to support these people for free, so inevitably, some are left hungry for that bowl of porridge.

These people naturally turn to those heretical sects, becoming sacrifices to the Divine and accomplices against the Empire’s adversaries.

Perfikot is aware of these matters. Whether it’s the Brotherhood, the church, or the Empire’s intelligence agency, they all reported to Perfikot that some of the poor have turned to heretical sects.

But there’s no help for it; compressed biscuits, although produced using alchemy to save on raw materials, still have production limits.

The outer district holds hundreds of thousands in need of sustenance. Even if Perfikot sends all the compressed biscuits produced to the outer district, it won’t be enough to feed everyone.

Moreover, compared to the hundreds of thousands in the outer district, the combined population of over a million in the upper and lower districts also needs food.

Although human life isn’t a simple equation of addition and subtraction, nor is survival determined by numbers, it can’t be denied that the residents of the upper and lower districts are more valuable in terms of their economic contributions than those in the outer district.

This is a brutal fact, indicating that Perfikot must abandon some of the population in the outer district.

In fact, without Eldest Princess Annie’s plea to investigate heretical sect activities in the outer district, Perfikot might have abandoned more than just a small part of the outer district population; she might have forsaken the entire outer district.

This is another brutal fact: the Empire cannot sustain such a large population as doomsday approaches.

Even with the near-magical technique of alchemically producing compressed biscuits, Perfikot cannot feed nearly three million people in Langton City.

The official population of Langton City is over 2.3 million, while the actual population is nearly 2.7 million, not including transients.

One can imagine how much food such a large population consumes daily.

So thinking about feeding hundreds of thousands in the outer district with just dozens of tons of compressed biscuits daily from the factory? That’s overly optimistic.

Calculating at 200 grams of compressed biscuits per person per day, feeding ten thousand requires at least two tons of biscuits, and hundreds of thousands would consume at least hundreds of tons daily.

Even though Perfikot’s technique seems to create from nothing, production still consumes resources, especially the alchemists who maintain the machinery—they are key to the bottleneck in biscuit production.

Perfikot already lacks alchemists; even with all available alchemists in Langton working, the biscuit production remains limited, serving only as a supplement to regular food supplies.

Despite the starvation deaths thus far, those remaining in Langton still require nearly a thousand tons of food daily, illustrating the severity of the food crisis Perfikot faces!

Under such circumstances, even Eldest Princess Annie refrains from blaming Perfikot; abandoning surplus population is an inevitability.

"On the bright side, at least we won’t have to watch them starve to death." In the office, Perfikot joked grimly with Eldest Princess Annie.

Eldest Princess Annie felt particularly helpless.

She wanted to save these people, but was powerless.

The food crisis is currently the Empire’s greatest challenge; overseas colonies cannot produce or deliver enough food, and the Empire’s domestic output, like Perfikot’s biscuit factories, is limited...

Simply feeding the upper and lower district residents daily already exhausts the Imperial Center’s food reserves, adding the outer district pressures the agricultural minister to despair.

In fact, the agriculture minister has considered hanging himself more than once; the food shortage is virtually unsolvable.

"To not watch them starve, yet still witness their deaths by other means, is truly a nightmarish situation," Eldest Princess Annie shook her head, tone filled with frustration and anger.

Though she wished to immediately rush to the outer district to root out and slaughter the heretical sect members, Eldest Princess Annie understood such actions were futile.

It’s not that killing heretical sect members is pointless, but her current efforts to eliminate them in the outer district would be ineffective.

For one, these exposed members are likely not the entire sect, possibly mere bait or peripheral figures. Even Perfikot has identified only Lady Babalon as a significant figure, and her identity remains unknown.

So merely killing these visible figures is pointless; it neither thwarts their schemes and may alarm the core members, losing the chance to uproot them entirely.

"Compared to this, I’m more concerned with what they’re plotting." Perfikot also worried, though her concerns differed from the Eldest Princess: based on current information, the heretical sects are likely planning something significant, possibly involving summoning their god, which may lead them to facing a True God’s descent.

None have truly witnessed a True God’s power, with scarce records even in the church’s archives.

So I’m very concerned, fearing the Empire lacks the strength to suppress a True God, leading to chaos."

The possibility of heretical sects summoning a True God is like a sword hanging overhead, unsettling for any.

Despite maintaining her rationality and composure, Perfikot finds herself troubled, unable to calmly contemplate countermeasures or breakthroughs.

"If such an event occurs, the outer district, possibly even the lower district, would become a battlefield, devastating Langton—its destruction not requiring doomsday." Perfikot expressed a pessimistic view, evidently unconfident in Langton’s chances against their foes.

"Indeed, fighting within a city is disastrous for both sides and the city itself." Eldest Princess Annie, with her military background and battlefield experience, knows well the destruction war brings.

She vividly recalls when, in the Desert Kingdom, an ancient temple with millennia of history was severely damaged by local resistance forces, leading to the massacre of civilians living nearby.

A bustling town yesterday turned to ruins overnight, with countless unknown deaths buried beneath.

In war, civilians often suffer the most tragically.

"Leaving that aside, not only do we lack the means to hold or defeat a divinely descended god, our defensive line against such a force is utterly weak; how are we to withstand a divine assault?" This thought made Perfikot’s head ache.

Fortunately, a timely report by her attendant informed Perfikot that Dr. Jones, whom she had dispatched to the Desert Kingdom, had returned alive.