Cornflower Witch

Chapter 395 Reflections on Order
The next day, the students took a boat trip down the river, enjoying the scenery along the way.

The group chatted and laughed along the way until the small boat docked at the river bend at the end of the journey. The water was calm and the banks were lined with large groves of Tabebuia trees.

It was early spring, before the leaves had sprouted. The branches were covered with large clusters of bright yellow trumpet tree flowers, filling the gaps between the branches, lush and beautiful.

The students carefully jumped off the boat and walked along the forest path covered with fallen leaves, with large clusters of bright yellow flowers overhead, as if they were in a fairy tale.

There's no need to think too much about life's troubles and trivial matters. Just take in the beauty that fills your vision and stroll through it, and you'll find a tranquil joy.

The relaxing day passed happily, and in the evening, the students boarded the horse-drawn carriages waiting by the roadside to begin their return journey.

This is a hillside not far from the river bend and the woods. Standing by the roadside, you can still see a large sea of ​​bright yellow trumpet trees in bloom below.

"It's time to go, Hedra~" Lovir waved from the front, calling to the girl behind.

"Mm." Hilti nodded, glanced back at the scenery below, and prepared to leave.

Just then, a blonde girl walked past her. The girl stopped as she passed by, as if waiting for her. When Hilti approached, she waved her hand lightly.

"Hello~ My name is Xin Ke." She introduced herself generously, her beautiful red eyes looking stunning in the afterglow of the evening.

“Hello.” Hiltiya paused for a moment, then nodded in response.

Xin Ke? She remembered that this was the student in Asura District who was secretly ranked first by the teachers.

"I'm at school number 24. You can come visit me anytime you have time."

"Oh, by the way, there's an ice cream shop near our school that I really like. If you come, I can take you there to try it." She smiled and waved, then said goodbye to Siltiia and boarded her carriage with her companions to leave.

A few minutes later, when Hilti and her two roommates were sitting in the carriage, the two couldn't help but ask curiously what they had talked about with the blonde girl.

“It’s nothing. She said I could visit her and make friends later. There’s a really good ice cream shop near her school,” Siltiia recounted.

"Is that so? But that's Xin Ke, I heard she's incredibly skilled." Luo Wei'er thought for a moment, and also became somewhat interested in the blonde girl from before.

"How about we go take a look together next time?"

Hilti thought for a moment and nodded in agreement.

If Luo Weier hadn't said that, she probably wouldn't have gone over on her own initiative, since she wasn't particularly keen on socializing unless invited by an acquaintance.

After returning to the Asura district, Hilti's life returned to normal, consisting of a routine of school, dormitory, and laboratory. She has now begun to try using the laboratory equipment to make some simple mechanical gadgets.

"Is this the automatic watering flowerpot that Hedra made? It looks kind of cute." Luo Wei'er looked at the small flowerpot on the windowsill with curiosity. It had a container at the bottom to collect water, and it would pump water up and sprinkle it on the soil every once in a while.

"It's still in the experimental stage, and we don't know how long it can work automatically." Hiltiya fiddled with the container inside, adding water.

"I need to go out this afternoon." Since there were no classes today, Silti thought of something.

"Where to go?"

"Agate Street." She hadn't been there for almost a month, and she wanted to go back this time.

In the afternoon, Hiltiya arrived at this familiar street by carriage and walked into it.

After visiting the area many times, she got to know most of the residents and remembered their names, so many people greeted her when they saw her.

"It's been a long time, Hedra."

"Good afternoon, Miss Hedra." This is a fairly normal greeting.

"Lord Hedra!" A tall orc stood at attention upon seeing her.

"You're back, Lord Hedra." These are relatively new ways of greeting people.

Since that spring outing, when Hilti defeated Marlo, the genius from School 19, her reputation spread further throughout the Asura District. Now, even ordinary people in the Orcish District have heard of her name. "Hmm, hello," Hilti responded somewhat awkwardly, then quickened her pace and arrived at Uncle Dus's house.

This orc had accidentally broken the school's glass and was fined by 'Four Fingers'. He also almost had his daughter kidnapped. If it weren't for Hilti's intervention, he would probably have been beaten half to death and his future would have been hopeless.

It was rare for Dus to be home today. When he saw Hiltiya arrive, he immediately got up to greet her and even called out his daughter, Milica.

"Make some tea for Lord Hedra," he instructed, then went to Siltia and recounted the recent events.

During this time, he recovered from his injury, returned to his post, and found a job in the restaurant kitchen.

"Although it's quite tiring, I can get leftover food every day, which saves me a lot of money on meals, and I can even have a decent meal occasionally," he explained.

Afterwards, Hilti asked him many questions about working, such as how wages are settled, how many people a restaurant needs to hire, how much food to prepare, and the approximate amount of waste, etc.

If you ask the restaurant directly, they definitely won't be willing to reveal the information, but you can find out quickly and easily from Duss.

After listening to Dus's description, Hilti thought for a moment.

"It seems that opening a restaurant in the Asura district is quite profitable."

“That’s right, many people have this idea, including many people on Agate Street,” Duss replied.

"However, it is not easy to actually open a restaurant."

"First of all, there's the issue of qualifications. You need to obtain an official operating license, which is not easy to obtain. According to black market sources, a regular operating license costs several thousand gold coins."

"In addition, you need a stable supply of ingredients. This part is controlled by underground gangs. If you don't handle it well, they can add something else to the ingredients or cause some damage, making it difficult for the restaurant to operate. The leader, 'Fire Pig,' is in charge of this."

"Later, to prevent anyone from causing trouble, we also had to maintain a good relationship with the headman who controlled the laborers."

"If they don't get along, will they cause trouble and make the restaurant go out of business?" Shirutiya wondered.

"Yes, but it's not direct sabotage, but rather a constant stream of exhausting and disgusting things that happen."

"Most of the people who work in restaurants don't earn much and are easily bribed by rivals. If they cause even the slightest disturbance that makes a VIP customer uncomfortable, the restaurant's reputation will be ruined."

"But the laws of the Asura district alone are not enough to severely punish these helpers; they will argue that they were just careless."

"But if these people are laborers assigned to the restaurant by the headman, then it's a different story."

"They will ensure that these workers do not cause any major problems. If problems do occur, they will impose internal punishments, which are naturally illegal, but have a very strong deterrent effect, and ordinary people dare not disobey them."

"From what you're saying, it seems you don't hate 'Four Fingers' and 'Chili Face' and their gang." Hiltiya recalled what had happened before.

"I did make a mistake in that matter, and I can't blame anyone else. Sigh."

“But for Mirika, I am still willing to give everything. I am very grateful to Lord Hedra. If it weren’t for your help back then, I’m afraid she…” At this moment, Mirika brought over the tea she had brewed, stopping Duss from saying the rest of his words.

After accepting the tea from the cat-eared girl, Hiltiya pondered slowly.

Although the Mage Alliance has formulated relatively good laws, they are far from perfect and difficult to enforce 100%. There are many reasons for this, such as limited manpower, powerful superhumans being naturally stronger than ordinary people, which makes people fear and retaliate, many superhuman methods of committing crimes that are difficult to trace to their source, and finally, there are various hidden groups at the bottom who have their own internal order framework, which are difficult for outsiders to penetrate and interfere with.

No matter how well-designed or planned something is on paper, turning it into implemented policies and actions will encounter countless complex problems, leading many people to have their ideals shattered and ultimately give up entirely.

What is truly great is never a seemingly perfect system, but a group of people with strong beliefs and will who follow and implement it.

Unfortunately, this insight was not understood by the current Mage Alliance, or rather, even if they understood it, they didn't care, because ordinary people on every continent in this world live like this, and no one thinks it's wrong or bad.

It's always been this way, so what's wrong with that?

This is not an era that glorifies ordinary people and promotes a people-centered view of history, but a world where the course of events is changed by individual heroes and strongmen.

(End of this chapter)