Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 582 - 546: Heine’s Observation

Standing upstairs in the workshop, looking through the window at the desolate street outside, Heine's face bore an indescribable sense of loss.

This street was extremely familiar to her, for she had lived here since she could remember. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

As the first child picked up by her teacher, Heine could no longer remember her biological parents, nor her life before being taken in by the teacher.

After all, she was just a little child at that time—what could she possibly remember?

In Heine's memory, her entire life and existence could almost be said to revolve around this street outside.

Here, her teacher taught her alchemy, which excited young Heine for several days.

Here, the teacher first brought back a new child, giving Heine her first sense of responsibility as an elder sister.

Here, she completed her first official piece of work in her life and received her teacher's praise.

Here, for the first time...

This street, this workshop, held too many of Heine's memories.

Although it was also quiet in the past, the street was always full of vitality and energy.

This street wasn't an affluent area, just an ordinary street in the inner city. The people living here were neither nobles nor the impoverished lower class. Everyone had jobs to support their families and relatively happy and stable lives.

So, smiles were often seen on everyone's faces, and the children playing and laughing on the street looked very healthy, unlike the gaunt children from other working-class neighborhoods.

There were also a few small shops on the street selling daily necessities.

The prices in these small shops weren't high, and when Heine was little, she often asked her teacher for pocket money to buy things she liked.

For alchemists, money was just an external possession, utterly uninteresting to them, and few alchemists would worry about money.

So correspondingly, Heine's childhood life was quite good, and she never lacked pocket money.

But Heine never spent money recklessly; although she occasionally bought little things she liked, most of the time, she controlled her desires well, avoiding spending on unnecessary things.

The things she bought as a child were mostly carefully preserved by her and always kept in her room.

However, now, the street full of her fond memories is bleak, with newspapers and trash blown around by the wind, the corner revealing the body of a homeless person, and even the flowerbed in the middle of the street, once Heine and her sisters' favorite spot to play.

But now it's withered, leaving only bleak branches and leaves, looking black and ugly.

Now the street is just like this flowerbed, withering, dying.

The hurried passersby's faces were also filled with sorrow, and even through the window, Heine could feel their misery.

The residents of the street fared slightly better than the passersby with gloomy faces, but each family had its difficulties, and their lives weren't necessarily any better.

The restaurant that her teacher once took them to for meals had a seal on its door. Heine remembered their specialty was cream stew, a delicacy she yearned for as a child.

Though they could only celebrate birthdays or significant achievements in alchemy with their teacher's satisfaction by dining there.

But now, it had closed down.

Along with it, other small roadside shops, those Heine frequented in her childhood, and those once brightly polished display glass, were either broken or smeared with mud, seemingly long uncleaned.

All of this made Heine acutely aware of the fact that Langton was dying.

"The Northern Territory Count's plan saved many lives, but it also caused more deaths," such a statement inexplicably flashed in Heine's mind.

She couldn't remember when she heard it, but undoubtedly Perfikot's plan to relocate Langton's population to the Northern Territory indeed drained Langton of its vitality, and now this city is slowly dying.

This is a crime named Brandelis, but she doesn't care, nor does Sanderion, and the entire Noble Council and Imperial Center, they care even less.

Though ostensibly it seems Perfikot abandoned many lives, if one truly understands the situation, they would know choosing to save the majority would leave everyone facing hunger, cold, and deprivation until finally succumbing to starvation and freezing.

Because the total resources are limited, guaranteeing a survival of a minority must come first before considering others.

Yet, understanding remains just understanding, for when one truly finds themselves in the abandoned part, no one can calmly accept their fate.

This sentiment could be exploited by those with intent, and in the East, this emotion could be harnessed to become one factor in overthrowing the Empire's rule.

However, in the present Langton, this sentiment became the perfect fertile ground for the Evil God Sect, for which such negative emotions were too appropriate.

Even though Heine knows that the church, remaining Langton government institutions, and everyone else are still trying to keep this city running to prevent its decline, looking at the desolate street outside, it's hard to convince Heine that this city still has hope.

But she wasn't hopeless either, for she knew that hidden in the laboratory beneath her feet was the hope to save this city.

As Heine pondered these things, she suddenly noticed a small truck pulling up at the entrance of the Witch Workshop, and a young officer got out.

Seeing this, Heine immediately went downstairs; now the entire workshop was just her and the mysterious figure in the lab, and she needed to see what was going on.

After all, she hadn't forgotten the real purpose of the one in retreat who returned to Langton; as for the officer and the small truck outside, perhaps they brought the very things they needed.

"Miss, here is a letter entrusted to me by the Alchemist Association," the officer took a document from his leather bag and handed it to Heine. As Heine read the letter, the officer added, "These are some materials entrusted to me by the Alchemist Association to deliver. There's no way to transport more things due to the strikes happening nationwide."

"It's fine, but has the current situation reached such an extent?" Heine's rhetorical question made the officer's face show an involuntary expression of bitterness.