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After their encounter in the town of Zihra, Inglis and her platoon left the town and headed north. They hastened their journey to prioritize going to either Lekrea or the Capital first; Gathering information in the towns along the way should help them decide by the time they arrive at the junction.

Five days later, Inglis and her platoon had reached the town that was considered as the junction between Lekrea and the Capital. However, there was something off about the town. From the distant view of their Flygear Carrier, the town was unusually quiet. They couldn’t spot anyone moving around at all.

Sensing that something was amiss, Inglis and the others agreed to check up on it.
Instead of hiding the Carrier somewhere in the vicinity, they rode it directly over the town.

Grrrroowwwllll~~~~~! Grroooowwllll~~~~~!

Inglis and Rafinha’s stomachs rumbled loudly the very moment they stepped outside of the Carrier. They were both famished.

「Fuuh……」
「Haa……」

They both rubbed their bellies and heaved out a sigh.

「Q-, quite the rumble it was……are you two okay?」
「That was quite vulgar……」
「Man, talk about dialing down the nerve.」
「B-, but, thanks to Inglis and Rafinha’s enduring their appetite…」
「That is true, everyone. Thanks to them, all those townspeople managed to hold onto their lives. That’s why I propose we’ll pretend we didn’t hear the…」

As Ian was doing a good job distracting everyone…

GROOWWLLLLL~~~~~!! GROOWWLLLLL~~~~~!!

「I know what you mean, Ian, but how can we even ignore it if it’s been rumbling ceaselessly!」
「「「Hahaha……」」」

Everyone else let out a strained laugh.

「……Indeed, despite how we are right now, we are daughters of a noble family! And for the part, what’s been happening is quite vulgar, right?」
「There’s no other way. This is for the best. We did nothing wrong!」

Rafinha stated firmly. The reason why they were so hungry lay in the towns and villages that they visited all the way there. Wherever they went, the residents were all suffering from famine due to the same, if not worse, senseless requisitioning of food as the town of Zihra.

Rafinha couldn’t possibly turn a blind eye to this, so she shared their foodstuff wherever they went. Hence, even the mountain of food they secured as their military provision was now almost running out, leaving both Inglis and Rafinha in a state of constant hunger.

It was what Rafinha, her cute granddaughter figure, wanted to do, and it was a virtuous deed as well, so Inglis went along with her. But…the hunger was pretty painful.

「We do it not as daughters of noblemen, but as a single human being. Just what would happen to those people if we didn’t save them? You must know, I’m not ashamed at all, not one bit. This is just the outcome of doing something right.」

Even as her stomach gruntled, Rafinha’s chest was puffed up.

「Rani!!」

At times like this, Rafinha could be stubborn. She had a firm core within her and she never tried to bend her sense of justice or beliefs no matter what. That was a quality necessary for a Knight or a member of a family that governed the people.

Raphael, the older sibling, usually had irreproachable conduct compared to Rafinha, the younger sibling, who usually let herself loose and got spoiled by Inglis. And yet, fundamentally, they shared a common core belief. How very similar.

「Here, if you don’t want your stomach to rumble so much, at least eat this. You’ll just trick your stomach, but it works. Here’s the sugar.」
「We’re eating snow again? Can’t be helped……It isn’t filling at all though…」

Inglis sprinkled sugar on the clean snow that was abundant in the area and scooped it to her mouth.

「We have no other choice, right? This is what we have aplenty!」
「Well, that is not wrong…」
「A-, anyway, can you two stay there? We’re going to check out the town first.」

Leone and the rest of the platoon then left Inglis and Rafinha behind and went into the town ahead of them. Inglis and Rafinha watched their backs as they took a mouthful of snow. It was sweet like a confection, thanks to the sugar, but it still didn’t feel substantial at all.

「……Hey, Rani. Worst comes to worst, should we catch a Magic Stone Beast and eat it?」
「We do need to consider them as emergency food……But, we don’t see much Prism Flow around here, right?」
「Right…」

The consistency of Prism Flow was low in Alucard in the first place, so the damage from Magic Stone Beasts tended to be on the lower side as the result. But then, a Magic Stone Beast that was suspected to be a Prisma showed up and devastated Lekrea. Naturally, as the consequence, the consistency of Prism Flow was also expected to go up.

「Even though it wasn’t hard to spot a Prism Flow from the sky using the Flygear Carrier when we were in Charalia. Right?」

Rafinha was correct. Even when they were moving around within Alucard’s aerial territory, they couldn’t even see a speck of Prism Flow on the horizon.

「You’re right. I don’t know if it is a coincidence at all, but even if they say that there’s been a lot more Prism Flow than usual, it’s still not as much as Charalia, so…… it’s kinda hard to tell.」
「It doesn’t show up when we want it to show up, really… for the time being, all we have is snow. Snow’s the only one who won’t betray us!」
「Haah…Can’t be helped. I’m getting tired of the taste, so maybe I should try salt instead……」
「Ah, then me too!」

Inglis sprinkled salt on it and brought it to her mouth, which of course, tasted just as expected. Salty.