Demon Bible

Chapter 209: Grandma Bird

When Zoven woke up, he found himself lying in bed.

It was not a comfortable sleep.

Although it was called a bed, it was actually just a few pieces of wood pieced together, covered with some straw and dry hay.

With Zoven's attribute values, he could easily spot quite a few small bugs crawling within it.

This caused him to instinctively furrow his brows.

"You're awake?!" A voice snapped Zoven out of his habitual disgust.

Following the sound, Zoven saw an elderly woman.

She looked to be in her sixties or seventies, and one of her legs was crippled.

Her plain face was weathered by the elements, yet it held a unique, gentle warmth.

"Who are you?" For some reason, Zoven immediately thought of his own grandmother.Their temperaments and appearances were completely different, but she gave him a strikingly similar feeling.

Then, Zoven realized what it was—the emotion. It was that familiar sense of tolerance and worry directed toward him.

Except, Zoven could not figure it out no matter how hard he tried. Who was this person in front of him? He did not know her, so why would she be worried about him?

"You can call me Grandma Bird." The old woman smiled affectionately. She brought over a portion of food and placed it in front of Zoven. "I saw you collapsed by the side of the road with some injuries, so I brought you back to my home."

"It is not good to sleep outside. Some bad seeds love to snatch up people like you who faint on the roadside from their injuries."

"Thank you, Grandma Bird." Seeing Lilian pop out and signal that Grandma Bird was fine, Zoven completely dropped his guard.

"I didn't expect there to be a good person like you here in the South District," Zoven blurted out without thinking.

"You should not say things like that out loud in the future." Hearing this, Grandma Bird did not get angry, but rather looked at this young master from the North District with a bit of helpless resignation.

"Most of the people in the South District are not bad at heart. They simply never had the opportunity to choose," Grandma Bird said earnestly.

"Most are just struggling to survive. Many times, if they do not commit crimes, they simply cannot live on."

"Things are a little better now, but only a little." Grandma Bird's words were not forceful, but they made Zoven blush inexplicably.

He felt as if he had just exposed his own ignorance.

Some things were truly just ingrained stereotypes. Once punctured, one would realize the difference.

In the eyes of most people from the North District, the South District was full of bad people, a bunch of lowly scum.

They lacked etiquette, decency, and culture.

Violent, barbaric, greedy, and stupid.

Almost every negative word could be pinned onto the people of the South District.

Because of this, many nobles in the North District refused to acknowledge those commoners in the South District as humans, believing they lacked human dignity.

Decent clothes and grooming, elegant manners, and an unhurried morality that would not stoop for petty gains.

However, Grandma Bird's existence shattered Zoven's preconceived notions.

'Perhaps the South District also has decent, good people,' Zoven thought to himself. Then, feeling a pang of hunger, he noticed the food placed by the bed.

It was a type of black bread he had never seen before.

Zoven picked it up and took a bite, immediately sensing that the texture was wrong.

Although his attribute values had increased and his bite force had become astonishing, this black bread was so rock-hard that it surely could not be meant for human consumption.

"Grandma Bird, this bread has gone bad," Zoven quickly pointed out.

"It hasn't gone bad. This is the food for most people in the South District." Grandma Bird did not find this too strange, simply saying, "There are not many things commoners can eat. Buying meat requires paying a hunting tax and a breeding tax, while buying fruits and vegetables requires an arable land tax. Most people cannot afford anything else."

"Even with wheat, they have to mix in sawdust, weeds, stones, and other things to make this kind of black bread just so commoners can afford to eat."

Zoven listened to all this in a daze.

He had never been to the South District before. He had lived in the North District since childhood, and his father was a Great Knight.

Even after his father was killed, he only needed to draw some blood every so often, and he could still exercise daily while enjoying meat and refined wheat.

"Does... does the Church not care?" Zoven was not a stupid person, and only now did he truly cast aside his stereotypes.

If he were forced to eat these things every day, he wouldn't maintain any decency or etiquette either.

As soon as Zoven said this, Grandma Bird immediately understood that he was truly the kind of noble young master who knew absolutely nothing.

So, she sat down and earnestly began to educate Zoven about the commoners of the South District.

"You look like someone who suffered a disaster amidst a noble struggle."

"To flee to the South District means you can no longer survive in the North District." Grandma Bird was quite familiar with the temperament of the people from the North District.

As long as they could survive, it was practically impossible for them to come to the South District.

Only when everyone in the North District was an enemy and no allies could be found would remnants like them flee to the South District to eke out an existence.

"The Church and the merchant guilds are in cahoots."

"The merchant guilds monopolize all the resources that ordinary people need to survive."

"Meanwhile, the Church uses taxes to simultaneously control the merchant guilds and help them suppress the ordinary people from ever turning their lives around."

"Everything requires taxes. No matter what aspirations ordinary people might have, the costs involved are simply beyond what they can bear."

"So, for the Church, this means stability."

Grandma Bird informed Zoven of this cruel reality for the commoners.

This made Zoven understand even more clearly why, in the eyes of the nobles, the commoners were so barbaric.

It was because they had long been bound by all sorts of rules, leaving them with nothing but barbarism.

His thoughts could not help but turn to Nemus. As a Great Knight of the Church, Nemus had treated his family with such cruelty.

'As expected, has the Church already become a harbor for filth and corruption?'

Originally, because his father Westbin was a Great Knight, he had held a very favorable impression of the Church. But now...

"However, the current Great Knight is actually doing a decent job." Yet, Grandma Bird's next words made Zoven freeze. His body secretly tensed, preparing to launch an attack at any moment.

He began to suspect that Grandma Bird was one of Nemus's people, here to placate him and lure him back into the birdcage Nemus had prepared for him.

Even the name 'Grandma Bird' seemed like a subtle hint at this very moment.

"Although he is also maintaining the alliance system between the Church, nobles, and merchant guilds, he has at least given ordinary people a way to survive." Unaware of what Zoven was thinking, Grandma Bird merely sighed. "He at least sent people to clean up the long-abandoned sewers and built some new, unpolluted water wells."

"Is that so?" Zoven grew increasingly vigilant, no longer paying much attention to what Grandma Bird was saying.

But right at that moment, a knock suddenly rang out on the room's door.

Following that, a man who perfectly matched Zoven's impression of a bottom-feeding bandit, exuding an aura of original sin, opened the door.

However, very quickly, a smile that could only be described as ferocious appeared on that scarred and fierce-looking face.

"Grandma, I'm here to see you!"