Records of the Weakest Emperor

Calvin took this time to admire the disgusting smell lingering in the air. Back on his previous timeline, the air within the Ashmelion was so thick with pollutants that the fog in the air couldn't even be considered as fog anymore. It should be called smog. This visible air pollution called smog was created from the hundreds of factories in the city of Ashmelion.

The group continued their walk without saying anything at all.

The entire city of Ashmelion was divided into two halves by the Revoir River. Calvin separated from the Fayke family's caravan on the other side of the Yang bridge which connected both halves of the City of Ashmelion. The Yang Bridge looked imposing due to how wide it was — but the number of vagrants and beggars on its sidewalks diminished its beauty.

The Yang Bridge had the highest concentration of vagrants and beggars due to the number of carriages that passed through the bridge every day wherein the vagrants and could take advantage of to get some alms that the carriage passengers and sometimes drivers hurled towards them while they were in the comfort of their vehicles.

Both halves of the City of Ashmelion was also separated into five boroughs.

The Eastern Borough was the center of commerce. This place was the headquarters of many small companies, and the shopping district of Mapayapa Street along with the Joselian Royal Bank was also located in the Eastern Borough.

The Center Borough, on the other hand, which was the closest to the Yang Bridge and Revoir River housed the Ashmelion Stock Exchange Commission.

This place was also the headquarters of the Joselian Royal Bank as well as the headquarters of rail companies and bulk cargo commerce companies due to its close proximity to the river.

The Church of the Goddess of Compassion and Light, the Lumiere Cathedral was also located in the Center Borough.

As for the Western Borough, also known as the Capital of Slow Death... People often avoid this borough due to the fact that it housed hundreds of factories. The smell in the air was so thick with chemicals and sulfur that it was incredibly hard to breathe.

However, even though the air within this Borough was so toxic.

People suffering from poverty still visit this place to work in the sweatshops.

The adults frequented this place due to its brothels and work, while the children also flocked to this place so they could work in the various industries located in this place.

The boys worked for the textile companies while the women, adults, or not — often worked as strumpets, while some, worked in the matchstick companies.

The Southern Borough served as the main residential district for people whose income was in the middle-class range. It also housed a lot of small scale companies and a wet market, so people from all the other boroughs frequented the Southern Borough to do their shopping for their daily necessities.

As for the Northern Borough...

This was the most crowded area in the City of Ashmelion.

Ashmelion had a total population of ten million residents, and a preliminary estimate of the population count in Northern Borough amounted to at least three million people. This was where the poor lived along with the gangsters, petty thieves, and rogues.

One could consider this part of the city as the most unsafe place in the city of Ashmelion.

Calvin gave a bitter smile.

'The City of Ashmelion is also known as the City Where Dreams Begin. But from what I can see right now, and what I have experienced back then. This place is more suitable to be called the City Where Dreams Die Out. You don't even know when you'll lose your life from gangsters and thieves in a shithole like this.'

'I wonder just how did a pair of mother and daughter live all this while without being captured by the slave merchants and traders...' Calvin glanced at Charlotte and felt a sense of admiration towards this tough woman.

This city just wasn't suitable for raising children.

Calvin knew that Charlotte suffered a lot.

Just a single look on Charlotte's yellowish eyes, as well as her unusually pale complexion, made it obvious that she had suffered a lot just for the sake of her daughter. Why? Well, it was because when you compared Cecilia's complexion to Charlotte's, one could easily see the difference.

Her daughter looked incredibly healthy while Calvin reckoned that if Charlotte continued on doing whatever she was doing for them to survive in a shithole like this...

Charlotte would definitely die from an illness in the next five years.

Calvin let out a sigh.

He wasn't someone that always saved a damsel in distress.

But he was always thorough whenever he gave his help.

Since he had already decided to help both mother and daughter in their plight, he made a promise to himself that he would change their lives.

After all, Calvin was someone who never finished what he had started.

The group continued their journey and they then arrived in the Northern Borough proper of Ashmelion.

Calvin swept his gaze across the houses in front of him and discovered that the placement of houses and how close they were to each other reminded Calvin of the dangerous favelas in Brazil.

Furthermore, the place lacked any sanitation.

There was no sewage system so the people used chamber pots and just hurled their crap and urine out of the window.

Calvin felt immense disgust as he stepped on the sticky ground of the Northern Borough. No matter where he placed his feet, there was no way for him to avoid the hundreds of feces and urine littering the floor. But Charlotte and Cecilia didn't seem to mind what they were seeing.

They merely kicked aside the hardened feces standing in front of them before continuing their journey.

'She sure is a tough woman...' Calvin praised once more.

Soon, the group arrived in a place that looked more like a hut made out of cardboard-thin walls.

The walls and beams supporting the house didn't even have any nails to support the entire structure. Calvin thought that it was a miracle that the house remained standing for so long without collapsing on its residents.

"Oh, Charlotte... You're finally back..."

"Madame Elsa!"

Upon opening the rotting doors of the house...

An elderly woman appeared in front of the group and smiled in delight upon seeing Charlotte's arrival.

Charlotte also greeted the woman and the two started talking to each other.

Cecilia dragged Calvin deeper into the house and said, "Uncle Superman! That is where I and Mommy sleeps!" She pointed at a bunkbed placed at the far corners of the hut where sunlight couldn't even pass through.

Calvin followed her gaze and realized that Charlotte and Cecilia slept on the second bed above the bunk bed, while Elsa, the elderly woman slept down below.

It made sense since Elsa was already so old. It wasn't appropriate for her to climb up the unsteady ladder to reach the bed above the bunk bed.

However, when Calvin's eyes landed on the young boy sleeping on the bed below Charlotte and Cecilia's bed...

He frowned.

It was because the young boy's complexion was unusually pale and his chest wasn't moving up and down.

"He's dead?" Calvin uttered in shock.

Cecilia nodded her head and said, "Yes... Eagie died yesterday... we just finished playing, but then he said that he wanted to take a nap and he didn't wake up again..."

Calvin directed his gaze at Elsa and asked, "Madame... Is this your son?"

Elsa shook her head, "No... That's my grandson... Yes, he died yesterday..." Elsa let out a sigh.

"Why don't you bury him...?" Calvin asked in hesitation. He didn't want another argument to start.

Charlotte furrowed her eyebrows, she felt that Calvin was being insensitive.

But for Calvin, his question was legitimate.

A dead not given any proper burial could transform into a ghoul at any moment and massacre everyone in this room.

Elsa stared right at Calvin and after realizing that Calvin didn't ask that question to mock her, she replied, "I would love to bury my grandson, but do you know how much that costs? Five Joselian pesos! It takes me a week to earn five Joselian pesos and that is if I do not buy me some food..."

"But don't worry... give me three days... No— two days! I will be able to bury him then!"

Elsa seemed to have gone mad.

Calvin glanced at the corpse once more and realized that the corpse was already rotting.

A nauseating smell was coming out of it and if it wasn't buried today or the next day... The smell would intensify to unbearable levels. What's more, it wasn't healthy having a decomposing corpse out here in the open.

Calvin looked at Elsa and was about to say that they could probably burn the body as the form of burial. But Calvin remembered that the people of Ashmelion believed in the Goddess of Compassion and Light.

One of the doctrines said that if the person wasn't buried six feet underneath properly...

They would forever be unable to enter the cycle of life and they wouldn't be able to reincarnate.

Calvin let out a sigh.

He took dozens of coins from his pouch and handed it over to Elsa.

"Take this and bury your grandson. You don't have to worry about paying me back."