CH 368

Princess Mia’s Debauchery Festival 4: Light of Hope, Miraculous Memories

“Do you now, Mia? What kind of a good idea is it?” Matthias asked, and his face went back to being soft.

Mia smiled with a bit of arrogance and said, “As a matter of fact, I want everyone to celebrate my birthday with me this year.”

She was so proud of this idea that she put her chest out a little.

“Hm? Of course, everyone will join you in celebrating. I don’t think it needs to be said.”

Mia waving a finger left and right made Matthias frown.

“Not only the rich. Everyone. Everyone who lives in the empire, including men, women, and children. I want them all to have a great time at the festival and celebrate my birthday.”

“That…is still common sense, right? I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t want to help you celebrate your birthday. That would be the rudest thing one could do. I can even make an order that all of these people should be put to death—”

“No, daddy. A decree is just telling people what to do. I don’t want that.” Mia shook her head slowly.

Find the original at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

“Oh? Then, what do you want?”

“It’s not hard. I want everyone to get together and eat tasty food. That’s enough,” she said with a smile. “What I want for my birthday is an empire that is well-fed. Even the poorest peasant should be able to eat as much as they want as a subject of the empire. No one should ever have to go without food. Everyone should eat, drink, and have a good time.”

Matthias watched her talk with wide eyes as she went on.

“In fact, it’s been bothering me for the past few years. So much food is made for me by all the nobles, but it’s too much. I can’t eat all of it by myself. Even the guests can’t eat it all, so there’s always a lot left over. That doesn’t make me happy one bit. I’d rather see more smiles on our people’s faces. I’d be happy if that happened.”

The tears came to the emperor’s eyes as he listened with more and more interest.

“It doesn’t make me happy to know that people throw away food for me. I’d much rather give that food to everyone and see them eat it with big smiles on their faces. This would be a much better thing to do at a festival.”

“Oh, Mia, you’re so kind! My dearest, sweetest daughter is so perfect… Well said! You’ve made it clear what you want! I’ll send messengers right away to all of the nobles. They will be told to throw open their doors and host a feast for their people. In the square of every town in every domain, a feast will be set up. There will be plenty of food, and everyone is welcome. During the festival, no one will go hungry.”

Mia thought about how happy she was when her father told him to do something.

Oho ho, we’re off. Done! I can’t believe it took me so long to think of something so simple… Why throw away the food when I can just tell everyone to eat more? So, even if there is a shortage of supplies in the future, they can already stock up on eating!

…you can’t stock up on food by eating, which means this whole idea was doomed from the start. Luckily for her, and unfortunately for everyone else, there were no mind readers around to point out this obvious flaw in her thinking.

—

So, now…

Ludwig could feel a tear coming as he watched Mia and her father talk. He was also bothered by the wasteful spending of nobles. Every birthday party meant that a lot of food was wasted. As Mia had said, the harvest for next year was showing clear signs of going down. If there really was a famine coming, it would be completely wrong to waste food.

But how could this wasteful way of life be changed? Ludwig had no idea what was going on. Already, plans were being made for the upcoming banquets. At this point, asking for a cheaper menu would just mean that half-done ingredients would be left to go bad. It seemed impossible not to waste food. Also, because Mia’s birthday was the reason for the party, the emperor himself was in charge. As long as he stood by the expensive tradition, not even Mia could fight against it. There was also the fact that all this extravagance caused a lot of money to change hands, which was a very important thing. Having merchants from all over come to the festival was good for the economy in a big way.

So, Ludwig decided to give a shoulder shrug at the event. It had problems, but it also had good things. Even worse, he didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it. It had become a yearly habit, and trying to change it would just cause chaos. He decided that keeping things as they were would be better than accidentally making the problem worse, so he gave up and gave in.

Mia, on the other hand, made it clear that she didn’t agree, and she did so by giving a brilliantly simple solution.

‘If we’re just going to throw the food away anyway, why not feed a lot of people with it.’ Genius!

The nobles wanted to spend a lot of money to show off how rich they were. Mia fully understood this. Then, instead of going against what they wanted, she used it to her advantage, giving them the outlet they wanted. She was smart because she changed the angle of the outlet just a little bit, sending the nobles’ energy in a better direction. It was a clever move that made Ludwig sigh long and hard in admiration.

It makes more sense to me the more I think about it. Even if we told nobles to cut back on their spending, they would probably just keep all the extra food for themselves.

There was no guarantee that telling nobles off for wasting food would help people get more food. If that’s the case, they might as well just let the nobles eat as much as they want and then give all the extra food to the people.

By saying herself that she wanted all imperial subjects to eat as much as they wanted, the nobles would try to please her by giving her lots of food, and the people would eat luxuriously filling meals.

This could be seen as a middle ground. This is not the best answer, but it is the second best. The best thing to do would be to save that food for the famine, but she knew that wouldn’t work, so she moved quickly to do the next best thing. As always, she never runs out of wise things to say.

As always, Ludwig thought Mia was great. As always, the sky is blue, the sun rises in the east, etc., etc., etc.

—

So began Princess Mia’s birthday party, which would later be called “Princess Mia’s Festival of Debauchery.” The idea came from the main character Mia, who said, “Why throw it away when we can all eat it together?” It turned out to have unexpected and long-lasting effects.

Of course, no one was able to “stock up” on food like Mia had hoped. That was a given, since it went against the laws of nature. But people still thought about the festival. They remember good food and even better times. For most people, nobles were little more than people who took money from them. Few people had ever seen anything good come from the nobility. That changed because of this.

At Princess Mia’s request, everyone in the empire was invited to a free feast where food and drinks were served. The party was to celebrate Mia’s birthday, and everyone there was told to have the best time they could. This instruction was actually an imperial decree, which made everyone nervously smile as they walked around trying to act festive in a place where people were both curiously excited and sick to their stomachs. People who didn’t like each other kept their mouths shut because they thought their heads were more important than a well-timed jeer. Whether it was forced or not, the festival made everyone laugh as they celebrated.

At some point, maybe because he had had too many drinks, a man started to sing. The young people around him had to dance to the lively beat of his song. Because of the atmosphere, a businessman gave a barrel of wine to the cause. When another vendor saw the advertising potential of what had just happened, he joined the crowd and started selling snacks and sides. Soon, men, women, and children took extra food from their homes and gave it to strangers without being asked.

In the middle of all the action, Mia, the main character of the day, would sometimes ride by in a carriage, adding to the excitement. Bad feelings from the past started to fall away under the weight of fake smiles, a weight that would eventually crush even the fake smiles, leaving only the real happiness they brought.

It was…a strange event. One that was hard to explain. A short but wonderful festival that had never happened before in the empire. People remembered it most as a time when they had fun and were in a good mood. People from the town, the merchants, the rich, the poor, the friends, the foes, the old, the young, the men, the women, the boys, and the girls of every shape and color all came together to celebrate the birthday of a girl. And when it was all over, they had a happy memory of that day that would never leave them.

It was a memory that gave people hope in dark times and gave them the strength to keep going, because they now knew that Princess Mia was a noble, but not just any noble. She was the only one who saw them. Somewhere in the hazy heights of aristocracy, there was a girl who didn’t care about the difference in their social status and invited them all to her feast. So, they kept going because she was a kind, generous girl. Even though their lives might have gone back to the way they were before, if they kept going, that wonderful time might come back. So, they kept walking with their heavy loads, hoping to get another taste of the short but beautiful miracle that Princess Mia would make for them.

After that, bad things kept happening to the empire, but the people never gave up. They were scared, but they didn’t give up. They kept going so that at the end of the year, they could celebrate again.

The festival would become a long-standing tradition of the empire, but that’s a story for another time.