"Hoo~ I’m alive! Indeed, drinking hot tea in the winter is the most comfortable!" Weir curled up in front of the fireplace, holding a teacup, sipping hot tea as she sighed, "It’s this cold here, I can’t imagine how ordinary people will get through this winter! Without enough fuel and warm clothing, they’ll freeze to death."
In the past, Weir really never thought about these things, after all, the climate in the heartland of the Empire was much better than in the Northern Territory. Although winter was cold, it wasn’t to this extent.
Besides, as a dignified Legendary Alchemist, even with her body regressing to a juvenile state due to backlash, with her powers affected, her quality of life hadn’t noticeably diminished.
In comparison, Perfikot could better understand the hardships and difficulties of ordinary people.
She just smiled and said, "Ordinary people have ordinary people’s ways of surviving the winter. While some inevitably will freeze to death, it’s not as exaggerated as you think. Besides, I’ve issued many relevant decrees in the Northern Territory to ensure the livelihood of ordinary people. Their winter might be tough, but they won’t freeze to death.
If someone really freezes to death in the Northern Territory during winter, I’ll need to investigate thoroughly to see if anyone is just taking up space and not enforcing my orders."
Perfikot had personally experienced the winter of the Northern Territory in the past two years, so she knew clearly how difficult it was to endure the winter there. Thus, in the formulation of policies and decrees, she indeed leaned a lot in this direction.
Moreover, if the people of the Northern Territory find life really unbearable, they can seek help from the relief houses, shelters, and related departments specially set up by Perfikot.
In short, Perfikot thought of many ways to ensure the people of the Northern Territory could smoothly survive the winter. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝·𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖·𝕟𝕖𝕥
"As long as you, the Lord, know what to do about such things, the people of the Northern Territory having a lord like you is a blessing!" Weir was quite sincere in her praise of Perfikot on this point.
After all, with the apocalypse approaching, at such times, if according to the usual behavior of the Empire’s nobles, not to mention the people at the bottom would be abandoned, even the average citizen would be.
Under the apocalypse, the Empire’s nobles would only consider whether they themselves could survive, as for the people? You couldn’t say they don’t consider them, but for most nobles, they really don’t care about anyone who isn’t their own subject.
The Empire’s nobles are a rather contradictory existence. They can exploit their subjects ruthlessly, but at the same time, they truly protect their subjects.
In past feudal times, if their subjects were bullied or something similar happened, the more spirited nobles would indeed wage a war for it.
In this sense, the current nobles are indeed worse than in the past, because after the Empire’s noble system reform, nobles basically lost the governance and jurisdiction of their territories, so they became unconcerned about the life and death of ordinary people.
After all, these ordinary people have nothing to do with them, they truly don’t care.
But even the nobles who used to care about their subjects’ life and death seldom achieved what Perfikot did, Weir even thought she was a bit too kind.
"Is it really such a blessing to have a lord like me? Why do I feel that having no lord is the biggest blessing for the people?" Perfikot chuckled, not continuing on this topic, but asked Weir, "How’s the synthetic fibers project going? I received reports that the factory has started producing synthetic fiber fabrics and processing them into clothes for the people. How’s the situation exactly? Can these clothes keep warm effectively?"
"The project’s progress is all smooth, although I’ve delegated the main research tasks to Heine, you can trust her level. Currently, the performance of synthetic fibers has fully met your requirements. I dare not say how good the quality of the clothes is, but at least they have no problem keeping warm." Upon hearing Perfikot mention business, Weir’s attitude also became more serious: "However, I still need to emphasize that the clothes made of synthetic fibers have good cold resistance but are at most resistant to temperatures above minus twenty degrees, and even then, people shouldn’t be exposed outdoors for too long."
It’s not that I can’t make clothes that can resist extreme cold, but since you emphasized they’re for ordinary people, I must consider the cost of making the clothes. The limits of the performance are not my problem."
Weir wasn’t trying to shirk responsibility, but to emphasize to Perfikot that she indeed did the best within the allowed conditions.
To this, Perfikot nodded with understanding: "I’m an alchemist too, I can understand your approach; this is a necessary compromise."
As an alchemist, Perfikot certainly knew that it’s indeed possible to make clothes that can resist extreme cold. For instance, the clothes she wore could withstand extreme cold of minus forty degrees while maintaining body temperature in extreme environments without issues.
But this set of clothes she wore was made by herself. Not mentioning the cost of having an alchemist of her level make them personally, just the materials used for making clothes is not something an ordinary family could afford, even ignoring the Philosopher’s Stone’s ex nihilo creation.
Sometimes, things are just like that. Handcrafted meticulous work can indeed create things with very exaggerated performance, but once industrial mass production is considered, one has to compromise between cost and performance and find the most suitable balance point.
So when Weir said the clothes made of synthetic fibers can only resist temperatures of minus twenty degrees, Perfikot was quite content as she wouldn’t force her to make clothes that withstand minus forty degrees temperatures.
Even for the coming doomsday winter, minus forty degrees would be considered relatively warm weather.
"As long as you understand. By the way, speaking of synthetic fibers’ performance, it’s indeed very good. If we delve deeper, I believe we can make fabrics with even better performance. However, this requires time and long-term investment," Weir explained to Perfikot.
"We’ll set this aside for now. What we need to do is to first get through this disaster. As for other things, they can be improved after everything stabilizes." Perfikot, of course, knew that continued investment would naturally yield better materials, but right now she was focused on how to survive the impact of the coming doomsday winter and its accompanying issues: "First solve the problem of availability, then consider how to improve performance."