Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

5 Gold, that was how much Eris was given as an allowance.

Per month.

For an ordinary 13-year-old girl back in the Rockwell Kingdom, that would be an enormous amount of money, probably more than she would even know how to spend, but for the Second Disciple of Celestina Balfour, it was really just the bare minimum required for her Master to not feel embarrassed.

Of course, Eris’ 5 Gold was nothing compared to how much her Senior Brother and Junior Sister had at their disposal.

Christina’s bakery made her more than 10 Gold a day, and that number was only getting bigger as the months went by.

As for Lucas, with the earnings from his soap and sugar business, he quite frequently handled 1,000 times that much money. His expenses were also many times higher than his Junior Sisters, though, so the comparison wasn’t quite fair.

Still, Eris wasn’t jealous of them. If anything, she was proud of her Big Sister and Little Brother. They had earned that money themselves, so it only made sense for them to be able to use it however they wanted.

Besides, it wasn’t like Eris didn’t benefit at all from her fellow Disciple’s exploits; she had all the fluffy bread, soap, and sugar she could ever want, all for free.

On top of these luxuries, Eris also had all her living expenses and cultivation resources taken care of by her Master.

When it came to food, after having sampled many of the stalls and restaurants in Misty City’s various marketplaces, Eris had concluded that the meals her mom, Junior Sister, Senior Brother, and the chefs at the Manor made were by far the best.

Sure, when she was running around outside, she might grab a piece of fruit or a skewer of meat if she was hungry, but that would maybe cost Eris a few Coppers per month.

In other words, the 5 Gold she was given as pocket change basically just sat around collecting dust in her room.

When she went looking for advice about what to do with this money, Sasha and Lucas had both suggested that she save it until she found something she wanted to buy or was worth investing in.

Eris thought about it at the time, but couldn’t make up her mind about where she should use her cash. She could have taken the easy route and given it to Lucas or Tina for their businesses; that would certainly be a good investment and would surely generate a lot of profits for her, but that path didn’t really appeal to the young girl.

Eris considered both Lucas and Christina family, and she was happy to support them in any way she could, but she felt like she needed her own passion projects to work on, just like them.

It was only after her first visit to the orphanages in the southern district that Eris found what she wanted to invest her extra money in.

5 Gold wasn’t enough to change the world, or even the situation in the southern district as a whole, but it was enough to improve the lives of some of the needy children she had become friends with.

.....

”We’re here!” Eris cheered as she stepped out from one of the alleyways onto the main road and saw the orphanage.

Eris was quite confident in her memory and sense of direction, but even she was breathing a quiet sigh of relief after arriving here without getting lost; after all, the streets in the southern district were quite cramped and winding, while many of the buildings looked the same.

The orphanage itself was something of a government-owned facility, so it looked a bit better than most of the surrounding structures.

It was a large brick and wood building with a big double door that led directly onto the street.

There was no front yard, gardens, hedges, or anything of that sort, but Eris knew from previous visits that there was a small patch of grass out back behind the orphanage. This backyard wasn’t big enough for the children to run around and play in, but getting a bit of sunshine and hanging laundry was certainly possible.

As for water, that came from a nearby community well or directly from the Lorren, though fetching water from the river required wheeling a large cart loaded with barrels a couple kilometres back and forth.

From what Eris’ friends in the orphanage had told her, they got most of their food from a local marketplace. Most meals were either hard bread or wheat porridge, but every now and then some charitable individual or organization would gift them with meat or fish.

Today, Eris would be playing that role, bringing both meat and cookies with her.

Whether the kids here would prefer meat or sweats, Eris didn’t know, but since it was Becky’s birthday, she figured a treat would be the better option.

Running up to the orphanages’ entrance, Eris was about to knock on the door when it suddenly swung open, nearly hitting her in the process.

Thankfully, after all the intense sparring matches she had been through recently, Eris had gotten pretty good at dodging unexpected attacks and managed to jump back just in time to avoid getting a painful bump on her forehead.

Unfortunately, the spot where she landed happened to be right in the middle of a rather large puddle, probably the result of the rain from last night.

Dirty water instantly splashed up and soaked Eris’ cloak, drenching her in a thin layer of mud.

The young girl, who was quite the tomboy, didn’t exactly mind jumping in puddles and getting dirty, but that was only when she was playing. Right now, Eris had an important delivery to make and a friend’s birthday to celebrate, so she wasn’t too pleased about this unexpected development.

Before Eris could recover her wits or make a complaint, a loud male voice cut through the air, ”Hmph! You’d all best think about my offer carefully! You won’t be getting a better one!”