New Dynasty Calendar year 1637, 30th day of the Seventh Month1. This day, with regards to the commoners of the Purcell Duchy, was not a calm day. The commoners had thought that the food crisis that occurred some time ago would have already passed. They were wrong. Perhaps, instead, the food crisis had just began.
On this day, all of the food stores within the Purcell Duchy suddenly began to increase their prices. The Higanbana and the Purcell Duchy public stores were the only ones who didn’t immediately raise their prices. Over the past few days, however, their shops had also slowly sold out all of their stocks, which resulted in the current break out of the food crisis.
Those pseudo-aristocrats or full aristocrats were more fortunate as they had food of their own in storage. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for the poor commoners. Since they didn't have enough money to buy food beforehand, they were now at risk of starvation This was especially true with the rapid rise of food prices.
As the price of food increased, aside from the poor commoners, even those who had stored food began to worry. They were afraid that the prices would rise even more. If that were the case, they would also be starving soon.
Although the Higanbana and Purcell clan stores had put out word that they would soon have more shipments of food, the prices still continued to rise, and the crisis hadn’t gone away. Commoners who had money to buy food had started to buy them now. They were stocking up and prepared for the oncoming famine.
This crisis that Casa City was currently experiencing was actually a larger version of the storm that was happening within the Purcell clan. Now that the Purcell clan was in such a mess, the Second and the Third Elders were ready to move to abdicate the First Elder. The First Elder didn’t want to abdicate. Only, he didn’t have any means to resolve the situation. Now, both sides were in a deadlock.
Both of these factions weren't aware that around this time, the centrist elders had begun to move. They reached out to each other and jointly united to increase their authority. Also, their actions were very covert. They evaded the detection of both of the other factions that were currently in a deadlock.
Kaiser, in particular, had seen that the results of their battle had finally come into play. Both factions had pulled in a large number of people into their sides. Inside the conference room of the Purcell clan, scenes full of deceit and political ploys were being done on the spot.
Finally, both factions in the conference room decided to set up votes to decide who would serve as the elders of which posts. They also knew that whatever the result would be, the Purcell clan would incur losses overall.
Both sides were confident and believed that they had the best chances for victory. The First Elder’s forces were the largest; with one vote from each elder, he was assured of getting more than half the votes. An absolutely overwhelming superiority.
However, the Second and the Third Elders had also pulled a number of elders to their side these past few days. They had the confidence to defeat the First Elder, and both factions agreed on solving the problem by convening the Elders Court. Evan, the Clan Lord, was forgotten by them.