The villainess will survive!

Part 20: Investigating the drought

"Wake up, everybody!!!" I yelled on the second floor of the Inn we were staying at. 

All of us shared a room with 2 others. We decided that it would be easier if all of us were on the same floor, and luckily the second floor was vacant. 

I passed every door and yelled the same thing. 

I had a strict schedule at school, so my body instantly woke up like an alarm every morning. 

But unlike me, these knights probably came on the trip thinking that this was a opportunity to slack off while being paid at the same time. They spent the whole knight eating and drinking.

"Why are we waking up this early in the morning?" I heard Christiana, who shared a room with me and got woken up first, say as she sluggishly walked out of our room. 

"Because it's better to arrive there earlier." I responded. 

Then I walked downstairs to eat breakfast while waiting for the others. 

                                                                           ***

After arriving at the river, we decided to split up again and see different sections of it. 

"This river is connected to a bigger river, and that one connects to the ocean. Even though there are drought in other places, they are slowly getting better. But unlike the other towns connecting with the river, this town is getting more dry by the day, in a abnormal speed. We need to fix the drought quickly, because this town provides at least 5.6% of all the food in this country. The forest besides the town, which also needs the river, provides about 3% of all the wood in this country. Let's all work together, and try to solve it." I said before they all left. 

I decided that me and Christiana would go to the the middle of the river, because the crops and trees around this place were the most dry out of all the ones. 

The middle section was full of pink flowers sticking out of the water that you could see from a distance. I even spaced out a bit looking at them. 

'How beautiful.' I thought. 

When I walked closer to them, I saw girl picking the pink flowers. 

How could she pick such beautiful beings?!

"Hey! Why are you pulling out those flowers!" I told her. 

She turned her head, as if she didn't hear me coming. 

Her eyes, disinterested behind her glasses, looked at me. 

"What? There are so many. Plus, I made sure not to pull out the roots." She held up scissors. 

"So you like the flowers too?" I asked. 

I was thinking of bringing a few back home with preserving magic.

"No, I just thought they would be a good present for my grandma." She turned her head away and continued on carefully snipping flowers.

Me and Christiana looked around the section, but didn't find any sign that could've caused the drought. 

Even though it was hot due to the sun, it couldn't have taken away that much water as shown on the paper I was holding. 

I looked at the charts a lot of times, but they seemed correct each time. The person who made it couldn't have made a mistake.

The tree leaves were withered as written, and the grass around it were yellow. If you looked at the other side of the river, you could see the slightly dried crops.