by Dojyomaru
“Big brother, I’m hungry,” she said.
“Oh, right,” Juna said. “Well, how about we get something from one of the stalls?”
“Yeah! ♪” Tomoe sang.
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” said Juna.
The three of us looked around the different stalls. Forty percent of the stalls sold food, twenty percent sold various accessories, twenty percent sold equipment, while the remainder dealt in other things.
It looked like a lot of the food stalls were selling skewers. Van was a long way from the sea, so they could only get their hands on river fish, and with the food crisis, grains and vegetables were in short supply. For meat, on the other hand, all they had to do was hunt wild animals.
They were likely selling meat that had been hunted outside the city walls. Because of that, none of the stalls openly stated what kind of meat they were selling. This was worse than them mislabeling their meat to sell it at a higher price; it was a total mystery what creatures any of it came from.
“It feels like a gamble buying any of the skewers...” I muttered.
Horned rabbit meat, I could probably handle, but giant rat and lizard meat, well... I think my sanity stat would take some serious loss from eating that. Besides, if they had just hunted whatever they could get their hand on from the nearby fields, there was no telling what diseases or parasites it might have. There were no food sanitation laws in this world, and none of the cooks were licensed.
I’ll need to institute all of that, too, eventually... I thought.
“It’s fine,” Juna said with a very lovely smile. “I had the marines come here ahead of us and serve as poison tasters. Allow me to guide you to a safe stall.”
“Poison tasters?! Not taste testers?!”
“If anything were to happen to you, it would be a national crisis,” she said. “It’s only natural that we would test anything from the market for poison. Your body is no longer yours alone, you know?”
What, am I pregnant now? I wanted to quip, but I got what she was trying to say. I didn’t know if I’d be able to use Living Poltergeists if I was sick from food poisoning. If I couldn’t, that would mean the country’s administration would be short several instances of me.
...Yeah, it looked like poison tasters were going to be a necessity, for my people’s sake. I’d just have to accept it.
“And? What was the result of the poison tasting?” I asked.
“One person complained of stomach pain and dropped out.”
“Dispatch a messenger to the castle!” I exclaimed. “Whenever a dish including meat or fish is sold, the ingredients must be listed in the store! Inform them that if they fail to do so, or if there is an error in the ingredients displayed, their business will be shut down!”
“Understood.” Juna sent one of the marines who were guarding us to run off that message to the castle.
This was the moment the Elfrieden Kingdom saw the beginnings of its first food safety law.
I intended to expand the range of things that required their ingredients be posted in due time, but before that, I wanted to clamp down on meat fraud. If there were bacteria or parasites, it could be a matter of life and death.
“O, fallen marines,” I mourned. “I will not let your deaths be in vain.”
“No, they’re not dead. It’s just food poisoning,” Juna said, rolling her eyes.
No, no, even food poisoning can be a matter of life and death, I’ll have you know, I thought. Once, my grandfather had eaten some raw eggs that were past their expiration date. He got salmonella, and was hospitalized for days. Fortunately, it wasn’t too serious, but his refusal to throw out a few eggs that were ten yen apiece had cost him tens of thousands of yen in hospital fees. Grandma had teased him about that for a good long time.
Well, setting that aside for now, we bought our skewers from a place Juna suggested, along with some mixed juice from a fruit seller, and sat down on a simple bench to eat.
Tomoe chomped right down on her skewer. “Yeah, this is delicious, big brother.”
“Yeah. This meat is pretty good,” I agreed.
“The juice is delicious, too, Master Kazuya,” said Juna.
The meat was nice and juicy. It wasn’t that far off from the beef skewers that were sold at festivals, so I asked what meat it was. It turned out it was from a bigbull, a big, buffalo-like animal.
The juice wasn’t chilled, but it was getting to be late in autumn now, so it didn’t feel too warm. It was a bit sour, but that was refreshing after eating the greasy meat skewer. With our stomachs now full, we took a breather and relaxed for a bit.
Tomoe started nodding off next to me, so I decided to let her have a nap. Tomoe rested her head in my lap, she curled into a ball, and her breathing became shallow. When I petted her head, it was silky smooth, like a real dog’s fur.
“Hee hee, isn’t she just the cutest?” Juna said as she peered at Tomoe’s sleeping face. Then, moving in close enough that our shoulders touched, she quietly whispered with a sad look on her face, “I hope these peaceful days last forever...”
“Please don’t go saying things that trip event flags like that,” I said. “You know that can’t happen, right?”
Juna nodded. “The Imperial Army is almost here. They number nearly 50,000.”
“50,000? That’s fewer than I thought,” I said.
We had a force of 45,000 troops from the Elfrieden Royal Army gathered in Van now, so our forces were more or less equal. Of course, once Amidonia’s troops were added into the equation, they’d no doubt had the superior force, but I had expected them to come with three times our number.
For the Gran Chaos Empire, which had called for mankind to unite against the threat of the Demon Lord’s Domain, I highly doubted that they wanted to open a new front against us, but if they’d brought enough troops to make it possible for them to take Van, it would have worked to intimidate us.
And yet, Juna shook her head. “Most likely, the Amidonians were hesitant to allow that. They must have been worried that if the Empire came with a huge army, there was a risk they’d take this country for themselves.”
“As the country that issued the Mankind Declaration, I somehow doubt the Empire would do that, though, you know?” I said.
If they said they wouldn’t recognize any changes in borders on one hand, and then launched a war of invasion on the other, the Mankind Declaration wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on. If that happened, they would lose the trust of the countries in their alliance, and the Empire’s strategy of uniting mankind in the face of the Demon Lord’s Domain would collapse.
“I mean, that’s exactly why the Empire offered to mediate,” I added.
“Amidonia has already circumvented the Mankind Declaration,” said Juna. “Having betrayed the trust of the Empire themselves, they may be nervous about being betrayed in turn.”
“...Like being caught in their own web of lies, huh.”
They had been caught in their own trap. The principality had acted against the wishes of the Empire, but they had to cling to its authority now that they had found themselves in a crisis. They must have felt somewhat guilty about that.
On top of that, nobody respects opportunists, so they had lost the trust of other countries. They had to be trembling with fear that the Empire would abandon them.
“It makes you want to roll your eyes a bit... but it’s convenient for us,” I said. “If there’s a rift between the principality and the Empire, there may be room for us to act.”
“Hee hee hee, it’s time for our king to show off his skills,” said Juna.
“...I wish you wouldn’t put so much pressure on me, you know?” I asked.
“Oh, my, and here I thought you were Master Kazuya right now?” she responded playfully.
She probably wanted to get back at me for earlier. That was Juna for you—just when you thought you had a leg up on her, she’d turn things back around.
“Good day, everyone. It’s t
ime for News Elfrieden.”
Then, suddenly, we heard Chris Tachyon’s voice.
It looked like it was time for the afternoon news broadcast. When I looked up, the image of Chris reading out the news was displayed on the mist in the air.
Wow... So this is what our broadcasts look like to the people in town, I thought. This was my first time seeing it on one of the fountain receivers. With the screen being as big as a movie theater’s, it made quite an impact.
“Now, our first story of the day. The new coastal city under construction in Eastern Elfrieden, Venetinova, is currently nearing completion. With Venetinova in place, shipping by land and sea will become more efficient, allow for the faster delivery of commodities to...”
This news would had been gathered from all around the Elfrieden Kingdom (which included Van), using messenger kuis like the one Aisha used to stay in contact with the God-Protected Forest. (Messenger kuis were birds, like messenger pigeons. Using their homing instinct and their ability to detect the waves emitted by their master at long distances, they allowed a specific individual and location to contact each other.) Their strength was that even mountain villages that didn’t receive Jewel Voice Broadcasts could still receive information. However, unlike the Jewel Voice Broadcast, which could communicate information in real time, that information would come a day or two late.
For instance, if an incident occurred in Lagoon City in the far northeast of Elfrieden, the information wouldn’t be directly delivered to Van. Instead, it would wait for the kuis that carried news to each city at regular intervals. Then, when the kui carried the news to another city, other kuis would leave that city to bring the news to other cities. The kuis had to fly long distances, so this was to protect against communication being cut off if a kui was attacked by a predator en route. By the way, urgent news would be delivered not by messenger kui, but by wyvern riders.
Because of that, it wasn’t possible to deliver all the news that happened in a day on that same day.
“Now, onto our next story. In the early hours of yesterday morning, a minor fire broke out in Van...”
From there, Chris reported the various accidents and incidents that had occurred in the kingdom, followed by information on how to cook lily root dumplings and other useful information for people’s daily lives.
As for myself, I thought it would be convenient if we could incorporate a weather forecast into the program, but that seemed like it would be quite difficult. There was a certain amount of weather lore in this world, and there were people who could predict the weather by reading the clouds based off many long years of experience. However, as I just mentioned, without a high-speed means of communication, we couldn’t transmit that information in real time.
News about typhoons can be a matter of life and death, so I’d like to figure out something... I thought.
As I was thinking about that, I heard a sudden sigh.
“To think they’d use the Jewel Voice Broadcast like this...”
In front of me, a girl dressed like an adventurer stood with her back facing me. She stood with her back straight, her airy golden ponytail swaying behind her. For a moment, I thought she looked a lot like Liscia, but this girl had her hair tied back in a higher position, and Liscia’s hair was medium-short now. The girl turned to show me her pretty face in profile.
“We absolutely must implement this system in our country,” she said. “When I return, I’ll draw up a proposal for it. Still, just how would you come up with such an advanced idea?”
She asked me that with a straight face.
What’s this, out of nowhere? I was thinking, when Juna stood up beside me. Then she placed herself between the girl and me.
“Juna?” I asked.
“Be careful,” Juna cautioned as she stood there to protect me. She had a grim look on her face, and it was apparent from her tone of voice that she was worried. “This girl is an accomplished warrior. It’s regrettable that Aisha isn’t here. Even if I were ready to die taking her down, I don’t know that I could stop her...”
“Is she that strong?” I asked.
Seeing the cautious reaction from Juna, the girl with the ponytail grinned. “You needn’t worry, I have no hostile intent, Lorelei Juna Doma.”
Juna inhaled sharply. “You know me...”
“Of course,” she said. “I approached you because I’m aware of who you are. We have agents of our own, after all.”
That means she knows who I am, too, huh, I thought.
She must have planned to make contact here knowing that I would be coming in disguise. This had happened because the establishment of an intelligence corps for the kingdom had been delayed by my doubts in the personnel I had to run it.
But, if she says she has no hostile intent...
“You’re with the Empire?” I asked.
“Yes,” the girl said, bringing a hand to her chest and bowing her head. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir Souma Kazuya. I am the younger sister of Empress Maria Euphoria of the Gran Chaos Empire, and the one who handles military affairs in her stead, Jeanne Euphoria.”
I whispered to Juna, “What happened to our guards?”
“It seems she has guards of her own, so they can’t move,” answered Juna.
“That would be why she came alone, huh,” I said. “...Take care of Tomoe for me.”
I left Tomoe, who was groggy from being suddenly shaken awake, with Juna and stood facing Jeanne Euphoria. She had been in the reports I’d received. There was a princess who handled military affairs under the Saint of the Empire, Empress Maria Euphoria; and, as Maria was currently unwed, she was also the first in the line of succession. This must be her sister, I reasoned.
“Does Madam Maria’s younger sister have some business in our country?” I asked.
I made a point of talking down to her. Because our country hadn’t signed the Mankind Declaration, I didn’t have to pay respects to Empress Maria as my leader. In other words, as both of us were leaders of independent nations, my rank was equal to Maria’s. And seeing as Jeanne was the younger sister of the empress, her rank was that of a vassal, and so I was above her. I had no desire to put on airs with my own vassals, but when dealing with foreigners, it was important that our positions be made clear.
Jeanne responded as if that were perfectly natural. “No particular business. I simply wished to see how the person I’ll be negotiating with rules for myself, but my agents received information that you would be sneaking into the castle town today, so I thought I might as well come introduce myself.”
So she hadn’t originally planned to meet me. She’d just happened to learn I was taking a day off while she was here, so she’d attempted to make contact.
“Still, it was quite bold of you to come into Van while we’re occupying it,” I said.
“I’m the type that only believes what she’s seen with her own two eyes, after all,” Jeanne replied. “The rumors about you have reached as far as the Empire, many of them unsubstantiated, so I wanted to find out for myself.”
Rumors? There are rumors about me in the Empire? I thought.
“What sort of rumors would those be?” I asked.
“They say things like: you’re ‘the brilliant ruler who rescued an economy on the brink of collapse,’ or that you ‘invented ways of preparing foods that there had been no custom of eating before and saved the country from a food crisis,’ or that you ‘demonstrated unparalleled strength in battle, mowing down swarms of enemies one after another’... and more.”
“There’s been a lot of embellishment along the way, huh,” I commented.
Not one of those things had been accomplished by my strength alone. The economic restructuring had been the bureaucrats’ hard work, and gathering the ingredients and teaching us how to prepare them had been Poncho’s accomplishment. As for the war, I’d only set the armies in motion, then left the fighting to stronger people. In the end, if you were to name one thing I’d done, “I delegated tasks to people
who could handle them” would be it.
“Oh, and there were rumors that you were an ‘insatiable sex fiend,’ too,” Jeanne added.
“Wait, hold on!”
Who’re you calling a sex fiend?!
“Where did those rumors come from?!” I exclaimed.
“The rumor says: ‘Despite being betrothed to the beautiful daughter of the former king, he gathered beauties from around the kingdom to select a concubine,’ or something like that. Is Madam Juna here not the one chosen to be your concubine?”
What a horrible misunderstanding! They must have been talking about the Elfrieden Pretty Girl Grand Prix I’d run as part of my search for talented personnel. When I’d said I was searching for people with any gift, there had been a lot of applications in the fields of martial arts, beauty, and arts. All I’d done was create a tournament format for them to compete in.
I hadn’t even come up with the plan for Project Lorelei at that point. Come to think of it, at the time there had been rumors that “The beauty tournament might be for the king to find mistresses,” and the nobles had all tried to send their relatives to participate. Had other countries seen it the same way?
“A-A concubine, am I...? Well, yes, I did know there were rumors to that effect,” Juna said, her face turning red.
Was she serious?
I hadn’t known there were rumors like that... and it was kind of hard to accept it. Ever since I had taken the throne, I had been struggling under such a murderous workload that even my relations with Liscia had stayed completely chaste. Actually, it was a bit late to say this now, but my relationship with Liscia had skipped over a lot of important steps, hadn’t it? We were betrothed to be married, and yet we hadn’t even been on a proper date, let alone kissed.
While I was thinking about all that, Jeanne looked at me pensively. “Hm... If that rumor was false, I suppose I can’t use that method.”