by Dojyomaru
While I was looking at it dubiously, Taru asked, “Do you like it?”
“Oh, I mean, it’s an impressive design, that’s for sure, but...”
I didn’t want to say anything weird about her products, so I avoided answering the question, but Taru just shrugged as if to say, I know what you want to say.
“It’s fine. Your view is perfectly normal. What’s abnormal is the taste of the idiot who ordered it.”
“Idiot? Really? Um, this is your customer you’re talking about, isn’t it?”
“I know him well, and I call him that to his face.”
Someone she’d call an “idiot with no taste” to his face? What was this person like, and what was Taru’s relationship with him?
Well, setting aside the weird cudgel, it was time to get our business taken care of. Taru waited for everyone to be seated then asked, “So, what is it you want me to make?”
“Could you make something like this?” I used a feather pen to draw on a pad of paper I had prepared in advance to explain exactly what sort of thing I wanted.
When she saw my drawing, Taru tilted her head to the side. “The shape itself is simple. But I think it would be incredibly difficult.”
“I thought so,” I sighed.
“The fact that you want it ‘as thin as possible’ but also ‘sturdy’ is especially hard. If it was one or the other, I could manage it, but balancing both is pretty difficult. Around how many will you want?”
“The more the better. I want them in the thousands or tens of thousands. I’m not saying I want to make them all here, of course. I’ll be having this same conversation with other craftspeople, too.”
“Tens of thousands?” Taru said in surprise, staring closely at me with her sleepy-looking eyes.
“Wh-What?” I asked. “So, can you make them?”
“Before I answer, I want you to tell me one thing,” Taru said in a serious tone. “How exactly will they be used?”
I was silent.
How they’d be used, huh. I was making a strange request, so it was only natural she’d be curious.
But was it okay for me to say why here? It would be one thing inside my own country, but this was a foreign land. They were something I needed, but I honestly didn’t want to reveal too much about the revolutionary new information my country had.
“Do I really have to say?” I asked.
“You do. Or I won’t make them, and I won’t refer you elsewhere.”
She was being blunt about it, so I whispered to Roroa, “What do you think?”
“I know you don’t wanna say why, darlin’, but lookin’ at what she’s made, I’m thinkin’ this girl here can make what you’re after.”
“Then, do you think it’s okay to reveal how they’ll be used?”
“I dunno. If we’re gonna procure a whole load of ’em, that’s more than this workshop’s gonna be able to handle alone, so we’ve gotta hope whoever’s in charge of this country ain’t too hard-headed...”
“It all comes down to that, in the end...” I murmured.
While we were whispering back and forth, Taru slowly pulled out the neck portion of her apron, pulling something out from between her apron and shirt. What she held out toward us was an obsidian arrowhead. It looked like she’d been wearing it as a necklace. The arrowhead was polished, and had a dull shine to it.
While holding it, Taru said, “This arrowhead was a lesson from my grandfather, the blacksmith.”
“It’s from your grandpa?” I asked.
“‘A bow and arrow can be used to hunt animals and fill people’s stomachs, but it can also be used as a weapon to kill people. The arrowhead is a part of the bow and arrow. Even if it’s just one part of a product we craftspeople are making, we must know how the things we make will be used.’”
Taru looked straight into my eyes as she spoke.
“For a craftsperson, it is their duty to know how what they make will be used. If something I made were used for evil, that would make me very sad. That’s why I don’t make things when I don’t know how they’ll be used. I can’t.”
“What happened to your grandpa?” I asked.
“He passed away last year.”
“I see...”
This was a girl who took her grandpa’s words to heart as she ran her workshop. I had lost my own grandfather just last year (though that year had switched to this world’s calendar for me partway through), so I felt a strange kinship with her. I always had a weakness for hearing stories like this. The human part inside me said, “Can’t you just tell her?” while the part of me that was a ruler said, “Be cautious in all things.”
While I was seriously agonizing over what to do, I suddenly felt something cold in my hand. When I looked, Juna, who was sitting next to me, had placed her left hand on top of my right. I looked at her in surprise, but Juna didn’t say anything, just smiled quietly.
Please, do what you want.
I felt like she was telling me that. In that instant, my heart felt a lot lighter, to the point that Juna’s cold hand felt good to me.
Well...okay then. Taru seemed to have thought hard on the matter, so it was probably safe to tell her.
Having decided that, I asked Taru a question.
“Can I trust this will remain confidential?”
“Are these dangerous?” she asked.
“No, that’s not it. Well, if they were misused, they could be, but the same could be said of a knife, right? This is one part of a tool that will save lives.”
“A tool that will save lives?” Taru tilted her head to the side questioningly, and I firmly nodded in response.
“What I’m thinking of making is a hypodermic needle.”
In persuading Brad and Hilde to become the two pillars of my medical reforms, I’d made two promises:
The first was to make a national health care system which would allow any citizen of the kingdom to receive medical treatment. The second was to have the top smiths in the country make scalpels, needles for suturing, and other medical equipment.
To secure the funding fulfilling the first of these, I had prioritized raising taxes. There was still a long way to go, but things were making steady progress.
As for the latter, the development of medical equipment, it was going well in some parts, and not so well in others.
The medicine in this world was mainly light elemental magic (recovery magic), and herbs brewed by a medicine man or woman (medicinal baths), and surgery was only practiced in a truly limited number of places. The tools made by one extremely rare example of a surgeon, Brad, were needed to specially order for himself. While he had developed scalpels, stitches, and syringes on his own, there were limits to how functional they were. He had been unable to make his scalpels small, and his syringes were considerably larger than what I had been used to seeing.
His funds for research were probably limited, so it was hard to blame him, but it was still putting a lot of strain on the patients. That being the case, I wanted to set out on a national project to improve our medical equipment. I had been able to produce tools that satisfied Brad and Hilde for now, but I couldn’t bring them into mass production yet.
Even if I had one craftsperson who could make thin hypodermic needles, there were limits to how many that one person could make. They weren’t being produced in a factory, so that was a given, and there weren’t many craftspeople capable of manufacturing a thin needle. In the current situation where we were trying to increase the number of doctors, we were obviously short on equipment. Because the medical equipment couldn’t be immediately reused, and it had to be boiled again for each patient, the number required increased.
So, we were having difficulty producing medical equipment, but it seemed there were many talented craftspeople in this country who could do detailed ornamental work, so I thought it might be possible to set up mass production in this country.
Our country was currently studying many fields, and we were short of hands everywhere, so I
thought it might be best, while protecting our existing smiths, to leave what could be left to other countries to those other countries.
While thinking about that, I explained the use of a hypodermic needle to Taru. Because surgery itself was unknown in the Republic of Turgis, I had to start with that, so it took a rather long time.
Once I had given her the rundown, Taru’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “In the kingdom, you can heal people without mages that use light elemental magic? I think that’s incredible.”
“Y-You do?” I asked.
“In this country, the ground is covered with snow from October to March. Those with weak legs can’t even go outside properly. If we had at least one doctor in every village, I think it would be a lot easier to live here.”
“Well, it’s a real considerate policy the king’s puttin’ forward.” Roroa grinned at me as she said that.
It was a compliment, so I didn’t mind that much, but still.
Taru crossed her arms and frowned. “I understand these hypodermic needles are important. I think that, with our country’s craftspeople, you should be able to mass-produce them, too. I want to take on the challenge. It’s a job that’ll set my heart dancing, I think.”
“Oh! Then you’ll...”
...take the job, I was about to say, but Taru held up two fingers.
“Still, even if I make them, there are two major problems with bringing them to the kingdom. First, exporting weapons to another country requires clearance from the state. If it’s just adventurers buying weapons for personal use and carrying them out, they won’t be accused of anything, but if we’re exporting a product in large quantities, we need government clearance. It’s the same in the Kingdom of Friedonia, too, right?”
“Well...yes, it is...”
It was true, our country also managed the import and export of weapons.
Not quite on the level of Edo Era prohibitions on guns coming into the city and women going out, but...excessive amounts of weapons being brought into the country from elsewhere could be a threat to peace. If the weapons were brought out of the country, that lowered our ability to defend ourselves, and if they were brought in, that could foreshadow a rebellion. That was why, in any country, arbitrary importation and exportation of weapons was clamped down on.
“But needles aren’t weapons, are they?” I said.
“If that’s the case, you will need to prove that to the authorities. No country has had needles before this, so it will be difficult to tell at a glance whether they’re weapons or not. If we try dealing them without a guarantee they aren’t weapons, there’s the risk of problems.”
“If it’s just needles, surely no one will think they’re weapons, right?”
“Even if they aren’t weapons themselves, it’ll all be over if they’re suspected of being weapon parts.”
“I see your point...”
Unfortunately, Taru was right.
It was true, if someone unfamiliar with syringes saw a hypodermic needle on its own, they wouldn’t be fully confident it wasn’t a weapon. If we had to explain their usage every time we were stopped at the entrance of a city or at the border, that would be a hassle, and there was no guarantee they’d believe us. It looked like I’d need to seek permission from this country to import and export them, after all.
But this country was a republic, right? They did, technically, have a head of state. But until I saw the balance of power between their head of state and the Council of Chiefs, I couldn’t be sure who to persuade. It was a total drag.
I needed to think about this more carefully.
“So, what’s the other problem?” I asked.
“It’s about shipping. The winters in this country are long. The land is closed off by snow, and the sea is coated with ice. You said you wanted tens of thousands, so that means there’s a continuous need for them, right? That’s one thing in the summer, but how do you mean to transport them in winter, when the land and sea routes are unusable?”
“I wonder...” I could only hold my head. It was true, shipping would be a problem.
Even in the Kingdom of Friedonia, the south was locked in snow and ice in the winter. It seemed like it would be really difficult to secure shipments from the Republic of Turgis, where the winters were longer and harsher. This being a foreign country, I couldn’t roll out a transportation network.
I asked Roroa in a whisper, “Can we only trade with them in the summer for now? Well, even for that, we’d need to get official clearance, I’m sure. What do you think?”
Roroa brought a hand to her mouth and thought about it before quietly responding. “Yeah... But if you’ve decided on doin’ it, darlin’, I think ya should negotiate directly with their top officials. If ya try to keep pushin’ things forward as a merchant, it’ll take time for reports of what’s goin’ on to filter upward.”
“Don’t negotiate under a fake name, but as Souma Kazuya, you’re saying?”
“Ya can’t very well meet the people in charge while wearin’ a mask, now can ya?”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Well, I guess we need to take this matter back home with us then. Just when it looked like we could mass-produce them, too...”
While my shoulders slumped in resignation, Taru looked at us funny. “I thought you were the young master and his employee? You look like you’re acting as equals to me.”
Urkh... That had been unnatural just now, hadn’t it? Roroa always felt like my partner when it came to business like this.
“Mwahaha, ya think so?” Roroa snickered. “Well, I’m not just any ol’ employee, I’m his mistress with his wife Juna’s approval, after all!”
With that, Roroa hugged my arm tight. Wait, a mistress my wife approved of?!
What kind of ridiculous backstory is that?! Now I have to play along with it?!
I wanted to complain, but we were in front of Taru, so I held back.
Roroa was smiling happily as she looked at me. Why that little... She knew I couldn’t correct her here, so she’d laid it on even thicker.
The air seemed to have frozen over. While Juna was smiling, there was a strange intensity to it, and Tomoe panicked when she saw her face.
Sensing the unease in the air, Taru backed away a little.
“Is this...your family situation, too?”
“I’d appreciate if you didn’t pry...” That was all I could manage to say.
Suddenly, Juna stood up. “Darling, we will be excusing ourselves for a moment.”
“Huh, Juna?”
She had the same plastered-on smile as before. Then she stood behind Roroa and planted her hands on her shoulders.
Roroa’s expression instantly stiffened. This was a cool country, but she was obviously sweating buckets.
“U-Um, Ju... Madam, is somethin’ the matter?” Roroa turned just her neck to look at Juna.
She smiled as she said, “Why don’t the two of us go get a breath of fresh air together?”
“No... I wanna stay here...y’know...”
“Don’t be like that. Come with me. Miss Roroa, the mistress I personally approve of.”
There was a weight to those words that would brook no argument.
It was said “the quieter the person, the scarier they were once mad,” and it looked like Juna was that type.
Roroa shot a look in my direction. Her eyes cried, H-Help me!
But I simply shook my head in silence. You joked around too much, Roroa. Deal with it.
I-I just got a li’l carried away!
Make your excuses to Juna...
Noooooo...
“Hee hee! Shall we be on our... Hm?”
Just as Juna was preparing to drag Roroa off, it happened.
Thump... Thump... There was an earthshaking sound off in the distance. At the same time, the room shook. It was a low magnitude quake.
The tools hanging on the walls were rattling. The sound and shaking were getting louder and louder.
“What’s goin’ on? Is this a
n earthquake?” Roroa asked.
“It seems...a little strange for that to be the case,” Juna said.
“Tomoe, if the shaking gets any stronger, you take shelter under the table,” I ordered.
“R-Right!”
While we were panicking, Taru’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. Not only that, it seemed a little cold, and she sighed as she said, “This isn’t an earthquake. It’s just an idiot coming.”
“An idiot?” I asked.
Then the shaking subsided, and Hal rushed into the workshop. “Hey! There’s this huge thing outside!”
Huge thing?
When we all went outside, there was this huge, hairy thing just standing there. It was there right when we opened the door, so I let out a “Whoa,” despite myself, and my head went back in shock. Then, in that moment, I saw the hairy thing’s face.
Its long, fat nose.
Its four big, tough tusks.
The surprisingly beady eyes that peeked out from beneath its bushy hair. If I were to describe the creature looming in front of me...
A four-tusked mammoth?!
Its body hair was long enough to touch the ground, and its legs were pretty short, but that seemed like an apt description of the creature. I knew the people of this country kept long-haired creatures as free-range cattle. However, it was too much for me to instantly recognize this thing in front of me as a mammoth.
One time, when Grandpa had taken me to an event at the science museum, I’d seen a reproduction of a mammoth’s skeleton. Its height from the ground to its shoulder blades had been four, maybe five meters.
The one in front of me looked to be about ten meters.
I was used to seeing massive creatures like the rhinoceroses and dragons, but that felt a little different from seeing an upsized version of a creature from my old world.
Then the four-tusked mammoth bent its front legs and sat down. In that instant, its hair touched the ground and spread out. Even seated, it was still huge. It was probably only two, three meters lower.