by Dojyomaru
I let go of San and bowed to the young man. “I-I’m sorry!”
“No, uh... I was wrong, too,” he said. “I had just meant to test you, but I didn’t expect you two to suddenly start confessing your love for one another... Uh, congratulations.”
“Th-Thank you... very much,” I stumbled.
H-How embarrassing. Just remembering that whole sequence of events made my face feel like it was on fire.
...Wait, huh? Testing me? Had this guy just said he was testing me?
Out from behind the young man, an adorable girl in a hooded robe who wore her hair in bunches entered the shop. That girl came up beside the young man with a cheery smile on her face.
“See? He’s an interestin’ slave trader, just like Sebastian said, huh?”
“You can say that again,” said the young man. “I doubt there’s another like him anywhere in this world. I guess, as the saying goes, it’s always darkest under the lamppost. Who would have thought there was still a talented person like this hidden in the royal capital. This is why I can never get tired of head-hunting.”
Then the young man removed his hat. That face... I had seen it on the Jewel Voice Broadcast!
“Y-Your Majesty?!” I yelped.
There stood His Majesty, Souma Kazuya.
What was more, the girl standing next to him was Princess Roroa of the former Principality of Amidonia, whose betrothal to King Souma had been announced during the Jewel Voice Broadcast earlier! San and I hastened to bow before them, but His Majesty said, “Ah, I’m here in secret right now, so none of that,” and stopped us.
“Um... Sire... What are you doing here?” I asked, my head still a mess of confusion.
Souma grinned. “I’ve heard good things about you. Like that you taught slaves how to write and do arithmetic, and arranged for them to be bought by places that would treat them well. From now on, slave traders around the capital will start imitating you and educating their slaves. It seems the treatment slaves receive has gotten better, too.”
“I-I see...”
“From the looks of it, you don’t realize your own incredible accomplishment,” he continued. “Well, maybe you were able to pull it off precisely because you’re that humble.”
King Souma nodded to himself, seeming satisfied with that explanation.
“Ginger. You tried to improve the treatment of those in the weakest position in society by giving them jobs. As a result, those slaves are slaves no more. This is something that people at the top, like Madam Maria and I, couldn’t have accomplished so easily, even though we wanted to, you know? Yet you, out here in the field, pulled it off.”
“No... I was just... I was desperate to protect those in front of me, even if that was all I could do...”
“I’ve been looking for people who can do things like that.” His Majesty put his hands down on the counter. “I intend to nationalize the slaving trade in this country. Slave traders will become public servants, and there will be proper tests they have to go through. That will make them easier to manage, after all. On top of that, to ensure that the slaves aren’t just used as manual labor until it breaks them and then thrown away, we will also establish facilities to train them for jobs. At the same time, I also intend to create an intermediary service to help people find jobs so they won’t be reduced to slavery in the first place.”
“That’s...”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s exactly the same as what you’ve been doing. That’s what the country is going to do.”
That’s incredible! Doing that will surely save people like San! I thought.
While I was thinking that, Souma extended his hand to me. “And I want to hire you as the first head of the jobs training facility.”
“M-Me?!” I yelped.
“You came up with the idea and implemented it yourself,” he said. “I think you’re the best person for the job. You can take that money I showed you earlier to help with the preparations. Why don’t you use that money to set her free and start working on it together?”
I looked over to San.
San nodded to me with a smile, then spoke these words: “‘Every lull comes to an end, and the tides can suddenly change.’”
...Yeah. That’s right, San, Grandpa. This is that opportunity.
I nodded back to San, then took the hand Souma had offered me. “I’ll do it! Please, let me!”
“Thanks. I’ll be looking forward to seeing your skills in action.”
We exchanged a firm handshake. The contract was sealed.
Grandpa, I’m going to be serving the king now. You don’t have to worry about me anymore, okay?
While closing my eyes and reporting this to my grandpa, who had surely gone to heaven, Lady Roroa said, “Looks like ya got that all settled then,” and wrapped herself around Souma’s arm. “Well, let’s leave it at that for work today. For here on, I’m thinkin’ it’s time we had our date, ain’t it? Right, Big Sister Ai?”
When Lady Roroa called out toward the door, a strong and beautiful dark elf woman came inside. Wasn’t this person the second candidate to become King Souma’s queen, Lady Aisha?! I remembered having seen her host the music program alongside King Souma before!
Lady Aisha seemed slightly embarrassed, but she wrapped herself around the arm opposite Lady Roroa. “Wh-Why, yes. We should do that.”
“Um, you two? Could you not do this in public...” the king said.
““No!””
“...Oh, okay.”
When they both shouted him down, Souma slumped his shoulders in resignation.
At first glance, he looked like he should be happy with a beautiful flower in each hand, yet he was clearly feeling anxious. He might be the capable king who had destroyed the Principality of Amidonia, but he was weak when it came to the women who would be the significant others in his life.
“Maybe I should watch out, too...” I murmured.
“Did you say something, Master Ginger?” Perhaps imitating those two, San wrapped herself around my arm with a smile.
That smile left me feeling fulfilled, and there was nothing I could say.
—It seemed that being no match for the woman you love was something that affected king and commoner alike.
Chapter 4: The Museum in the Royal Capital
It was just after noon on the day I had unexpectedly discovered Ginger Camus.
Having finished recruiting him and having left his shop, Aisha, Roroa, and I decided to wander around the castle town of Parnam. Roroa was calling it a date. I was walking through the streets with a pretty girl on each arm.
“Though, even though it’s a date, we’re not really dressed up for the occasion,” Roroa said, sounding dissatisfied.
I was dressed in my usual outfit for when I went out in secret, Nine-Headed Dragon Archipelago Union traveler’s fashion (Kitakaze Kozou style), and today the two of them were wearing hooded robes over the top of their regular outfits. Our faces were all well known to the public, so we were dressed this way to keep from making a scene.
“It would seem unavoidable,” Aisha said. “If we are discovered, we would not be able to have our date.”
Roroa stuck out her tongue. “True that. Considerin’ my position, I really can’t show my face. I’m sure some folks here are none too fond of Amidonia, after all.”
Roroa said that jokingly, but I was pretty sure she was right. While our two countries had been peacefully united in a way that served the interests of both, the Elfrieden Kingdom and Principality of Amidonia had been enemies for a long time. That fact wasn’t going to go away so easily.
I was overcome by a feeling I couldn’t quite describe, but Roroa put on a bold smile. “Well, I’m a real lovable gal, it’s only a matter of time before I grab the people of the kingdom by the heartstrings. I’m more worried about you, Darlin’. If you don’t learn to be more sociable, the people of the principality’ll hate your guts.”
“...I suppose you’re right,” I murmured. I thought Roroa’s ability to blast a
way negativity like this was wonderful. “I can’t act like you do, Roroa, so I’ll slowly but surely protect the people of the principality’s lives and property, then get them to recognize me as their king.”
“Hee hee,” Roroa giggled, hugging me. “Also, if you’re seen actin’ all lovey-dovey with li’l ol’ me, don’t ya think that’d put the folks from the principality at ease, too?”
Aisha pulled her off of me. “W-We are in the middle of a public street. What you are doing is enviably scandalous!”
“Hmph, what’s the matter with it? We’re on a date, ain’t we?” Roroa demanded. “How’s about you get all lovey-dovey with him too, Big Sister Ai?”
“I would love nothing more than to do so, but... out of consideration for the First Primary Queen, Liscia, who allowed us to go on this date, perhaps we should not get too carried away?” Aisha pointed out.
Aisha was the Second Primary Queen, while Roroa was the Third Primary Queen. In this country where polygamy was commonly practiced by the nobility, knightly class, and wealthy merchants (polyandry, while less common, existed as well), it seemed that respecting this sort of pecking order among the queens or wives was key to preventing later troubles in the home.
Roroa seemed dissatisfied. “Y’say that, but Darlin’ and Big Sister Liscia’ve been betrothed for, like, half a year, ain’t they? They may not’ve gotten down to baby makin’ yet, but they’ve gotta have kissed, at least, right?”
Roroa looked in my direction, forcing me to blatantly avert my gaze. If I were to list the romantic things I had done with Liscia, there was resting my head in her lap, a kiss on the cheek, sleeping next to each other, and that was about it.
Having discerned that from my demeanor, Roroa looked at me coldly. “...Darlin’. You ain’t gonna tell me you haven’t even done that, are you?”
“No, you see... I’ve been very busy, and...”
“Don’t ya feel bad for Big Sister Cia, doin’ that to her?” Roroa snapped.
“So you think that, too, Roroa!” Even Aisha jumped in to agree. “I know you were hesitant at first, sire, because the betrothal was something decided on without either your or Lady Liscia’s permission. However, now, it’s plain for all to see that you love one another. Given our position, we cannot receive your love and affection before Lady Liscia has, so, please, flirt with her more.”
There was nothing I could say in response. Aisha had watched my relationship with Liscia develop from a fairly early stage, after all.
Roroa had her arms crossed and was nodding and grunting in agreement. “Yeah, yeah. Then ya can give us just as much of your love when you’re done.”
“...I understand,” I said. “When the time comes, I’ll take care of doing that with you ‘properly.’”
“Yep, that’s a promise. Ya better,” Roroa said condescendingly.
Here I was, being chided for my behavior by a girl three years my junior... I felt a little pathetic, but Roroa laughed and waved her hand.
“But, well, here we are, on a date already, so we’ve gotta have fun.”
“Indeed,” Aisha said, nodding. “Lady Liscia did say to enjoy ourselves today, after all.”
They had a point.
“Well, it is a rare day off,” I said. “Was there anywhere the two of you wanted to go?”
Aisha said, “In that case, I would...”
“Also, no food until later.”
“Shot down before I could even speak?! Wh-Why is that?” Aisha cried with eyes like a chihuahua that had been forced to wait for a treat.
“When I eat with you, I’m always stuffed full by the time we’re done, and that makes it hard to move around,” I said. “I promise we’ll stop somewhere for food later, so let’s go somewhere else first.”
“Ah, okay. If that’s why...”
“That said, it ain’t been that long since I first came to the capital,” Roroa said, tilting her head in thought. “I dunno what’s here yet. Is there anywhere you’d recommend as a date spot, Darlin’?”
“A date spot, huh...” I murmured.
In my former world, the theater, the amusement park, the zoo, the aquarium, karaoke, and the arcade would all have been options, but not in this world. It was that lack of leisure facilities that had made the entertainment programs over the Jewel Voice Broadcast such a hit.
Well, if I was looking for a date spot other than a place for entertainment... Ah.
“That place might be good,” I said.
“What, what? Did ya come up with somethin’ good?” Roroa asked eagerly.
“It’s a facility we opened just the other day, actually, and I think there should be plenty of interesting things to see if we go there,” I said. “Though it’s more of an educational institution than a leisure facility.”
“Learnin’, even though we’re on a date? What kinda place is that?” Roroa asked, tilting her head to the side.
“The Royal Parnam Museum,” I said. “Not that the name’s terribly inventive.”
“So huge?!” Roroa cried out in surprise when we came up to the entrance of the Royal Parnam Museum and she saw what was on display there. If we’d been talking about a massive display in front of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno, it would have been the blue whale, but the Royal Parnam Museum had a massive skeletal specimen measuring more than 10 meters long out in front of it.
“What’re these bones from? Looks like a lizard or somethin’...”
“That’s the giant salamander that was lurking in the area beneath the royal capital,” I explained.
“Salamanders get that big? The ones livin’ in Amidonia grew to maybe two meters at most, but... Wait, this thing was under the royal capital?!”
“Yeah. Talk about a surprise, huh?” I said.
This salamander had been discovered when I’d commissioned the adventurers’ guild to exterminate the wild creatures living in the labyrinth of escape tunnels under the capital so that they could be repurposed as a sewer system. Or rather, the ones to find it had been Dece, Juno, and their party. I had even been there to witness it, albeit through my Little Musashibo doll.
Neither the country nor the guild had anticipated anything so big living under the capital, so there hadn’t been sufficient warning given, and I’d ended up putting Juno and her group in danger. It was good that they’d managed to retreat somehow, but when I thought about how things might have taken a turn for the worst, there was a lot I had to reflect on.
Now, about that salamander: as soon as I’d received the report from Juno and her party, I’d dispatched a unit from the Forbidden Army to kill it. Juno and her party had struggled against the salamander because they hadn’t had a mage who could use the ice-elemental water-type magic that it was weak against. When we’d deployed a group focused heavily around those who could use that sort of magic, the thing had gone down easily. The slain salamander had then been dissected, then turned into a skeletal specimen.
“Well, this is just a replica based on the original bones,” I added as I touched the skeletal specimen all over. We’d have had to worry about thieves making off with it if we displayed the real thing outside, after all. There was a sign next to it that read: “This is a 1/1 scale replica, so please try touching it to experience the size for yourself.”
“This sort of thing... How should I say it? It tickles my sense of adventure,” Aisha said, her eyes sparkling. “I think young boys would enjoy seeing it.”
“Hrm...” I said. “I thought it might be a good educational experience that helped stimulate their creativity, so I tried showing the real bones that we keep at the castle to Rou” (Tomoe’s real little brother) “and the other children at the daycare, but they bawled their eyes out... I got chewed out by Liscia pretty badly after that one.”
“What were you even doing?” Roroa asked, looking appalled.
Yeah, it’d have been important to consider their age first, huh.
“That said, while we have been preoccupied with the skeletal spe
cimen, the building itself is also quite large and impressive. Almost like a noble’s manor,” Aisha said, looking at the building.
That was a sharp observation. “No, not ‘almost like,’” I said. “We actually remodeled a noble’s manor.”
“Is that right?” Aisha asked.
“Yeah. I executed those influential nobles who were colluding with Amidonia and manipulating the corrupt nobles in the war, remember? This building used to belong to one of them.”
It really was... one massive house.
The main building was as big as the school building of a university with a lot of history behind it, and then there were two annexes that were also quite big in and of themselves. There was a well-maintained garden, too, and I had to be impressed with the wealth this noble had managed to amass while the kingdom was in financial trouble. According to Hakuya’s investigation, they had been taking a cut of the money that the corrupt nobles had embezzled.
Regardless, when this mansion had become vacant after the noble who owned it was executed, it had been remodeled as the Royal Parnam Museum. Since it was this big and impressive a building, letting any of my retainers live in it would have provoked needless jealousy, and it would also have cost a lot of money to dismantle it. This had worked out as a perfect solution.
“Oh, when ya put it like that, it sounds like it’s probably filled with the grudge of the nobles and I don’t like it...” Roroa said with the corner of her mouth twitching.
“Ah... ah ha ha...” I laughed. “Yeah, well, it looks like there are already rumors. Like that the armor on display gets up and walks around on its own at night.”
“Of course,” said Roroa.
“But, you know, using anyone and anything we can is one of those things our country does, after all.”
“Here’s hopin’ you don’t have to use it as a haunted house someday...”
Uh, yeah, I thought. I’d really rather not.
“Anyway, let’s go in. It’s pretty amazing on the inside, too,” I suggested, and we went inside.
If I had spoken to the person in charge, they would have just let us in, but in order to slip in with the regular visitors, we paid admission for three people at the entrance.