by Dojyomaru
“Any dignity I can only maintain by acting self-important is dignity I don’t need. Besides, all of the people in this room I think of not as retainers or citizens, but as comrades.”
“You’re too kind, Your Majesty.” Juna gave a slight bow. Those little gestures of hers always made for such a pretty picture.
Tomoe, on the other hand, was so nervous she was stiff. Her clothes last time had been falling apart, but now she wore what looked like a miko outfit with a miniskirt, which was apparently a traditional outfit for mystic wolves. “A-Am I your comrade as well, my king?”
“No, no, Tomoe, you’re my sister-in-law, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“Yep. So don’t call me your king, call me ‘Big Brother Souma.’”
“Ah, no fair! Call me ‘Big Sister,’ too, then!” Liscia cried.
“Um... Big Brother Souma. Big Sister Liscia,” Tomoe said with upturned eyes.
““Nice!”” Liscia and I both gave Tomoe’s cute reaction an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Thwack! Thwack!
We got whacked upside the head with a paper fan. It was Hakuya who did it.
“You two, it’s taking us forever to get on with things, so please cut that out.”
““We’re sorry...”” we both earnestly apologized.
By the way, that paper fan was something I had given to Hakuya when he had taken the position of prime minister, saying, “If I act too far out of line, don’t hesitate to slap me upside the head with this.” It had been a joke to try to get the too-serious Hakuya to lighten up, but as you would expect from a man who was the greatest genius in the history of Elfrieden (or so Marx claimed), he was putting the paper fan to brilliant use.
“So how does a retainer slapping his king with a paper fan factor into the royal dignity?” I asked.
“It pains me to do it, sire, but this is a royal order, you see,” Hakuya said with a cool look on his face. “That aside, sire, you’ll have to explain to everyone why they’ve been called here.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right... Poncho.”
“Y-Yessss!”
With the conversation suddenly turning to him, paunchy Poncho stood up so vigorously he almost knocked his chair over. He was as rotund as ever, but he was more suntanned than he had been during the royal audience the other day.
“Have you prepared what I asked you for?” I asked.
“Y-Yes! With your cooperation, sire, I was able to visit all the places it took me eight years to go around to before in a matter of two weeks.”
“Cooperation... What did you do for him?” Liscia looked at me dubiously.
“Oh, he means how I cleared things with the countries involved and let him use one of the royal family’s royal visit wyverns to get around.”
Royal visit wyverns were used by the king when he traveled abroad. The Forbidden Army had only a handful of them. Poncho’s task had required speedy transportation, so I had loaned him one. Most wyverns belonged to the air force, but with their admiral, Castor, being uncooperative, asking him to loan us one of theirs probably wouldn’t have worked. ...It was such a headache.
“Well then, Poncho, show us what you’ve gathered,” I said.
“Y-Yes! In here, sire, I have the ‘ingredients there is no custom of eating in this country’ that you requested, yes!” With those words, Poncho pulled out a big sack.
When Liscia saw it, her eyes went wide. “Hey, that’s the Hero’s Sack!”
“Yeah. It fits a lot more than it looks like it should, and, on top of that, food put inside it doesn’t rot as easily. I thought it’d be perfect for gathering ingredients, so I lent it to him.”
“Even so, you shouldn’t... Oh, whatever.” Liscia slumped her shoulders in resignation. “So, what was it? Ingredients there’s no custom of eating in this country?”
“More precisely, it was ‘Ingredients eaten in foreign countries and select regions of our own country, but which there is no general custom of eating in this country,’” I said.
Different places have different foods, and different people have different tastes. You often hear of things that are thrown away as inedible in one place being appreciated as a delicacy in another. Even in Japan, in some regions you could find things that would make you say, “Huh? You eat that?” To the point that there have been programs like Ken**n Show that have focused on the subject.
“Right now, our country grows things like cotton, tea, and tobacco, so we’re replacing them with food crops,” I explained. “However, we won’t see the effects of that until autumn, at least. So in order to keep the people from starving until then, a plan with immediate effects is needed.”
In order to resolve the food crisis, serious reforms over a long period of time would be necessary. However, during that time there would be people starving, and there was the worry some might starve to death at this rate. What was more, the first to die would be babies of nursing age, with their weak constitutions and high need for nutrition.
Children were a national treasure. I couldn’t let them starve to death.
That said, even if I wanted to deliver food to all the starving people of the country, there were limits to how much support the country could offer. That was why, alongside longer-term strategies, short-term countermeasures with immediate effects would be necessary.
“And that’s these ingredients we don’t have a custom of eating?” Liscia asked.
“They’re eaten in other countries, but we don’t have a custom of eating them here,” I said. “If we develop those customs, it will make it harder to starve. It simply increases the food supply, after all.”
“Is there going to be anything so convenient?” she asked doubtfully.
“That’s what we’re checking. ...Now then, let’s change locations.”
“Change locations? Where to?” Seeing Liscia tilt her head to the side quizzically, I responded with a laugh.
“We’re deciding whether we can use these ingredients or not. We’re off to the cafeteria, obviously.”
“Hey, Souma. I understand why you want to use the cafeteria, but... don’t we have too many people?” Liscia asked.
As she had pointed out, the cafeteria was noisy, but in a different way than usual.
In this cafeteria which was used by the guards and maids (and recently, even the king), there were usually more than thirty long tables set up in order to accommodate a large number of people eating at the same time. However, at present, all but one of the long tables had been taken away to make a wide open space. Despite this, the cafeteria was full of people and equipment, and there was only a little free space around the long table.
The massive jewel floating in the room was eating up a particularly large amount of space.
“Another Jewel Voice Broadcast?” Liscia asked.
“It’s a horrible waste that they only used a handy thing like this to read out declarations of war,” I said. “I’ve got to put it to better use.”
This Jewel Voice Broadcast was kind of like television. It could relay information to the people immediately, so airing some entertainment programs was bound to help win the support of the people. I supposed it did have a couple of faults in that the lack of recording technology meant all broadcasts had to be live, and that the video was only available in larger towns and cities (though apparently sound-only broadcasts were available in even the smallest of rural villages). That was just one thing where I would have to wait for the technology (magic?) to advance.
I had been thinking of starting with Nodo Jiman, the amateur singing contest, as our first entertainment program. Through the singing cafe where Juna worked, I had been calling out to the people who had come to show off their “gift of singing” during my gathering of gifted people, and we were making preparations to have them debut as singers and idols.
Elfrieden’s first public broadcaster, huh... I thought. The dreams are limitless.
“What’re you grinning for?” Liscia asked coldly while I im
agined the possibilities. “You look creepy.”
I coughed. “Ahem. ...For our current project, the goal is to introduce the custom of eating foods that are not commonly eaten in this country. Advertising them to the people at the same time will be more efficient, right? That’s why I brought some beautiful ladies here, as well.”
“Like Juna?”
“You too, Liscia. Oh, and Aisha and Tomoe, as well. They say the ABCs of drawing viewership are animals, beauties, and children. That’s why I have Liscia the orthodox pretty girl, Juna whose mature charm belies her young age, Aisha with her healthy dark skin, and Tomoe, who is animal-eared, a beauty, and a child, as well. With this many beautiful specimens here, the people’s eyes will be glued to the screen.”
“M-Me, too...” Liscia was blushing scarlet. As for the other three:
“It’s an honor, sire,” said Juna.
“Yes, Your Majesty! I will endeavor to meet your expectations!” Aisha added.
“Yesh! I-I’ll do my best!” Tomoe cried.
Each of them showed their enthusiasm. Meanwhile, Hakuya was quickly getting things in order for the broadcast, and Poncho was hastily double-checking the ingredients. When I saw them like this, I felt like I had gotten a good group of people together. Of course, I still wanted more.
I gave the order to everyone. “Okay, let the broadcast begin.”
◇ ◇ ◇
That day, every city deserving of the name in Elfrieden was packed with people.
When word spread that the young king who had stirred up the country with his personnel gathering the other day would be using the Jewel Voice Broadcast to do something again, people rushed to the fountain plazas in the cities. (The systems which dispersed mist into the air to project the Jewel Voice Broadcast on were generally installed on the fountain in the central plaza.)
People who lived in villages that could only receive sound went out of their way to come to nearby cities so they could see the video as well, so there were even more people gathered around than usual.
In this world where the only forms of entertainment to speak of were exhibitions, drinking, and gambling, the Jewel Voice Broadcast was beginning to be recognized by the people as a form of entertainment.
And when people gather, money moves. There were already stands out in the plazas of each city. It was beginning to take on a festive atmosphere. Everyone laid out mats or sheets in front of the fountain, waiting impatiently for the broadcast to begin.
“Hey, hey, ith jewel voith going to do thomething again?” a child lisped.
“Yes, darling. I wonder what it will be,” a mother smiled, answering her little girl with the slight lisp.
“Everyone seems to be having fun. Times sure have changed,” another person said.
“They certainly have. Why, back in our day, we would never have thought of the Jewel Voice Broadcast as something enjoyable.”
The elderly people, who knew the Jewel Voice Broadcast had only been used by generations of kings for declarations of war and public announcements of the current military situation, closed their eyes in silence. In those times, the country had had nearly twice its current territory, but only half its current population.
The Jewel Voice Broadcast had always been things like “We have won the battle of X” or “We must overcome the brave death of X and continue to fight!” For those over a certain age, the Jewel Voice Broadcast carried an association with death.
“May our new young king be a man who will not make that image—”
“Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
The old man’s voice was drowned out by raucous cheering.
A man and a woman in uniform appeared in mid-air.
“Hello, people of Elfrieden,” the woman said.
“H-Hello,” the man added.
“Coming to you with the latest from Parnam Castle is our new program, The King’s Brilliant Lunch, or The King’s Brillunch for short. We are your hosts, Juna Doma...”
“...a-and P-Poncho Ishizuka Panacotta, yes!”
“...Poncho, there’s no need to be so tense.”
“W-Well, you see, I don’t have any experience doing this... Madam Juna, you’re so confident at this. I’m envious, yes.”
“Well, I sing in front of customers all the time. If you visit Parnam, please come see our singing cafe Lorelei.”
“Don’t blatantly advertise, please!”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha!” The contrast between the playful beauty and the flustered fat man brought laughs to fountain plazas around the nation.
“Now then, this gentleman will explain the purpose of our program.”
“Th-The (provisional) 14th king of Elfrieden, His Majesty Souma Kazuya, yes!”
Ohhh! a cry went up in the plazas.
The young king they had seen during the gathering of personnel appeared on the screen. “I haven’t been crowned yet, so I’m not king yet, strictly speaking, but... Oh, hi. I’m Souma Kazuya, the guy who’s currently acting as king. Now, to cut to the chase, I’d like to speak about the state of this country.”
“He’s not very kingly,” said someone. With the way he was acting, you could hardly blame them.
Not seeming to realize this at all, Souma stood in front of a board that had been prepared for the occasion, explaining things with charts and maps. He was especially thorough about the causes of the food crisis.
“...In response to this increase in demand, it created conditions where you could sell as much as you could produce, so farmers shifted from growing food crops to growing cotton, and that is the cause of our current food crisis. Of course, this isn’t solely the fault of the farmers. Responsibility also lies with the merchants who coerced them to do it in order to sell their products, the soldiers who benefited from those products, and the royal family for ignoring this until it became a problem. For this, I deeply apologize.” With those words, Souma bowed his head.
For a king to bow to his subjects and retainers... this was unheard of. The situation hadn’t even been caused during Souma’s reign.
“At present, our kingdom is making the switch from cash crops back to food crops. However, I don’t expect to see the effects of that until autumn or later. We are considering the importation of food from other countries, but the situation there is not favorable, either. One reason is that we have nothing to replace our primary export, cotton, and so we can’t secure foreign currency. The other reason is that every country is in a similar situation. They can’t sell us what they don’t have.”
Souma’s words were more than enough to depress the people. But they were more surprised that Souma had released this information to the public. Normally, those who stood at the top didn’t disclose such information to those beneath them. Sometimes it was because that information included mistakes they themselves had made; many times, they also believed that those below them wouldn’t understand even if they were told about matters of national policy.
As a matter of fact, the king’s explanation had been simple enough that a middle-schooler from Japan could understand it, and yet only around three-tenths of the people of this country could. However, this young king had disclosed the information.
The more educated a person was, the greater their surprise. Why had he exposed such a national disgrace, one that could lead to his own loss of power, to the people?
“Um, er... Is that something that’s okay to tell the people?” Poncho hesitantly asked the question everyone was thinking. However, Souma’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.
“The more you hide, the more people doubt you. There are things we need to hide when it comes to foreign affairs, but for internal policy, I intend to continue disclosing such things. You see, I want my fellow countrymen to use their heads. What is best for this country? Are my policies correct? I want them to think along with me.”
“I’ve never seen a king like this before...” someone whispered.
It was unheard of for a ruler to ask his people to thin
k about politics with him. Technically, even in this country, there was a Congress of the People which represented their will, but it was, to put it simply, “a place to decide on the people’s pleas to the king.” The king was free to implement or not implement them as he saw fit, and the content of these congresses was limited to things like requests to correct the inflation in prices for X or requests for public works spending. It was about as useful as having a suggestions box, and it was not a place for debating political decisions.
The feudal system was also still strong in this country. To put it at its simplest, the political system in this country was “Those below pay their taxes. Those above protect the lives and property of those below.” That was all there was to it.
Commoners paid taxes to their lords, and the lords guaranteed their lives and property. Their lords (the nobility) paid taxes to the king, and in exchange for them serving in the military in times of crisis, the king guaranteed their lives and property. It was a society with a complete class system.
When there was rot at the top, the rot risked spreading throughout. However, to look at it the opposite way, so long as the people above them were on the level, the people didn’t need to think about national policy; they could think about nothing but themselves. So it was an easy system to be part of in that way.
However, this young king had asked the people to use their heads. He had asked them to think about his policies with him.
There was no clear path yet for political participation from the people. And even if they were to be given that right, it was clear to see that the uneducated citizenry would descend into mob rule. However, even so, he sowed the seeds.
“This country’s going to change...” someone said.
“I envy young’uns who’ll be able to see that change,” an old man added.
“Oh, we’re not done yet,” another one said.
While looking at the young king, the old squinted their eyes, as if blinded by his radiance.
Without any way to know this, Souma continued his explanation.