by Fuse
“Skill-dependent?”
I gave her a reassuring nod.
The skill in question was Gourmet, a unique one possessed by Geld that granted him a Stomach to pass items between high orcs. Food couldn’t be ferried around with teleportation magic, but skills didn’t have any such restrictions. Of course, we still only brought enough over to cover this banquet; the high orcs were too busy with construction projects across the forest to handle every passing fancy of mine. A few of them taking some R & R in town had offered their personal support for the project, but my reliance on individual skills for the job was a weak point I intended to address in the future.
Hinata listened to my defense, looking a bit exasperated. “…Right.” She sighed, resigned. “With a skill, you could transport that stuff without altering it at all…and you have a lot of people in this nation who can handle the job. I just can’t believe you’re using all this for yourself, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.”
That sounded a bit rude to me, but ah well. I suppose I had answered Hinata’s question, but I didn’t really see what her problem was with it. If something’s available to use, why not use it?
“Well,” interrupted Luminus, “what is the harm in it, Hinata? No matter the story behind it, there is no doubting how delicious this all is. I, for one, am very impressed.”
She had a cup in her hand and looked to be well on her way, alcohol-wise, as she scarfed down another piece of tempura. She was grabbing them with her fingers but still somehow managed to look elegant doing it. Which was fine. If you weren’t offending anyone, you could eat any way you liked. You can’t force chopsticks on someone who has never seen them before.
And speaking of which, that was actually kind of a thorny problem. Benimaru and the other ogres could work with chopsticks just fine, and the monsters of Tempest had largely learned by watching us. This wasn’t the case for the merchants and adventurers who came from foreign lands. I was contemplating inviting nobility from across the world to build ourselves into a travel hot spot, so I wanted to be sure chopsticks remained an optional selection for them.
Along those lines, Luminus was proving an interesting research subject. You could use a knife and fork, a pair of chopsticks, or your fingers, and while hot food required chopsticks, she otherwise had no qualms about eating with her hands. Different types of food were eaten in different ways, after all, and there was no reason to put our visitors off by insisting on some “foreign” way of eating. Maybe it’s best to just say “Hey, we can eat this way, too,” then wait as the habit gradually takes hold.
“Do you like our offerings?” I asked Luminus.
“I do. Very much. The food is extraordinary—and the drink as well.”
The observation made me realize that Luminus was downing the alcohol at an alarming speed. Milim was pretty strong, but Luminus was a powerhouse, knocking back any cup offered alongside her tempura.
“Glad to hear. But try to go easy, okay? Too much isn’t good for you.”
“Fool. I am impervious to all poisons—alcohol is no danger to me. In fact, at the moment, I am trying my hardest to lessen the effect of Cancel Poison so I can get drunk off this!”
I suppose my warning was pointless. But “weakening” Cancel Poison?
“Y-you can do something like that?”
“Of course. Stop playing dumb.”
She must’ve thought I was kidding, but I insisted she teach me how that worked.
…
Oops. Sounds like Raphael is in a huff about something. Ignoring it, I followed Luminus’s instructions and attempted to shrink down my own resistances. The moment I did, I could feel the intoxication sneaking into my mind. Yes! Yes! This is what drunkenness feels like!
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! You couldn’t even do that, Rimuru? I mastered that much eons ago!”
Veldora seemed proud of himself. I didn’t know where he practiced it, but he was now in a marvelous state of inebriation.
“Right!” I shouted. “Another round!”
“Yes. Let me join you.”
“Silly boys.” Luminus sniffed. “But if you two insist, I suppose I will have a refill as well.”
Now things were heating up. I could almost hear Shuna rolling her eyes as she said “Oh, Sir Rimuru…,” but she still grinned and poured out the drink. We were all much less formal now.
All the adult beverages we made locally were on offer, along with fresh water and as many ice cubes as you wanted. There was juice and tea available for the nondrinkers, too. Haruna was keeping Veldora’s cup full, while Louis did the same for Luminus. There was a drinking contest brewing between Benimaru, Shion, and Soei, as well as among the Lycanthropeers and between Arnaud and his fellow top paladin officers. Those paladins were pretty snooty at first, but once their commanding officer Arnaud began sampling all the wares on hand, they loosened up considerably. Some were now amicably chatting with Rigurd and the rest, and a few of them asked the waitstaff for more food.
One demonstrated interest in trying some of the food the monsters on hand were enjoying. Fritz was his name, I think, a Crusader commander alongside Arnaud and one of the Ten Great Saints. Nicer guy than I thought at first blush, I guess. Expressing an interest in what other people are eating is the first step toward understanding them. It was a nice sight to see.
But that was… I thought for a moment. The drink was starting to make it tough. He’s talking about that black rice, isn’t he?
This “black rice” was made using a type of plant raised on magicule water—the highly magical water found inside the Sealed Cave. I suggested trying that out as an experiment, and it resulted in rice that looked like an octopus squirted ink all over it. For someone like me, who enjoyed his rice hot, white, and fluffy, it looked absolutely gross—but it tasted good. Really good, in fact. It was also packed with nutrients, surprisingly, so we called the crop blackspell rice and moved into full production of it.
It was now a staple of Tempestian cuisine, but I was pretty sure there was some kind of issue with it I was forgetting—
“Whoa!” I shouted, alarmed all the way back to sobriety. “That stuff’s poisonous to humans!”
Unfortunately, I was too late. Fritz already had some in his mouth. And his first reaction:
“Why, this… This is restoring my magical force!”
“Um, do you feel all right? Not sick or anything?”
A weaker being taking in large quantities of magic could have hazardous health effects. This blackspell rice was packed with magicules, which meant it was toxic to those with less-than-robust constitutions. Of course, it could also be a medicine in the right dosage—and like I said, potentially a dietary staple. Nobody in Tempest would have an issue with it, but I still hadn’t tested out what it did to humans. Finding test subjects wasn’t exactly easy.
Fritz’s reaction, however, was unexpected to me. I assumed it’d be harmful to Homo sapiens, but maybe it’s beneficial to you if you have enough magical force?
Understood. The subject Fritz’s magic power–recovery effect has been confirmed. Those with resistance to magicules seem to be able to convert them into energy.
Ah, I see. Maybe eating this now, after exhausting his magic in that huge fight, made it all the more effective.
The other paladins, seeing this, immediately clamored for tastes of their own. Having a few pints in you could be a dangerous thing sometimes; none were afraid of the side effects. So I agreed.
Hinata gave the blackspell rice a funny look, likely reacting the same way I did at first. But without further complaint, she sipped from the bowl of chazuke, consisting of the black rice with some tea poured on top of it. I also offered it in rice-ball form for those who wanted something a little heartier. Both selections were huge hits, and a second round was carried out to the party in very short order. Considering that I busted out my personal stash of white rice for this event, it was funny to see the blackspell rice be the toast of the night instead—but hey, if you are
n’t conditioned to be turned off by the color like I was, it must’ve been much more acceptable.
So now I knew what this new breed of rice could do, and between that and all the other food and drink, I thought we were making a pretty good impression. I was starting to see monsters and paladins chatting with each other, taking advantage of the opportunity presented to them. Shion was even engaged in an impromptu arm-wrestling tournament with three of the paladins—dominating them, by the looks of it, but her opponents were all smiles regardless. I liked the trends I saw. Alcohol played no small role in it, perhaps, but if this became the natural flow of things, it wouldn’t be long before we’re all on friendly terms.
Good things to eat, enjoyable days to spend—that was my goal, and I wasn’t afraid to strive for it. If I have any job here, I suppose, it’s to make sure this sight doesn’t go extinct. It gave me new resolve.
Then:
“What are you doing, Rimuru?! Drink up, drink up! Let me fill your cup!”
“Yes, yes! You have the demon lord Luminus accompanying you! Let us enjoy this evening as much as we can!”
“Wh-whoa,” I said, “chill out, Veldora. Also, aren’t you a vampire, Luminus? Why are you eating and getting drunk and—?”
“Silence, you fool! Once you grow powerful enough, even a vampire can gain sustenance enough from regular food. Now hurry up and empty your mug!”
That wasn’t what I was getting at, but she was in no mood to listen. So there I was, two drunken louts on both sides of me, feeling that newfound resolve disappear from my mind.
“Guys! Hey!”
Before I could stop them, they were taking shots from the sake we brewed from the blackspell rice. “Slow it down, you two,” I thought I heard Hinata curtly whispering at them—she had a faint smile, though, so maybe the booze was giving me auditory hallucinations. She was kind of cute, actually, when she smiled—not that I was gonna tell her.
Morning came. God, my head hurt.
Understood. Of course it does. This is the backlash after deliberately weakening your resistances.
Thanks for the feedback, man. Raphael sounded a bit peeved, but I was sure I was imagining it. Nobody’s skills get mad at them.
I shook the mental cobwebs away. Today we had an important meeting to conduct—one that could decide how Tempest and the Holy Empire of Lubelius dealt with each other going forward.
I was now seated in our usual meeting hall, soldiering through my headache.
Honestly speaking, if things had turned out differently, we might’ve been fighting both Lubelius and the Western Nations affiliated with it. The Papacy had given the Temple Knights stationed in Farmus permission to act, and if worse came to worse, the casualties on our side would’ve been eye-popping. If you thought about it like that, we couldn’t afford to be too chill here.
On the other hand, though, I was done punishing Farmus. Not a single one of the Temple Knights who conspired against us was breathing today. We had a duty to govern over there, so I wasn’t exactly an impartial observer…but Hinata had already apologized to me, and the masterminds who schemed against us were already gone. If we could build friendly relations, we were golden. There wasn’t much point asking for reparations—we already had plenty of that from Clayman’s and Farmus’s coffers, and Farmus was physically far enough away from us that annexing it or making it into some kinda colony was too much of a pain. If the other side had admitted fault, money honestly wasn’t as important to me as working to build relations.
In time, Luminus and her people entered the hall.
Tempest was represented here by me, Shion, Rigurd, and Benimaru, along with Rugurd, Regurd, and Rogurd, the government ministers of justice, legislation, and administration, respectively. Veldora was there, too, but safely ignorable. He had some manga to read, and I doubted he’d even bother to pay attention.
From Lubelius, meanwhile, we had Luminus, Louis, Hinata, and the five top paladin officials. I had them all make their formal introductions. There was Vice Captain Renard, the Noble of Light. There was Arnaud of Air, the strongest of the force after Hinata, and under him was Bacchus of Earth, Litus of Water, and Fritz of Wind. I had us all seated facing one another, and with that, the proceedings began.
I wanted to start with a brainstorm session to see what each side’s takes were on this situation. Along those lines, I created a list of issues affecting all of us and passed them out to everyone to kick things off. This was just to ensure we were all on the same page; I didn’t want to turn this conference into a blame game, so if we disagreed on how we saw matters, I wanted it fixed as soon as possible, and so did Hinata.
Our respective stances were about what I figured.
To us, of course, the whole story began with Farmus’s invasion of our land. Our view of this hadn’t changed; all we did was respond to moves made by the other side.
On the Church’s end, Hinata told us that problems actually began before Farmus’s request to them. Essentially, acknowledging the existence of a nation of monsters went against the teachings of Luminism, a pressing issue that threatened to cast doubt on the faith of its believers. Leaving this unaddressed could trigger internal revolt and weaken the foothold the Western Holy Church had on the region. That’s why they had to destroy the monster nation, and that was why they needed a just cause, a good reason to conquer us.
“That was the situation when we received the request from Archbishop Reyhiem, who was in Farmus at the time,” Hinata explained. “Cardinal Nicolaus gave his approval, and I had no objections to it—and besides, I still wanted to get back at you.”
She intended, in other words, to take advantage of Farmus’s greed and seize the opportunity to annihilate us and gain revenge.
“Was that about Shizu?”
“Yes, it was. I suppose I was just being used, though, looking back. I don’t know who is operating behind the scenes, but there are definitely Eastern merchants involved.”
“Merchants? I knew it. Clayman had a merchant or two he was particularly close to as well. Given how well armed Geld and his orcish army was, I assumed they were connected to one nation or another. I guess it was the East, then.”
I nodded, convinced. Judging by the account books I had Shuna look into, Clayman was dealing in a vast amount of merchandise—mainly goods from the Empire, originally crafted in the Dwarven Kingdom. That wasn’t suspicious, since the Empire and kingdom had regular trade with each other—but there were no records at all of the middlemen involved in this. Shuna was thorough in her work, but she couldn’t find any of them, even after we asked the assorted officials we took prisoner. Clayman was careful, no doubt drumming it into his force that no evidence should ever be left behind. We found absolutely nothing on the Moderate Jesters, either, the group closely affiliated with him.
Still, we could make educated guesses about who was involved. In Clayman’s castle, we found a collection of artwork, rare magic items, and other such goods, brought in from around the world. The weapons and armor we discovered, however, were chiefly hand-me-downs from the Empire. They had teleportation magic, so they could’ve procured weapons from anywhere they wanted, but they got almost all of it in from the East. That suggested close connections, and while the evidence was circumstantial, it was still persuasive.
That and their food supply. Clayman’s bases across the land held enormous stashes of fruit, bread, dairy, and luxury goods like alcohol. Being organic, they couldn’t be teleported; physical transport was a must with them. Clayman’s domain, the Puppet Nation of Dhistav, apparently used slave labor for most of its agricultural output, but not everything we found in these stores was domestically produced—according to Shuna, some of it had to be imported from beyond their borders. The only real candidate for this was the Eastern Empire, adjacent to Dhistav. Milim’s domain, after all, was self-sufficient to the point that she barely even considered international trade—hell, she and the ex–demon lord Carillon didn’t even have currency to exchange.
So I had my suspicions that Clayman was linked to people from the Eastern Empire.
“That’s right,” Hinata said. “They told me you killed Shizu, and you happened to be stationed in Englesia. That’s why I took the initiative to kill you.”
“Yeah. You couldn’t have picked a worse time, either. Even now, it still pisses me off when I think about it.”
Hinata shivered a bit. Arnaud and the other paladins looked similarly cowed.
“Enough coercion, you upstart brat. I can feel the Lord’s Ambition coming from you.”
Whoops! As Luminus just pointed out, a bit of my aura was leaking out. I was pretty good at keeping it perfectly under my control, but I guess it gets kind of loose whenever I’m angry.
“So,” I began after apologizing, “it’s pretty clear an Eastern merchant or merchants is behind this. Do we know any names?”
“I know one. He called himself Dahm, but I’m sure that’s an alias.”
An alias? Probably so. But the name didn’t really matter. What did matter was narrowing the culprit down to the Empire’s merchant class.
“So this merchant was connected to Clayman, and I’m willing to bet he and his people are the guys who set Farmus’s King Edmaris on us, too.”
“No, there’s no doubting that. Reyhiem made that much clear enough in our questioning.”
I nodded. “Okay, so it’s clear Clayman was controlling Farmus from behind the curtain. Not in a cooperative kind of way, either. It seems more coercive to me.”
“And you think the Eastern merchants were his boots on the ground?” Benimaru asked.
“And I suppose I was just another cog in the machine,” whispered Hinata.
I could sense her anger. The question was: Who drew up the plans?