“Okay, here’s to our future friendship. Cheers!”
“““Cheers!!”””
We also had more fresh-cooked rice, the big hit of the previous day’s feast. Ignore the black color, of course. My beloved white rice would just go to waste on these guys. Hinata was staring longingly at my personal rice bowl last night, though, so I gave her a serving—from one otherworlder to another. When it comes to rice, plain white is where it’s at, although I’m no stranger to assorted seasonings, too. I was also getting some rice in from Blumund that I had them test out for me, but it still needed some improvement. It was a wholly different beast from the white rice before me.
“White rice, though… Don’t you find this almost selfish, in a way?”
I wasn’t sure what Hinata was complaining about. Her voice was even shaking a little. What was she, jealous?
“Well, if you don’t like it, I’ll be glad to take it away—”
“I’m not talking about that,” she snapped back, protecting her bowl with her life. Geez, don’t get too worked up about this crap. Not that I’d say that to her. “I just mean… Being able to so perfectly re-create food from that other world? It’s more exasperating than surprising, in a way. I can’t believe you’ve created such a life of luxury for yourself, in the space of just two years. Just casually achieving all these things none of us ever would’ve hoped to manage…”
“Hey, praise me all you want. I’m here all night.”
“Don’t be stupid. I mean, I heard stories about you from Yuuki, but I took them all with a grain of salt. He was just relaying the reports he heard from his spies, after all. But this…” She shrugged. “I don’t think I’d ever believe it if I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. I was nowhere near the finish line.
“Well, I’m far from done yet. Transport’s still super-slow, and it takes forever to transmit information from one place to the other. With magic, though, it was straightforward enough to improve our food and living conditions, more or less.”
“More or less…? That’s how you describe re-creating all this delicious food? You realize it makes you sound like you’re ridiculing all our hard work and sweat up to now?!”
I managed to set her off again. But really, if I was satisfied with this, then I’d never develop things any further. I’m a king, pretty much, and a king needs to be at least a little greedy. Not “king” so much as demon lord, but same difference.
“Well, I mean, we’re pretty good in the forest food-wise, you know? The real issue is the culture. There’s just way too little entertainment. I want to build the foundation for things like…you know, manga. Like what Veldora’s reading.”
“Entertainment? Do you realize how harsh a world this is? A world where the majority of people have to fight tooth and nail to see another day?”
“Yeah, I know. And that’s why we’re gonna make sure monsters and things are no longer a threat. I mean, I’m just gonna come out and say this ’cause there’s no point hiding it, but we’re trying to install Yohm as king, build a new kingdom from his domain, and use that to draw the Western Nations into our sphere of influence.”
“Just what exactly are you planning? I’d like to know more details.”
Does she? Well, let’s tell her.
“I’m thinking about a lot, actually. For starters…”
I pecked at the hot pot as I explained my vision of the future to her.
Our current project involved getting the human world to recognize us, and this was already halfway done, with the leaders of many nations aware of who I was. I’d received reports of apparent spies going in and out of Tempest, so I’d taken a few measures to show them how harmless we were. The merchants and adventurers were spreading rumors of their own, and before long, even the common people would know we could coexist with them. It’d take time for that to really take root, yes, but we were on the path. No need to hurry it along.
After that came our road infrastructure. This was also well underway, as we had worked to build safe, efficient trade routes across our territory. Highways to Blumund and the Dwarven Kingdom were now open, and plans were in progress for a new road linking us to the Sorcerous Dynasty of Thalion. There were no paved roads to Eurazania at the moment, so I thought we could tackle that afterward.
Running in parallel with all this was experimentation with communication methods. I didn’t know how radios and stuff worked, so I had to give up on that. Raphael could tell me if I asked, but I didn’t have the brainpower to help everyone else understand it. Kaijin and the three dwarven brothers might, maybe, but I didn’t want to rely on them for everything. Thus, I decided to leave that issue to the next generation and build schools to provide education for our children. These were simple one-room affairs for now, but I was having them learn basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Before long, I intended to bring in some humans to provide more in-depth instruction.
But getting back to the subject, the communication crystals that served the world now could only be used by the magically inclined. They were magical items themselves, which meant they were vulnerable to theft. That was hardly a theoretical problem, and more to the point, if you needed to send out an emergency message,
