Intermission 1: Lord Ishizuka (part 1)

Okay... on to the next document," I said.

Whether I was in the royal capital, Parnam, or the princely capital, Van, my work

as king was always the same. I stayed in the governmental affairs office, poring over

the documents Hakuya had prepared for me and signing off on them. Especially now,

with the occupation of Van having begun so recently, my workload had increased.

Letting several days worth of work accumulate so that I could produce that music

program hadn't helped. Even as I worked day and night, using my Living Poltergeists

to their fullest, the number of stacks of paper in front of me refused to decrease. In

the end, I had ended up installing a bed in the governmental affairs office of Van, too,

so that I could get back to work as soon as I woke up.

So, today, like every day, I had sat myself down at the desk the moment I got out

of bed, and I was staring down a pile of papers as the morning sunlight streamed

into the office.

"Isn't it about time you got your own room?" Liscia asked from her position

beside me, sounding a little exasperated. She had been helping me. "This castle has a

lot of rooms."

"I'm buried in work from dawn to dusk," I said. "There's not much point in having

a room if I only go back there to sleep. Honestly... just when things had finally settled

down in the kingdom, I ended up creating more work for myself by occupying Van.

It's like, to hell with the Labor Standards Act."

"What kind of nonsense are you even talking about?" Liscia asked. "Come on,

here's the next document."

"Yeah... Wait, this again?"

When I looked over the document she passed me, I slumped my shoulders.

It said, "The people of Van want to hold an outdoor music concert in the plaza. Is

it okay for us to permit that?" I had already processed several similar petitions just

today.

They were for concerts, plays, art exhibitions, calligraphy exhibitions, and

circuses, among other things. It seemed that, after seeing that broadcast, the people

of Van had awakened to the idea of expressing themselves through the arts. Yes, it

was truly...

"A renaissaaaance," I said, stretching out the word.

"...What's up? That came out of nowhere," Liscia said.

"...Nothing."

Liscia looked at me kind of funny.

Yeah, if I was going to make her laugh by saying the word funny, I was probably

going to have to introduce it to the local language first, I thought.

While the original Renaissance had come as a revival of Greek and Roman

humanism as the influence of the Christian church had declined, this one would be a

cultural revival that came from people celebrating the arts after being freed from

militarism.

"But, still... I know fall is the season for art, but this awakening is way too

sudden," I commented.

To be honest, I'd have preferred not being swamped with an endless stream of

requests for art and culture events. This city was technically under occupation, after

all. If the events drew large crowds, it was possible that conspirators could gather

there or they could be targeted by terrorists. I wished they'd put themselves in my

shoes, as the guy who had to check thoroughly to make sure that wasn't happening.

When she saw me holding my head in my hands, Liscia gave a wry smile. "You

can't blame them, really. It just means your broadcast had that much impact, right? It

seems like this sort of stuff has been being suppressed pretty heavily up until now."

"...I'll bet," I said. "I doubt a militarist state would let them express themselves."

Burning books for being slightly critical of the ruling regime, jailing people for

singing songs that called for peace, publicly executing the head of a theater troupe for

putting on a play that satirized the government... I thought. They'd probably have done

all of that without a second thought. This excitement I'm seeing is probably the recoil

from that.

"Though, thanks to that, my workload increases," I said glumly.

"No grumbling," said Liscia. "It's better than them opposing us."

"Well, yes, but... Maybe I'll set up a bureau to handle events," I said, inspiration

striking. "If I put Margarita in charge of it, I could have her handle everything to do

with entertainment."

"That's fine with me, but... you do the paperwork for it."

"Oof..."

It looked like, struggle as I might, my workload wasn't going to decrease.

Well, I'm the king, so I guess there's no helping that, huh.

I worked into the afternoon, and just as I was feeling hungry and was saying to

Liscia that we should break for lunch, the Minister for the Food Crisis, Poncho

Ishizuka Panacotta, entered the room.

Poncho walked over to stand before me, his round belly shaking as he did, then

gave a tense salute. "U-Um, Your Majesty, I was hoping I could have a moment of

your time, yes."

He was clearly anxious. He might not have looked impressive at the moment, but

Poncho here had been instrumental in solving the food crisis, and he was a man I

had hand-picked to work at my side, so he was a respected figure in the country.

That's why I wish he'd get used to standing in front of me already... I thought.

"Is something the matter?" I asked.

"Y-Yes! There is something I wanted to show you, sire, yes," Poncho said, pulling

something out of the bag he was carrying and placing it on the office desk.

"You wanted to show us... a flower?" Liscia, who was watching us, said in

confusion.

Poncho had pulled out a single flower. It looked similar to a lily. However, it had a

toxic-looking combination of pink, yellow, and brown petals.

If this were a mushroom, that'd be a clear warning not to eat it, I thought.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Y-Yes! This is a flower called a 'beguiling lily,' yes."

"Oh, okay, I know what a lily is," I said. "But what's so beguiling about it?"

"This flower's pollen has a powerful hallucinogenic effect," he explained. "It

induces anyone who inhales it into a state similar to sleepwalking. It primarily

grows in the mountains. Long ago, there was an incident where an army division

inhaled it while marching. They fell off a cliff fleeing from enemies that didn't even

exist and were wiped out as a result."

"Scary!" I exclaimed. Is it like a non-controlled drug, or something like that? "Wait,

don't bring that stuff in here!"

"I-It's fine," said Poncho. "I've already removed the pollen, yes."

"...Really? Well, as long as you're sure it's safe," I said.

"Yes," he agreed. "Besides, the pollen from one or two won't have any effect. If

you try to approach a field where hundreds of them are growing, though, even

covering your nose and mouth with a cloth won't help... Yes."

Well, yeah, short of wearing an air filtration mask, I doubt you can block out all of

the pollen, I thought. I've never had to deal with it myself, but the people with pollen

allergies look like they have a hard time even with a mask on.

"So, you wanted to show me this flower?" I prompted.

"No, the flower is merely a something of a bonus, sire. What I wanted you to see

was this." With those words, Poncho pulled out a small roundish object. This one

was... a vegetable, perhaps? It was white, round, and lumpy, like scallion bulbs or

cloves of garlic densely clumped together into something like a pine cone.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Th-This is a beguiling lily rootstalk, yes."

"The rootstalk..." I murmured. "Oh, lily root, huh!"

"Eek! ...What was that for, so suddenly?" My sudden outburst had surprised

Liscia.

I'd been excited by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a luxury

ingredient.

Hmm, so this is lily root, I thought. I've seen a single piece as an ingredient in a bowl

of chawanmushi before, but this is my first time seeing a whole bulb. It's supposed to

taste like potato, if I remember correctly.

"...Well then, Poncho Ishizuka Paramedic," I began.

"I-It's Panacotta, yes."

"Can you eat it?" I asked.

"Yes, of course you can. This root has no hallucinogenic effect, yes."

"And, how does it taste?" I asked.

"If you steam them, they're soft, flaky, and delicious. I might add, these beguiling

lilies grow all over the mountains of Amidonia."

That's good to hear, I thought. Lily root is rich in carbohydrates. It can be used as a

staple food, like potatoes. If we could harvest these, it might lead to a breakthrough in

solving the principality's food crisis.

"But with the pollen, you can't go anywhere near where they grow, right?" I

asked.

"Yes," he agreed. "And if they aren't harvested while they're releasing pollen,

toxicity builds up in their rootstalks. That's why they aren't customarily eaten in

Amidonia, yes."

"Well, that's no good, then," I said. "Even if they're edible, if you can't harvest

them, then... Wait, huh? Then how'd you get this one here?"

When I asked that, Poncho pulled out a map and pointed to an area in the

northeast of the Gran Chaos Empire.

"There is a people in the mountains of the Gran Chaos Empire who harvest the

beguiling lily and use it as their staple food. They've developed a peculiar method of

harvesting them, yes."

"What is that method?" I asked.

"They use the shoujou for it, you see, yes."

"The shoujou... They're a type of orangutan, right?" I wondered aloud, to which

Poncho nodded.

"Among the varieties of orangutan that live in the mountains, one species has a

resistance to the effects of beguiling lily pollen. It seems these orangutans regularly

dig up the rootstalks and eat them. The mountain people of the Empire have trained

these orangutans to do the harvesting for them."

I see, so like the cormorants used in cormorant fishing, huh, I thought. Taming them

would normally be the hard part, but... we have an expert in that field in our country.

"Are those orangutans here in Amidonia, too?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "It seems they live in the mountains near Van, too. I already have

Tomoe negotiating with them for us. The shoujou are famous for their love of

alcohol, so I suspect they'll happily work for us if we give them a barrel once in a

while in lieu of money, yes."

"...It's good to see that you work so quickly," I said.

Not only do we have the Rhinosaurus Preserve, now we're making the Van Ape

Army, too, huh, I thought. At this rate, I could turn Elfrieden into a literal animal

kingdom. Ha ha ha...

"...Hey, Liscia," I said.

"What?" she asked.

"If you think this policy is too crazy, you're welcome to stop it, okay?"

"...Don't look to me to make that decision."

Liscia turned away, refusing to have anything to do with this.