"Are they really edible?" someone asked.
"Well, the king and the others seemed to be enjoying them," another person
responded.
"I think I'm going to request a gelin capture quest at the adventurers' guild."
"Oh, me too, then."
It seems there were conversations like this in fountain plazas everywhere.
"Elfrieden's signature dish is gelin." Who could have predicted that people would
be saying that in the not-too-distant future?
◇ ◇ ◇
"Now then, on to our last ingredient. I have something already cooked and
prepared."
When we saw what was inside the container Poncho opened after saying that...
""""Uwah...""""
...was our universal response.
Because inside it were "insects." What was more, this sort of dish existed in my
world... In Japan even, as well.
"This is inago no tsukudani, isn't it?" I asked.
"Yes. This is large locust tsukudani."
"Yeah... They certainly are large."
With the inago no tsukudani I remembered, each one was about the size of a
cricket. With these, on the other hand, each one was the size of a kuruma prawn.
Though the color suggests they have that spicy-sweet flavor boiled into them and
have the flavor properly seeped all the way in... Wait? Tsukudani?
"If these are tsukudani," I said, "that means..."
"Huh? Souma, you're going to eat them?"
Since I had suddenly stabbed my fork into one of the big locusts, Liscia was now
looking at me, shocked. Fair enough; they did look like the sort of thing you'd
normally hesitate to eat. If I were more calm, I might have eaten it a bit more timidly.
But, right now, there was something I was more interested to find out.
Munch, munch...
"?!"
The texture was like shrimp with the shell on, but there was something more
important.
This taste... there's no mistaking it!
"This tsukudani... is made with soy sauce!"
"Soy sauce?"
Soy sauce.
Yes, soy sauce.
The flavor of the Japanese heart.
You can't have sashimi or nimono without it. It's the magic sauce that can turn
ramen, hamburg steak, spaghetti, and any other foreign dish into a "Japanese" one. It
was the flavor I had probably longed for most since coming to this country. The
mystic sauce that, due to its fermentation process, I couldn't recreate as easily as I
had mayonnaise. Now, a dish made with it lay before my very eyes! Locusts or not,
they were looking like fine cuisine to me.
"What? No way, Souma, are you crying?" Liscia exclaimed.
"How can I not?! This is... the taste of my homeland."
"The taste of your homeland..."
"Brother, they have large locust tsukudani in your homeland, too?"
When I looked over, Tomoe was crunching away at the large locust tsukudani
and clearly enjoying them. Come to think of it, when everyone else had been
recoiling in shock, this kid had been the only one who was unsurprised.
"Could it be, this dish is..." I said.
"Yes. I ate it a lot back in the mystic wolf village."
"Then do the mystic wolves make soy sauce?!"
"Soy sauce... do you mean hishio water, maybe?"
"Hishio water?"
"Hishio water is a sauce that the mystic wolves are fond of using, yes," Poncho
jumped in to explain. "Originally, the mystic wolves would coat soybeans in salt and
allow them to ferment, creating a sauce called 'bean hishio.' When they take the
clear liquid that is created in that process and let it ferment, that produces hishio
water. Both are sauces with a unique flavor not found in this country, yes."
"I see."
After that explanation, I was certain of it. I had read in a book somewhere that
soy sauce was born from the process of making miso. So, basically, bean hishio was
miso and hishio water was soy sauce. (The reason I didn't hear those words as miso
and soy sauce may have been because they were similar to, but distinctly different
from, modern soy sauce.) Maybe the mystic wolves had eating habits similar to the
Japanese... Wait, hold on. This flavor permeating through the locust is...
"Hey, Tomoe. Alcohol is used in making these, too, right?"
"Ah, yes. It's an alcohol made from the seeds of a plant."
"What kind of seeds?"
"Let's see... It's a plant that grows in marshy areas, it has ears that look like the
end of a broom, and on them, there are lots of little seeds like with wheat."
No doubt about it! Those are rice plants! My hope for the future!
For the transition from cash crops to food crops, I had wanted to grow rice,
because I had heard that paddy fields didn't degrade the fertility of the soil, unlike
wheat in dry fields, but because the all-important rice plants didn't exist in this
country, that plan had ground to a halt.
Now I see. It grows further north, huh? I'd very much like to bring some here and
try cultivating it. Still, these mystic wolves... Between the soy sauce, miso, and now rice,
their race has a lot of the things I've been wanting.
I paused.
"Okay, that settles it! I'll give the mystic wolves among the refugees a district in
Parnam."
"Whaaaa?!" Tomoe exclaimed.
I wanted them to produce this bean hishio and hishio water there. We had plenty
of soybeans, since we had planted them as part of the soil restoration process.
"Hold on, Souma, are you serious?!" Liscia seemed confused and flustered, but I
was as serious as serious gets.
"With soy sauce and miso... I mean, hishio water and bean hishio, I can recreate
most of the dishes from the country I came from. It sounds like there's rice here, too.
Don't you want to try the tasty foods of another world?"
"Th-That's..."
"Yes! I really want to try them!" Aisha raised her hand with gusto.
"Ha ha... while they may not feel as strongly as Aisha, I'm sure our people would
like to try them. If I publish the recipes, they'll either gather the ingredients and
make them themselves, or go to a restaurant that serves them, I'm sure. Either way,
it will cause a lot of movement in the economy."
Huge market liquidity would bring prosperity to this country. That, I firmly
believed. That was why I said this to the people watching:
"My search for the gifted is still ongoing. If people have a gift, I will use them even
if they are refugees. This race has superior food production techniques, so I have no
reason not to accept them. Oh, I know... For the next five years, I will grant the
mystic wolves a monopoly on bean hishio and hishio water. We will clamp down on
illicit production by any other parties. However, five years from now, I will lift the
monopoly on bean hishio and hishio water to create a free market, so I recommend
the mystic wolves create a firm economic base for themselves in that time. That is
all."
◇ ◇ ◇
After this pronouncement, a mystic wolf quarter was built in the capital Parnam,
and bean hishio and hishio water were produced there with assistance from the
country.
In this world, there had been many cases where refugees had been given a
district of their own and it had turned into a slum. That was because the refugees
faced economic limitations (lack of jobs, being used for cheap labor, and more) and
struggled with poverty.
However, in the case of the mystic wolves, because they had been given a
monopoly on bean hishio and hishio water by the king, they were able to build an
economic base for themselves, and so their quarter did not turn into a slum, instead
becoming an integrated part of the capital by the time the five-year limit was up.
Furthermore, even after bean hishio and hishio water had been renamed to
"miso" and "soy sauce" and the monopoly had ended, they continued to study it. The
miso and soy sauce that the mystic wolves put out under the Kikkoro brand, marked
with a hexagonal logo with a wolf in the center, would continue to be loved for a long
time after that.
◇ ◇ ◇
Cheery background music and the soft voice of Juna Doma echoed through the
fountain plaza.
"Now, it is time for this program, The King's Brillunch, to come to a close. How did
you feel about hosting, Poncho?"
"Y-Yes. If my knowledge has been able to help our countrymen in the slightest,
that would make me very happy. Still, I think hosting was too great a burden for me,
yes. Please, have someone else take my place next time."
"I wonder, will there be a next time? What do you say, sire?" June asked.
"If the people demand it."
"Well, there you have it. I hope they do demand it, Poncho."
"I-I don't think I want there to be a demand for me, yes!"
"Oh, don't say that. Do this with me again sometime!" Juna cried in a singsong
tone.
"Eeek! Please, spare me!" he yelped.
"Now then, thank you all for watching. This is your hosts, Juna Doma..."
"...and Poncho Ishizuka Panacotta, signing off, yes."
"Now everyone, I bid you good day."
The music cut out, and the video faded away. It seemed that the program had
ended.
From here and there around the plaza, sighs could be heard.
"Aww... It's over, huh."
"That was more interestin' than I expected. Wish I coulda watched it a bit longer."
"Yeppers. It don't hafta be every day, but I do hope they'll make the broadcasts
semi-regular."
"If there's demand, they'll do more, yeah? Well, how's about we send in a request
to the Congress of the People?"
"Oh! Now that there's an idea that wouldn't've occurred to me! I'm gonna go talk
to the mayor about it right now."
Conversations like this one happened in towns everywhere.
The people were completely taken with this new form of entertainment called
the "variety program." Souma had intended it as an "information program" about the
food crisis, but with Juna and Poncho playing off one another, the cooking programlike aspects, and pretty girls squealing over and then eating bizarre ingredients, you
couldn't blame them for seeing it that way.
Later, the Congress of the People submitted a "request for the regular holding of
Jewel Voice Broadcast programs." With Souma's assent, a time for a public broadcast
that would take place every evening was established.
There were those who took a different view of this from society at large.
"When the new king suddenly took the throne, I suspected usurpation, but that
young king seems to be a surprisingly affable fellow," said one old man.
"You're right," another responded. "I can see why King Albert chose to abdicate in
favor of him."
"The princess seemed to be in good spirits, too. I had suspected she was forced
into the betrothal."
"They were very natural together. They didn't seem to be on bad terms."
"Ho, ho, ho, we may have an heir by next year, I reckon."
"A child between the wise and gentle king and the dignified princess, huh. The
next generation will be one to look forward to."
"It really will. Ho, ho, ho."
The old men laughed quietly together.
A wise and gentle king... that was how they had evaluated Souma. However,
about half of that evaluation was wrong.
Souma was not purely a gentle king.