Chapter 36
This land, once part of the Azedda Empire and now home to the Minor Nations, is fertile.
Wheat is grown extensively around the town of Jampemon, while the surrounding city-states cultivate fruit trees and various other crops.
The fact that white sauce was used in the inn's meals also suggests that livestock farming must be practiced here.
So what happens then? It means that, in addition to ordinary meals, people can eat sweets.
Put wheat, milk, butter, and fruit together, and it certainly sounds like you could make all sorts of sweets.
Honey and sugar aren't entirely unavailable, of course, but they're expensive commodities, so only small amounts are used.
To make up for that, fruit is processed into dried fruit and used to add sweetness to confections.
Speaking of sweetening things with grain, isn't it possible to make syrup from malt?
I have memories of something like that from my previous life, but... I don't know how to make it properly, so never mind.
So today, I was out sampling sweets.
My guide was Nonna, a girl from the inn.
She happened to have some free time, and when I tempted her with sweets, Nonna fell for it and came along.
Luring a ten-year-old girl with sweets would unquestionably have been a police matter in the world of my previous life.
But I'd only been in Jampemon for a week and wasn't familiar with the town, so I couldn't very well do otherwise.
Six days of work, one day of rest.
That had been my routine in Vistcoat, a town in the Kingdom of Rudoria.
I also kept each day's working hours short enough not to leave me tired the next day.
Eat well and get plenty of rest,
and take a short nap if necessary.
Since I could concentrate completely for only five or six hours a day at most, I needed to keep myself in the best possible condition so I could perform at full capacity during those hours.
Over six days, I had delivered thirty-two spearheads.
The staff at the blacksmiths' guild apparently hadn't expected me to go over thirty, so when I told them I would rest on the seventh day, relief showed on their faces.
With spearheads alone, I couldn't tell how the entire weapon would balance, so ideally I wanted to be entrusted with the whole spear. Still, there was no point complaining about the work I'd been given.
They'd probably have another job ready for me tomorrow.
"Mmm! Mmm! Delicious!"
Beaming from ear to ear, Nonna stuffed her cheeks with a cake spread with whipped cream and topped with dried fruit.
Yes, to my slight surprise, some sweets made in Jampemon were topped with whipped cream.
Of course, making sweet whipped cream required adding sugar and flavorings, which meant using a great deal of sugar and fruit juice.
In other words, it was incredibly expensive.
The cake Nonna was eating now was the sort of thing that cost a silver coin.
It was apparently her first time eating it, and she was delighted—or rather, absolutely beside herself with excitement.
Well, yes, it was delicious.
The intense sweetness after so long made me crave tea, but unfortunately, the custom of drinking it didn't seem to have spread here yet.
I took out a clean cloth and wiped the cream from the tip of Nonna's nose.
She gazed at the cream on the cloth, embarrassed yet reluctant to let it go, but even I thought licking off what I'd wiped away would be uncouth.
I quickly folded the cream-stained part inward, and only then did Nonna come to her senses, bringing the cake to her mouth as if to play it off.
Then, with another broad smile,
"Delicious!!"
she cried.
What an amusing creature.
The moment before had probably already vanished from Nonna's mind.
Her smile was so genuinely happy that I couldn't help being swept up in it.
I had thought the same thing in Saurote, a town in the Republic of Vilestrika, but having plenty of food was a good thing.
Rather than mechanically eating the same thing day after day without feeling anything, one's heart was unquestionably enriched by letting one's mood rise and fall with what was on the plate.
For example, learning the poem about a stone boat floating on a sea of golden wheat makes one's heart just a little richer.
That, perhaps, is what people call culture.
Of course, not everyone gets to enjoy that abundance.
"Hey, did you hear?"
My long ears suddenly caught the voices of shoppers across the street.
I paid attention because there was anxiety mixed into those voices.
"Apparently, the Darotte army attacked a border fortress belonging to the Kingdom of North Zaire."
North Zaire was the northernmost nation among the Minor Nations, and it had two cities.
There had once been a South Zaire as well, but it had apparently been absorbed by North Zaire and disappeared.
It was also a nation of warriors, where fighters proud of their prowess and mercenaries gathered from across the Minor Nations. Apparently, it was known as Azedda's northern wall.
By contrast, Darotte was founded by nomads who had migrated from the eastern lands and destroyed the kingdom that had existed there; it possessed a powerful cavalry.
The descendants of the nomads formed the ruling class, while the descendants of the fallen kingdom's people formed the ruled class, and the difference in status between them was enormous.
Darotte was also apparently a warlike nation that favored fighting and plunder.
Since monsters existed in this world, if they wanted to fight, they could turn their fangs on those instead. What a troublesome lot.
"There might be a call to arms for the Azedda Alliance."
The conversation ended on that note.
For now, it was merely an unverified rumor.
But if ordinary shoppers were already talking about it, the rumor must have traveled widely down from the north.
Even if not every detail was correct, there was certainly some truth behind it.
Before I knew it, Nonna was gazing at me with concern as I sat lost in thought.
"Eiser-san, is something wrong?"
To dodge her question, I cut the remaining cake in half and placed one half on Nonna's plate.
There was no reason to tell a girl of only ten about war and make her anxious.
Nonna's eyes shining with joy, she was easily placated, but I decided to ask the blacksmiths' guild for the details tomorrow.