“What? The salt is not being delivered?”

　　After hearing the complaint at the morning meeting, Aura raised one eyebrow and inquired again in a serious tone while remaining seated on her throne.

　　She was in a small room at the very heart of the royal palace.

　　The only window of the room, through which the sunrays shone in, was positioned far higher up than a person’s height and barred, so the interior was wrapped in dimness, It regularly hosted important discussions, which decided the Kingdom’s future.

　　An imposing and long table stood in the centre of the relative small, square room and various wooden chairs were arranged around it.

　　As the Queen, Aura naturally sat at the short head of the table. Secretary Fabio stood at attention behind her and was merely allowed to be present, but not to sit down, much less to speak up.

　　The only people, who were allowed to speak up in this place, were these with the t.i.tle of either a “minister” or “general”.

　　“Elaborate, Marquis Guzzle.”

　　Addressed by Aura, the man sitting little short of the opposite of the table, stood up with the short exclamation “very well”.

　　Marquis Guzzle was past his middle age. His skin was rather brown, even for a citizen of the Carpa Kingdom, and wrinkled from age here and there, but one could tell from his smooth movement as he stood up from the chair, or from his stout neck that he kept the senility away through harsh training even now.

　　Vigorous despite his age, the experienced soldier reported with a low voice that complied with his corpulent physique, which had a close resemblance to a rugby player.

　　“The day before yesterday, a ‘small flying dragon’ reached me from my son, whom I left in charge of the march. It said that the current salt supply still had not arrived seven days after the arranged time. The stock in the region will last for another three months. As my deputy, my son requests to be allowed to send our army to the ‘Salt Road’ and probe the cause of it.

　　And if I may add, I agree with him.”

　　After he had finished his concise report with a fluent way of speaking, Marquis Guzzle sat down again with the same smooth movement untypical for his age as when he stood up.

　　The March of Guzzle was a domain that bordered on another country. As the domain had no coasts, nor underground rock salt deposits, the essential salt had to be imported from elsewhere. The ‘Salt Road’ referred to a “state road”, which a previous King had decreed some generations before, so that the enormous amount of required salt could be transported trouble-free to all the domains within the Kingdom.

　　Accordingly, Marquis Guzzle’s statement didn’t meet with full approval.

　　“I object. Of course it’s a serious matter that the salt isn’t delivered to your domain and I have no objections to send soldiers out to ensure the safety on the road. However, that’s not a responsibility for your army, but rather for the royal army.”

　　The one, who opposed downright aggressively like that, was General Puyol.

　　Amongst the a.s.sembled people here, General Puyol was the youngest member after Queen Aura as he was in his early thirties, but even though the Marquis could be his father age-wise, he wasn’t the least bit daunted and openly stated his own opinion.

　　And his notion was by no means wrong.

　　The “Salt Road” was a state road, so sending out troops to maintain its security basically fell within the scope of the royal army.

　　However, Marquis Guzzle showed no signs to back off, either.

　　“Yes, you’re right, General Puyol. I, too, acknowledge that the ‘Salt Road’ belongs to the Kingdom. But taking prior incidents into account, I would say it’s quite likely that the cause for the delay in the salt transport is the increase in numbers of the ‘Meat Dragons’ appearing alongside the road.

　　In that case, it’s necessary to send soldiers to the forest and gra.s.sland around the road and kill the meat dragons that attack people. And as it happens, that forest and gra.s.sland belong to my domain.”

　　Reasoning with this theory of his, he took on the young general’s gaze head-on.

　　“…..”

　　“…..”

　　Aura watched how the young and aged military officers openly glare at each other face to face, which was a rare occurrence amongst confrontations between higher n.o.bles, from her seat and sighed inwardly while she outwardly kept her composure.

　　(How troublesome. Although it is nothing new that the feudal landowners are reluctant about letting the royal army into their domains and neither is it surprising that Puyol Guillèn wants to march out with the army for some achievements…)

　　Lost in thought, Aura recalled the fact that Marquis Guzzle had lost two of his sons in the previous war.

　　His eldest son, a candidate for succeeding him, and his second son, who had made a name for himself on the battlefield, had fallen in battle.

　　The “son”, who was currently acting as his proxy at home, ought to be his third and only living son. She had heard that he was born rather late and wasn’t even in his twenties yet.

　　Considering that, it made sense that the Marquis insisted upon settling this case with his own army.

　　(Most likely, he wants his son to get an ‘achievement fit for a heir’ in a relatively harmless incident.)

　　When the failed delivery of the salt was indeed caused by “Meat Dragons” on the road, like the Marquis a.s.sumed, then their subjugation wasn’t all that difficult.

　　An escort of abnormal size for a merchant accompanied the salt merchants, who were practically a public undertaking, but even so, their combat power was nothing but brittle and paled in comparison to the army.

　　It was pretty unlikely that the army of the Marquis would be defeated by wild dragons, even if it was led by his third son, who had nearly no combat experience.

　　In short, it was a “beneficial” obstacle spot-on for someone who sought achievements.

　　As a matter of course, it was all based on their a.s.sumed premise that the average meat dragon was the cause for the non-delivery of the salt, but the circ.u.mstantial evidences pointed to it, too.

　　Aura mused for a while.

　　The merit and demerit from leaving this case to the army of the Marquis. And the merit and demerit from dispatching the royal army for it.

　　She quickly balanced the minimum profits and losses in her head and called out to the glaring officers with a resolute voice from the side.

　　“Alright, Marquis Guzzle.”

　　“Yes.”

　　Upon the Queen’s words, the veteran officer immediately took his eyes off General Puyol to look at Aura and lowered his head respectfully.

　　Looking at the top of his head that started to go bald, the Queen continued with a flat voice.

　　“I shall accept your proposal. Solve this incident under your jurisdiction. Once you do so commendable, I shall reward you appropriately for your service.”

　　Her a.s.sertion also equalled that “she would pay for everything later, including all necessity expenses, but he would have to a.s.sume responsibility for when he failed”. Still, Marquis Guzzle considered it as a complete granting of his important request.

　　“Yes, as you command! I will not fail you.”

　　As the veteran officer lowered his head in obedience, Aura kept her arms crossed under her chest and nodded acknowledging, then

　　“Good. Ah, one more thing, I personally will bestow the reward to your son for his achievement. He will have to come to the capital, so bear that in mind.”

　　she added in a casual tone.

　　On the other hand, Marquis Guzzle couldn’t keep his composure after being told that. He trembled his body with a s.h.i.+ver and reflexively wrinkled the s.p.a.ce between his thick eyebrows.

　　Well, it was more than understandable.

　　The Queen’s intention was obvious. The “reward” wasn’t a symbolic medal or the like. It also involved the subsequent payment of all the acc.u.mulated expenses for resources used during the subjugation and wages for the soldiers. It would normally take a few months of negotiations to arrive at an agreement for this enormous amount of “reward” money, if not more than half a year.

　　Due to that, Marquis Guzzle’s son would have to stay in the capital for a few months to around half a year.

　　Aura’s aim must have been to cultivate his sense of belonging to the Kingdom by inviting him to the capital while he was still young, seeing as the n.o.bles from remote regions had a strong sense of independence.

　　Nevertheless, the royal family was extremely powerful in the Carpa Kingdom, so it was by no means a bad deal to establish a link to the royal family, even for the n.o.bility of a rural domain. If anything, it was essential to preserve the family.

　　The problem was the right dosage. Not too close to be swallowed by the royal family, but not too distant to be alienated by the royal family. That a boy still in his teens would have such a delicate sensibility was inconceivable, even to the biased eyes of a father.

　　However, the concern about it wasn’t so profound that he would complicate matters here by refusing the Queen’s proposition.

　　Besides, it lowered the chances of Aura grudging them the reward payment, when she tried to influence his son. And since the domain was still recovering from the previous war, that was rather welcome.

　　Marquis Guzzle quickly collected his thoughts.

　　“…Understood. There surely is a lot my son can learn in the capital. Thank you very much for your thoughtfulness.”

　　In the end, he replied like that and lowered his head respectfully.

　　* * *

　　While Queen Aura was making important decisions at the morning meeting, Zenjirou, left alone in the inner palace, was typing on his keyboard of his computer in the corner of the living room while the fan blew around a cold breeze.

　　“Good, that should do.”

　　Sitting on the chair, he put his hands together and stretched his arms over his head to relax his body.

　　The screen of the computer displayed the spreadsheet software program from his salaryman days.

　　A stack of dragon skin parchment he had gotten from Aura laid untidy on the left side of the keyboard. It was the table for the “tax yield of this year“.

　　For a few days, he had continued to enter the data into the spreadsheet and today he finally finished the task.

　　All that was left now was to reread the whole thing at least three time in search for any mistakes, but it was a good point to pause for now.

　　After craning his neck and taking a deep breath, Zenjirou looked at the digitalized tax table again.

　　“That’s a lot of red though…”

　　Just like in the previous case, the blue colour on the spreadsheet symbolized “a number with error by surplus”, whereas the red colour symbolized “a number with error by shortfall”. A lot of red numbers indicated that the reported tax yields were often too little compared to the estimated yield.

　　Of course some cases were simple cases of miscalculations, but the majority was a deliberate adulteration.

　　“Mm, might as well make it easier to understand.”

　　Looking at the screen, he implemented an idea that he had suddenly thought of.

　　It was nothing complicated. Right next to the amount of the tax yields from the dragonskin parchment and the amount of the tax yields recalculated by the program, he simply added a row that displayed the difference between the two values and when that difference was over ten percent, it showed a clearly distinguishable ▲ symbol.

　　The task was done in no time. He wrote a simple function into one cell and then clicked the right bottom corner of the cell with the mouse and dragged it down to the very bottom of the spreadsheet, whereupon the function was copied to all the cells in the vertical row.

　　Looking at the newly displayed data, Zenjirou knitted his eyebrows and groaned.

　　“Uwah, still so many ▲, even though I narrowed it down. Fudging more than ten percent can‘t be shrugged off as a simple miscalculation or careless mistake anymore.“

　　Or more precisely, the incompetence of the officials would be a far greater problem than a small mistake in the tax yields, when they “unknowingly made mistakes” over ten percent in the amount of the tax.

　　Last year, Aura had cracked down on it once to some degree, but apparently it hadn’t been enough to decrease the tax evasion, which had already become a routine.

　　“Aura sure has it tough… Wait, it’s about time I stop treating it like it doesn’t concern me.”

　　Zenjirou reminded himself.

　　One year had already pa.s.sed since he came into this world and he had started to appear at official events as Aura’s proxy. He couldn’t be a “good-for-nothing sponger” forever. Although it wasn’t often, he did appear in public and plunged into higher society, so he was tied down to the obligation called social a.s.sociation.

　　Even if Aura had gotten back on the stage after safely giving birth, Zenjirou had difficulties to resume his complete shut-in lifestyle at this point.

　　That said, it might only be his own mentality that didn’t allow that.

　　To begin with, Zenjirou had spent an average life, normally attending school up to university and not causing any serious problems later in his job, either. He never really had an “apt.i.tude to shut himself away”.

　　Once he had resolved to move over to this world, the leisure days after he quit his job had certainly been attractive to no end.

　　However, it had only been appealing to him because he had been mentally worn out at that time from the continued, knee-deep mora.s.s called overtime h.e.l.l.

　　Although his body and soul had been exhausted by overwork for three years, Zenjirou was still only in his twenties.

　　The physical exhaustion completely went away after three days of rest and the mental exhaustion also naturally healed after a month away from work.

　　For a while, there hadn’t been any problems.

　　There had been various major events such as transferring into a different world, marrying a beautiful woman perfect to his liking and even making a baby with her, so time had pa.s.sed in the blink of an eye.

　　On top of that, there was his mountainous stock of DVDs of soccer games and TV series such as dramas, which he had brought with him from the other world.

　　Without pretending, he had genuinely perceived the “leisure days of just sleeping, eating, watching DVD and playing games” as “fulfilling” at first.

　　The problem was that his values didn’t let him perceive this situation as “fulfilling” forever.

　　“Guess it’s about time I ask for more work. My magic studies take up a lot of my time right now, but once that’s over, I’ll have too much spare time.”

　　Still sitting in front of the computer, Zenjirou spoke out his state of mind.

　　Matters had settled down around him.

　　The exhaustion had completely faded from his body and soul.

　　Even so, things didn‘t change from before. Only a few duties were entrusted to him and his allowed area of activities was still limited.

　　To be frank, he had started to feel quite out of place.

　　In the end, Zenjirou’s value were j.a.panese to the core, seeing as he felt guilty about his unproductive lifestyle all on his own, even though n.o.body was rebuking him about it.

　　He wasn’t a workaholic, whose job was his reason d’être and whose calling was to be a working gear of society, but nevertheless, he wasn’t so obtuse, either, that he could unconditionally put up with the current situation, where his necessities of life were provided without having to work.

　　“Well, I can’t really stand out as her husband, but as long as all the official work is liaised with Aura, there’s no problem. I want to try out various things.”

　　At present, Zenjirou was making an effort towards the refinement of “hard liquors”.

　　Knowing that this world only had ale and fruit wine, which had an extremely low alcohol content, Zenjirou had brought along a distillery for household use from his world.

　　It used a hotplate as the heat source and automatically regulated the temperature, so even a layman could hardly fail at it.

　　Nevertheless, it was merely for household use after all. The amount from one distillation was little and at the present time, he could only make enough to indulge himself in it, but Aura had shown a deep interest in it.

　　The Carpa Kingdom had no culture of distilled beverage, but there was a number of people, who liked alcohol. Even the flat distillate made by a layman had a definite worth just due to its overwhelming concentration and intensity.

　　The theory behind making distilled beverage was rather simple.

　　The boiling point of water was approximately hundred degree. On the other hand, the boiling point of ethanol was weaker: at around eighty degree.

　　To sum it up with rough words: an alcoholic drink was a mixture of water and ethanol and when it was boiled for a long period at a temperature above eighty but below hundred degree, the ethanol primarily vaporized from the liquor, thus making an extraction possible.

　　Afterwards, the vaporized ethanol had to be gathered without letting it escape and liquefied again. The result was a liquid with an extremely high concentration of ethanol— a hard liquor.

　　Of course it was impossible to completely separate the water and the ethanol when a layman just relied on a thermometer to control the temperature, since the water and ethanol had a troublesome phenomenon called “azeotrope”, but by repeating the progress numerous times, the distillate gradually got a higher alcohol content.

　　Zenjirou himself had claimed that “the current goal was to enhance it to a burnable level”, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was gradually drifting away from the original objective.

　　Alcohol on the level, where it could be used as fuel, was not only too intense, but also tasteless and dry, so n.o.body would normally drink it.

　　Nevertheless, a highly concentrated alcohol had a great utility value, so a working refinement method would undoubtedly contribute to the Kingdom’s development.

　　“After that, soap, I guess. Wait, no, that’s still fine for now, but the shampoo and rinse are running low. I somewhat underestimated the amount a woman with long hair needs.”

　　Deep in thought, Zenjirou was sitting in front of the computer, crossed his arms and groaned.

　　The majority of articles he had brought over from his world, starting with the electronic appliances, were “reusable”. The quant.i.ty of consumable goods he could bring with him was rather insignificant, so it had been a natural decision.

　　However, despite knowing this, Zenjirou had made an exception for consumable bath utensils, bringing as much as possible of them.

　　Solid soap for cleaning the body. Facial cleansing. And shampoo plus rinse for was.h.i.+ng hair.

　　The solid soap posed no problem. He had brought a large amount of it to begin with and since he always made sure to take the soap along when he left the bathroom after using it, so that it didn’t dissolve naturally, the stock would still last for quite a while.

　　The pressing problem were the shampoo and rinse.

　　Zenjirou kept his hair rather short, even for a man, so his estimation had been rather naive in regards to how much shampoo and rinse his beloved wife would need to cleanly wash her proud, long hair that reached down to her waist.

　　“At this rate, the shampoo will be gone before the year is over. I technically downloaded instructions to make soap and shampoo from the internet, but…”

　　He had no experience of making soap, much less shampoo.

　　Furthermore, the recipes he found princ.i.p.ally needed “sodium hydroxide” or “commercial soap without additives”, which both were said to be unattainable in this world.

　　He also had a recipe for a more primitive method, which used ash and oil, but judging by the overall nuance of it, the production seemed more difficult compared to using “sodium hydroxide”.

　　In addition to that, the soap made in that way couldn’t be used right away after its completion.

　　There was also no insignificant amount of confirmed cases of a layman making soap with half-baked knowledge, where the detergence was too strong and dried out the skin or unforeseen components got mixed in and caused pain or itching.

　　Nonetheless, Zenjirou wasn’t willing to compromise as far as the bath was concerned, even though he usually avoided to be demanding.

　　“I’ll use the first attempt to clean my hands and see how it turns out. And I’ll test the shampoo on some animals first… wait, that’s no good. The livestock here are all reptiles and don’t have any fur…”

　　While mumbling troubled to himself, his voice got tinged with a serious tone, which was pretty much never heard from him.

　　* * *

　　Aura still had more work to do after the morning meeting.

　　The meeting concluded and she relocated into her office in the palace, bringing only Secretary Fabio with her.

　　“…Fuh.”

　　Sitting down on the chair made out of vines and wood, which could be called a temporary throne, in the office, Aura made a big sigh to relieve herself of the tension.

　　She held the belief that as a Queen, she was used to negotiations and coordinations with higher n.o.bles, but she still felt a bit drained in body and soul when she was making important decisions, which involved “dispatching an army” like this time.

　　However, as the Queen, she was in no position to leisurely wait until her exhaustion had softened.

　　“Fabio, draw up a paper.”

　　Aura corrected her seating posture, took a dragonskin parchment out of the drawer of the desk and ordered the secretary like that.

　　“Yes. Please give me a moment.”

　　Taking that parchment, Secretary Fabio headed to his personal desk in the corner of the room with smooth steps and skilfully ran the dragon bone quill over the paper.

　　“…..”

　　The veteran secretary drew up the doc.u.ment in no time and returned to Aura with the just finished draft in hand.

　　“There you are, Your Highness. Please sign it after verifying it.”

　　Saying so, Fabio placed the newly written doc.u.ment onto Aura’s desk.

　　The contents written on the dragonskin parchment pertained to “the approval of the military operation in the domain for the army of Marquis Guzzle, the order to investigate the incident on the salt road as well as the order to eliminate its cause.”

　　By handing this doc.u.ment to Marquis Guzzle, he obtained the lawful authority to send his own army onto the “Salt Road”, which was formally stated-owned land, and the right to demand a “reward for settling the incident” from the Kingdom later on.

　　“…Looks good.”

　　After Aura had read through the whole paper twice and confirmed that there was nothing wrong, she put her sign at the bottom with her ball pen, versed as always.

　　The crest of the Carpa Royal Family (an opened door + a hourgla.s.s, where the sand was flowing upwards) was branded onto the parchment from the start, so Aura just had to sign there with her own hand-writing to make it an official doc.u.ment.

　　Needless to say, these pre-branded parchments were strictly safekept and anyone, who took one without Aura’s permission, got the death penalty as a matter of principle.

　　“Well then, Your Highness, shall I deliver the doc.u.ment to Marquis Guzzle now?”

　　Secretary Fabio asked verifying, whereat Aura shook her head at once.

　　“No, that would take too much time. An incident on the Salt Road is a serious matter for our Kingdom. I personally will ‘send off’ the doc.u.ment along with the messenger. Tell Marquis Guzzle that he shall select a messenger from his subordinates.”

　　She was going to send the messenger with the doc.u.ment directly to the March of Guzzle with her “teleportation” magic.

　　Being able to do that was one of the fortes of the Carpa Kingdom. A different country would have had to circ.u.mvent the blocked Salt Road by transporting the doc.u.ment through a relay of raptorial dragons or in the worst case, break through the blocked road with a sufficient escort (definitely can’t use a “small flying dragon” for an official doc.u.ment).

　　As a major power with vast lands, the Carpa Kingdom could exceptionally keep the power of the feudal lords in the border domains in check to a certain extent, because of this very “teleportation” magic.

　　Likewise, if the incident this time had happened in a different country, then the usual pattern was that Marquis Guzzle would have dispatched his army at his own discretion and reported only the results to the central government at a later time after informally taking care of it.

　　Just as the Twin Kingdom of Sharrow and Jilbell ruled the country under the premise of the “Magic Tools” from the Sharrow Family and the “Healing Magic” from the Jilbell Family, the Carpa Kingdom, too, was const.i.tuting itself under the premise of the “s.p.a.ce-Time Magic”.

　　Going by that, it should be understandable why it was seen as problematic that Queen Aura was currently the only pract.i.tioner of the “s.p.a.ce-Time Magic”. In the same way it was only natural that concubine offers were persistently brought up to Zenjirou, who had a latent potential for the said power.

　　“Very well. I will inform the Marquis accordingly. However, is that really all right?”

　　Bowing briefly, Secretary Fabio asked somewhat suggestive while he tucked the parchment into a wooden cylinder after ascertaining, if all the ink on the paper had dried.

　　“What is?”

　　The usual, huh?

　　Even while the irritation was plainly visible on her face, Aura didn’t take offence at it and urged her secretary to speak up.

　　The middle-aged secretary frankly phrased his words without so much as reacting to the sharp glance of the Queen.

　　“I mean the actual decree. In my opinion, the ‘Salt Road’ justifies the deployment of the royal army more than enough and I deem it unnecessary to have allowed Marquis Guzzle to deploy his army.”

　　The statement from the secretary was exactly what Aura had expected.

　　At any given opportunity, the middle-aged secretary with the slender face would deliberate take up a stance contrary to hers. Sometimes he did so after the decision was made, like this time, and sometimes he brought about a quarrel before the decision was made.

　　Of course he wasn’t stating it because he thought that his opinion was correct from the bottom of his heart.

　　His aim was rather to stir her thinking and incite her to come up with other alternatives. What was more, the conversation with him before a decision let her simulate how someone could oppose her during the meeting for that decision.

　　He was a useful man. That was out of the question. He certainly was, but…