Chapter 43

"Wait, what? The salt hasn't arrived?"

At the morning council, upon hearing the complaint, Aura, who was seated comfortably on her throne, raised one eyebrow and sternly repeated the question.

This small room is located deep within the palace, almost at the very back. In this dimly lit room, with only a small, barred window much lower than a person's height to let in sunlight, important matters concerning the nation's future are regularly discussed.

In the center of this not-so-large rectangular room, a heavy, long table is placed, with several wooden chairs attached around it. Naturally, Aura, the queen, sits at the head of the table, on the short side. Fabio, the secretary, who stands behind her, is only permitted to be in the room and has no right to sit or speak.

The only people who have the right to sit in the chairs and speak in this room are those with the titles of 'Minister' or 'General.'

"Tell me the details, Lord Gazir."

Called by Aura, the man sitting near the end of the table stood up with a short "Hai."

Lord Gazir is an elderly man. His particularly dark brown skin, which is common among the people of the Kingdom of Kaupa, is etched with a few wrinkles from his age, but his steady movements as he stood up and his thick neck suggest that he continues to ward off the decline of old age through rigorous training.

The old warrior, whose thick, rugby player-like build suits his deep, resonant voice, reported.

"Two days ago, I received a 'small flying dragon' from my son, who is in charge of the territory. It seems that the salt for this season has not arrived, even seven days past the scheduled date. The salt reserves in the territory are roughly enough for three months. As the acting lord, my son has sent his troops to the 'Salt Road' and is seeking permission to remove the cause of the delay.

To add, I am in agreement with my son."

Having conveyed the information succinctly and without hesitation, Lord Gazir sat down with the same steady, ageless movements as when he stood up.

Lord Gazir's territory is a borderland located on the border with other countries. Lacking both a coastline and salt mines, the territory relies entirely on imports for the essential salt. The 'Salt Road' is a national highway built by a king several generations ago to smoothly transport the large amounts of salt consumed by all the territories within the country.

Therefore, Lord Gazir's words did not receive unanimous approval.

"I am opposed. Of course, the lack of salt in the borderlands is a serious matter, and I have no objection to sending troops to secure the safety of the road. However, that role belongs to the national army, not the border lord's army."

The one who boldly and directly opposed this was General Pujol Gijen. Still in his early thirties, General Pujol is the youngest among those seated here, next to Queen Aura, but he does not hesitate to voice his opinion to the border lord, who is old enough to be his father.

General Pujol's opinion is not wrong. Since the 'Salt Road' is a national highway, if troops are to be sent to secure its safety, it is fundamentally the responsibility of the national army.

However, Lord Gazir shows no sign of backing down.

"Yes, as General Pujol says, I am aware that the 'Salt Road' is national territory. However, based on past examples, it is highly likely that the cause of the delay in salt transportation is the increase in 'carnivorous dragons' appearing along the road.

In that case, it will be necessary to send troops into the forests and grasslands surrounding the road to slay the carnivorous dragons that attack people. And the forests and grasslands outside the road are part of my border territory."

Thus, he met the young general's gaze head-on.

"..."

"..."

Unusually, in the confrontation between the young general and the old general, Aura, who was watching from the head of the table, maintained a completely calm exterior while inwardly sighing.

(What a troublesome situation. It's common for noble lords to dislike the entry of armed national troops into their territories, and it's also common for Pujol Gijen to want to initiate military action for glory...)

As Aura thought, she remembered that the Gazir family had lost two sons in the last great war. The eldest son, who was a candidate for the successor, and the second son, who was famous for his bravery. The 'son' currently in charge of the territory should be the only surviving third son, who was born quite late and is not yet twenty years old.

With this in mind, the reason why Lord Gazir insists on resolving the matter with his own troops becomes clear.

(Probably, he wants to use this relatively low-risk incident to create a 'record worthy of a successor' for his son.)

If the reason for the lack of salt, as Lord Gazir imagines, is the damage caused by carnivorous dragons appearing on the road, then their extermination is not a difficult task.

The salt merchants, who are almost a state-owned enterprise, travel with an unusually large number of guards, but their combat power is far inferior to that of the military. Even if the third son, who has little combat experience, leads the border lord's army, the possibility of defeat against wild dragons is quite low.

In other words, from the perspective of someone seeking glory, it is a suitably strong and 'delicious' obstacle.

Of course, all of this is predicated on the cause of the lack of salt being the standard damage from carnivorous dragons, as they predict, but the circumstantial evidence suggests that this is likely the case.

Aura thought for a moment.

The advantages and disadvantages of entrusting this matter to the border lord's army. The advantages and disadvantages of deploying the national army.

After quickly calculating the minimum gains and losses in her head, Aura spoke out, breaking the stare between the two generals with a clear voice.

"Very well, Lord Gazir."

"Hai."

At the queen's words, the old general shifted his gaze from General Pujol to Aura and bowed politely.

Looking at the old general's head, which was starting to mix with white, the queen continued in a flat voice.

"I will accept your words. Resolve this matter under your responsibility. When you have successfully resolved it, I will grant you a reward commensurate with your achievement."

This was also, in effect, a declaration that "all expenses, including necessary costs, will be paid in full later. If you fail, you will bear all the responsibility." However, for Lord Gazir, all his important requests had been granted.

"Hai, hai! I understand. I will surely bring good news."

Lord Gazir, with a broad smile that deepened the wrinkles on his face, replied in a voice full of determination.

"..."

On the other hand, General Pujol, whose argument was completely rejected, had a clearly unhappy look on his face, but he was not so impolite as to challenge the queen's decision.

Under the watchful eyes of the senior nobles, including General Pujol and the ministers, the queen, seated on her throne, crossed her arms under her ample chest and told the old general, who was bowing.

"However, this is only if, after thorough reconnaissance, it is confirmed that the cause is, as you predict, damage from 'carnivorous dragons.' If the cause is found to be something else, you must report back to the palace immediately. Understand?"

This was a rather harsh decree. The position of border lord, which is necessary to govern a large territory far from the center of the country, is granted considerable independent military authority. Aura's order was equivalent to temporarily placing a fetter on that independent authority.

However, Lord Gazir, who understood the position of entrusting a matter related to the important 'salt transportation' to his inexperienced teenage son for the sake of internal family affairs, did not object.

"Hai, I understand."

Bowing his head sincerely, Lord Gazir received a nod of satisfaction from Aura, who remained with her arms crossed under her chest.

"Hmm. Oh, by the way, I will personally hand over the reward to the one who achieves the feat. Your son will have to come to the capital, so keep that in mind."

She added this as if it were a casual remark.

On the other hand, Lord Gazir could not maintain his composure. His body trembled, and he furrowed his thick eyebrows.

Well, that was to be expected.

The queen's intention was clear. This 'reward' was not a literal reward. It included the substantial 'reward' of the amount of money needed to cover the expenses of the operation, such as the materials consumed and the temporary wages paid to the soldiers, which would take several months, or even more than half a year, to negotiate.

This meant that for several months to nearly half a year, Lord Gazir's son would have to stay in the capital.

By inviting the strong-willed border lord's son to the capital at a young age, the queen aimed to enhance his sense of belonging to the kingdom. However, in the case of the Kingdom of Kaupa, where the royal family's power is extremely strong, maintaining connections with the royal family is not a bad thing, even for local noble lords. In fact, it is essential for maintaining the family.

The problem was the balance. Not getting too close to the royal family to be absorbed, nor too distant to be neglected. It was hard to imagine that a teenager would have such a delicate sense of balance, even from a parent's biased perspective.

However, this concern was not strong enough to reject the queen's proposal and complicate the matter.

Moreover, if he wanted to instill a sense of loyalty to the royal family in his son, the possibility of being stingy with the reward would decrease. This would be very beneficial for the border territory, which was still in the process of recovering from the devastation of the last great war.

Lord Gazir quickly gathered his thoughts.

"Understood. There is much for my son to learn in the capital. Thank you."

In the end, Lord Gazir bowed politely and replied.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆

While Queen Aura was making an important decision at the morning council, Zenjiro, who was left in the harem, was sitting in a corner of the living room with the wooden door closed, typing on a computer keyboard while being blown by the cold air from an ice fan.

"Alright, that's about it."

Saying this, Zenjiro, still seated in front of the computer, stretched his arms above his head and relaxed his stiff body.

On the computer screen was a spreadsheet program he was familiar with from his salaryman days.

Next to the keyboard was a messy stack of dragon skin paper containing the 'list of this year's tax revenue' entrusted to him by Aura. He had been inputting this data into the spreadsheet program for several days and had finally finished the first round.

He would need to review the entire list at least three times to ensure there were no input errors, but for now, he could say he had made a good start.

After stretching his neck and taking a deep breath, Zenjiro looked again at the tax revenue list he had just input.

"But, what a parade of huge deficits..."

As before, the spreadsheet program was set to display numbers that were significantly off in blue and those that were slightly off in red. The fact that there were many red numbers meant that in many cases, the actual tax revenue was less than the planned tax revenue.

Of course, some of these cases were probably due to simple calculation errors, but a significant portion was likely intentional deception.

"Hmm, while I'm at it, let's make it a bit clearer."

Zenjiro, looking at the screen, had a new idea.

It wasn't particularly difficult. He added a column next to the tax revenue amounts recorded on the dragon skin paper and the tax revenue amounts recalculated in the spreadsheet program to show the difference between the two values. He then set it up so that a ▲ mark would appear next to the difference if it exceeded 10%.

The work was quickly done. He entered a simple formula into one cell and then dragged the lower right corner of the cell with the mouse to copy the formula down the entire column.

Looking at the newly displayed data, Zenjiro frowned and groaned.

"Ugh, even with this condition, there are this many with a ▲. A 10% discrepancy is definitely not due to simple calculation errors or accidental mistakes."

More than that, if someone could make a 10% error in tax payments "unintentionally," their practical skills would be a much bigger problem than intentional tax evasion.

Last year, Aura had cracked down on tax evasion to some extent, but it seemed that it was not enough to significantly reduce the chronic tax evasion.

"Aura has a tough job... No, I can't think of it as someone else's problem anymore. It's time for me to step up."

Zenjiro said this to himself.

It had been a year since he came to this world, and Zenjiro had started to appear in public as Aura's representative. He was no longer a "lazy freeloader." Even if only a few times, appearing in official settings and engaging in social interactions had created bonds.

Even though Aura had returned to the public stage after a successful childbirth, it would be difficult for Zenjiro to return to a complete reclusive state.

Most importantly, the one who would not allow it might be Zenjiro's own mental state.

From the fact that Zenjiro had graduated from university and lived a salaryman life without causing any major problems, it was clear that he was not someone with a particularly high "reclusive tendency."

Indeed, when he decided to come to this world, he had felt an irresistible charm in the idea of quitting his job and living a lazy life. However, this was because he was mentally exhausted from being mired in a hell of overtime work.

Despite the physical and mental fatigue from three years of overtime, Zenjiro was still in his mid-twenties.

Physical fatigue could be completely recovered with just three days of good rest, and mental fatigue would naturally heal after a month away from work.

For a while, everything was fine.

There were several major events, such as transferring to another world and marrying a woman who was his ideal type, so time flew by quickly.

Furthermore, he had brought a mountain of DVDs containing TV dramas and soccer matches from the other world.

Without exaggeration, he genuinely felt that the lazy life of "sleeping, eating, watching DVDs, and playing games" was fulfilling.

The problem was that his values had not shifted to the point where he could feel fulfilled by this lifestyle on a regular basis.

"Maybe it's time to increase my workload. I'm spending a lot of time learning magic now, so it's fine for now, but once the magic lessons are over, I might have too much free time."

Sitting in front of the computer, Zenjiro confessed his thoughts.

The calm surroundings, his fully recovered physical and mental state, and yet the small number of obligations and the limited range of permitted actions. In short, he was starting to feel out of place.

Even without being told by anyone, he felt guilty for not engaging in any productive activities, which suggests that his values were not too far from the standard Japanese perspective.

He was not a workaholic who could say that his job was his life and that being a cog in the company was his calling, nor was he so dull as to accept a life of no work and basic needs met without any questions.

"Well, as a son-in-law, I can't do anything too conspicuous, but if I go through Aura for all public matters, it shouldn't be a problem. I'll try a few things."

What Zenjiro was currently working on was the distillation of spirits.

Knowing that this world only had fruit and grain wines with extremely low alcohol content, Zenjiro had brought a home distillation kit from the other world. The heat source was a hot plate, and the temperature settings were simple, so even a layperson could distill alcohol without much risk of failure.

Of course, it was a home kit, so the amount that could be distilled at once was small, and at this point, he could only make enough to enjoy with his wife. However, Aura had shown considerable interest.

While the Kingdom of Kaupa had no culture of distilled spirits, there were plenty of people who liked alcohol. Even a bland homemade distillate would attract attention for its overwhelming strength and intensity.

Fortunately, the principle of distilling alcohol is simple.

The boiling point of water is about 100 degrees Celsius, while the boiling point of ethanol is around 80 degrees Celsius.

In other words, if a mixture of water and ethanol, such as alcohol, is exposed to a temperature above 80 degrees but below 100 degrees for a long time, the ethanol will vaporize preferentially from the alcohol.

The next step is to collect the vaporized ethanol without letting it escape and condense it into droplets, resulting in a highly concentrated ethanol solution—distilled spirits.

Of course, there is the complicated phenomenon of 'azeotropy' between water and ethanol, and it is impossible to completely separate them with temperature control alone. However, by repeating the distillation process multiple times, the alcohol content of the distillate can gradually increase.

Zenjiro's goal, "to increase the concentration to a level where it can be ignited," might be straying a bit from the original purpose.

Alcohol at a concentration suitable for use as fuel is too strong and lacks flavor, so ordinary people would not drink it.

However, the value of high-concentration alcohol is sufficiently high, and once the refining method is established, it will undoubtedly contribute to the development of the country.

"Next, it's probably soap. Well, soap might still be okay, but shampoo and conditioner are a bit worrying. I underestimated the amount used by women with long hair."

Zenjiro