Chapter 21.6

Epilogue 1.2

「Thanks to your help, our country was able to prevent their plan. But, I’m not sure about other countries’ condition.」

「You mean, there are the worst possibility that one or two countries have fallen into their hands, huh……」

「We tried to investigate more about it as much as possible, but there are also some very faraway countries. For the results to arrive, I hope it will be around one month later.」

「Ya mean, we hafta wait for a month even if we are leavin’ Urs?」

The king only shakes his head in response to Hiroshi’s words, making the whole team’s expressions turn puzzled.

「Next month, most places will start to snow. If you’re going to travel by land, the northern route already passed its usable period, and the east and west route will also start to become very hard to travel after half a month later. Well, if you’re going by caravan, I’m sure that you know that you have to take a detour……」

「In short, we have to stay in Urs until the winter is over?」

「Yeah. And then, moving out in the middle of winter will take a lot of time. Especially if there is snow blowing down, you have to take a break every three days. With that, waiting in this town for three months will not make a difference in the end.」

Hiroshi and his party who didn’t consider the weather only notices the problem after having it pointed out by the king.

「I see, then we will do as you say.」

「In addition, there will be Urs’ New Year Festival in two months. In this city, it is quite a big festival. Even if you go as ordinary people or the saviours of this country, I will be very happy to welcome you.」

Urs is more focused towards industry rather than agriculture, and there is nothing like an autumn harvest festival there. It’s not that they are completely not celebrated, but each district usually have their own organization (almost like a neighbourhood council) that have their own schedule for events, and like Japanese Bon Odori or summer festival, so the local festival is bustling in its own way.

The festival in the district where Hiroshi and his team reside in happened while they were going to the hot springs, so they were unable to participate in the festival food stall. The other district harvest festival also ended while they were in the middle of the jumbled problem in the castle, so they were unable to see even one of the harvest festivals.

In addition, the neighbouring villages and towns celebrate harvest festivals even more grand than New Year Festival. There are a lot of Urs people participating in the New Year Festival, but for Urs’ satellite cities and the surrounding villages that dedicates their land in agriculture, it is more important to celebrate the harvest festival and show their gratitude to the motherland rather than celebrating the new year.

By the way, the reason why Farlane’s new year is celebrated at the same time as the northern hemisphere mid-winter is because the starting point of the calendar is adjusted to the Declaration of the King of Nations when the country was founded. After celebrating the harvest festival, the king starts making a small-scale system in the country, and after the country has a sufficient function to stand alone, he makes the declaration of country. The time lag is approximately two months, so this becomes the season where everything will be very cold (like the midwinter in earth).

「Well, letsa roll with it then.」

「Uh huh.」

Hearing Hiroshi’s reply, the king nods. Tatsuya who is watching the situation suddenly asks a question.

「Your Highness, is it okay for you not to put a leash on those two people?」

「How should you put a leash on them?」

Tatsuya answered Haruna’s question bluntly right after she asked it.

「Neither the money nor status is necessary, and the court is not suitable for securing personal security. When handing over a woman gives nothing but an adverse effect, what do you mean with ‘how to put a leash’?」

「Uhh, you’re right……」

「Well, because it’s like that, I won’t stop them to leave themselves. I don’t have the view that I have to take someone in using whatever ways I can, you know.」

Towards the composed declaration from the king, the Japanese team can only give a smile.

「That’s right, if this succeeds, then it will be alright, but……」

The king looks like he wants to say something, and look mysteriously at Hiroshi.

「It will be helpful if you can stock and leave something at the workshop later on, even groceries related stuff is alright. If you like, I can also deploy someone to help you to do it.」

「I know you will say that, but do you have to take it that far?」

「Uh huh. Instant noodles might be too intense, but at least I want someone to be able to make the curry roux, ah, Elena and Aearis also said so. Also, we can manage making mayonnaise, but soy sauce and bonito looks pretty difficult. You may say it’s my greed, but I want to propagate the recipe and make preparations to make them in large quantity.」

The reply for Makoto’s retort and question, you can say that they’re pretty absurd.

「……Well, I will try to do something with the curry roux. Actually, Merizza also asked me the same thing, the recipes for it is scattered everywhere, and only the measurement work for the ingredients is in quite a bottleneck. 」

「I see. What about the other seasoning?」

「I’ll collect them and make it possible to produce them on a certain scale during the winter. If it spreads here and there, then we can eat a lot of delicious things too.」

「Then I’ll leave it to you」

After saying that, the king gnaws on the fried dough cake and says that the weight has left his shoulders. After that, all of them receive a souvenir and see him off with a smiling face, then they look at each other wondering what’s up with that.

「Hiroshi. We just promised him without discussing it first, but can we fulfil it?」

「I’mma quite busy with the preparation for pigeonholin’, but Merizza also asked us ’bout it, so it can’t be helped. Honestly, I wanna avoid it personally, but since Mio is helpin’ too I think we can do it. 」

「Why so?」

「When Brother and Mio were caught by the thief, do ya know that there are other people imprisoned there?」

Hiroshi ask with a tone more like confirmation than interrogation towards Makoto. Everyone nods.

「Two of them have no place to go back, so they was taken care by Merizza, but it looks like they are told to use this workshop as they like.」

「Then, why do you want to avoid it personally?」

「Well, ya know that both of them are women.」

With that one sentence, Haruna and the others understand the situation completely. It must be hard for Hiroshi to teach women. Haruna is his classmate with the same fate as him, and Mio acts like a man most of the time, so they are the exceptions. If the two women can’t put a distance properly like Haruna, then it will be severe in a lot of meanings.

「Anyway, if it’s just makin’ curry roux and soy sauce, then Mio can do it, right?」

「Un. Maybe, even Haru-nee can do it, yeah?」

「I’m okay with curry powder, but I don’t have confidence in making the soy sauce…」

With that, they find the method for it. When things are looking better for them, Tatsuya concludes.

「No matter what we choose, we also can’t just leave this place for a long time, if they can be trusted then shouldn’t we just leave it to them?」

「That’s right. I also agree.」

「If everyone agrees, then tomorrow I will go talk to Merizza.」

Following the agreement, everyone nods at Hiroshi’s word, and for now they decide to prepare to receive new people. The moment they decide their base in Farlane, that place will be the most important facility for Farlane.

「By the way, Hiroshi」

After preparing the acceptance for the new people tomorrow, Makoto calls Hiroshi like he just remembered something.

「What?」

「What will you do about the weapon?」

「Ah~、I forgot ’bout that」

Makoto is shocked with Hiroshi’s reply. His Pole Axe was completely shattered when he use extra skill, and he wasn’t able to fix or even recover the material.

「How about you use the Cerberus Fang?」

「Impossible! There’s no way I’ll use long sword!」

Hiroshi quickly rejected Makoto’s proposal. Cerberus Fang comes from the demonized corpse of the Cerberus. Needless to say, it is something they obtained when they defeat Barold the other day.

「Rather, why is it here?」

「When I collected the things in the temporary warehouse before, Julius was mixing all the things randomly in there.」

「No, if ya realized it, please tell him!」

Hiroshi can only retort after hearing Haruna’s reason. Cerberus Fang is the most powerful of all the current weapons they have in terms of performance, but unfortunately their team has no one that can use it and it can only stay as a treasure. Since it was originally acquired in the battle at the royal palace, shouldn’t the ownership be given to the kingdom?

「His Highness said that no one wants to use it since it is cursed, so he gave it to us.」

「But, he can just give it to Elle and purify it, right?」

「Isn’t it more troubling than just dispose it?」

This is certainly a difficult thing to dispose of, but they’re too easy-going to give such a thing to Hiroshi team. In the first place, they only took fifty silk balls to make into yarn, and most of the other things were given to Hiroshi team. The people in Farlane might not be able to manufacture it as well as Mio’s, but even if it’s not a half, they should at least take care of thirty percent of it.

「But then, even if it’s here, it will only take up space.」

「Makoto, don’t ya use long sword?」

「It’s not like I have never used it before, but I prefer using a katana.」

「Large sword ‘n katana is a pretty weird combination…」

Hiroshi makes quite a strange expression when he hears Makoto’s reply. Makoto smiles at his expression, and explains the reason.

「At first, or maybe I should say, the moment I got a splendid katana, my main weapon was katana. But……」

According to Makoto, the game did not have more powerful katanas than high-quality products. In fact, the katanas that were on the market other than the ones that production players made earlier were basically only those that were sold by NPCs on the outskirts, or high-quality rare drops. After all, the equivalent of the so-called magic sword has not been found.