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Chapter 176
“A supply of food and goods for the dragonoids? Umm, well, it’s not impossible ~no. But, how are you going to bring it to them ~no?” (Frau)
“We will continuously use the transfer gate. The expenses will be covered by their side. It looks like they will be paying with the dragonoid currency. Even if we can’t carry it all over at the same time, I think it’ll somehow work out if we diligently transport it in smaller amounts…umm, Frau?” (Renya)
“Considering the expended mana and the cool-down time, it’s a very inefficient mode of transportation ~nano. But, if he says it can’t be helped, then it must be so ~no. I feel that the only way to achieve a similar efficiency would be to have all the supplies carried by large dragons, but using dragons would overwhelmingly lose out to the transfer gate method in terms of speed, but…oh, you called, master ~no?” (Frau)
Frau had lowered her eyes towards the document written by the chairman of the Dragonoid’s Witenagemot, an organization Frau doesn’t care about at all, and was reading its contents. Upon hearing Renya’s somewhat reserved voice, she raised her eyes.
She had checked every nook and cranny of the document for traps or holes in regards to the various transportation agreements and payment methods, but due to the contents being so faultless, clear and simple that she felt let-down, she instead became more worried and read the document many times over.
Because her name was called in the middle of that, her reflexive response felt a bit flat. However, even though she was mentally flustered from suddenly being called, she kept a calm expression and faced Renya.
“I feel sorry for burdening you with troubles once again, but…it looks like you’re unhappy about something?” (Renya)
“Gunuuh…” (Frau)
When she tried to swallow the words she was about to voice out unintentionally, they turned into something like a weird groan. Frau blushes and slightly averts her eyes from Renya’s face.
If she’s asked whether she’s displeased, she cannot help but to confirm. That’s Frau’s current state of mind.
Because the dummy puppet, which she had created by investing a lot of time and money, had been completely destroyed, Frau believes that her sullen mood is completely normal, but showing that displeasure to Renya, who doesn’t know the circumstances, can be considered a failure as a maid.
As for the defensive battle of Klinge, Frau only told Renya’s group that they repelled the enemy army by using a sorcery array covering the whole city which used the mana Frau had squeezed out of Renya.
Since she would also be troubled if they were to investigate it, she included two pieces of dummy information about the city-class sorcery array: a barrier covering the whole city, and a function to reduce everything that approaches the city to ash.
She pretended that they somehow managed to repel the monsters by charging lots of Renya’s mana into those two functions.
In reality Frau thinks that it actually might have been possible to repel the enemy army with just those two functions.
The fact she didn’t use them is merely a matter of her own preferences.
Regardless of that, as she couldn’t falsify the part about one of the demon king’s offshoots having slipped into the enemy ranks and its battle with Frau’s dummy, she mostly reported the truth to Renya.
The reason she couldn’t deceive him about those parts is due to Frau’s suicide bomb technique at the very end.
That one blow contained almost half the mana she had exploited from Renya.
Since she used the other half to initially start up the sorcery array and maintain the hell furnace, Frau threw her biggest and fastest attack into the mix when she was fighting the offshoot, which resulted in her successfully killing it.
As Frau felt that it would be bad if even the slightest part of the offshoot were to be left behind, she unleashed an attack using an amount of mana capable of completely eradicating it, but in exchange, Frau’s dummy also got destroyed, and a huge hole several meters wide and an unknown depth was created at the place where Frau’s dummy exploded.
If Frau had let the dummy explode normally, considerable damage would have likely been inflicted onto Klinge as it was really close to the area of detonation.
However, as Frau had apparently considered such a possibility during the battle, she focused all its explosive power into a cylinder, which resulted in the formation of a very deep hole. Despite examining the hole using the <Probe> spell, no one knew how deep it actually was and as such a fence and a notice board stating “Danger! Don’t approach!” have been set up so as to avoid anyone from approaching the hole and carelessly falling in.
Her inability to omit the attack by the demon king’s offshoot from her report to Renya is owed to the existence of this hole, and because Frau couldn’t come up with another likely reason for such a hole to appear.
Frau expected that she would be scolded by Renya for releasing magic that would very likely cause large damage to the city if not controlled properly, but after listening to her story, Renya revealed a slightly troubled smile, and limited it to only brushing Frau’s head.
Speaking of Renya, the reason he could come back to Klinge is of course because a direct transfer gate from the dragonoid city to Klinge had been opened.
The Dragonoid’s Witenagemot, which had been ordered to secure a path in order to bring in the relief supplies, agreed to the establishment of a direct transfer gate without complaining or hesitating this late in the game. The gate itself was established through a hastened construction, driving the engineers to use all the stamina and abilities they could muster, regardless of day and night.
Due to this, Renya now possesses the closest transfer gate to the Dragon Den among the humans, but Renya doesn’t care about that at all, and only perceives it as trivial information.
“Anyway, the priority is for them to be able to eat something. It seems like the dragonoids lost a considerable amount of food in the several battles so far. I don’t care about the soldiers or the Witenagemot, but the townspeople starving is something I really don’t want to see.” (Renya)
According to Renya, the Witenagemot, which was allowed to retreat from the front line without having done anything useful themselves, and the soldiers, who apparently weren’t able to carry out a defensive war, are not worthy to receive favors at the same time as the citizens.
As for the soldiers, he believes there’s some room left as he pities them a bit seeing as their current situation might be related to the incompetence of their superiors, but as for the Witenagemot, he feels that if they don’t want to starve they should demonstrate their usefulness by coming up with one or two ingenious ideas on how to reverse the situation.
But, because the citizens bear no responsibility for this war, and are merely victims, Renya felt sympathy for them.
Renya considered starvation to be terrifying.
Given that he doesn’t know why he feels this way about starvation, he thinks that it might be remnants of the memories, which were apparently completely erased when he came to this world, or that it might be related to his strong desire for delicious food, but either way, Renya feels scared of starvation.
That’s why he believes that he has to at least send the food quickly as part of the relief goods.
“The food stuff we can send immediately are…<Elven bean-like things>, <Aren’t those actually elven beans?>, <I can’t believe it’s not elven beans>, and <It’s not impossible to regard them as elven beans> ~nano.” (Frau)
“Oy…?” (Renya)
“It’s a joke ~nano. Your face is scary, master ~no.” (Frau)
Due to Renya bringing his serious looking face close to hers while speaking with a low, subdued voice, Frau hurriedly apologizes and waves both hands.
Of course she said those words with the intention of making a joke, but apparently having pierced a soft spot of Renya’s more than she had expected, Frau panics.
“Putting the joking aside, we have plenty of elven beans in stock ~no.” (Frau)
“So you’re saying there’s only beans?” (Renya)
“I think they’ll be happy about being able to eat anything ~no. Ah, no, master your face is really scary ~no. I’d like you to not pressure me since we will also send other goods ~no.” (Frau)
Frau, who sensed that Renya’s expression had become grim, immediately takes out a piece of paper from a pocket of her apron dress, and quickly scans it.
It’s a list of the goods in Klinge’s warehouses which she had investigated in advance.
Renya thinks that she should have taken it out and talked about it from the beginning if she had something like that, but seeing as Frau is more or less categorized as a fairy, she apparently had a preference towards pulling pranks or derailing a conversation.
“Grain would be slightly difficult after all ~no. Even Klinge mostly depends on buying it. As for meat, quite a considerable amount has been swapped from your inventory to the warehouses, so we can earn a good sum of money with this and beans, but…we are also running short on seasoning ~no. There’s nothing left over there ~no?” (Frau)
“Salt at the most. To begin with, seasonings are fairly expensive, so it’s not something one would store in great quantities either.” (Renya)
Since it has reached the point where all kinds of seasonings can be obtained in Klinge without much hassle, one wouldn’t notice it unless told, but if you talk about typical seasonings in this world, they would be centered around salt or vinegar. Other seasonings aren’t used very much.
Renya’s favorite seasonings, miso and soy sauce, are products of the elven country, which rarely appear on the markets in the human countries. Even the blackish lumps, which are unprocessed sugar, are treated as a high-class seasoning, and nothing that commoners would get to taste.
“Klinge’s emergency stores are abnormal ~no. Yet, if you consider the circumstances, it’s not an amount that would allow us to send many goods to other cities ~no.” (Frau)
Master doesn’t want them to starve, but his thinking that he might as well give them delicious food if he’s giving them food anyway doesn’t really seem all that realistic ~no, Frau thinks in her mind.
Considering that their territory has been invaded quite deeply after they repeatedly lost and that the war still hasn’t ended yet, it shouldn’t be difficult to fill their bellies so that they won’t starve as long as it’s a reasonable quantity, even if Klinge can’t provide anything besides salt, beans and meat.
It would be troublesome if they were to request taste, quality and variety.
“It sure fits your character, master ~no. …That’s why it’s hard for you to bluntly refuse ~no.” (Frau)
“What?” (Renya)
“I was just talking to myself ~nano. I plan to provide seasonings only to the point where the food quality won’t drop for the residents of Klinge ~no.” (Frau)
“Sorry. I keep asking you unreasonable things.” (Renya)
Renya looks apologetic.
If you’re aware of it, I’d like you to at least compromise a bit ~nano, Frau thinks.
“We will send over the meat and beans first ~no. Putting aside the quality, our first priority will be to avoid starvation ~no. The rest will follow little-by-little while keeping an eye on the situation ~no. I’d like you to compromise on that much, master ~no.” (Frau)
“Understood. That’s inevitable.” (Renya)
If I ask for too much, it will become limitless. If Frau says that this is the limit, she must be right, Renya yields.
“We have so much money that we could buy food….but people are starting to become reluctant about selling their goods, as expected.” (Frau)
The fact that the war against the demons has begun is a piece of information roughly known on all continents of this world.
Once such news spread, merchants handling food-related goods began hesitating to sell their inventory, causing a declining amount of food on the market.
“We will somehow raise the productive capability of Klinge…but that will still require time ~nano.” (Frau)
“Eh? Such a large variety of produce was cultivated here?” (Renya)
As far as Renya knows, only elven beans were cultivated inside Klinge.
Since this is something he ordered to be planted in all available open spaces, it’s only natural for him to be aware of it, but it was the first time he hears about Klinge producing crops besides beans.
“It’s experimental ~nano. There are facilities in Klinge which raise various out-of-season crops such as the rice you mentioned, master, with water containing mana ~no.” (Frau)
Renya ends up wondering whether mana is really all that almighty, but what’s actually happening isn’t the same as what Renya is imagining.
Plants are just growing faster by boosting their own growth rate through precisely compiled spell formulae. If you ask whether plants will grow faster by pouring mana onto them, the answer is no.
If one did such a thing it would only change the plants and produce strange, incomprehensible things polluted with mana.
The techniques used in this area are Emil’s specialty. It’s not like Frau knows the concrete details either.
“I’m hearing about all this for the first time. When did you build something like that?” (Renya)
“It was included in the initial design of Klinge ~no. In order to effectively use the space, we have guided the sunlight into the underground. It’s the underground facilities that produce the crops. Once they are fully operational, Klinge will become a city capable of lasting through 10 years of siege using its own supplies ~no!” (Frau)
The ones who participated the most in the planning of Klinge were Frau and Emil.
Renya wanted to ask them under what kind of battle assumptions they had built such facilities, but right now he’s thankful for those pointless, meticulous facilities.
“You said you’re raising crops out-of-season with mana, right? What’s necessary to get them to grow? Quantity of mana or the quality?” (Renya)
“Mostly quantity ~nano. But, since I have already assigned a reasonable amount of mana to those facilities, master’s mana will be an oversupply ~no.” (Frau)
A part of the water flowing from the spring installation, which had been built in the basement of Renya’s castle as camouflage for the hell furnace, is used for this, but Frau doesn’t intend to explain or even mention its existence to Renya.
“But…” (Renya)
“Master, it’s not good to rush things ~no. Since I’m having it operate at full speed, I’d like you to give me some time ~no.” (Frau)
In the first place, if Renya’s excessive mana were to be poured on the plants in its raw form, it’s unknown what they would grow into.
Frau racked her brain as to how she should persuade the somewhat unhappy-looking Renya so that he wouldn’t do something crazy, like pouring his mana into a vine of the elven beans growing around here.
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