by Hiro Ainana
Tifaleeza sounded like a bit of a workaholic.
More importantly, though—the “Name Order” skill?
Perfect timing. She could help me out with a few things.
“Tifaleeza, was it? I do have a bit of work for you, actually. I’ll send Lelillil to fetch you and bring you to my private room later.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Tifaleeza nodded nervously.
“It’s the face, isn’t it?” Neru grumbled quietly.
She was off the mark, though. My interest was solely in having Tifaleeza use her “Name Order” skill to put some pseudonyms on things.
“I’ll let you girls stay here awhile. If you don’t have any leads for jobs, tell Lelillil what you’re interested in doing later. I’ll see what I can find for you.”
It wouldn’t sit well with my conscience to send them out into the world only to have them end up selling themselves, so I didn’t mind helping them find new work.
“Wait a minute, Lord Kuro, if ya don’t mind.” Neru held up a hand. “Me and Tifa are criminal slaves. Unless we get the king’s pardon or something, we can’t be set free. If ya send us away, we’ll probably hafta serve as coal miner slaves day and night, y’know.”
Tears filled Neru’s eyes; Tifaleeza looked pale, too.
“Criminal slaves? What did you young whelps do?” Lelillil asked.
“We just rejected a lord who got a little too handsy, that’s all.”
“I wouldn’t call a man who barged into the baths, used drugs to incapacitate girls, and forced them to do things they didn’t want to do ‘a little too handsy.’”
According to the two of them, they had rejected Count Lessau’s sexual harassment, which resulted in them receiving Treachery Brands on their backs and becoming slaves.
“That pervy bastard burned my and Tifa’s bodies while he was branding us, too,” Neru said distantly.
The idea that a feudal lord would burn young girls just for rejecting his advances was horrifying.
If that was the sort of thing that went on in Lessau County, we’d have to stay far away.
“Sounds like you had it pretty rough…”
I remembered the burn scars that had covered Tifaleeza’s body.
At times like this, I was ashamed that I didn’t have the vocabulary to produce better words of comfort.
Noticing my gaze, Tifaleeza clarified with cold eyes.
“No, I already had burns before that happened. When I was a child, my stepmother said she didn’t like the vacant look on my face, and she burned me.”
Tifaleeza seemed to be a deeply unlucky young woman.
“I see. Well, I hope you find happiness from now on to make up for all that misfortune.”
Now that I had healed her, she would have no shortage of suitors, so surely she’d be able to find a suitable person to marry.
“…Thank you.”
I patted Tifaleeza’s head gently, then left the room.
I’d intended to have her use the “Name Order” skill for me immediately, but I didn’t want to put her to work right after forcing her to recall her difficult past. It could wait until that night.
For now, I decided to consult with a man-about-town in the downtown area and see if I could find someone to take the girls in.
If they did, I’d have to bargain with them to make sure the young women were legally freed.
“Take care of them for me, please.”
“Yes, Lord Kuro.”
With that, I went into town disguised as Kuro.
Now, how exactly do you find a man-about-town?
I’d made it to downtown, at least, but I probably should have gone into this with more of a plan.
“Yo, fella with the white hair, never seen you round these parts before. Got some business here?”
The punk who came up to me looked familiar.
It was the man who’d claimed to be in charge of things around here during that fire incident.
“Skopi of the Mud Scorpions, was it? I’ve got a question for you.”
“Hunh? Don’t just go throwing my name around! I’ve never met you in my life, asshole!”
Oops, that’s right. I wasn’t wearing this disguise when I met him.
Producing a pouch of coins from my breast pocket, I tossed it to the man.
“That’s a fat chunk of change… Whaddaya want?”
“I need information.”
“Information?”
“Yeah. I’m looking for someone.”
I asked about the girls’ former master, using the details they’d shared with me.
“Sorry. That guy’s dead.”
“Do you know if he had any family?”
“What, he owe you money or somethin’?”
“No, the opposite. I owe him a debt. If he has family, I’d like to pay them instead.”
I went with this story so that he wouldn’t try to protect their information.
“If I’m not wrong, he didn’t even have any friends or lovers, never mind family.”
“I see…”
If there was no one to inherit his former slaves, then my work here was done.
I started to turn to leave, but then Skopi said something that caught my attention.
“’Sides, even if he did have family, they’d never show their faces.”
“What do you mean?”
“’Cause he’s the one who started that fire.”
Well, that was unexpected.
“I thought he was a slave trader?”
“Technically, he ran a general store. But really, he was just a dumbass who only had eyes for money.”
According to Skopi, Mr. Dumbass had come up with a new money-making scheme: raising oil slimes on garbage scraps, only to accidentally cause a fire with them.
The theory behind the scheme was sound enough, but attempting it in a downtown area full of easily flammable buildings showed something of a lack of foresight.
“Well, this is for his funeral. Give the rest to the families of the other fire victims, yeah?”
I produced a bag of around fifty gold coins from the Item Box and tossed it to Skopi.
Technically there was no reason for me to give money in place of Mr. Dumbass, but I sort of felt as if I’d stolen the slave girls from him, so I gave an amount to match their value.
Because I was doing it only for my own satisfaction, I didn’t really intend to investigate whether Skopi actually distributed the money as I’d asked.
Peering inside the bag, Skopi let out a low whistle.
“Good-bye.”
Without further ado, I left the area.
“We explored lots and lots today, sir!”
“And drew pictuuures?”
As we ate our dinner of meat and potatoes, Tama, Pochi, and Mia told me about their exploration of the land near the house.
Tama had even produced a sort of sightseeing map of the area.
Her art had gotten even better than before, easily on par with a professional.
“This is very good. Great job, Tama.”
“Nee-hee-hee…?”
Seeing Tama get patted on the head seemed to spark Pochi’s competitive side; she started rummaging through the Fairy Pack hanging off her chair.
“I got you this, and this, and this, sir.”
She pulled out an assortment of unusual acorns, pretty rocks, and so on, lining them up on the table.
“Pochi, we’re in the middle of a meal. You can give out gifts after we’ve finished eating.”
“…Yes, sir.” At Liza’s gentle admonition, Pochi reluctantly put the items back in her bag. “Food is important, sir.”
“Oui, oui!”
With their beloved forks and spoons in hand, Pochi and Tama dug into the meal.
There was an incredible variety of meat-and-potato dishes lined up on the table, probably as part of Rosie and Annie’s training.
Aside from the konjak variation, they had all been made using ingredients straight from Lab
yrinth City.
This included plenty of Celivera beef purchased from the ranch next door, so there was enough to satisfy even the carnivorous beastfolk girls.
“Yummy.”
Once the beastfolk girls had eaten all the meat for her, Mia munched away happily on the potatoes, carrots, and konjak.
She seemed to be hungrier than usual today, perhaps because of all the exploring with Pochi and Tama.
“Did you have fun, too, Mia?”
“Mm. Concert.”
“Mia played music next to a lake, and a bunch of grannies and grampies came to listen, sir.”
“Gave us snaaacks?”
Checking the map, I found that there was a small reservoir near the farmland, which was probably the place in question.
It sounded like they’d befriended some locals in addition to their exploring.
“What about you, Lulu? Did you find any interesting ingredients?”
“Oh yes!” Lulu nodded with a sparkling smile. “I tried using it for our dessert.”
“Dessert” turned out to be yogurt topped with something that resembled raisins.
“Are these dates?”
Arisa was able to identify them with a single bite.
“They’re called dates? The merchant called them natsumeyashi…”
“Either way is correct. Dates are the fruit of the natsumeyashi tree.”
The sweetness of the dates paired well with the faintly sour yogurt. They would probably be tasty raw, too, or as a snack with alcohol.
Evidently, dates were hard to come by here, as explorers tended to buy them up despite their high price.
What’s more, they were delivered only by “desert people” who came through a desert west of Labyrinth City to sell them, so they were on the market only a few times a month.
After we’d enjoyed our dessert, I went to the storehouse to check out the spoils of Lulu’s and Liza’s hard work.
“There were many unusual vegetables, as well.”
Lulu had bought things like white carrots and purple lotus roots.
“There were many restaurants selling stir-fried vegetables cooked with garlic sprouts and chives.”
“And many meat dishes, as well.”
Next, they showed me the meat they’d purchased.
“This certainly is a lot of variety.”
“We didn’t even buy all the options available!”
Lulu wore an expression of disbelief. Apparently, there was quite a wide array of meat in Labyrinth City.
“Satou, miasma.” Mia tugged on my sleeve.
“…You’re right.”
Sure enough, there was miasma clinging to the meat Lulu and Liza had purchased.
I’d seen it on the snacks being sold at stalls around the city, too; it seemed like the butchers in Labyrinth City weren’t particularly wary of miasma.
“What? Oh no, did we buy something that’s not safe to eat?”
“I am terribly sorry, master. We selected only the most delicious products from our taste testing, so I never suspected such a thing…”
“No, no, it’s not a big deal.” I reassured the panicked Lulu and apologetic Liza. “It might have had some side effects if we continued eating it for a long time, but generally, it’s only a concern for the sick or feeble.”
Maybe the reason so many people in Labyrinth City had miasma poisoning was that the monster meat wasn’t purified properly.
It might be worth mentioning to the viceroy’s wife at the next tea party.
“Does miasma make it tasty, sir?”
“Reallyyy?”
Pochi and Tama looked at Liza questioningly.
Liza looked puzzled. “I’m not certain about that, but all these meats were certainly delicious.”
Hmm. I guess I never considered whether it affected the flavor.
“Let’s test it out, shall we?”
I cut off two slices each of five different kinds of meat, used a Holy Stone to remove the miasma from half of them, and grilled them up with a cooking magic tool.
They would’ve tasted better cooked over charcoal, but that would’ve been a pain to set up, so I decided to take the easy route.
“Smells gooood?”
“Meat is still the best, sir.”
Tama and Pochi were presumably still stuffed from dinner, but the smell of meat cooking made them drool anyway.
I could give them some miasma-free meat later, I decided.
“Wait! Sir.”
As I was about to put the meat in my mouth, Pochi stopped me.
Did she want to eat it that badly?
“Poisooon?”
“We have to make sure you’re safe, sir.”
Tama and Pochi nodded seriously.
Miasma isn’t really poison per se, but… Well, all right.
“I’ll have you two test it for me, then.”
“Aye-aaaye!”
“Yes, sir.”
Tama and Pochi grinned and chomped into the meat.
As they chewed, Pochi’s tail whipped back and forth rhythmically, and Tama’s cat tail undulated in the air.
They seemed to have completely forgotten about the poison testing. Noticing my amused expression, Pochi quickly cleared her throat and said, “I-it’s not like that, sir!”
“Well, we know it’s safe now, thanks to your noble sacrifice, so why don’t we all taste it together?”
I started grilling up enough meat for everyone else.
I could always just purify the miasma afterward. As long as I did it before the meat started digesting, it shouldn’t be a problem.
As far as the taste went…
“They pretty much seem the same to me.”
“Really? The kind with miasma is a little tougher, and I detect a note of bitterness, almost.”
I couldn’t tell the difference, but our resident chef Lulu certainly could.
“Bitter but powerfuuul?”
“It’s a little tough, but it feels like it’s making me stronger, sir.”
“I don’t taste any bitterness, but I do sense some degree of power rising within me, as Pochi said.”
The beastfolk girls all had their own preferences, too.
“Wow, it actually is increasing my stats.”
Checking her own status, Arisa confirmed the beastfolk girls’ suspicions.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Not as much as ‘Body Strengthening’ from magic or a skill, but still, it’s there.”
Well, it didn’t taste any better, and the increase in power seemed to be only slight, so it probably wasn’t worth risking the danger of eating it.
When we had the deep-fried-whale festival in the old capital, I remembered Arisa saying that her strength and stamina had temporarily gone up by a full 10 percent for a while after she ate it.
As far as raising stats, whale meat might be the way to go.
I used a Holy Stone to purify the miasma from the rest of the meat, then put it away in the refrigerator to eat the following evening.
Of course, I also had everyone who’d eaten the miasma meat stand in the blue light of a Holy Stone afterward.
“Arisa, were you able to hire the part-timers?”
Once we reconvened with Mia and Nana and retired to the living room to relax, I asked Arisa how her employee hunt had gone.
“Yup, I hired plenty. Seventeen people for two copper coins each.”
It was more people than I’d expected, but that was no problem.
“Our neighbor said she could make announcements and gather people into lines, so I figured we could pay her one large copper coin.”
“All right, sounds good.”
It would be nice to have someone else keeping things organized.
“Master.” Nana trotted over to me. “I received information about larvae production from the housewives, I report.”
I have a bad feeling about this.
“According to my findings, it involves sharing a bed in the nude—”
&nbs
p; “Not a chance!”
“Mm, forbidden.”
Nana started to lift the hem of her dress, but Arisa and Mia grabbed her arms in a flash.
Thanks to the iron-wall pair’s efforts, all I saw was a glimpse of Nana’s belly.
“Why do you intervene? I inquire.”
“You mustn’t do that before marriage! It’s disgraceful, you know. You’re not married to Satou, so you mustn’t have children with him. Understood? You do understand, right? So no seducing, okay? You have to promise!”
Mia was in such a state that she went into one of her rare lengthy rants.
“Master, do you not want me to bear your child? I inquire.” Nana’s face was expressionless as always, but her voice had taken on a strangely sexy tone.
Now, that was a difficult question to answer.
I would never even think of her as someone to have children with, but even Nana’s feelings would be hurt if I said that so bluntly, so I had to come up with a better way to phrase it.
“I’ve got first dibs! And Lulu has dibs even before me!”
“O-oh, Arisa…”
“Mrrr. Fiancé. Parents approved.”
Arisa’s interference made Lulu turn bright red, and Mia narrowed her eyes in opposition.
“Tama, toooo?”
“Pochi, too, sir!”
Tama and Pochi joined in, too, but they probably didn’t really understand what was going on.
I decided to use this distraction to delicately change the subject.
“Nana, there’s no need for all that. There will be plenty of children at the orphanage soon enough.”
“Master! How many days is ‘soon enough’? I inquire!”
Nana took the bait.
“Well, the building will be done in about a trimoon—ten days—so I imagine we’ll start taking in children a few days after that.”
At that, Nana fell into a stunned silence.
Apparently, this was a longer wait than she’d expected.
“Don’t worry—they’ll be here before you know it.”
“Yes, master.”
I patted Nana’s shoulder comfortingly, then told everyone to take a bath.
“Oh? What about you, master?”
“I still have some business to attend to, so I’ll just clean up with Everyday Magic.”
