by Dojyomaru
“It’s a problem that every country shares, I’m sure,” said Jeanne. “There’s little that can be done but to pray for a good harvest.”
As Jeanne and I spoke, bureaucrats from both the kingdom and Empire were going about their business quietly, but busily nonetheless.
Some were frantically keeping a log of the proceedings. Once committed to paper, a verbal agreement was as good as a contract. They listened intently, ensuring no word was missed.
Others were confirming that there was a mutual understanding of what those words meant, in order to ensure that nothing was misconstrued. There were also those thrusting the documents they had prepared in advance towards one another, comparing the goods and materials which each nation had an excess or deficit of. Because we shared no land border, it would be difficult to engage in direct trade, but if both sides shared that information, then something might be worked out through a third party.
The scene was truly a battlefield.
Hakuya was scrutinizing the documents presented to him, while Liscia acted as my aide.
Only my bodyguard, Aisha, stood erect and motionless, but she probably didn’t want to have to deal with the numbers. With the large number of people present, she was paying close attention to her duties as my bodyguard, but she looked fed up with it all.
...It hasn’t been like this in a while, I thought.
The way things were going so blindingly fast reminded me of the days when I had just taken the throne.
Normally, in foreign affairs, even if the heads of state only meet for ten minutes, behind the scenes there have been bureaucrats from each country negotiating for weeks, perhaps months.
Things were this busy because it hadn’t been possible for the kingdom and Empire to hold talks ever since the appearance of the Demon Lord’s Domain. Incidentally, the first thing Jeanne and I had agreed to was the resumption of shuttle diplomacy between the Gran Chaos Empire and the Elfrieden Kingdom.
“Speaking of foodstuffs, I found those lily root dumplings most delicious,” said Jeanne. “I believe the primary ingredient was the rootstalk of the bewitching lily. I would like to hear how you go about harvesting them.”
“I’m happy to tell you,” I said. “From what Poncho was telling me, he learned the method from a mountain tribe inside the Empire. If you enlist their help, it should be simple to do.”
“Oh, my. There was a tribe like that inside the Empire?” Jeanne asked. “Even though it’s my own country, I must shamefully admit, I did not know.”
“That’s just how it goes,” I said. “It can be hard for anyone to see what’s lying at their own feet.”
The same went for our country. I mean, when I’d put out the call, “I don’t care what it is, if you have a special talent, come and show me,” I’d had quite a number of people show up. If I kept digging, there were probably more such people to be found.
In order to develop this country, I’ll need to find them, I thought to myself.
While drinking the coffee Serina had prepared for me, I looked to Jeanne. “Now, since I gave you information on the lily root dumplings, I’d like some information in return.”
Jeanne, who was drinking black tea, laid her teacup down on its saucer and tilted her head to the side questioningly. “What information might that be?”
“I think food for food is a fair trade,” I said. “Are there any ingredients used in the Empire that aren’t commonly eaten elsewhere?”
“...In that case, I know just the thing,” Jeanne said, a mischievous smile on her lips. I dunno, she just looked like she had an incredible ace up her sleeve.
Then, Jeanne confidently said, “Monster meat.”
“...Say what?” I asked.
“It’s possible to eat monster meat.”
Monster... meat? Wait, seriously? I thought.
“The monsters you mean... They’re the ones from the Demon Lord’s Domain? Not from dungeons?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Jeanne. “They tasted surprisingly normal.”
“You ate them yourself?!”
That’s more wild than I’d have expected from her neat, pretty appearance, I thought. But, still, she’s eaten monsters from the Demon Lord’s Domain... huh. When I heard about the kobold that spared Tomoe and the mystic wolves, I thought negotiating with the Demon Lord’s Domain might be an option, depending on the situation... Oh, but, there’s both “monsters” and “demons,” right? If I remember, kobolds fall under the demon category.
I hesitantly asked Jeanne, “You didn’t happen to eat... a kobold, by any chance, did you?”
When I did, Jeanne reacted with shock, quickly shaking her head, “Perish the thought! I only ate animal-like monsters! I wouldn’t go around eating demons, with their human-like bodies.”
“No, it’s just I’m not familiar with the distinction,” I said.
“...I see,” Jeanne said. “The Elfrieden Kingdom doesn’t share a border with the Demon Lord’s Domain, after all.”
Jeanne nodded, satisfied. “Very well. This is something of a side note, but allow me to provide you with the information our country has on the Demon Lord’s Domain, as well as demons and monsters.”
She began to slowly explain it all for me.
“First of all, even in our country, we have no information on why the Demon Lord’s Domain appeared,” said Jeanne. “Honestly, all that we can say is that one day, out of nowhere, it did.”
“So even the Empire doesn’t know...?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Jeanne. “So, in the Demon Lord’s Domain, there are aberrant creatures that form swarms, but which demonstrate no intelligence, violently devouring all life they come across, as well as those like the kobolds, which behave almost like well-ordered armies and have few differences from the races of mankind. In order to distinguish the two, we call the former monsters and the later demons.”
I’d heard that much from the former king, Albert.
In the northernmost reaches of the continent, a dimension called the “Demon World” had appeared, and monsters of many sizes and shapes had poured out, throwing the Northern Countries into chaos. The forces of mankind had formed an alliance and organized a punitive force to send in, but the attempt had ended in failure.
In the Demon World there were “monsters,” which had minimal (or, some would theorize, no) intelligence, as well as “demons,” who were intelligent and also powerful fighters. This loss had been inflicted on them by the demons. After that battle, mankind had lost the means to defend themselves against the monsters that appeared from the Demon World. The Northern Countries were laid waste one after another, and the monsters extended their range to cover all of what was now called the Demon Lord’s Domain.
When I explained what I had heard from Albert to her, Jeanne nodded, a somber look on her face. “That is correct. And the Gran Chaos Empire were the ones to lead that punitive force. The one who commanded it was the former emperor, our father.”
The Empire lead the punitive force, huh? I thought. Well, given they’re the strongest amongst the nations of mankind, I guess that should have been a given.
“Then, does that mean the Empire has made contact with the demons?” I asked.
“If you mean waged war against them... then yes,” said Jeanne. “Though, my sister and I being nine and seven at the time, we haven’t seen them ourselves. However, with the passage of time, and as we analyzed the statements of those who were touched by the menace of the Demon Lord’s Domain, the situation at the time has become clear to us.”
“What situation is that?” I asked.
“In the very beginning, when many countries perished, countless lives were lost, and an even greater number were displaced to become refugees,” Jeanne said, “all of those attacks were done by monsters.”
I said, “Monsters? There were no demons, then?”
“Yes. At that point, at least.” Jeanne paused to take a sip of her tea, looking down into her cup as she continued. “The first time demons were spotted was
when they met the punitive force in battle. The punitive force was wiped out at the hands of those demons. After that, with our capacity to wage war diminished, mankind was unable to fend off the attacks of the monsters, and we were forced to pull back from a considerable stretch of territory.”
“So, in short, the creation of the Demon Lord’s Domain was a two-stage process?” I asked.
The first stage had been attacks by the monsters that had suddenly appeared. The second stage had been when the demons had destroyed the punitive force, and the weakened forces of mankind had been attacked by monsters. It had probably come some time later, but the attack that had driven Tomoe and the mystic wolves to become refugees had presumably been part of the second stage.
Jeanne nodded, continuing. “It seems the damages caused differed greatly between the monsters and demons. During the monster attacks in the first stage, I’ve heard it was a terrible sight to behold. The monsters spewed fire, burning cities to the ground, devouring soldiers and civilians alike, with no regard to their age or gender. I’ve heard that in the towns and villages they struck, there was nothing left but the messy scraps of their feasting.”
So, they were literal monsters, huh, I thought to myself. These monstrous beings swarmed over the land like locusts, and even mankind was no more than prey to them.
“Then, the second stage, the attack by the demons, was total war,” said Jeanne. “I hear that they acted in an organized fashion, crushing the punitive force with their overwhelming force of arms. Also, while they are few in number, we have statements from those who claim their villages were attacked by the demons. These situations vary, and in some cases, if they withdrew, they weren’t attacked any further, while in others, the demons raped and pillaged, carrying out massacres.”
“...Almost like one of the races of mankind, huh,” I said.
The way that the damages varied from place to place was one point on which that similarity was especially strong. Even within the same army, when there are both disciplined and undisciplined units, the situation post-occupation for each will be different. When we had occupied Van, I’d made an example of some soldiers in an attempt to keep the whole of my armies in line, but had I not, I can say with certainty that there would have been some who abused the civilian populace.
Monsters... and demons, huh... I thought.
“Where do you think the difference comes from?” I asked. “Did the demons evolve from the monsters?”
“‘They gained sentience by eating human brains!’ ...is what a bunch of religious types shouted about for a while... but that’s nonsense,” said Jeanne. “If that were the case, there would be a lot more demons out there. Ever since the battle lines bogged down into a stalemate, it’s only been the monsters that attacked us. Though, you could say that’s why we’ve been able to maintain the status quo.”
...In other words, we just don’t know what demons and monsters are really? I thought.
I said, “Come to think of it, when we were digging a sedimentation pond near Parnam, we found a whole lot of monster fossils. They were apparently from a stratum that would have been the surface more than a few thousand years ago.”
“What are these... ‘fossils’?” Jeanne asked.
Oh, that’s not common knowledge in this world yet? I thought.
“To put it simply, they’re bones left in the earth by living creatures that have died,” I said. “There are a lot of things that have an effect on the process, but the bones fossilize underground over a long, long period of time. However, even if the bones have only been underground for a few thousand years, they can still be called fossils.”
“I see... So does that mean there may have been monsters on the surface several thousand years ago?” Jeanne had a pensive look.
I hadn’t expected her calm reaction. When I’d told Liscia the same thing, she had been pretty shocked after all.
“...I thought you’d be more surprised,” I said.
“When you think about it, even before the appearance of the Demon Lord’s Domain, there were monsters living inside dungeons,” said Jeanne. “Couldn’t it be that there was a dungeon there?”
“It seems our country has no records of that, historical or legendary,” I said. “Though, given that it was thousands of years ago, I can’t deny it’s possible that it was far enough back that there wouldn’t even be legends.”
“Hmm... perhaps we should look into this in our territory, too,” Jeanne said.
If they did that, I couldn’t ask for a better outcome.
“I’d very much like for you to do that,” I said. “The kingdom plans to carry out excavations around the country to investigate the matter.”
“Please, do tell us if you learn anything,” said Jeanne. “Of course, we’ll do the same.”
“Okay,” I nodded.
The Empire had far more territory than the kingdom. If they were willing to investigate the matter, I could expect further discoveries to be made. Of course, I still intended to carry on with our research in the kingdom.
This established a formal agreement for the kingdom and Empire to exchange information on excavations and research.
Jeanne paused for a breath, finishing off her cup of tea. “Now then, I think we’ve veered pretty heavily from the topic of monsters being edible.”
“Oh, right... We were talking about that, weren’t we?” I polished off the rest of my cup of coffee, too, then asked Serina to get another cup for each of us. When I had my coffee and Jeanne had her tea, we resumed.
“The meat we ate was from a winged snake,” Jeanne said.
“A winged snake? Like a dragon?” I asked.
I recalled there was a god named Quetzalcoatl in Central and South America that was also a winged snake, but this wasn’t Earth, and she’d called it a monster, so it was probably more natural to assume it was something like a dragon.
That was my assumption, but Jeanne shook her head. “No, it was nothing so impressive. It really was just a giant snake with four bird-like wings slapped on it.”
What the heck? I thought. It sounds like a total chimera.
“I’m amazed you decided to eat something like that...”
“It tasted like pretty much any ordinary snake,” said Jeanne. “It was more like fish than chicken. Quite tasty, really.”
I was surprised that she’d eaten snake at all, but... well, they’re eaten in some countries. When I thought of snake meat, the image that came to mind was the fake fish meat from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Rashomon, which I had read in my modern literature class, but... maybe it was tasty?
“You’re supposed to be a princess, aren’t you?” I asked. “That’s some weird stuff you’ve been eating.”
“I’m also a commander of armies,” said Jeanne. “If we can live off the land, we’ll have extra rations.”
“That’s... practical of you,” I said.
“Now, as for what made me think to try eating a monster, it was when one of our scouts came back and reported seeing ‘the remains of a monster which appeared to have been cooked by demons.’”
There was another word there that caught my attention. “’Cooked,’ you say? Not just sloppily eaten?”
“Yes,” said Jeanne. “The bones seemed to have been cut apart with a blade, and judging from the charred head left behind, we could infer that it was likely roasted whole, then cut apart and eaten. That made me think that, if we caught a monster of the same variety, we could consider trying to eat it.” Jeanne popped one of the teacakes she had been served into her mouth and ate it. “Of course, I checked that it wasn’t poisonous first, you know? I had it fed it to animals before I let people try it. Then, once its safeness was ascertained, we ate in order of lowest to highest ranking officer.”
“It’s not easy to test food for poison, huh...” I said.
“So, when I ate it, it had a simple but refreshing taste,” said Jeanne. “It tasted good in an ordinary way.”
“No, I’m not concerned abou
t the flavor, there was something more interesting in what you just told me,” I said.
What she’d said about demons eating monsters was far more shocking than the fact that they were edible. Basically, it meant that demons didn’t see monsters as being the same general race as them.
I loved chicken and pork, but no matter how much their faces made them look like pigs or cows, I would never think of eating orcs or minotaurs. Compared to eating something with a humanoid body, even snake was preferable. Maybe demons felt the same way.
Thinking about that, I came to a certain hypothesis. “Hey, Madam Jeanne.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Could it be that demons and monsters are equivalent to what we’d call ‘people’ and ‘animals’?”
The moment I said that, the air froze. Not only Jeanne, but Liscia and Hakuya opened their eyes wide with shock.
Huh? Did I say something that surprising?
“...What made you think that?” Jeanne asked, erasing all trace of an expression from her face.
I thought about explaining my reason... then hesitated for a moment. What I was going to say might seem discriminatory, depending on how it was interpreted. Of course, I didn’t mean it that way, but I still might cause offense, depending on how people took it.
...Maybe I should clear the room first, I thought.
“Um... I’d rather not have what I’m about to say overheard by too many people,” I said.
“...Very well.”
When Jeanne looked to them, the imperial bureaucrats stopped their work, quietly filing out of the office. I made my own bureaucrats leave as well, having Aisha stand by the door to ensure that no one was eavesdropping. The only ones left in the room were Jeanne, Liscia, Hakuya, Aisha, and me. I looked to Liscia, who was beside me recording the content of the talks.
“Liscia, I want you to stop recording, too,” I said.
“...Okay.” Liscia’s pen stopped. Now, the content of our meeting wasn’t being recorded.
In this room so quiet that it made the earlier excitement seem like a lie, Jeanne shrugged her shoulders. “If you have to clear the room first, it sounds dangerous. Just what kind of bombshell statement are you about to drop?”
