Sugar production has officially begun.
I’d been using prototype batches as seasoning for a while, but full mass production is finally online.
Ever heard of sugar beets?
Beta vulgaris — in Japan they’re grown up in Hokkaido and the like.
Turns out this region I live in is actually quite far north, and the local sweetener economy begins and ends at honey.
Strictly speaking, sugar does circulate in the towns — it’s just obscenely expensive.
Same as medieval Europe back on Earth, apparently.
True or not, I’ve even heard the theory that Alexander the Great’s whole grand campaign was partly about seizing sugar-producing lands.
Anyway, enough trivia—
We harvested a mountain of beets from the beet field, borrowed a few elf laborers from Katia’s crew, and the sugar shed went into operation.
Since the birthday party, incidentally, the palm-top rabbits have become carrot cake FANATICS.
Flour from town, eggs via offering box, carrots from the field — and day and night they pursue their research into ever-better carrot cake.
Speaking of which — Sonya is permanently on the sofa with the offering-box catalog, and lately she’s been placing orders WITHOUT ASKING.
I asked the harvest god whether non-skill-holders were even allowed to use it, and received the answer: “She feels like family, so it’s fine.”
Hmm…
Remember: Money-Grubbing God.
Sonya’s sense of money is broken, and I strongly suspect he classified her as a revenue opportunity and approved on the spot.
To her credit, Sonya’s been ordering cookbooks — researching not just cake but carrot recipes across the board.
The kitchen’s seasoning shelf has also been mysteriously self-enriching… I may need to have Words soon.
—We’re BROKE, after all.
The offering-box balance has fallen below one thousand yen. A genuine humanitarian crisis.
“Which is all to say: we’re going to town to sell sugar!”
I declared it loudly in front of a cart loaded to the rails with sugar.
I have the Item Box, so strictly I don’t need a cart — but then no one except me could ever do the hauling.
Farm work collapses into inefficiency without me and my skills, and it’s one of the household’s two lifelines alongside the rabbits’ hunting.
So the traveling-sales side of the business needs to be delegable — to the elves.
“We’re selling sugar~♪”
“Sell the sugar, get reward carrots~♪”
“Captain, ma’am~ how far is the town~?”
“Meat, meat, carrot, meat, carrot~♪”
“Is stall food allowed in town~?”
One of them was, for reasons unknown, already eating her boxed lunch — but pointing it out would accomplish nothing.
Today’s expedition roster:
・Me
・Maria
・Arisa
・Elves ×2
・Palm-top rabbits ×5
The plan: this first run, Maria, Arisa and I handle things and open negotiations with the merchant guild.
Once the trade route is established, future runs will be two elves plus a five-rabbit escort detail.
The elves the queen posted to us are apparently elite even by settlement standards — but “elite” at normal-person scale, i.e. still below Arisa.
Hence: rabbit escort.
Two hours down the forest road, our vanguard rabbit turned back toward us.
“Captain~!”
“Oh? What is it?”
She smiled sweetly and pointed ahead and to the right.
“It’s a Kaiser Dragon~”
The elves’ and Arisa’s faces spasmed in unison.
“A Kaiser Dragon, ya say…?! That’s a CALAMITY-class individual, that is…!”
Oh, THAT thing?
It is, indeed, an extremely large dragon.
Wait — Calamity-class means… that tier? The giant-Cyclops tier that took Sonya, Maria, AND the Adventurer King?
“Did someone anger the great forest spirits? For misfortune of this impossible magnitude to befall us…”
Arisa and the elves have gone visibly gray… as combat personnel, they’re clearly out for this round.
“Captain, ma’am~ permission to flee~”
“Fleeing time~”
“Boing boing boing~♪”
“Run away, run away~ ruuun awaaay~♪”
Ah. They’ve begun fleeing without authorization.
Truly free spirits, these ones…
Though thinking about it — they never bolt without orders when Sonya’s present. So the queenly authority DOES function, at least somewhat?
Either way, they’re useless as an escort like this. Agenda item for the Sonya summit when we get home.
And then the Kaiser Dragon aimed a warning roar at us.
A bass note that resonated down to the bottom of my lungs—
“Kyaaah!”
“NOPE! That’s a NOPE from me!”
Both elves and Arisa lost all will to fight and collapsed where they stood.
“Lord Tatsuya. Allow me to—”
I raised a hand to stop Maria — currently our sole functional combatant.
“No. I’ve got it.”
And I took one step toward the Kaiser Dragon, hoe in hand.
“Honestly… how many random encounters does one shopping trip NEED?”
I sighed from the bottom of my soul.
“But Lord Tatsuya! The Kaiser Dragon ranks among the strongest of ALL dragonkind! Let me assist—!”
“‘Strongest’ meaning — Demon Lord Cornelia’s tier?”
She did introduce herself as a dark evil dragon, after all.
I still can’t calibrate strength here, but judging by everyone’s reactions — including hers — she and I are roughly even.
So if the Kaiser Dragon is ‘strongest of dragonkind’… it’s even with Cornelia?
That seems genuinely bad?
Maria shook her head hard.
“No — Lady Cornelia is in a class apart. That lady is what you get roughly THREE evolutions past a Kaiser Dragon. The difference between a dragon whelp and a dragon.”
Ah. Then by straightforward arithmetic: no problem whatsoever.