Rice

Since Wataru wanted to somehow get rice to Nayuta and her group, I decided to cooperate just a little.

"Oi Wataru, give me a hand here."

"Ah, sure."

I had Wataru carry a bag of rice from the warehouse to the kitchen.

Then, Kinue-san made it into rice balls.

And then I—

"We made rice balls from some rice Wataru brought, want some? It's on the house as part of your employee meals."

—gave them to Nayuta and Setsuna.

They looked shocked, but I didn't lie.

Wataru was looking at me in surprise too. Why?

"Wow, this is the legendary rice that all Wakoku citizens have only heard about in myths. And this is its ultimate form, onigiri…!"

"Is it really okay for us to eat this…? This would sell for a fortune if we brought it back to Wakoku."

No, they would spoil on the way there… ah, maybe they have [Storage]?

"Nom, nom… mm, it's delicious, but not as amazing as I expected. Maybe genuine Wakoku citizens would feel differently? As expected of something worthy of Hero-sama's patronage…"

"If you want, why not buy a bag of rice? A hundred gold coins will do."

"… How much is 'a bag'?"

"This much."

I plopped the actual thing down in front of her.

One cloth bag is ten kilograms. I asked for a hundred gold coins (about a hundred million yen in Japanese currency) to see how they'd react. Would they buy it?

"A hundred gold coins… that's expensive for just one bag…"

"Hero-sama, by the way, how much is the wholesale price for this?"

"U-um… one bag is ten gold coins."

Asked about the wholesale price, Wataru answered with what he pays.

By the way, this guy buys one bag a month despite being in debt. Apparently he splits the cost with Haku-san though.

"You're ripping us off."

"Hey now, the people who can buy this are limited, you know? Also, nobody else has permission to sell it. Selling it abroad is absolutely out of the question. You can't afford to miss this chance to get it, can you?"

"… Twenty gold coins."

"Out of the question. A hundred and ten gold coins."

"It went up!?"

"It goes up based on my mood, didn't you know? Lucky you."

This is the kind of aggressive negotiation that's only possible when there are absolutely no competing suppliers.

Also, it's not like I need to sell it. The actual product won't spoil, and it doesn't take up warehouse space. DP is really convenient.

"Well, I don't have to sell it either. So, that's that."

"W-wait! … Th-thirty gold coins!"

Nayuta called out to stop me when I started to put away the bag of rice. But there's still room to raise the price.

"… Let's just pretend this conversation never happened."

"Forty coins, f-forty is the limit of my authority… could I consult with my superiors? … I can't pay immediately though."

"Sure, that's fine. I'll give you the goods in advance. Set the minimum price at forty gold coins and have them name their price… It'll be faster to negotiate with the actual product, right? Depending on how much they pay, I'll even be willing to hand over one bag a month from now on. Tell them to think it over carefully."

With that, I handed the bag of rice to Nayuta… It was heavy, so Setsuna picked it up.

"Aren't you worried we'll run off with it?"

"If that happens, I'll just add a hundred gold coins to Wataru's debt, so it's fine. Right, Wataru?"

"H-hey, Kehma-san, can I talk to you for a sec?"

Wataru called me over. I obediently followed.

"Why is my debt increasing!?"

"You're the one who brought up giving rice to Wakoku in the first place. At least be the guarantor. Ah, if you don't want to, I don't mind not giving them a single grain of rice. That would be easier for me anyway."

Besides, there's no problem if they don't run off with it.

"… Understood. A hundred gold coins is about a month's worth for me… and they definitely won't run off with it anyway!"

Being able to cover a hundred gold coins in a month is very Hero-like, I suppose.

"This might be weird for me to say, but why do you trust those two so much when you just met them today for the first time?"

"Well, I figure it's cheap as a fee for information about Wakoku. If things go well, it'll have been free. I don't know if they're genuine or not, but they did show me their inro, which serves as both a passport and identification."

I see, so he'd thought about that too.

By the way, the inro was lacquered black with Wakoku's crest done in gold makie. Pretty extravagant.

And with that, our discussion was settled, so we headed back.

"If you run off with it, I'm adding a hundred gold coins to Wataru's debt. If you don't want to betray the Hero's trust, make sure to pay."

"Please! Please don't run off with it, Nayuta-san."

"Ah, yes… understood. I can't betray Hero-sama's trust."

By the way, one bag of rice is 50 DP. I've really gotten used to price gouging lately, haven't I?

"Well, if you manage to find a direct route to procure it without going through the empire, you can cut ties with us starting the following month."

"How gracious of you. Hmph, we'll find it right away. There has to be a route they used to get the original rice in the first place."

The thing is, that route leads right back here.

If you find a route other than us, I'd actually love to hear about it.

 

＊ ＊ ＊

 

After introducing the three of them and meddling enough, I went back to the village chief's room.

After saying all that to Wataru, he won't say anything unnecessary. More importantly, I've assigned Nerune to keep an eye on him.

"So anyway, that's another money-making scheme added to the list."

"You're really good at making money, Kehma. How reliable."

For some reason, Rokuko came by. The timing was so perfect that it seemed like she'd been watching my every move on the monitor, but I didn't say anything about it.

"Still, those sisters turned out to be Wakoku spies, huh?"

"Given that they're not even hiding it, they're probably not ninjas."

"Ninja? Is that what the intelligence agency is called?"

"That's one possibility. It's an occupation name associated with the Mikado and Daimyo, like in Japan."

I gave her a simple explanation of ninjas. I described them as shadowy figures specializing in intelligence gathering and covert operations.

"… Ninja! Shuriken, caltrops, smoke bombs… ninjutsu!"

"By the way, there's also shinobi. They're more quiet and pragmatic."

"Ah, I'm not interested in those."

Not interested, huh.

"Haah, but that's a relief. Those sisters' true identities are ninjas… or setting that aside, they're Wakoku spies. In that case, we don't need to fire them!"

"… Well, if they're gathering information that openly, they're easy to handle, and we can even trade rice with them. But there's still one important point remaining."

"… The hermaphrodite thing?"

"If she was just born that way, it's not a problem. Actually, why did you bring that up? There's something more important."

"Well, you've been watching them so closely lately that I was wondering if you had a thing for that. I wouldn't lose in the chest department, but I don't have anything down below… should I grow one too?"

"You absolutely should not."

"Even if you asked, I couldn't. I'm not you, Kehma."

"Like I could just grow one… ah, I do have [Super Transformation], don't I. Yeah."

Though there's the restriction that what I want to become has to actually exist. Oh, we got off topic.

"So what's the important thing?"

"DP. Her DP. Remember how the older sister's daily DP was 0?"

"Ah, right, there was that!"

Right. The mystery of why Setsuna's earned DP was 0 remained unsolved.

… And yet Rokuko forgot something that important. Maybe it's a backlash from her working so hard lately? That's a relief.