Renewed Resolve

Last, I headed over to Azu.

She was heaping seafood salad and roast beef onto her plate and eating with gusto.

When she noticed me approaching, she hurriedly gulped down her drink and swallowed.

"Pwah!"

"No need to rush."

"Uuu… it was so good I couldn't help myself. You caught me being embarrassing."

"Don't worry about it. Eat your fill."

"Yes, Master! Let me make you a plate too."

Azu briskly loaded up a plate for me.

I wanted to compliment her efficiency, but the portions were mountainous.

If she was using herself as the benchmark, I was in trouble. There was no way I could finish all that.

"Here you go!"

She thrust two overflowing plates at me with the biggest smile imaginable.

"Thanks."

I took the plates and set them on the table.

Then, using a fork and spoon, I transferred about half to Azu's now-empty plate.

"Was it too much?"

Azu looked a little anxious.

Something this small didn't bother me in the least, but the difference in our positions was probably what made her worry.

"I already ate at the other tables. And you liked these, right? You shouldn't be picky all the time, but there's nothing wrong with eating what you enjoy once in a while."

"The sauce is so good. And these shrimp are delicious too. I thought so back when we went to the sea, but I think I really like seafood."

"Let me try."

I scooped a bit of sauce from the roast beef platter with my pinky and tasted it.

A meaty richness blended with slow-cooked vegetables, and that was horseradish in there.

The rest was vinegar and salt to balance it out.

Not impossible to recreate, but it would take some work to nail this kind of balance.

As for the salad, the seafood was impeccably fresh.

The tart dressing drizzled over it only whetted the appetite.

The seafood salad, on the other hand, I'd have to give up on replicating.

There was no ocean nearby, which meant they had to be using magic to preserve the freshness during transport.

Outrageously expensive.

Even more so in Kassad.

We'd be better off just going to the coast.

Fresh seafood, cheap.

I ate a slice of roast beef, and juices flooded out.

The beef I was used to was always tough.

But somehow, this was tender. I'd have to pick up some cuts at the market and experiment.

Maybe I'd even ask the chef.

"I'll make you this roast beef once we're back home."

"Really? You promise?"

"Yeah."

I wiped the sauce from Azu's lips with my handkerchief.

"Like I said, don't eat so fast. You'll choke."

"Got it!"

After that, we ate together and savored the food.

Azu and I made the rounds to the other tables and sampled the rest.

By the end, every dish I'd ordered was cleaned out.

Everyone looked satisfied, which was all that mattered. The conversation flowed easily afterward.

Finn had settled in nicely, too.

Hard to believe she'd been giving off such a knife-edge aura earlier.

"What?"

As an after-meal snack, Finn was pulling beans from a pouch and popping them into her mouth.

A pleasant crunching sound accompanied each one.

"I'm not sharing."

"Didn't ask."

"I'd like some."

"… Here."

She gave Azu a small handful.

For the sleeping arrangements, we kept the same setup as before. Finn would share Azu and Elza's room.

An extra fee covered the additional guest, and the inn was happy to accommodate.

I see. Inns need that kind of flexibility. Good to know.

Back in our room, Alexia finished her bath and went straight to sleep.

I was oddly drained, too, probably from all the fretting I'd done.

I was glad it had turned out to be worry for nothing, but I hadn't been able to relax until I'd seen Azu's face in person.

When they hadn't returned after several days, I'd gone so far as to check on the duke's mansion.

Nothing seemed amiss from the outside, and I had no justification to go in, so I'd left.

Given what Azu had told me, this incident would become a decisive rift.

Even if the Church of the Sun God meekly complied with the duke's demands.

As far as I knew, the Church of the Sun God and the Kingdom had been joined at the hip since well before I was born.

But that was only because their interests aligned and they shared the same values.

The statue incident in Kassad, no, even before that, the church had been shifting its behavior.

When the premise breaks, the outcome changes. The same is true in business.

I couldn't imagine the current church yielding to the duke… but what would happen if things escalated?

If the duke decided on war, the Kingdom couldn't look the other way.

The duke's position, bearing the name of the Deianclure Kingdom, was extraordinarily unique.

Normally, when a ducal house was established, it took a new name.

Yet the Deiancles had kept the royal name.

That had to be connected to their claim to the throne.

And then there was the broken crown he'd purchased at the auction.

A lone merchant could only see so far. The rest was for those above the clouds to decide.

All I needed to think about was what to do if it came to that.

And if it did, this would prove invaluable.

The Earth Elemental Stone. Its fragment.

On top of that, Azu carried a Water Elemental.

It was as if the heavens were telling me to start farming.

In times of disaster or war, food was everything.

I remembered the skirmish that had taken Alexia prisoner… when the Kingdom and the Empire had nearly gone to war. Even that minor incident had been enough to drive up grain and food prices.

Of course, grain was tightly regulated by the Agricultural Guild, so breaking in would be difficult.

And even if I did, the overhead would make profitability a distant prospect.

But tubers were a different story.

As a famine-relief crop, anyone could grow them with nothing more than a registration.

The trade-off was their low market price. Some people said the common folk's staple wasn't grain but tubers.

Low price, but low cost, too.

With Alexia on hand, the land costs and a bit of fertilizer would probably cover it.

And the seed potatoes I'd picked up in the north were sweet and delicious. Likely nutritious as well.

If I could brand them successfully, the pricing problem could be solved.

"Hey, I can't sleep unless you do too."

I'd been scribbling at the desk beside the bed, and Alexia had woken up.

I wasn't about to keep her up for the sake of my scheming.

The rest could wait until we were home.

"Sorry. Going to sleep now."

"Would you?"

Alexia stifled a yawn behind her right hand and pulled the blanket over herself as she lay back down.

"Goodnight, Alexia."

"Goodnight."