Chapter 17 — Reconstructing Affection (2)
Chapter 17 — Reconstructing Affection (2)
—Really?
The servants' whispered voices carried into the room. A conversation in the dim corridor outside, a place where only servants passed. Words that, under normal circumstances, would never reach their masters inside the chambers.
But Roan had been eavesdropping on their talk by focusing his Detection. It was an exercise in concentrating the normally widespread force onto a confined space. At first, pinpointing the location had been difficult, but now he had grown quite accustomed to it.
[Looks like you've gotten pretty used to it now.]
'Shh, don't talk to me.'
[Hmph.]
He knew the servants in the corridor couldn't hear his voice, but whenever he switched to eavesdropping mode, he found himself whispering for no reason. Even when playing games, didn't you automatically muffle your voice during scenes where you peeked at something from behind a wall?
After hearing Roan's scolding, Fiora grumbled lightly, but she said nothing more. She had a remarkably cool disposition. Besides, it was none other than Fiora who always encouraged him to use his skills consistently.
— Yeah, no wonder His Majesty was feeding such expensive food to mere slaves...
— This Harvest Festival is going to be absolutely incredible! I'm so excited!
— I never imagined His Majesty would care about things like that. These days, even when you stand beside His Majesty, you don't feel like you're about to die anymore. It's amazing.
'Hmm...'
About a week had passed since he first met the Small Council and discussed the future direction. Acting in the Demon King's body had now become considerably familiar. He could now wander to places beyond the dining hall, library, and training grounds even without a guide.
In the meantime, he had also visited Princess Grünent's new quarters two or three times. It was a room in one of the spire towers at the edge of the palace.
To anyone's eyes, it was the kind of place a princess abducted by the Demon King would stay, but Grünent's quality of life seemed to have risen considerably. Allowing the maids she had brought from her homeland to stay with her also seemed to contribute greatly to the princess's well-being. Thanks to that, Grünent's Affection gains were small but steadily progressing.
"It feels like the misunderstanding just keeps getting worse."
[Misunderstanding? Ah, you mean the festival pigs for the Harvest Festival?]
"Can you please stop calling humans pigs?"
[From the standpoint of slabs of meat being lopped off by me, there isn't much difference, but fine. Do you mean the edible humans for the Harvest Festival?]
Fiora's voice was always cheerful, which made the gap all the more chilling when she spoke of such things. It struck him anew that, in the end, she was a sword that killed people.
"...Hmm."
Groaning, Roan refocused on Detection.
It had become clear, back on the day Shwikviena first joined the Small Council, that she had been laboring under a misunderstanding. There was no way she didn't realize that once such rumors spread among the servants, they'd only end up disappointed later.
Yet the rumors about the Harvest Festival feast were spreading throughout the palace.
Having noticed the changing treatment of humans, the servants had likely found their own reason for it.
Roan sighed again and rose from the office desk. Stepping through the door, he entered a small chamber that connected the office to the corridor. The office secretary, who had been seated at a desk, rose to his feet.
"Are you going out, Your Majesty?"
The Faunus secretary had been so shocked to see the Demon King appear in the office that he nearly had a seizure. But now, he too was growing accustomed to this routine.
The shaggy secretary, sporting goat horns on his head, politely inquired about the Demon King's destination.
"Are you proceeding as scheduled?"
"Yes. I'm going to the Education Room."
"Go in peace, Your Majesty."
The secretary's hooves, poking out from under his fine clothes, made a vivid impression. The Faunus secretary watched Roan step into the corridor, then sat back down at his desk and resumed working.
'It bothers me. Diobe is there, so it should be fine, but still...'
Heading toward the Education Room he had mentioned to the secretary, Roan recalled his visit to the second Small Council meeting two days earlier.
*
"I have investigated the matters you inquired about last time and present them, Your Majesty."
The council chamber desk was a mess surrounded by towers of documents, but the file Aranya demurely held out to the Demon King was thin and neat.
It was a report compressing all the contents on the desk into only the essentials. Watching Roan lightly flip through the report, the Chancellor spoke.
"Furthermore, the organization of the search parties was completed yesterday. They are scheduled to depart as soon as the supplies are ready."
"Is that so?"
Picking up from Aranya's words, Minoreus answered the Demon King.
"Yes, Your Majesty. From our knight order, we selected the most fleet-footed and observant individuals. And from the Arachne Clan, we chose those most trusted, dividing them into a total of four teams. Two heading north and two south, respectively."
"I shall be expecting results."
These were the search parties dispatched to locate what he had mentioned near the end of the previous Small Council meeting. It was something he had made good use of in the game, but since the game's backdrop had been the human Kingdom of Merde, he found it difficult to ascertain how many existed in the demon nation of Evirgio as well.
Yet Roan remembered the map of the Moira Continent he had seen inside the game. Having given them vague location data and search conditions, the rest now rested with the search parties.
The secret that had allowed the Hero to level up and carry out great deeds while traveling back and forth across the entire continent. Roan was searching for Waypoints. Ancient ruins whose existence was still unknown to the human kingdoms and even to the figures of Evirgio. The Hero was meant to discover these, use them to level up, and easily reach Evirgio's capital, Basel.
'This time, I'll be using them.'
Roan smirked a little mischievously to himself.
"Now then, let us hear the reports."
The first report was brief. It regarded the question Roan had asked Liron: 'Given the current finances, if the supply of humans were cut off from Basel and other major cities and alternative food had to be provided, how long could they hold out?'
The Finance Minister's prediction was that if they maintained the current level of consumption while supplying food, they could last two years. If they reduced palace spending and minimized the food supply just enough to prevent riots, the absolute maximum was about four years.
"Even if it's four years, the atmosphere will be utterly grim after that, won't it?"
"While no one will dare openly voice discontent, there will assuredly be more noisy elements than there are now, Your Majesty."
As if troubled, the lich's finger bones scratched at his skull.
"One cause is that the harvests dispatched to the warfront have been greater than in peacetime, reducing the surplus available to stockpile grain in Basel in recent years. The decline in trade volume is also to blame. Even if we have money and goods, there are no neighboring countries willing to sell us grain, Your Majesty."
"Why is that?"
"As the war dragged on, Erde firmly resolved to cut off the grain flowing to our people. The pressure they began applying to any nation selling us food is having its effect."
"Understood. Proceed with the next subject."
He would worry after hearing everything. Roan leaned back comfortably in his chair.
At Aranya's glance, Shwikviena opened her mouth.
"This concerns the uses for humans. First, what we have briefly sorted amounts to roughly three major categories, Your Majesty."
Roan examined the table of contents of the second report while listening attentively to Shwikviena.
"First: occasionally there are those who, if not as strong as our kind, can still exert physical strength. Typically soldiers, hunters, or other humans who have handled weapons. It seems these could be used as labor after being brainwashed."
Roan quietly raised his head and stared silently at the Correction Officer. Then Shwikviena, sensing the Demon King's gaze, flushed slightly pink.
...Did it have to be brainwashing, though?
But not wanting to interrupt the report, Roan decided to let it slide for now.
"Second: assignment to tasks that require mental work such as calculation. On average, humans are inferior beings, but when it comes to handling letters or numbers, quite a few individuals exceed the average level of our demonkind. Especially those hailing from the Royal Academy, the civil service, merchants, clergy, or mages seem to have many potential uses."
"And the last?"
"The last is for technical positions requiring delicate work. Unlike our demonkind, human hands are stereotypically formed with five fingers each, ten in total, and the finger lengths are fairly consistent, so they appear proficient at most manual tasks."
Roan nodded. Among the people in this room, three did not possess human hands. Aranya's hands were shaped like the ends of spider legs splitting into large spikes or fingers. Liron's hands were only bone, and Minoreus's hands also had only three fingers.
While they had no trouble handling large objects or familiar everyday items, Roan had witnessed them struggle when picking up thin things like paper or small items like a tiny teaspoon.
Thus, they used daily necessities custom-sized for them. A luxury possible, of course, because they were nobles.
"Especially for the work corresponding to the second and third categories, utilizing humans seems likely to increase efficiency. Many among our people consider such work too menial for demonkind and wish to avoid sullying their hands with it."
Roan recalled what the former head maid had said.
Work for servants, considered inferior because it was done by the powerless.
But in actuality, the work of sitting down, using one's head, and agonizing to change technology and social systems, or performing delicate tasks, was just as important as physical labor.
The world would not progress with only one or the other. As a Korean by birth, he already knew real-life examples all too well.
Tales about the commoner-born inventor Jang Yeong-sil, or the story of those who sat at their desks reciting nothing but the words of Confucius, scorned new ideas, and ultimately lost their country to Imperial Japan—these were famous anecdotes known even to someone like him, who hadn't studied much in his previous world.
And so, what the Demon King had urgently ordered to be prepared after that day's report was that very Education Room.
The vast hall, originally designed as a ballroom, was now packed with partitions and desks dividing it into sections. The hall, which had been chaotic only yesterday, now felt somewhat organized.
"You have arrived, Your Majesty."
"Your Majesty."
Shwikviena and Diobe bowed their heads to the Demon King. Even for someone in charge of personnel management in the palace, teaching humans with different races and lifeways was a slightly different matter. Therefore, the Demon King had assigned the human Diobe, who had spent years working in the demon world, to assist the Correction Officer.
'My Affection has gone up minutely.'
An Affection window, popping up briefly beside Diobe before vanishing with a noisy ping-ping sound, displayed the number -83. It was thanks to her commendably having raised her Affection little by little, by 1 point each time.
"How is the progress?"
"It seems the hall will be organized sooner than expected. Arranging the curriculum is taking a little time, but that too is scheduled to be completed by tomorrow. Full-scale education will commence the day after tomorrow, Your Majesty."
After listening to Shwikviena's briefing, Roan asked Diobe,
"Has the classification of the humans been completed?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. I received the classification information from the Correction Officer, divided them accordingly, and then asked the slaves about their desired fields of education before assigning them. In cases where talent was perceived, or where a previous occupation was clearly established, assignment based on aptitude was prioritized over preference."
It was still a world where occupation was determined more by family trade or parental influence than personal desire.
Examining one's specialty or asking about one's own wishes to provide education was not yet common on this continent. The Correction Officer and Diobe felt a sense of novelty at this new method.
"Hm. Then, how long do you estimate it will take for the quicker learners to start working for the first time?"
The Demon King's violet eyes gleamed sharply with intense interest. For an instant, Diobe thought those eyes were incredibly beautiful, and she flinched at her own thought.
"We are considering about one week, Your Majesty."
*
Grünent gazed out the window. She looked like an imprisoned princess from a fairy tale, though she actually didn't feel that bad.
Outside was desolate scenery, but the cool breeze was fresh.
A new flower had been placed by the window. The Demon King occasionally showed his face and sometimes sent flowers from the garden. Grünent could tell that her own thoughts about the Demon King were definitely changing each time.
"Princess. We have come to clean."
At the voice of her maid Carol, Grünent turned around and was startled.
It was not the goblin maid who usually cleaned her room.
"...A human... is it?"
"Y-yes."
The green-haired young woman bowed her head with a tense voice. Grünent asked, perplexed.
"Were there human servants in this castle?"
"I am not a formal servant. I am an apprentice."
"An apprentice?"
"I was originally captured and brought to this castle as a slave, but I am receiving servant training. After I properly learn the work for three months, I can become a formal servant."
The woman with the vibrant green hair appeared to be around her age, a beauty with a mature charm. Grünent had been surprised to meet another human in the castle, but the content of her words was even more astonishing.
"Formal... you mean you receive a wage?"
"Yes."
The apprentice servant's voice overflowed with joy.
"His Majesty has found a way for us to live."
Lisa smiled brightly.