I am the High King.
I was staying in Village Five, waiting for my meeting with Lady Tiselle's father.
It was by no means just for the sake of enjoying sightseeing and good food.
My meeting with Lady Tiselle's father was bound to be an important conference.
Even someone like me felt nervous.
Sightseeing and good food were simply necessary to ease that tension.
Yes, completely necessary.
Did you say you understand the food, but not the sightseeing?
Fool.
The Representative of this Village Five was none other than Lady Tiselle's father.
Just as you can understand a king's character by looking at his country, looking at a city... ah, no, looking at a village allows you to understand the character of its Village Head.
Therefore, by sightseeing in Village Five, I was gathering intelligence on Lady Tiselle's father.
No, it wasn't just that I wanted to go watch the White Swan Race.
I would pass nearby, but my objective was the temple called a shrine located further back.
Apparently, multiple animal deities were enshrined there.
Even non-believers were permitted to tour it, so I wanted to take a look.
Also, there was the Cockatrice Ranch located at the Village Five Foothills.
A large number of those legendary magic beasts, cockatrices, were supposedly being raised there.
I could hardly pass up seeing that either.
No, no, the ramen shop using cockatrice eggs wasn't my objective.
I would go there, though.
That was simply because the shop happened to be close by; the shop itself was not my goal.
Indeed.
Ah, but being able to ride the carriages moving throughout Village Five for free was wonderful.
Remembering the carriage destinations... the so-called routes, was a bit tough, but once learned, it was exceedingly convenient.
I was also interested in the people-carrying golem that moved through the circular tunnel dug into the mountainside... but with people constantly entering and exiting, approaching it was difficult.
However, I did go to the underground shopping street, which was the destination of the people-carrying golem.
It was a place selling various clothes and accessories.
I ordered a new cloak there.
Completion would take quite a while, but since it could be delivered as far as the Six Dragon God Kingdom, it would arrive in my country alongside the shipments addressed to Lady Tiselle.
Of course, I paid the fee in advance.
And along with my cloak, I also ordered souvenirs to hand out to my subordinates.
A king is not stingy.
Hahaha.
Ah, no, that had nothing to do with winning on the White Swan Race yesterday.
I-I was just making ends meet within my pocket money.
What I felt as a king while looking around Village Five was its cleanliness.
There was no filth lying around anywhere.
The reason was simple.
Among the few rules of Village Five, it was stipulated that excretion must be done in designated areas.
The guide I hired yesterday also warned me about that right at the start.
No matter how vast Village Five was, if many people relieved themselves wherever they pleased, it would become filthy in no time.
To prevent that, such a rule was necessary.
And to enforce that rule, Village Five provided public outhouses all over the place.
Those public outhouses were also cleaned multiple times a day, keeping them sanitary.
There was no unpleasant odor either.
The scent of the regularly replaced flowers and grass was pleasant.
With this, people would willingly follow the rule.
Anyone would prefer cleanliness over filth.
Next were the public washing areas installed near the public outhouses.
After doing one's business in the outhouse, wash your hands.
That was the second of the few rules in Village Five.
No matter how rushed you were, you had to wash your hands after relieving yourself in an outhouse.
Apparently, this was because waste was a source of disease.
Even if you did not excrete out in the open, leaving hands that had been near waste unwashed made it meaningless.
So, wash them with running water, they said.
If anything, it was even recommended that you wash your hands even if you had not used the outhouse.
What could be gleaned from this was that Lady Tiselle's father, the Representative of Village Five, was exceptionally fond of cleanliness.
Or perhaps he feared the Disease Demon.
Could it be that he had suffered from a severe illness in the past?
It might be wise to avoid such topics.
As an aside, causing a ruckus inside an outhouse or obstructing someone from using an outhouse or washing their hands was treated as a massive taboo in Village Five.
It was not dictated by a rule.
It had simply become a natural part of the culture formed among the residents of Village Five.
Still, seeing fights interrupted by an outhouse break or a hand-washing break astonished me.
Well, having an outhouse or hand-washing break interposed did calm people down and settle the brawl, though.
Oh right, anyone who deliberately destroyed an outhouse was treated as a severe criminal.
On par with someone who committed murder.
Come to think of it, improving the outhouse situation was the very first thing Lady Tiselle did as well.
...
Let us use the outhouses cleanly.
Another thing I noticed while exploring Village Five was that there were quite a few places teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic.
And those places were usually bustling with many students.
Village Five seemed quite enthusiastic about education.
I attempted to approach a teacher to ask if they might come teach in my country, but I fled.
The teacher was an Angel.
That was right.
This was the village of an Angel's (Lady Tiselle's) father.
Of course there would be Angels.
There had been some at the golem factory too.
I had let my guard down.
Still, Angels were not feared in Village Five.
Even though, until recently, the Angels had been attacking the Demon Kingdom.
Hmm, being Angels, it wouldn't be surprising if they had secret dealings with the Demon Kingdom behind the scenes.
So other than military personnel, people didn't harbor much hostility toward Angels.
I see.
Terrifying Angels.
Perhaps because there were many places teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, sheets of paper with text were posted all over the place.
What stood out was something called a newspaper.
The latest information about Village Five was written on it.
It was astonishing that one could read it for free.
I heard that individuals could purchase copies of the newspaper, but it was so popular that getting one's hands on a copy was difficult.
Well, unless one's goal was collecting newspapers, the ones posted outside were more than enough.
...
A ranking of popular ramen shops, is it?
I have eaten at most of the top-ranking ones, but...
This fourth-place shop, I haven't eaten there yet.
Let's make this tonight's dinner.
Besides the newspapers, what was posted up were things called flyers.
They were things with product advertisements and shop directions written on them.
With pictures and all, they were quite pleasing to the eye.
What struck me as unusual was that the prices of the goods were written on the product advertisement sheets.
It was the same at the ramen shops, but in Village Five, the prices of goods were clearly defined.
This was a blessing.
Even a traveler like me could shop with peace of mind.
In most places, they would mark up prices just because you were a traveler.
Having to negotiate discounts every single time I bought something was tedious.
Aside from that... there were shops selling books.
I hadn't seen shops that sold exclusively books, but books were sold in general stores and in corners of restaurants.
Depending on the restaurant, there were even places where you were free to read the books placed there.
Hmph.
Books had permeated as entertainment.
As expected, many people could read.
And judging by this state of affairs, there had to be people making a living writing books.
So this is what it means to be cultured.
How enviable.
However, the contents of the books seemed heavily skewed toward romance.
I did not come across the military chronicles that I favored.
Well, if reading in a restaurant, romance was probably preferred over military chronicles.
A place that might have military chronicles...
Come to think of it, the guide I hired yesterday mentioned there was a library.
Let us go take a look.
I was amazed by the sheer number of books in the library's collection.
Was it really fine to make the majority of them open to the public?
Wouldn't the books get damaged?
They said books only had value when they were read, but...
Books are assets.
Though it might be none of my business, what about collecting a security deposit from people visiting the library to account for theft or damage?
I ended up suggesting that to the library staff.
However, the library staff laughed and replied that not a single resident of Village Five would handle library books roughly.
Hmm.
The common residents treasured books.
I was overwhelmed by Village Five's greatness.
And I was shocked to find that the vast majority of the library's books were romance stories.
Could it be that people in the Demon Kingdom were starved for romance?
That wasn't it?
There were military chronicles, but they weren't very refined as reading material, so they couldn't recommend them.
Romance stories were what made for an entertaining read.
Lately, more people had begun writing such works.
I-I see.
For the time being, I read the staff-recommended book for as long as time allowed.
...
There are many assertive women.
I strongly felt the cultural difference.
Conqueror King: "So you had secret dealings with the Demon Kingdom. Terrifying Angels."
Angel Race A: "False accusation, false accusation, false accusation! We didn't do that!"
Angel Race B: "Eh? Really?"
Angel Race C: "Lady Tia and Lady Kiabit casually infiltrated the Demon Kingdom all the time, though?"
Angel Race A: "It was merely a gentleman's agreement not to attack civilians or civilian facilities!"
Angel Race B: "Ah, so not a secret deal, but a gentleman's agreement."
Angel Race C: "I see, it really is a false accusation."
Conqueror King: "..."
Library Staff: "This is my recommendation."
Conqueror King: "!!!"
Staff Member A: "Who was it?! Who was the idiot who recommended a heretical book (Versa) to an innocent traveler?!"
Staff Member B: "They fled at full speed!"
Staff Member A: "Catch them! The traveler too! Our common sense will be misunderstood!"
Staff Member B: "The traveler seems to be a guest of the Village Head, though. Lady Youko's guards came by."
Staff Member A: "............Will this become a matter of liability?"
Staff Member B: "I don't know, but shall we capture him?"
Staff Member A: "Of course not! Ah, if I recall, he came looking for military chronicles, right?"
Staff Member B: "He said so when he arrived."
Staff Member A: "Prepare transferrable military chronicles. Deliver them to the traveler's inn."
Staff Member B: "Is it a bribe?"
Staff Member A: "It's merely to have him forget about the heretical book with new ones."
Staff Member B: "Understood."
Staff Member A: "Make sure you catch the staff member who fled. That one, I won't forgive."
Staff Member B: "I will do my best!"
Silver Knight: "Since it's an introduction to Village Five..."
Bronze Knight: "We thought perhaps we would get an appearance after so long..."
Red Iron Knight: "We've been on standby the whole time..."
Silver Knight: "Bronze, your shop name gets mentioned here and there, doesn't it?!"
Bronze Knight: "Even though you have chances in connection with the stadium!"
Red Iron Knight: "...I want a presence."
Five-kun: "(Not yet. It is not yet time to panic.)"