A few days later, I went out into the city with Zoe.
The purpose that day was to inspect the recovering city with my own eyes.
No matter how optimal the orders I issued from behind a desk might seem, it was vital to confirm with my own eyes how they were being carried out on the ground, and how they were affecting the people.
Father, it seems, had traveled all over incognito with great energy in his youth, and following his example, I make a point of conducting inspections actively as well.
The provincial capital of Larak was regaining its liveliness.
The streets had been almost entirely rebuilt, and the overall atmosphere was far livelier than it had been right after my arrival.
And yet—
"Come on, you're kidding me. What a rip-off."
At the eaves of a certain shop, a customer and someone from the store were going at it.
"Master."
"Yes."
Zoe and I drew a little closer, then settled in to watch the proceedings from a distance.
Apparently, it was a liquor shop.
Not a tavern—a shop selling various kinds of alcohol.
At that liquor shop, a man who looked like a young laborer was hurling complaints at the shopkeeper.
"The price went up again? How many times is that now, huh?"
"I'm terribly sorry, but you see, it's the times we live in."
"Tch. If it goes up any more, I'm done buying from you."
"My sincerest apologies."
Cursing under his breath, the man bought his liquor and left.
And it wasn't just him—nearly every customer who came to that liquor shop grumbled something like "Prices up again?" or "Way too expensive."
"Let's move on."
"Y-yes."
After watching all that, I took Zoe and left the scene.
Zoe followed me as ordered, but to the very end she kept glancing back over her shoulder at the liquor shop behind us.
Once we had put some distance between ourselves and the shop, Zoe spoke up.
"Master, I hesitate to speak out of turn, but..."
"Hm?"
"That liquor shop just now—I looked through the goods they were selling, and everything was priced at more than double what it was before the earthquake."
"It would seem so."
I nodded.
The market prices of the major commodities were in my head as well.
Cross-checking them, it was indeed clear that, just as Zoe said, prices had risen to nearly double.
"Is that acceptable? Letting merchants gouge customers at a time like this. Surely that counts as extortion."
"Let them do as they please."
"Let them... do as they please?"
Zoe tilted her head.
She didn't say it aloud, but her face plainly read, That hardly seems Master-like.
"I know what you want to say."
Without stopping, I walked through the lively streets with Zoe and continued.
"You're wondering whether we can afford to let merchants rake in obscene profits at a time like this. Am I right?"
"Y-yes, exactly. It's just—I've heard that you, Master, resolved the Rice Riot soon after arriving in this land."
"You know that well, don't you?"
I chuckled.
Zoe as she was now would hardly find it strange to have that fact firmly in mind.
"That one mattered. This, I let be."
I repeated the same words once more.
Zoe still looked unpersuaded, so I decided to explain as we walked.
"That was liquor. It's not the same as rice."
"I see..."
"Some men will insist they can't get by without alcohol, but it's just that—alcohol. A luxury. If it's too expensive to buy, then simply don't drink it."
"A luxury... true enough."
Zoe nodded slightly.
"If my sense of things isn't off... with everything going on, any husband who whined that liquor was too expensive to buy would get glared down by his wife at home."
"...True enough."
Zoe said that, then immediately stifled a small laugh.
She had probably pictured the "liquor-loving husband glared at by his wife" I described and found it hilarious.
Since the topic was open, I decided to keep going.
"Rice, the staple food around here, and salt. For those two in particular, we've issued directives telling the merchants not to do anything unnecessary. In exchange, we turn a blind eye to them making their profits on everything else. This is going to be a long road—I don't want merchants bearing needless grudges because I banned everything."
"To think you'd planned that far... incredible, Master."
"But when it comes to rice and salt, I show no mercy—Zoe."
"Wha—? Y-yes!"
I stopped walking and called Zoe's name.
She flinched, then immediately put on a serious face.
The sudden drop in my tone told her in an instant that something was up.
I turned my gaze toward a shop a little ahead of us, and Zoe looked at it too.
It was a salt shop.
Several varieties of salt were heaped in mounds at the storefront—a common type of shop that sold them by weight to customers who came to buy.
Staring at that shop, I said to Zoe:
"Investigate that shop."
"That shop...? But Master, the prices there seem to be nearly the same as the market rate before the earthquake."
"...Hm. Then go buy an appropriate amount."
Thinking a demonstration would beat an explanation, I gave her that order first.
"As you command."
Though puzzled, Zoe obeyed, went to the shop, and bought some salt.
She was dressed as a maid right now—and a truly "accomplished maid" she made.
The shopkeeper suspected nothing and sold Zoe the salt.
Meanwhile, I entered the shop on the opposite side.
It was an eatery.
"Shopkeeper, some water. In a bowl, please."
"Water? Er, certainly."
He gave me a look like—water, at an eatery? But since I put the money out first, he accepted it with the same puzzled expression and returned from the back of the shop with a bowl filled about eighty percent full of water.
I took it and set it on the table for the time being.
"Thank you for waiting."
Zoe came back to me carrying the salt in a small cloth bag.
Noticing the bowl of water, she looked puzzled, but held the bag out to me.
I took it and opened its mouth.
I pressed my index finger into the salt, scooped up a pinch, and licked it.
"...Hmm."
"Is something suspicious?"
"Check it yourself."
"As you command. Pardon me."
Zoe, just as I had, touched the salt to her finger and licked it.
The next moment, an extremely complicated expression crossed her face.
"This is... a strange taste. It's supposed to be salt, but somehow... how should I put it..."
Zoe was bewildered.
Standing before the salt she herself had bought and I now held, she wore the look of someone finding it utterly incomprehensible.
The look of someone thinking: something is wrong, but no fitting word comes to mind.
Since there was no longer any question about my initial judgment that something was "off," I decided to reveal the trick.
"First, the color. The price list says sun-dried salt, but it's a little off for that."
"Now that you mention it..."
"Most likely—"
So saying, I poured the salt from the bag into the bowl of water.
A bagful of salt sank into the water as it dissolved.
For the portion that wouldn't dissolve, I stuck my index finger in and stirred.
"What are you doing?"
"Watch."
As I stirred with my finger, the salt steadily dissolved—but.
When I had finished, I held the bowl itself out to Zoe.
She took it, brought her face close, and lowered her gaze.
"There's salt left... no! This is—"
Zoe's eyes flew wide open.
After the stirring, something undissolved remained.
One look was enough to tell it was not salt.
Zoe reached in, pinched it, pulled it out of the water, and stared at it intently.
"Probably sand or something—in short, an adulterant."
"An adulterant!?"
Zoe whipped around.
The salt shop was still doing business as usual.
The price list at the storefront, the price of the salt—the numbers were clearly not much different from before the earthquake.
"Ahh! I see—even with the price unchanged, if you mix in an adulterant—"
"You can rake in the profits."
"To think such a thing... incredible, Master, that you noticed this."
"Zoe."
"Yes!"
"I leave it to you. Expose it publicly, then arrest them."
"As you command. I will have soldiers, water—and a glass vessel prepared."
"Hm."
I nodded, then sat down at a table in the eatery.
Zoe hurried off with her orders, and I settled in to watch the proceedings and the outcome from here.
I raised a hand and called the shopkeeper over.
"Shopkeeper, make me something to eat. Anything is fine as long as it's hot."
"Right away!"
Since this time it was a proper order, the shopkeeper took it with his business smile and headed to the back of the shop.
Even while waiting for the food, I kept watching the shop across the way.
Business continued without anything in particular happening.
After a while, the food arrived and was set before me.
Looking at it, it was a noodle soup with plenty of meat and a fairly strong salty flavor.
Fresh from the kitchen, it was wreathed in steam and gave off a fragrant aroma.
I slurped it down and waited.
When I was about halfway through the meal, Zoe came back leading soldiers.
It was a fully armed unit dressed as regular soldiers of Enlil Province.
The squad alone drew the eye, but the fact that it was led by a maid drew the crowd's attention even more.
As people murmured, wondering what was going on, Zoe gave a single command:
"This shop is sealed. Arrest everyone from the shop, and seize all the goods and everything else."
"Yes, ma'am!!"
The soldiers followed Zoe's orders—she was, after all, the Governor-General's de facto deputy—surrounded the shop, and sealed it.
The customers were driven out first and pushed back, becoming a ring of onlookers.
The shop's people desperately protested, but no matter what they said, the one commanding was Zoe, and her authority stemmed from my direct orders, so there was no way anyone would listen. The shop was sealed in an instant.
"O-officials, we're truly honest merchants, we—"
"Bring it here."
Zoe paid the protests no mind whatsoever, giving one-sided orders to her subordinates.
By that point a fair crowd of onlookers had gathered, and so that they could see clearly, Zoe had her subordinates bring out a large transparent vessel.
What was wheeled out on a cart was something like a large washbasin, made of glass and transparent, filled with visibly clean water.
When it appeared, the onlookers stirred, murmuring, what's this about? Naturally, the shop's people, desperately protesting their innocence, were bewildered as well.
"Your Excellency."
"......"
Zoe nodded silently to her subordinate and headed to the storefront. The head steward of the Thirteenth Imperial Prince Mansion and de facto deputy governor-general was addressed as "Your Excellency" by the soldiers.
Zoe picked up a measuring masu set beside the mound of salt, scooped up a heaping measure of salt, and dropped it all at once into the water.
"Do it,"
she ordered her subordinates.
A subordinate brought over something like a long paddle and stirred the large quantity of salt sunk in the water.
The salt dissolved before their eyes—but a considerable amount of something remained.
No matter how it was stirred, the remainder showed no sign of dissolving.
Zoe reached into the water and scooped up the undissolved residue with her hand.
She thrust it before the eyes of the shop's man.
"If it were salt, it would dissolve. What is this, that doesn't?"
"I-it's..."
Cornered by Zoe's interrogation, the man's eyes darted about wildly, and he couldn't answer.
"Can't answer?"
Zoe pressed him further.
In response, the man tried to press something into Zoe's hand.
She slapped it away.
A typical bribe, I thought.
I had granted Zoe permission to accept a certain degree of bribes when she arrived here in Larak, but this was not the moment to take one and do something in return.
So she rejected it flatly.
With even the bribe refused, the shop's people grew all the more confused.
And while this was going on, one of the onlookers—
"It's adulterated! These bastards really were mixing something into their salt and selling it!"
shouted at the top of his lungs.
A moment of silence—the time lag before the crowd understood the words.
That lag ignited the crowd.