Beezel’s daughter ended up moving into the village.
She wanted me to view it as a standard relocation rather than her acting as a lookout, or so I was told. Personally, if we were taking in immigrants, I would have preferred a son over a daughter, but... well, a daughter it was.
She was a demon, but in appearance, she was virtually indistinguishable from a human. Apparently, the only real difference was that her internal magic power capacity was far beyond anything a human possessed.
I didn't want to get on her bad side by handling our initial interactions poorly, so I decided to leave her in Rusty's care at first, since they seemed to be around the same age. I thought it would be rude to leave her entirely to someone else, though, so when I went to greet her that evening, she and Rusty seemed to be getting along quite well. That was a relief.
Now, let's talk about the slimes.
Our population started with the seventeen that Tia brought here. They worked hard purifying the outhouses and the sewage system, and before I knew it, their numbers had swelled. Now they moved freely throughout the settlement. Kuro and the others kept watch over restricted areas, so the slimes never wandered where they weren't supposed to. Even if one tried, it would just be picked up in a wolf's mouth and forcibly relocated.
Since they generally just migrated toward places with dirty water on their own and hadn't caused any major problems, I mostly left them to their own devices. At this point, their exact number was a mystery, though a quick count confirmed there were well over a hundred.
The thing about these slimes was...
The original group was comprised of Blue Slimes. However, for reasons unknown, they had begun diversifying into different varieties. There were Green Slimes, Yellow Slimes, and Red Slimes. They weren't just different colors, either; apparently, the type of magic they could use varied as well. I see.
There were also a few rare ones, like the pitch-black Black Slimes and the pure-white Holy Slimes. The Lizardmen seemed to find them particularly precious and doted on them.
I didn't mind these variations. They didn't cause any actual harm. Or so I thought.
Then a problem arose.
One slime managed to sneak into a storehouse and crawl into a barrel of wine, drinking every last drop. By the time it was finished, it had turned purple. I suppose I should call it a Sake Slime.
Its main characteristic: It reeked of alcohol. Its special skill: Sake Breath.
I wanted to ignore it, but I couldn't. Most of the villagers who enjoyed a drink were absolutely livid.
Thus, the village held its very first trial. The verdict: Guilty. It was a snap decision. I couldn't really defend it since it had essentially stolen the booze. The only question left was the punishment.
The radical faction suggested the death penalty. Some villagers even looked on with sparkling eyes, suggesting that it might taste like sake if we ate it. I politely declined that idea. These slimes were the same ones that purified our waste, after all. I’d rather not make them part of the menu. I suggested that simply drying it out in the sun might be enough.
The moderate faction suggested a lighter sentence: imprisonment. The idea was to seal it inside a jar or a similar container.
Just as a heated debate was breaking out, Fraurem, Beezel’s daughter, spoke up and settled the matter with a single question: Even if we punished it, would a slime even understand why?
...
Was it really sane for us to be seriously debating a legal sentence for a slime's behavior?
...
Everyone who had participated in the trial turned bright red, and the court was immediately disbanded. I decided we would just have to reinforce the doors to the storehouse where we kept the alcohol.
After that, the Sake Slime remained a Sake Slime. It didn't join the others in their purification work; instead, it just wandered lazily around the village. Whenever sake was served at a banquet, it would wiggle over to try and get a share. I suppose having one slime like that is fine, but I’d be in trouble if their numbers increased any further.
As for Fraurem... on her first day, she wore these dress-like clothes that felt completely out of place. She changed her outfit several times that day, acting like a real socialite, which made me worry if she’d actually be able to handle life here. However, by the second day, she had swapped the dresses for trousers and tied her hair back, looking completely ready for farm work. I was genuinely surprised. Perhaps being friends with Rusty was a good influence on her.
Now, she always waited for my instructions with a smile. To be honest, she looked like she’d be a much more reliable worker than Rusty, which made me happy. I looked forward to seeing what she could do.
After working together for about ten days, we became close enough that I started calling her "Frau." If Rusty was the student council president or the head of the disciplinary committee, Frau was the varsity ace of a sports club. she was a quick learner, her movements were efficient, and her responses were always energetic. She got along well with Kuro’s pack, Zabuton’s brood, and the High Elves.
Occasionally, I saw her fluffing the tails of the beastman children. I was jealous. If I were to carelessly ask to touch someone's tail, there was a risk it would be taken as a proposition for the bedroom, so I had to keep my mouth shut.
Through my conversations with Rusty and Frau, I learned a lot about the state of food and drink outside the village.
First, regarding the cuisine. I’d already suspected as much from the High Ogres' cooking, but the general level of culinary skill in the world was severely lacking. Basically, food was either roasted or boiled. There were no other methods. When I tried to guess why, it seemed to come down to culture. Most people viewed eating as nothing more than fuel for the body; as long as it filled their stomachs, they were satisfied. Or perhaps it was more that they were just grateful to have anything to eat at all.
The various governments didn't care about culinary diversity, either. They simply designated certain crops as staples and gave them priority, so farmers only grew those specific things. Because of that, the variety of produce was fixed, and cooking methods became limited as a result. To someone like me who had memories of my previous world, that sounded like a horrifying way to live. I love rice, but I would hate it if rice was the only thing I ever ate. I suppose I’d try to make side dishes to go with it, but... I wondered if people out there even had the leeway for that.
Even the wealthy and the ruling class only had a bit more variety, and even then, few people seemed to actually care about the quality of their food. I wondered why they didn't just hunt in the forests or fish in the sea, but the presence of monsters made such ventures incredibly dangerous.
Ah, right. The monsters. That made sense.
I finally understood why visitors from the outside world were so quick to praise the village's cooking.
The situation with alcohol was much the same. Sake was treated as a long-lasting alternative to water and was mass-produced wherever possible. Consequently, it tasted the same no matter where you went. Since quantity was prioritized over quality, producers would shamelessly water it down. There were some enthusiasts among the wealthy who would commission high-quality brews, but those rarely hit the market because the people who ordered them would drink them all themselves.
Apparently, the sake in this village tasted even better than the premium stuff commissioned by those nobles. In our case, it wasn't a matter of superior technique, but rather the quality of the crops used as the base. I see. I finally understood why the villagers were so obsessed with it—and why Draim visited so often.
"If a country only produces one kind of crop, wouldn't a single plague wipe them out? Is that really okay?" I asked.
"It’s not okay at all," Frau replied. "A few years ago, a massive famine broke out among the human nations to the west, centered around the Fullhart Kingdom."
"Really?"
"Yes. They’ve been waging wars against neighboring countries to secure food supplies ever since... The Demon Kingdom is struggling to deal with them."
"Starting a war over food, huh..." I muttered. I assumed it was for looting, but it was probably also a way to reduce the number of mouths they had to feed. "Did the Demon Kingdom survive the famine?"
"We did. The Demon Kingdom is a coalition of many different races, so our staple foods vary from region to region."
"I see. I don't know exactly what caused the famine, but by not relying on a monoculture, you were able to contain the damage."
"Exactly. However, that doesn't mean we weren't affected. The Demon Kingdom doesn't have much to spare, either. Despite that, the Fullhart Kingdom looks at us and sees a wealthy target..."
So they were at war.
"But surely you won't lose to an army that's starving, right? Couldn't you just wipe them out?"
"We could, but it would be a headache to seize their territory."
"Ah..."
Seizing exhausted land wouldn't yield a profit for a long time. In fact, you'd have to invest resources into it, which meant your debts would just pile up. It was a stark reminder that this wasn't a game.
Still, as a simple Village Head, there wasn't much I could do about international politics. The most I could do was perhaps lower the prices if the Demon Kingdom requested food from us. I’d just have to work hard and grow as much as I possibly could.