Volume 1 - CH 4.4

National Enrichment Arc

*Souma’s Perspective*

Because of this, the capital city’s inspection that was treated more like a date instead, resumed once more.

It had already reached lunch time, just the time when our stomach felt empty, we three then decided to go and check the singing café where Juna-san worked. When we were walking on a stone paved road that had shops lined up on the both sides of the road, I heard Liecia say,

「It’s something that you had said before, but..... if I remember correctly you mentioned the term 『established laws』. What do you mean?」(Liecia)

「Ah, that’s only the 『Act of Pedestrians’ Paradise Pathway[2]』 and the 『Act of Public Management of Garbage Disposal』.」(Souma)

「...... Sorry. I have no idea what you are talking about.」(Liecia)

Well, that may be true. Even so, both were directly connected to the sanitation issue.

「First the 『Act of Pedestrians’ Paradise Pathway』, this is simply a prohibition of driving horses other than those on the major road. There are exceptions for horse wagons that transport goods; also the restriction is only active for several hours in the morning. Didn’t you realize that we haven’t seen a single horse in the road for some time now?」(Souma)

「Now that you mention it......」(Liecia)

Liecia looked around restlessly, but there was no horse to be found.

「This is simply to reduce horse-related traffic accidents, though there is also another meaning to preparing an environment where the customer can purchase things in safety and, in doing so, stimulate economic activity...... however, the main objective was the horse dung.」(Souma)

「Horse dung?」(Liecia)

「Don’t horses shit while they are moving? The dried leftover dung would then get blown away by the wind and then damage the lungs of people who inhaled it. It’s easier for the horse dung to be left in a place that was usually unsanitary. It’s also easier to collect the horse dung if the horse was limited to the major roads. With this, the number of people who suffered with pneumonia will decrease from now on.」(Souma)

「Eh! That’s it!?」(Liecia)

「......Yeah. Maybe it’s just “that’s it” but if we just do “it”, then we could save lives.」(Souma)

My way of talking had become a bit blunt and harsh. But, I was a bit indignant with the “that’s it”, an expression used to look down on others....... Just now I nearly burst out of anger. I need to reflect on this. After receiving my rebuttal, Liecia’s face went pale. “That’s it” was something that couldn’t be achieved during her parents reign. It wasn’t like it was Liecia personally ruling at that time, but maybe this was because she was supposed to be royalty.

「Well, I think it was understandable. This country didn’t have any concepts about sanitation from the start. Even amongst the doctors, only two people understand this notion.」(Souma)

「......」(Liecia)

I had previously thought that perhaps because magic exists in this country, causing scientific and technology field to be in shambles, the same also could be said about the field of medical science. Like all fantasy settings, this world also had 『Healing Magic』. By converting the magic power inside the body into special waves, it would increase the body’s natural healing power. It was effective for external wounds like abrasions, cuts or bruises. On people with amazing natural healing power, they were even able to reattach a severed arm like it was brand new. People who have seen this much would think that it was the work of God.

On the other hand, it wasn’t very effective on viral diseases such as the cold or other infectious diseases that couldn’t be cured by the body’s natural healing power. Furthermore, its effectiveness on curing external wounds was also lower on people with a lower natural healing power like the elderly. It was something that was easy to be understood as long as someone know the mechanisms underlying it, or so what I think, however the citizens of this country didn’t know about the existence of germs, let alone viruses. Because they were trying to forcefully find the answer without having any knowledge about it, they could only find an answer within the limited bounds of their own common sense.

〈Healing magic is not effective〉 = 〈Even the work of God cannot cure it〉 =〈a curse from the Devil〉

Such a conclusion was drawn inside their heads and medications for illness were traded as just some questionable magical goods instead of real medicine.「If you buy this vase, you won’t get sick!」 This was a common business practice that I couldn’t even laugh at. If you buy it, you may as well wear a spring onion on your neck and go to sleep.[3]

However, there was still a sliver of hope. Just like the two doctors I mentioned before.

If those two become the center of medical technology reform, then......

「Hey, Souma, why are you muttering to yourself?」(Liecia)

I came back to my senses after being called out by Liecia. Apparently, I was too deep in my own thoughts.

「Sorry,  I’m just thinking for a bit」(Souma)

「Mou....... even so what about the other one, the 『Act of Public Management of Garbage Disposal』, that you had said before?」(Liecia)

「Just like what the name say. Does Liecia know about what the typical method of garbage disposal is in this country?」(Souma)

「They are split into 『Burnable Trash』 and 『Unburnable Trash』. The burnable trash is to be burned and unburnable trash is to be buried, right?」(Liecia)

「Oh, you answer this so smoothly, how unexpected.」(Souma)

「Do you think that I’m ignorant of the ways of the world because I’m  royalty? Don’t be foolish. When I attended the Military Academy, I lived at dormitory so of course I know about it.」(Liecia)

I see. It wasn’t like I thought her as ignorant of the ways of the world.......

「However, it’s the wrong answer.」(Souma)

「Eh?」(Liecia)

「I said “typical”, right? Liecia’s answer comes from a way of thinking that suits an ojou-sama from upper class. So it is very different from the commoner’s common sense.」(Souma)

「Then-then, what does the commoner’s common sense say?!」(Liecia)

「Aisha, how do you deal with trash in the Dark Elves’ Forest?」(Souma)

「Eh? Trash?」(Aisha)

Aisha was struck dumb when she was suddenly mentioned, but then she immediately thought over it.

「Let’s see...... Burning it.」(Aisha)

「That’s it?」(Liecia)

「That’s it.」(Aisha)

「It can’t be just only that! What about the things that can’t be burned?!」(Liecia)

Liecia was flared up but Aisha was staring in confusion.

「Eh? To begin with, is there any trash that is unburnable?」(Aisha)

「Of course there is! What about broken tools?」(Liecia)

「Repaired and reused.」(Aisha)

「......Eh?」(Liecia)

「Kitchen trash can be buried as fertilizer. Broken pottery shards are finely grounded and scattered on the ground. Broken metal tools are repaired and reused. If it is still broken, then it will sold as scrap metal (to merchants that collect metal waste). Trash is just mostly made up of things like wooden splinters or damaged leather armor...... They are usually burned together in an open fire.」(Aisha)

「Ah...... Eh......?」(Liecia)

This time it was Liecia’s turn to be struck dumb. Hearing this conversation, I unintentionally laughed out loud.

「Hahaha, Aisha’s answer just now is correct.」(Souma)

「Souma.......」(Liecia)

「For the upper classes that were worried about their appearances or for the army where their equipment correlates with their life and death, their tools must naturally be always brand new. However, it isn’t the same case for a commoner family. Well of course they don’t go to the extreme like the elves in Aisha’s story, but it is close to what the citizens of the capital do. The difference is that they doburn their kitchen waste, and there is a custom to collect wooden furniture and oversized trash to burn them in the plaza at the end of the year. That’s why for them, garbage is only made up of burnable things.」(Souma)

This world still didn’t have any plastic or polystyrene foam[4], so there weren’t any things that couldn’t be reused after being given special treatment. In the first place, tools were made from metal, stone (also glass or porcelain) or wood. Iron could be melted and reused, and even if they left the stone tools alone, as time passed by they would be reclaimed by nature. There was exceptions for artificial materials (magic materials) that were created by the magicians, but the very thing itself was valuable and discarding them as trash was something unbelievable. 

For example: Metal, due to its expensive cost, the general populace would thoroughly repair and reuse it, since it was easy to mend by hammering iron into it. If after this process and it still wasn’t usable, then it would be cheaper to buy a replacement and the old item would be bought by a scrap iron merchant for a few coins. The scrap iron merchant then would melt the collected metals and then cast them using the same melted metals. However, since these individuals do this process without possessing proper equipment and didn’t have enough time and labor, they can only produce metals of poor quality that was hardly of any use. Since they only casted the melted metal as it was, then it would be unavoidable for impurities to be incorporated by this process. The result was poor quality metal that appeared in the the country’s market.

This country had limited resources. Since only poor quality metal circulated in the domestic market, in the end, high quality metal must be imported from other countries. I wanted to reduce this expense. However, even if I told scrap iron merchants to reduce the impurities and recycle it as high quality metal, the cost would increase and their profit would greatly become deficit. Therefore:

「Therefore, the garbage disposal will be managed publicly...... In other words, the country will be the one who does it. If there are any individuals who are dissatisfied, the country will provide money and private facilities for them, so the amount of labor and time can also be reduced. Extract each and every nail from discarded wood, then you could remake the iron into another shape.」(Souma)

「That’s amazing, but..... Doesn’t this rob the scrap iron merchants of their jobs?」(Liecia)

「There will be no problems. For this job, we employed the scrap iron merchants as public servants.」(Souma)

In the first place, their job was underpaid. Buying the broken metal cheaply and stocking it, melting and casting it, and then selling it wholesale to the craftsman guild. However, since low quality metal was useless for most purposes, they must sell it dirt cheap with them receiving almost no profit. In reality, the scrap iron merchant was an occupation belonging to the lowest occupation hierarchy. Since they are people who deal with trash, they were considered as practically no different than beggars.

「However, since this is a country service, then the money to buy it will also come from the country. The country has prepared proper facilities that could smelt high quality metal. Even when doing transactions with the craftsman guild, since it was something that the country does, the guild couldn’t beat the price when they purchase it. Then, the former scrap metal merchant turned public servant would receive a salary from the country every month. Perhaps, wouldn’t their earnings be increased 10 fold when compared to what they had before?」(Souma)

「That is...... There will be no complaints, right?」(Liecia)

Actually, there was not a single complaint from the scrap iron merchants. Or rather, when I dispatched the minister that was in charge of the garbage disposal to do the inspection of the reprocessing facility, he found out that all the employees gave their thanks in tears.

「But, if we are careless, then won’t this be more expensive than importing it from other countries?」(Liecia)

When Liecia pointed this out, I only nodded, 「Well, I must admit it.」

「Maybe at the current stage, it’s a little bit of a minus? However, paying the cost inside the country and paying the cost outside the country have completely different meaning. If we paid the cost outside the country, then there will be outflow of capital, however if we paid the cost inside the country, that capital would circulate inside our country’s economy.」(Souma)

「A-Again it’s about economics......」(Liecia)

It seems that Liecia, who was skilled in the realm of military affairs, was mostly poor in this field. Since the army also has people dealing with army bureaucracy, they might have officers that paid attention to maintaining the supply lines.

「Then about military affairs. Let me tell you a diplomatic story: If you are economizing a resource inside your country, then the other countries couldn’t use that resource importation as a diplomatic tool anymore. For example, if the Amidonia Dukedom that was aiming out country with vulture like hunger, restricted exportation of iron to our country, what will you say?」(Souma)

「...... I would be troubled. To restart the trade I would do whatever conditions that were thrust upon me.」(Liecia)

「That’s right. This was also an aim to prevent those conditions.」(Souma)

I couldn’t mention the country’s name, but in my world, there was a country that has a relatively scarce natural resource that was used as a diplomatic tool by another country to pressure it. Well, because of that, the island country turned to different countries to acquire the resources and developing substituting technology. As the result, the value of resource scarcity card used by the neighboring country was heavily declined. However, I won’t mention which country that is![5]

「By economizing resources, even if another country stopped their exports,  we could reduce the damage, and even store some part of the circulating resource during peacetime as a preparation stock in case of emergency.」(Souma)

「I see. That’s why even if it causes a deficit, there is a point of turning it into public management.」(Liecia)

Liecia was quick to understand Military and Diplomacy matters. Perhaps she was a type who had her learning ability influenced by her likes and dislikes. Even when she was a princess of a country, would this be alright? By the way, at this time Aisha went, 「Rather than that, I want to eat a meal」 and for a long time she made an expression just like a dog that was ordered to 「Wait」  for it meals. Even today, this disappointing starving dark elf didn’t change in her priority.

◇　◇　◇

In the avenue that was hit by the sun’s rays was a popular Singing Café:『Lorelei』.[6]

Needless to say, this was the shop where our songstress[7] Juna Dohma, worked. When I heard the term 「singing café」, I had an impression that it was「A café that provides Karaoke which the customer is free to sing along to」, however the place that was called a singing café in this country was a place where you could hear the songstresses’ singing while enjoying afternoon tea time. In the night, it turned into something similar to a Jazz Bar.

It wasn’t like the coffeehouses that only belonged to a certain chain store that kept on multiplying, but was there any shop like this in Japan? Though the Maid Cafe option was also probable......

「We wanted to visit right? Let’s enter it quickly.」(Liecia)

Prompted by both Liecia and Aisha, we passed through the 『Lorelei』’s door.

At the moment when we entered the shop, we could hear Juna-san’s singing.

Hearing that singing, I fell on my knees. C-Come to think of it, this tune was something I taught to her.

As expected from Juna-san. She could perfectly sing the English lyrics that even sounds mysterious to me.

「Wow. What amazing singing. As expected from Juna-dono.」(Aisha)

「I don’t understand the meaning of the words, but the song is nice.」(Liecia)

Aisha and Liecia also showed their admiration. Yes, I might say that it was a good song.

On that day I first met with her, I promised Juna-san that I would teach her the songs I knew, but if I had actually thought this through carefully, I would have realizes that I only knew anime songs from the 80s and didn’t know even one popular song. Having said that, I was feeling bad that the first song I taught to her was an anime song so I ended up deciding to teach her an anime song that didn’t sound like one.

Neil Sedaka’s 『Better Days are Coming』[8]

Maybe it was easier to understand if I mentioned that this song was actually the basis for the song covered[9] by Aikawa Maya[10] 『Z Beyond Time』[11], the first key opening song of the national robot anime 『Mobile Suit Z Gundam』. But now I think that even in the future it was fine to teach her even more anime songs. Juna-san personally resembled Yakushimaru Hiroko-san[12] when singing popular songs and Moriguchi Hiroko-san[13] when singing anime songs. I surely wanted to hear her singing songs from  『Detective Story』[14] or『From the Aqueous Star with Love』[15]. I wonder if she could sing these someday.......

The shop interior gave a subdued Showa-era[16] modernish style ambiance.

We sa down at a table in the corner and listened attentively to each and every one of Juna-san’s songs. After a while, Juna-san finished with singing, noticed us and came to our seats.

「Isn’t this Your Ma-...」(Juna)

「Good day to you, Juna-san, I don’t know whether you remember me or not, but I am Kazuya, heir of a crepe store in Echigo Kingdom![17]」(Souma)

I was talking rapidly and incessantly to interrupt Juna-san’s words.

The capable Juna-san seemed to grasp the situation,

「Ah yes, it’s Kazuya-san. Long time no see. Is your father well?」(Juna)

「Yes. He is really energetic since just recently my mother found out about him fooling around and it became a big prolem.」(Souma)

「Is that so? Kazuya-san also needs to be careful when dealing with women, right?」(Juna)

She matched her stories with mine. As one would expect, in a place in front public eyes like this, I would be troubled if she bowed her head down and greeted me with 「Your Majesty」since I was travelling incognito. However, her ability to adlib and match my random talk on the spot, as expected from a talented person that I wanted to be in the castle by all means.

「If I pay you five times your current wage, would you become my exclusive secretary?」(Souma)

「Though I appreciate your proposal, however I think that this job, where I please everyone with my song, is my life calling, so I’m really sorry for refusing the offer.」(Juna)

She gently declined. Even the way she refused was refined.

「That is really regrettable. However since there is saying that rather than arranged to decorate the room, wildflowers are more beautiful when they bloom freely in the fields.」(Souma)

「Ara, even if they weren’t for decoration, the flowers inside the vase would be blooming with their best efforts so that they could be admired.」(Juna)

「I see, if that’s the case, isn’t it necessary to improve the arrangements so that it would be worthy for admiration?」(Souma)

Juna-san joined me in laughing. Seeing both of us like this, Liecia was a bit interested, and so she said.

「...... Somehow the conversation between both of you is as if you are probing each other’s intentions.」(Liecia)

It looked like it. But it was different, Liecia.

This was perhaps a 「scene where the oneesan gently chides the otouto who wishes for something beyond his ability.」

...... with the age hardly needing to be changed.[18]

☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽☾☽

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Sanitation is important! London and Major Cities in Europe learned this the hard way when industrialization begins!

And yes... We need to sort our trash well... Now, let’s see how my compost bin going...

[1] The title is a pun on “ROMAN HOLIDAY”... Now I only can see Liecia as Audrey Hepburn...

[2] A Pedestrian Paradise is a term for a Road that exclusive to pedestrians with no Cars allowed to enter except for special reasons (like ambulance, police or firetruck with official duty). Example: Melbourne, Akihabara, Iowa City Downtown. My personal view: Downtown should be devoid of cars, except for Shuttle Buses.

[3] A cold folk medicine in Japan. Spring Onion or Negi (Allium fistulosum) is not the same as Leek (Allium ampeloprasum), despite many people believing otherwise (It was one of 7 myth of Hatsune Miku). [Editor’s note: They taste completely different, how do you mix them up???] TL: They look the same for some people.

[4] Commonly known as Styrofoam, but this is a brand.

[5] Remember a certain Eastern Eurasian country that (allegedly) reduces the export of rare earth metals due to fishing boat dispute with a certain island nation? (and eventually crash the market so hard that many investor lose their money when the market was supersaturated by supply?)

[6] This is the best I can do with the word play of日の当たる and当たりにある.

[7] Songstress is Utahime歌姫 in Japan. Literally means: Singing Princess or Song Princess.

[8] American male singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka. He released “Better Days are Coming” in 1972. The song was reworked to Anime Opening Song for Mobile Zeta Gundam in 1985.

[9] Cover in Japanese Song term means, singing a song that was first sung by another singer.

[10] Aikawa Maya 鮎川麻弥. A Japanese female singer-songwriter. Famous for Sunrise’s anime opening in the late 1980’s.

[11]Ｚ・刻を越えて  (Zeta - Toki o Koete).

[12] Yakushimaru Hiroko 薬師丸 ひろ子. A famous Japanese actress-singer in the 1980’s.

[13] Moriguchi Hiroko 森口 博子. A Japanese singer that sung many Gundam songs in the 80’s. For the people who was born after 80’s she is the singer of One Punch Man ending song.

[14] 探偵物語 Tantei Monogatari, an action Japanese TV series starring Yusaku Matsuda which was originally broadcast on Nippon TV in 27 forty-five-minute episodes from September 18, 1979 to April 1, 1980. It was about an ex-San Francisco police turned private detective who drives Vespa scooter, smokes Camel cigarettes, wore black and white suit and glasses. Must be seen to be believed. (He was the basis for Admiral Aokiji in OnePiece)

[15] 水の星へ愛をこめて Mizu no Hoshi e Ai wo Komete. Zeta Gundam Second Opening Song. Also sang by Moriguchi Hiroko

[16] A Japanese Regnal Year 1926-1989

[17] Echigo is an old name for Niigata prefecture.

[18] So Juna was older than Souma. I see.