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Chapter 80: Departure by Sea ~ Maple Syrup

—One month later.

We set sail aboard three Viking ships.

Departing from the port town of Orb, we were bound for Quinpella, the royal capital of the Argeas Kingdom.

The Viking ships moved in single-file formation, with the flagship I was aboard leading the line.

At the bow of the flagship stood Gauche, watching the waves and wind, calling out directions.

「Port a little! Keep the sail as is!」

「Aye!」

Following Gauche’s commands, Rosso at the stern turned the rudder.

The Viking ship caught the wind, sails billowing full, and surged eastward atop the waves.

The ship picked up speed sharply.

In the center of the ship, I sat with my wife Jessica, chatting leisurely.

「Gaia! This is going to be a long journey!」

「Yeah. It’ll probably take three or four months.」

This would be a long trip.

The Argeas Kingdom, the trade city of Livonia, the Norn Kingdom across the sea to the north, and the Ring Kingdom to the west,

We planned to visit all four nations.

It was summer.

The northern seas we were traveling through weren’t particularly hot.

It was a comfortable kind of warmth.

But once winter came, the sea would become violent, and the water temperature would drop dramatically.

If someone fell in, they’d have to be rescued immediately or risk death from hypothermia.

We had to be back before winter set in.

「Alright, Gaia! Time to practice Argean!」

「Yeah, yeah.」

Jessica was working hard to learn the language of the Argeas Kingdom.

She wanted to be able to talk directly to Princess Sophia.

Jessica only had her uncle, Elranief, as family.

She seemed to think of Princess Sophia like a little sister.

Jessica began speaking in Argean.

「Sophia-chan, how are you? I’ve brought lots of tasty food-waai!」

「Not ‘waai,’ just ‘wa.’ It’s ‘brought lots of tasty food wa.’ One more time.」

「Sophia-chan, how are you? I’ve brought lots of tasty food wa.」

「Perfect! Well done!」

I gently patted Jessica on the head.

As we practiced Argean together, a group of young folks gathered around us.

For this voyage, we’d brought along some interpreter candidates.

「Even if you’re not the best fighter, if you can speak a foreign language, you can succeed in trade or negotiations!」

Uncle Athos had made the rounds of all the tribes preaching that.

Thanks to that, five young people had stepped forward, wanting to learn Argean.

Only five, you might say, but in Barbar, a mercenary society, it was rare for anyone to aspire to intellectual roles like interpreting.

I planned to train these five carefully.

If they succeeded, others would follow.

There were already a few Barbars who could speak Imperial, but I was the only one who could speak Argean.

Training Argean speakers was an urgent matter.

Surrounded by the young hopefuls, we continued practicing Argean in a cheerful huddle.

「How do you say ‘Are you well?’「

「Good afternoon!」

「I am a Barbar from the East.」

「You mixed up East and West.」

「My belly is rumbry.」

「…You mean, ‘I’m hungry,’ right?」

I corrected mistake after mistake.

All five were teenagers like us, so they picked things up quickly.

「This is a jam made from wild strawberries by the Barbar. It is sweety and taste-goody!」

「Just a little off. Say ‘sweet and delicious’ instead.」

Among the cargo we were carrying, handmade jam was the standout product.

Princess Sophia of the Argeas Kingdom had asked for it, and merchants from the Norn Kingdom had raved about it.

I’d encouraged all Barbar tribes to make jam.

Barbar’s territory included vast forests, full of nature’s bounty.

Berries like wild strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries were in season from spring through summer, so we harvested tons.

Wild apples, plums, and rose hips came into season from summer into autumn.

We’d gotten a modest haul of those too.

Children harvested in the forest, and the women made jam.

「Cash income!」

The women, eyes shining like gold coins, churned out jam every day, husbands totally ignored.

The men, in turn, were put to work at night, making the wooden containers to hold the jam.

「I can’t even have a proper night with my wife! Gaia, what’re you gonna do about it!?」

「That’s not my problem!」

All sorts of bizarre complaints came flooding in.

But Barbar-made jam, with its rich fruit flavor and fragrant aroma, plus the imperial sugar we used, came out wonderfully sweet.

Sugar was rare in the Argeas Kingdom and the northern Norn Kingdom, so they’d be drooling for it.

「Gaia! Get even one copper coin more when you sell it, alright!?」

The pressure from the women was intense…

And so, we had loaded the Viking ships with a huge stash of jam.

The Argean lessons continued.

「This is maple syrup. It is sweet. If you put it on baked bread, it is delishush!」

「Not ‘delishush,’ but ‘delicious.’「

「Maple syrup makes meat dishes tasty when you add a little.」

「Perfect!」

We had a new product on board, too.

Maple syrup, made by boiling down the sap of sugar maples.

Next to the territory of the Blumund Tribe, an icon popped up on my map showing some sort of liquid.

So I brought soldiers and cleared out the monsters, and what did we find?

A whole grove of sugar maple trees!

We collected the sap and boiled it down, producing golden maple syrup.

Its light, natural sweetness was especially popular with the women.

When I used it in a meat dish, kind of like teriyaki, the men loved it too.

Maple syrup quickly became a hit throughout Barbar.

Barbar was constantly busy.

The men fought monsters as they expanded the territory.

The women made jam.

The kids gathered berries and firewood from the forest.

Coordinating all these little moving parts was Uncle Athos’s job.

「We can’t afford to let people sit idle. For our grandchildren’s sake, one more round of hard work!」

Eventually, even the elderly were mobilized to do fine work like making containers.

Our Blumund Tribe, the largest faction in Barbar, was the busiest of all.

The men expanded the territory and traveled to the Vaffancrow Empire to collect the underfloor soil rich in saltpeter.

The women had it even harder.

Making jam.

Making maple syrup.

Producing saltpeter with the Old Earth Method.

And on top of that, they watched the children and managed the household.

Right now, the most powerful voice in the Blumund Tribe was held by the women.

They worked the most, and they earned the most. Naturally.

Uncle Athos, Elranief, and Balta of the Kiritei tribe weren’t with us on this trip.

Uncle Athos was managing all of Barbar’s internal affairs.
Elranief was overseeing gunpowder production.
Balta was battling the Murder Buffalo to secure control of the grasslands.

I’d entrusted Barbar’s operations to them, so I could move freely.

「This is a broad.」

「Close! That’s a bread!」

As we trained up interpreters during the voyage, we sailed on toward Quinpella, the capital of the Argeas Kingdom.