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Chapter 58: Tempting and Receiving

 

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「It’s trouble Master!」

I was taking a break in a temporary home located in our newly built town, when Lilia ran over.

She was all aflutter as she called out to me trying to catch her breath.

「What’s wrong?」
「The people in town are protesting desu. They’re calling for Master to come out desu」
「……Where?」
「I’ll guide you there desuno.」

I went outside and followed Lilia.

A distance from the town was the food warehouse. Inside of it were mountains of pushinee.

They were my strategic resources.

I made a ton of them for this town and took a stance of letting them eat as much as they wanted.

There were many people outside of the pushinee warehouse.

What had happened?

「What is all this?」

As I arrived the people pressed closer to me.
「Milord, no matter what…don’t you think this is unacceptable?」
「Unacceptable?」
「This here…this.」

One man said while handing me a pushinee with dissatisfaction.

I accepted it and looked at it seriously.

There wasn’t anything wrong with it. It was one of the pushinee from within the storehouse.

「What’s wrong with it?」
「What do you mean? I saw how your slave made this.」
「Fumu」

So they saw Lilia making the pushinee as I told her to.

「So?」
「So!? Isn’t it cruel to force people to eat dirt!?」
「……oh」

I finally understood what was wrong.

Everything had gone smoothly til now, I didn’t really think about it like that. I just thought of it as something made by the 「magic」 of the DORECA.

That’s right…the raw material for pushinee was dirt.

It requires 1 magic and some dirt.

Knowing that it turned into 「Making us eat dirt is cruel.」
「We’re very grateful to you, our Lord you know? You made us homes, clothes, and various things. But be that as it may, we still can’t except being made to eat dirt.」
「That’s right!」
「I won’t eat dirt!」
「Please make something else」

Several people spoke up.

They all looked dissatisfied.

I looked and saw the pushinee scattered on the ground.

It was treated like trash.

「…….I see…give me a bit to think about this.」

I said and took Lilia away.

We returned to the house and Lilia stamped her feet in frustration.

「What’s wrong with them!? They’re too rude desuno!」
「Well…I can’t say I don’t understand. It’s dirt after all…originally.」
「Just letting them have enough to eat is a luxury desuno. They don’t understand that it’s from Master’s warm-heartedness desu.」

It’s less being warmhearted and more that it’s their lifeline.

I would guarantee their minimum livelihood, but if they wanted anything more luxurious they’d have to work for it themselves, that was my policy.

「What should we do Master? If you want, Lilia will make a jail and throw them all in desu no.」
「Rule by fear?」
「Anyone who disobeys Master should be purged desu no.」
「Stop that ya’ dummy.」

I grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

She looked dizzy as her head lolled about.

As I looked at her I thought.

Putting them in prison and purging them was out of the question…I needed to think of something else.

「…..Liliia. Send a message to Maya.」
「The elite guards? So it’s a purge after all desuno?」
「Don’t smile like that! Just call them here.」
「Tsk desuno. I understand.」

Lilia unhappily obeyed.
*****************************************
I notified the townspeople once more.

If they were to eat the pushinee then they’d fill there stomachs. There were a lot of them in the storehouse and if anyone wanted to eat them they could.

I also told them that I would not be making them anything else. I would give them the same treatment as the other towns.

Eat it or not…I don’t care.
That is what I told them.
**********************************
The next day Maya came running.

I met her in the temporary housing.

「It’s been awhile Akito. Isn’t it about time you started giving us some kids?」
「Unfortunately, that’ll be a bit further in the future.」

 

Recently this had been the exchange whenever we’d met. It’d practically replaced 「I’m home」 and 「welcome back」.

「Anyways, I have a request.」
「It’s the purge of these citizens right? We don’t really like doing that, but if Akito is the one asking then we’ll go right now and——-」
「You don’t need to pay attention to what Lilia asked you to do.」

She’s still saying ‘purge purge’? What a girl…

But seriously…do I really look like the kind of person to give that order Maya?
That’s kind of shocking.

「It’s a simple job. You just need to guard the pushinee warehouse.」
「Just guard it?」
「Yes, but just during the daytime. You just need to make sure that no one enters during the day. If you want, or if there’s a ruckus you can make a big production out of catching the ones who sneak in.」
「We can do as we please with the big production right?」
「Yeah. But, at night retreat and leave no guard.」
「……what are you trying to do?」

Maya said as she looked at me uncomprehending.

「Just do it please.」
「Well, since you ask we’ll do it.」

Maya said with a complicated look on her face.

After thinking a bit, she looked resolved.

「Alright, leave it to me. Daytime is impregnable, nighttime we ignore it. That’s how it should be right?」
「That’s perfect. But if some people come wanting pushinee, give it to them, but…..」
「Don’t let them inside, right?」

Maya said while grinning.

She didn’t understand what the point was, but she quickly understood her own role.

「Exactly.」
「Understood. We’ll tighten the guard so no one gets in.」

Maya said and left to complete her duty.
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Maya faithfully executed my commands.

The one hundred woman elite forces surrounded the pushinee storehouse and lined up their nitoka.

They placed it under the highest security possible.

If there were people who wanted pushinee, the girls received the order and gave them the number they requested.

Then at night they completely retreated.

They repeated this.

While this was going on, I continued to develop the town like nothing had happened.
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A week after they had begun guarding the storehouse, Maya came to see me.

「Akito, the storehouse has been robbed.」
「Oh」

It finally came, I thought.

「Tell me in detail.」

I left what I’d been doing and listened to Maya.

「This morning we were guarding like usual. A man who wanted pushinee came, and when we went into the storehouse it was definitely less than the previous night.」
「Are you sure? It wasn’t a mistake right?」
「We accepted this task, we properly gathered them and checked.」
「I see.」

Good good, finally.

「Akito you look kinda happy…even though you were robbed.」
「This is what I’ve been aiming for after all.」
「What do you mean?」
「First, the people of this town hate pushinee. ‘What are you doing making us eat dirt~’ or so they say」
「Greedy people aren’t they…」

Maya said.

They had fallen to becoming bandits because they didn’t have enough food to eat. You could tell their feelings from that experience.

「It’s too troublesome to convince them all. Even if I did so, it’d be something I pushed on them and leave them dissatisfied. Then I called you girls. Since you guarded it so closely I was trying to implant the idea that 「these are precious」 into their minds.」
「I see, so leaving it open at night was to make this easier?」
「That’s right.」
「So they’ve been successfully hooked.」

Maya chuckled.
She looked like she was really enjoying this.

「That’s correct. But still, it’s true that the pushinee are important…even though I can mass produce them.」
「I know their importance and how you saved us with them.」

Maya said looking at me with eyes filled with gratitude.

It was how you’d look at your benefactor…no someone even more important.

「I’ll have you do a few more days. Before long their thinking will change and we can adjust this.」
「Ok」
***************************************
It was even faster than I expected.

The next day, Lilia and I were steadily creating the town’s walls when a single man approached.

It was the well formed man who had raised his hand during the tutorial.

「You’re…..」
「Zawal」
「I see. What happened?」
「I have a request of you Milord. That food that you showed…..the…」
「Pushinee?」
「Right, pushinee. Could you make us some? There’s none left from what you had made.」
「Already gone?」

I played dumb.

I had received the same report from Maya.

Last night most of the rest of it had been stolen.

It was just as I’d hoped.

They would steal it with the feeling that 「if we don’t take it now we won’t get any」 and they’d take a lot of it.

Sometime this would happen and cause a shortage. I thought that it would accelerate their fall into a food shortage.

But for it to happen already.

I looked at Zawal and said.

「Ok, tell the people at the food storehouse that we’ll be there.」

I sent him ahead.

「Lilia」
「Yes desuno?」
「I’ll leave the creation of the pushinee to you.」
「I’ll obey Onii-chan’s orders desuno. But Onii-chan is more efficient than Lilia. Lilia can only make them one by one with the bronze card desu no.」
「That’s exactly why.」

I said and Lilia looked at me with her head tilted sideways in confusion.
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I had Lilia go ahead and make the pushinee.

If she had a silver card then she could make 10, if she had gold then she could make 100, but she had a slave card (bronze) which could only make one at a time.

She’d make a circle, put in some soil, and create a single pushinee.

It only needed one magic power, but it took a lot of time.

So…Lilia would be there being watched by the townspeople as she sweated and worked.

Lilia didn’t complain. She was my slave. She wouldn’t complain, instead she’d feel happy to work as I instructed.

But if you didn’t know that and you watched her, you’d see a young woman doing hard labor.

It didn’t just look like hard labor…it was hard labor. It would take an entire hour just to make enough pushinee for each townsperson to have one.

As the townspeople watched…they began to guiltily lend her a hand.

Gradually it turned into Lilia laying down the magic circles and the townspeople placing the materials inside them like a production line.

「It was this much trouble to make the pushinee?」
「It may be disgusting but it does keep us from starving…」
「And we received it all for free….the Lord is an amazing guy…」

Here and there you could hear voices that were saying things drastically different from a few days ago.

The people who had complained and protested were now thanking Lilia for her hard work.

All according to plan.

Now there shouldn’t be anymore problems with regards to the pushinee.

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