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“Noble sir, today we’ve got ‘nother big haul.”
“I see. Be careful of accidents, okay?”
“Please leave it to us.”
For some reason, negotiations between the Kingdom and the demons haven’t started yet. The demon’s air fleet has landed on the Terra Harrez Archipalego and started to build a base, but they’re so slow at it that many consider this to be some sort of plot.
All of the demons should be magicians, making this turtle-paced building speed more than unusual. Some among the nobles in the government regard this as the demon’s message to us that they don’t really plan to build a base and only want to use this as a card in the negotiations. Other nobles claim that the demons are deliberately provoking us.
At any rate, speculations about it remain meaningless as long as no negotiations have started, but so far no one can tell when that’s going to happen.
Even so, the Kingdom, and especially the west, is running through huge amounts of provisions as many troops have been assembled. Especially food and water are of crucial importance, and thus we’ve been working on securing some of that.
I’ve been renting out boats with a magic propulsion to the fishermen, who had their fishing boats confiscated by the navy for the surveillance of the archipelago, to allow them to go on with their fishing, and that led to the number of boats available greatly increasing. Thanks to that, the fish price in Sirius stabilized. As such we not only greatly contributed to the supply of the army, but also gave the residents some reprieve.
As usual, Margrave Holmia didn’t say anything, but maybe he’s just too busy to bother with us.
“Although you call it contribution, you could also describe it as plain ole’ fishing.”
“You say so, but haven’t you simply been drinking booze while eating your own processed fish as snacks, Burkhart-san…?”
Today was yet another day of Burkhart-san getting Elise and my other wives to prepare his catch for him as he planned to enjoy it together with his evening drink. He was certainly not qualified to quibble about other people on this matter.
“Can’t help it, can I? We’re at a standstill right now.”
Having said that, it’s only been around two weeks so far. We’re already used to this sort of long war campaign, and since I can use Teleport, I’ve been going back home once every two days to continue my public works. Given that Katharina, Lisa, and Therese are doing the work with me as they can use magic similar to mine, the development of my earldom is proceeding as planned in spite of the semi-war state.
Meanwhile Malie-san and Elise have been focusing on taking care of the babies while my other wives placed their priority on getting some fishing done. It sounds like they even learned how to span fishing nets from the fishermen in their free time.
“I’m starting to worry that we might spend the rest of our days fishing at this rate.”
It was worrying indeed, but it didn’t seem like the others hated angling or fishing. From Burkhart-san’s point of view, fish that were perfect for creating a great menu of side dishes for his drinks were magnificent.
“Hm───m.”
“Is something the matter, Doushi?”
“I cannot catch them!”
“Wait, you have been catching fish all the while, haven’t you?”
After the disastrous catches from the first day, Doushi had been catching fish at a good pace. Today was no exception to that.
“No, I meant tuna or sea beasts!”
“Doushi, you can’t catch those in waters so close at port…,” Erw shot down Doushi’s willful whining with a fed-up voice, and he had a point as it’d definitely be difficult to catch such game in an area that’s only one kilometer off the port.
I think we won’t have any chance to catch those unless we head out a bit further.
“Tuna? Sea Beasts? You won’t get to see those unless you head out at least ten kilometers off the coast,” answered a fisherman when we asked him while processing our catch. “Well, if it’s sea beasts, you can spot them not that far out in the sea every once in a while. But, you won’t be able to catch them easily since they’re big.”
Sea beasts over here indicate whales and dolphins. This world also treats them as mammals since they give birth to children instead of laying eggs. That’s why they’ve apparently been called boars of the sea in the past.
This world has no animal welfare groups complaining about it being disquieting to kill whales and dolphins since they’re intelligent, so you could occasionally buy their materials on the market. The occasional stems from them being difficult to catch because of their size.
“Earl Baumeister, how about we aim for a bigger game for a change?”
“Big noble sir, you can’t catch sea beasts so easily,” a certain fisherman explained to Doushi, whom the fishermen had started to cozily call “big noble sir.”
This world had no guns for whale-hunting and since you couldn’t store the body, even if you caught one, unless you got a big ship, making it a fishing with fairly big hurdles.
“We are magicians! You can leave it to me if we catch a sea beast!”
“So you say, but…”
Even though he’s never actually caught one…Doushi is being quite reckless once again…
“Is it not fine to have a little adventure every once in a while? We will depart tomorrow!”
For some reason Doushi forced the decision, resulting in us getting stuck accompanying him on his sea beast hunt.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Pardon? What did the young civilian contractors say again?”
“Some of them mentioned they’d like to go angling since they’re bored.”
“Are those guys morons?”
Even though the construction of the base hasn’t been finished yet, I, the commandant of this fleet, had to face yet another ordeal.
Some of the young civilian contractors did not have an ounce of motivation, let alone capability, and yet they started to talk about wanting to head out on the ocean to enjoy a holiday.
“Are these people actually understanding our current situation?”
“Most likely not… Or maybe they do, but don’t care?”
“I suppose either would result in the same outcome anyway.”
“Indeed.”
They had been recruited by the Civil Rights Party under the pretext of supporting their youths, who couldn’t, or rather, didn’t bother to find employment, but after being sent here, their motivation was basically non-existent, as might be expected from their background. After all, their contract stated that they’d be paid a preset amount of money if they worked as civilian contractors for a certain amount of time. However, that contract didn’t mention anything about their abilities or their work completion degree. Therefore, they had no need to show any motivation, and if you took it to the extreme, it’d be unnecessary for them to finish the base, too.
Hence their behavior was just logical since they’d get paid for just being present here. Besides, since they weren’t employed as regulars here, they’d be discharged once their contract period came to an end. As such it was beyond pointless to order them to take their work seriously.
The folks of the Civil Rights Party only needed the fact of the youths having been employed for their political agenda, so if you took this into account as well, you might even call the young people victims here.
But, personally I believed that the biggest victims here would likely be the defense forces.
“I guess it’s pointless to get upset at this point. Anyway, when is the government going to start its negotiations with the Helmut Kingdom?”
“Wouldn’t that be anyone’s call?”
“Ah, yeah. The people in the government are just as bad as those young civilian contractors.”
“No kidding. But, seeing how the politicians aren’t young anymore, you can’t hope for any improvement anymore.”
“You got a point there.”
This much cynicism is to be expected at this point, I think. At any rate, some among the young civilian contractors have apparently started to feel bored with staying on the island during their days off.
In compliance with the politicians of the ruling party, we’ve allotted plenty of leave days to them. According to those idiots, they’re allies of laborers, so it’s only natural for them to comply with labor laws.
I mean, even the defense forces are well aware that excessive exhaustion can lead to unforeseen accidents or troubles on top of work-efficiency dropping, and so our organization has been managing its labor properly. Those people’s problem is their steady bickering despite not doing any work, which only causes us trouble instead.
“The area around this archipelago is being monitored by various bigger and smaller ships…”
“I doubt they’d lose if it came to a fight, but we’re surrounded by enemies here…”
“3rd Grade Assistant Bermel, they haven’t been designated as enemies yet, so watch your words.”
“Excuse me, Sir.”
If the Helmut Kingdom is designated as an enemy, the probability of us starting a war will rise exponentially. Thus, it’s better to watch what you say right now. Besides, our defense forces are under civil control. So the defense force mustn’t judge the humans to be enemies without any orders by the government.
And even before that, telling the Helmut Kingdom that they’re our enemies after selfishly building a base on their territory is a case that would affect our dignity as demons. Ultimately, this is but my personal opinion, and it’s not like I can read the minds of the government members.
After a deep sigh, “…But, if we don’t phrase it out like that, those young folks will head out to play for real, I think…”
“What a nightmare…”
If we allow those civilians to go on holidays in the surrounding waters, the other side will definitely make some sort of hostile assumption based on that, no matter how much we claim otherwise. I believe it’s pretty much set that it’ll lead to battle.
“Have them spend their time on the islands!”
“We will be strengthening the guard protocol right away.”
The troublesome part about the young contractor is their ability to use magic, which is something all demons can use naturally. Even demons with small mana capacity still register as intermediate level compared to human magicians.
Many demons know about that from the ancient records we still have left, and thus I can’t deny the possibility of them getting carried away and simply letting their magic loose at the humans.
“This is the very reason why I said that we didn’t need any young civilian contractors over here…”
All demons are strong as magicians. And using that fact as an argument, some of them have been insisting on invading the continent. However, the defense forces don’t have enough personnel to successfully launch such an invasion. True to its name, the defense forces lost their capabilities as a true army in the distant past.
In addition, the demons themselves are waning in population. Even if we won, any casualty would cause the public to lash out at the government and the defense forces. War and war casualties are words that have long vanished from our country. If things go really badly, even just a few casualties would have the potential for several members of the cabinet to resign.
Besides, the majority of the populace is against a war or an invasion. There’s no need to invade another country if your own country has an ever growing space for living because of a dwindling population.
Even in regards to our current mission here, some people and intellectuals have been kicking up a fuss over it being problematic on a legal basis.
“3rd Grade Assistant Bermel, I sometimes wonder about this, but why have I been assigned as the commandant of this fleet?”
“……”
Bermel remained silent as he appeared hard pressed to find an answer. But that’s okay since I didn’t expect him to give me a satisfying answer anyway.
To be honest here, I didn’t want to participate in an operation like this.
If I get through this without any grave errors, my retirement payment and pension… Most recently, people have started to debate a raise of the retirement age and a cut of the pension, but…well, I should be able to live normally on what I’ll receive.
“The young contractors are strangely skilled at magic.”
“Well, they had plenty of time on their hands, so it makes sense…”
The demons of several ten thousand years ago had formed a savage society that used power (magic) to subdue others. Nowadays, magic technology has advanced and the ruling system of society has been refined, which led to magic maniacs being shunned among demons. Rather than focusing on magic, it’s more beneficial for finding employment to study properly, enter good schools, get good grades and certificates, and hone your social skills with friends and the people around you.
Of course mana is necessary to maintain the social system and infrastructure, but the amount of mana required has been decreasing with each year thanks to progress in magic engineering. Given that demons, unlike humans, possess a certain amount of mana once they obtain the ability to understand what is going on around them in early childhood, they don’t really need to train magic.
Rather, if they don’t focus on learning some skills or studying knowledge, they won’t be able to find any jobs. And even if they obtain all these, half of the young demons transform into social problems because they can’t find jobs.
Some among those unemployed youths devote all their effort and time in practicing magic. Occasionally, “crazed youths” will also go ballistic in urban areas because they want to vent their dissatisfaction on society, but such demons are quickly arrested.
The policing unit within the defense forces has been doing proper combat training while employing a certain number of serious, diligent youths into their ranks.
But, since it’s not like you won’t starve just because you can’t work in our society, the number of folks going ballistic is low. The media uses those few youths for criticizing the government by calling them “Victims of Society,” so the problem looks bigger than it actually is.
“As a matter of fact, my younger brother remains unemployed as well… He has been training his magic since he got tired counting the leaves falling from trees. And even while doing that, he can’t find a job… Our parents have been asking me whether I couldn’t help him out in some way, but I don’t have any connections…”
It sounds like Bermel’s family has its own share of issues.
“Does that change once you become a general?” He asked.
“No, at least not for me. Our son has found a job with a civilian company.”
Fortunately, our son is somehow managing to stay afloat as a salaryman, but he’s looking quite exhausted every day and the pay is quite bad. There’s few jobs for youths and many companies pay so badly and have so nasty work hours that they’re called 『Black Companies』.
Because many youths got cornered by such circumstances, falling into depression or killing themselves, some of them started to think that it’s just as fine to not take jobs at all costs. The elderly complain, 『Back in my younger days, we’ve been worked a lot harder for much less pay! Young people nowadays are so spoiled rotten!』, causing the youths in question to ridicule them with, 『Geezer, you and your dreamy nostalgia of better times lol』.
Well, in reality, many companies paid and treated their employees better in the past…
Of course there also existed many companies that worked their employees like horses, but in exchange, their pay was higher, according to my deceased grandfather.
Such being the case, our country has been continuing this unproductive quarrel for the last few hundred years. I guess you could summarize this whole argument under the category of generation gap.
Telling all of this to Bermel, he commented, “Okay, but even if you invade the continent for the sake of covering that contradiction, it’ll just make things worse.”
“Yes, it’d likely aggravate the demon’s decline…”
If we can’t govern the occupied territory decently, it’s quite possible that the few demons would have their heads cut off during their sleep or die on battlefields. And since they’re aware of this, the uniformed personnel are probably flabbergasted by the retarded arguments of the politicians.
“It’s good that I’m no uniformed personnel, really…”
As I thought that, suddenly, a 2nd Grade Assistant in charge of security rushed into the room, shouting, “It’s an emergency! Three of them escaped!”
Apparently three of the young contractors slipped through our surveillance net and left the archipelago.
“But, how?”
“…Underwater.”
If they had left the islands with 『Flight』, we’d have immediately spotted and retrieved them. Accordingly three of them cast 『Underwater Breathing』 on themselves and dove away.
“Shall we give chase?”
“That sounds like it’ll be difficult…”
If we move our ship, it could provoke the ships watching this island, if we’re unlucky. Having said that, it’d be dangerous for me to send out my precious personnel while only relying on their magic.
“If we treat those three as ship-wrecked, it’ll also turn us into targets for blame and persecution, though.”
“Those fucking morons!”
I felt dizziness assailing me while believing that no other commandant could be as unfortunate as I am.
＊ ＊ ＊
————- End of Part 1 ————-
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