The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 279 Mercenary Owen (7) - Hardship When Leaving the Country The Crown Prince awakened from his meditation. As he was turning his neck this way and that as light stretching, he saw Lucidra watching him with a strange look in her eyes. "Is there something you want to say?" "No, I was thinking you ended things surprisingly gracefully." One could ask how striking the Green Dragon's back with a lance charge and threatening Kirie, who was called the Empire's greatest mage, could be considered graceful, but in Lucidra's opinion, that was quite a gentle method. Well, if it was the Crown Prince she knew. "I thought he would skewer the Green Dragon and roast it over a bonfire, beat up the tutor who did dangerous things and throw her in prison, then make her penniless under the pretense of damage compensation." (E/N: Right? When did Demon King Alondre become this...restrained?) "I don't know where to start objecting." The Crown Prince let out a chuckle as if he was dumbfounded. "First, the Green Dragon can't be cooked with just a bonfire. While it has weaker fire resistance compared to a Red Dragon, a dragon is still a dragon. If we were to cook it, we'd need a dedicated furnace." "You're not denying that you'd eat it roasted." "And beating up the tutor with Owen's strength would be quite difficult. Even concentrating maximum power in a meditative state, Owen would have to risk his life. Naturally, taking her to prison would be impossible." "You're not risking your own life." "Lastly, I briefly considered damage compensation, but it would be difficult to legally defeat a former magic tower master with mercenary status." "You actually considered it." Lightly brushing off Lucidra's reaction, the Crown Prince said. "Well, I gave various reasons... but fundamentally it's just one thing. She didn't completely cross the line." If Kirie had rampaged without caring about civilian damage at all, driven solely by the obsession to maintain her position as the Crown Prince's tutor, the Crown Prince wouldn't have hesitated to personally take up his sword. Of course, the commotion that would ensue wouldn't be at a mediocre level, but the Crown Prince wasn't the type to turn away from his responsibilities. It wasn't like the Crown Prince had directly cut her from the tutor position, but it was true that he was the cause of the tutors currently running amok. "So from that mage's perspective, she survived because she had some reason left in her. So, is the punishment over now?" "Yes. It ends with adding the acquisition method to the gift evaluation criteria. It would be best if the parties involved presented directly with their own words." "You really are a demon. You're just wearing a human mask." (E/N: That's our Demon King Alondre indeed!) *** After finishing the eventful journey in Goden Forest. The steps of the two people heading toward their next destination were very light. "It's fortunate that the negotiation ended successfully. It was lucky that the other party was rational and reasonable." "To my eyes, it looked like intimidation rather than negotiation?" "Originally there's not much difference between those two. If the world were a grand game and people's abilities were displayed as stats, they would definitely be judged with the same ability values." "At least I can clearly tell that you're spouting nonsense." "Good grief, this is all just to make a living, but you're being too harsh." Owen tapped the leather pouch at his waist, whose contents had become quite heavy. It was filled with the 'hush money' he had extracted from Kirie. "There probably isn't another mercenary in the world who would extort money from a former magic tower master." "What are you talking about. Being a mercenary is a job. The purpose of a job is to make money. Other guys would have gladly extorted money too if they had the chance?" "If only they could speak up." Even as she said that, the corners of Ophelia's mouth were slightly raised. Honestly, Ophelia had also nearly died caught up in that incomprehensible experiment, so she was secretly satisfied too. 'Standing up proudly against absurdity without yielding or compromising was just like Lady Kuella... Gasp!' The moment she realized what thought she had just had, Ophelia was horrified. To compare such a sly mercenary to her idol - she must have temporarily lost her mind from such a shocking experience. As Ophelia shook her head vigorously left and right, her beige hair swayed wildly in response. "This is how large dogs look when they shake off water." "What did you say?" "I didn't say anything." Ophelia glared at Owen with sharp eyes, but Owen just grinned and lightly brushed it off. "Come to think of it, have you ever been outside the Empire, miss?" "No, this is my first time." "Then you'll probably be quite surprised from now on. Inside and outside the Empire are quite different in many ways." "The Empire itself varies extremely from territory to territory anyway, doesn't it?" "It's not at that level. If the differences within the Empire are like blue butterflies versus yellow butterflies, the outside is more like the realm of spiders or praying mantises." "Hmph." Ophelia snorted. She thought Owen was deliberately trying to intimidate her to scare her. "You seem to look down on me as a hothouse flower, but I know everything I need to know?" *** To put it bluntly, Ophelia had absolutely no idea what the 'outside' of the Empire was like. "By the way, I don't know how much further we need to go before we reach a road. There must have been an error in the map." "Huh? This place here is already a road?" "...This place full of muddy water?" Ophelia looked at the ground as if she couldn't believe it. Mud and unidentifiable animal droppings, even deep ruts that seemed to have been created by passing cart wheels. It was fortunate they were riding on horses, but if they had walked on foot, they would have sunk up to their ankles and become covered in mud - that's what was there. "This, this is just... a swamp mixed with filth!" "Originally, when people and horses travel, that becomes a road. Laying stones on the ground, spreading cement, installing drainage ditches on both sides - that's something only great powers can do. At least in fairly large cities or capital regions, nobles live in clusters so they spend money to make things neat and tidy, but otherwise this is normal." "Even so, it hasn't even been a day since we left the Empire and it's this different?" "It's the opposite. If you were in their position, would you build something like a treasure vault next to where much stronger and scarier guys live? You never know when they might plunder it and claim 'this is my land now'?" "Roads are the same as treasure vaults?" "They're not that different in terms of being expensive and requiring intensive maintenance." The Empire no longer desires further expansion. But that's just the current mainstream opinion, and voices wanting a larger and stronger Empire exist everywhere. From neighboring countries' perspective, there's absolutely no need to spend money investing in various things on land that might be taken away at any time. No, from a trade perspective there might be national benefits, but that can't be seen as directly linked to the current ruling class's interests. "Roads ultimately have no other method than either the country stepping up to build them, or local residents voluntarily making them for their own convenience. This place is neither. Why, do you already want to go back?" "No!!" Ophelia shot back in a shrill voice. "It's actually better this way. We'll have to endure harsh natural environments when we enter the deep mountains anyway, so we can think of this as practice in advance." "Oh, how spirited and admirable." Owen said that, but somehow there was a hint of a senior wanting to tease an ignorant junior in his voice. And one day later. "......" Ophelia stared at the food on the table in silence. Black, hard bread that gave off some kind of sour aroma. Something with unidentifiable yellow grease floating around that calling it stew would itself seem insulting. Cabbage salad that seemed salted and thoroughly boiled, where not even a speck of freshness or crispness could be felt. Ophelia's cheeks trembled. If this had been some rural village inn, Ophelia would have felt dissatisfied inwardly but wouldn't have shown it much while eating the food. It's natural for the air to smell salty at the seaside, so arguing with locals about why the air is like this would make one a crazy woman. But this place was surprisingly a city, and among them, the most luxurious and expensive inn. After making eye contact with her and seeing the head chef wink while giving a thumbs up, Ophelia fell into serious contemplation. 'Could they be deliberately trying to mess with us because we're outsiders?' "I can roughly guess what you're thinking, but it's not like that." Then Owen, who unlike Ophelia was casually devouring the food, spoke. Ophelia, who had been looking at him dipping bread into the greasy soup as if watching something indescribable, asked back. "Then this is normal? Do all the people here eat things like this?" The fact that she spoke in small whispers without raising her voice was probably her own consideration for the head chef as one person to another. Owen answered with a strange smile at that fact. "Cooking is more than half about the ingredients. No matter how skilled a chef is, if all the vegetables that come to hand are wilted and the meat is half-rotten, they can't demonstrate their skills, right? And the quality of ingredients is directly linked to the region's distribution network." Ophelia pondered for a moment then said. "...The roads around here aren't properly built, so transporting ingredients is also difficult. And since transportation isn't convenient, there aren't many customers. Since there aren't many customers, ingredients aren't consumed quickly, and using old ingredients makes the taste even worse." "Right, then could a single inn owner, or even this region's feudal lord, solve this problem?" "It would be unreasonable." Ophelia answered immediately while frowning. "Building roads only within this territory or its surroundings wouldn't mean much. Roads would need to connect all the way to ranches where meat is butchered, fields where vegetables are harvested, seas where salt or fish can be obtained, and the origin points of each ingredient. And that's not construction that can be started lightly." Just building it would drain terrifying amounts of funds, and maintaining and managing it would also require tremendous effort. Is that all? Roads passing through my territory so I'll charge tolls, nobles who want to charge tolls, powerful people trying to prevent roads from being built because they lose from roads being created, bandits that will spring up like mushrooms targeting travelers - all sorts of problems would burst forth randomly. Ophelia suddenly thought of her family home. The Hydrain Family, extending their hands into various commercial sectors and accumulating wealth indiscriminately. The roads and various infrastructure laid down by the Empire must have greatly helped them accumulate wealth like that. Did the people at her family home truly know this? Ophelia thought they probably didn't. Or perhaps. 'Even after knowing, they might have said "so what about it."' Once again rising like breathing, the feeling of disgust toward her family. Ophelia took a deep breath, then with a resolute face dipped bread in soup as Owen did and put it in her mouth. "...Well, it's not bad. This too." Perhaps from suppressing dry heaves, tears were slightly forming in Ophelia's eyes. Pretending not to see that, Owen said. "Right, if you can handle that much, you should be able to adapt sufficiently?" "Hmph, this level is nothing at all."