Chapter 4: I Gained Disciples

“We’re ready to listen, Master!”

“Please make good on your promise and teach us how to cook offal, Master!”

“Ummm, you two are here way too early. Also, please stop calling me that. I just met you yesterday, for one thing.”

“No, you are our master.”

“Exactly!”

“What? I don’t... *Sigh*~...” No matter what I said, neither of them showed any sign of fixing how they referred to me, so I sighed in resignation.

Yesterday, I caved and agreed to teach the two of them to cook, but they arrived way earlier than what we agreed on and charged inside.

Even though I’d only just had breakfast and my brain was still booting up.

“Master, hurry and teach us how to cook offal!”

“Yeah! It’s real important to us.”

“*Sigh* Fine, fine. Just come with me for now.” With no other choice, I showed the two orphans into the kitchen.

“You asked me to show you how to cook offal, but it’s not really anything special. The most important thing is what you learned yesterday, how to clean and prepare the organ meat. As long as that’s done properly, you can do pretty much anything with it and it’ll be good.”

““I see.””

“Out of all the entrails I have, the largest stock is of intestines... Here,” I said while taking out some of the intestines that were prepared yesterday from my Item Box and showing it to them.

“These are delicious even if you just cut them up roughly and season with salt and pepper before cooking, but they’re also nice when coated with sauce. You can basically treat it like the dungeon beef and dungeon pork that this town already sells. All that’s different is the ‘cut,’ if you will.”

“I see. Which means this can also be served as skewers.”

“Of course.” I affirmed the kid’s deduction, and for some reason the two orphans looked at each other and grinned.

“Hey Enzo, this’ll work!”

“Yeah. We have the ultimate sauce we made through trial and error, too.” Fitting for people who were aiming to become professional cooks in Rosenthal, said to be the holy land for cuisine, it seemed that the two of them had already developed their own unique sauce.

“You’ve already seen how to grill it, but what about boiling or stewing? Do you want me to show you an example?”

“Please!”

“Yes, please!” I’d heard that these two planned to start with a stall, and since they figured stews could be served at one, they wanted to know all about them.

“Well, there technically is a lot of choice, but...” Chitterling hot pot wasn’t really suited for serving out of stalls, and for stewed offal they’d need soy sauce and miso.

But given how they couldn’t get soy sauce or miso, I couldn’t very well teach them that, either.

Since that was the case, I decided on showing them how to make tomato stew with tripe. I expected it to be good for them since it seemed like the dish could be made entirely with ingredients from this world.

“Okay, I’ll make a tomato stew.”

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

“Okay, this should do it for the preparations.” I cut the beef reticulum and intestines into appropriately-sized pieces before boiling the offal in some water, throwing away the water, and repeating the process a second time.

I personally thought the dungeon pig intestines were better, but since this was a tripe stew, I used the dungeon beef’s intestines instead.

“I thought this would be really quick, but offal takes a lot of work, doesn’t it?” Maynard said as he boiled and drained the entrails under my instruction.

“Yeah, I thought this could be served up pretty much immediately since we went through all that work with the flour and salt.” Enzo followed up.

“I get that. If you’re just going to grill or fry the stuff, the preparation from yesterday is all you need, but for stews you need to do this too. It’s to clean away any scum or mucus that’d pop up in the stew so it turns out better.”

““I see~.”” The two of them looked really serious about learning how to cook this dish.

“I’ll get the ingredients ready, so let’s get to cooking.” While the two of them were repeating the boiling and draining of the entrails, I was buying the food we’d need with my skill.

“Then, split up and start cooking. Maynard, you’ll be making the tomato soup base...” Normally I’d use canned tomatoes since it was easier, but those didn’t exist in this world so I had to teach the kid how to do it from scratch.

Well, all that really entailed was peeling the tomatoes in hot water and boiling the rest of it in some water and salt while scooping out any scum that forms on the surface.

“Enzo, you’ll cut the vegetables.” The onions, carrots, and celery needed to be diced into cubes of about 5mm in size, while the garlic needed to be minced.

*bubble bubble bubble*

*chop chop chop*

As was fitting for people aiming to cook professionally, the two orphans were pretty practiced in the kitchen.

“Good. The tomato soup base is done, and it looks like the vegetables are all cut. Then let’s move on to the next step. First, pour some olive oil into a pot and add in the minced garlic before heating the pot on low.” The minced garlic roasted slowly in the golden olive oil.

“Once the garlic looks like this — Oh, in my country we call garlikke “garlic” — Anyway, once it starts releasing a smell like this, add in the vegetables that Enzo cut earlier...... And put a bay leaf on top as you continue to cook.” This world had its fair share of dried herbs, and bay leaves were fairly easy to come by, so I figured this flourish would be fine.

“Just like this, add in the oni......I mean oneons. Once they turn a little see-through, add the offal and continue cooking. The next thing to add is the tomato soup base that Maynard prepared along with some dashi made from dried meat. On top of that, put in some boiled chipeas and stew the whole thing for a while.” Normally, I’d rather use consomme stock, but I couldn’t use that in front of the two orphans so I made a stock using some dried meat I had on hand.

As for the chipeas, I bought them with my skill. They came in a can, so I just dumped them out onto a dish. This world had something called chipeas that were basically just chickpeas, so I didn’t see any problem in just buying canned chickpeas and pretending.

Cannellini beans or soybeans would work well too, but chipeas were most common in this world so I went with that.

“At this point, once the offal softens up, the last step is to adjust the taste with salt and pepper. It’s pretty simple, right?” The two of them were noting the steps with a serious expression as I talked, so when I turned the ball over to them they just nodded.

“The taste of offal dishes depends on how thoroughly you can clean and prepare them, right Master?”

“That’s right, Maynard.”

“Honestly, I think it’s a waste of flour and salt, but I guess it’s necessary...”

“Yeah. I don’t think you need to use that much salt and flour for this, though. You’ve learned about how much you’ll need yesterday, right?”

“Yes.” Enzo sank into thought at my question and started to mutter, “A medium scoop of flour for one drop...”

“Now that I think about it, it’s not that much.”

“That’s right, Enzo. And look...” According to Maynard, the orphanage received more than enough flour and salt, partially as supplies and partially as their funding.

That was because not only was this area a big producer of wheat, but also rock salt.

Actually, while this town was famous for its meat because of the dungeon, all the villages around it apparently dealt with wheat.

Now that I think about it, I saw a lot of wheat fields on the way here, didn’t I?

Meanwhile...

“Oh, it’s looking pretty good. Now just adjust to taste with salt and pepper... There, it’s done.”

“*Gulp*... There’s so much in this soup, it looks delicious...”

“Smells delicious too.”

“Ah, pepper’s really expensive so I think you don’t have to push yourselves to get any. Also, dried basil will make this pretty good, too. Well anyway, the toppings and extra stuff are pretty flexible and up to you, so feel free to experiment. For now, just try this one.” I spooned out a share for the two orphans and myself, and...

At some point, my gluttons were...

“Ahh, you guys want some too?”

“Of course.”

The two kids were really startled by the sudden appearance of Fel and the others, but I calmed them down saying it was okay since these were just my familiars.

“I didn’t make enough to fill you guys up, so you’ll just be getting a taste. I’m warning you,” I said to Fel and the others as I spooned them some stew.

“Truly, this is a modest portion.”

《He told us it was just for tasting so there’s no helping it. If it’s good we can have him make more.》

《There’s so little...》 As I thought, the portion was too small for them.

“I told you it’s only for a taste test...” I complained as Fel and the others started eating.

“You two eat as well.” The two orphans nodded and spooned some tomato stew into their mouths.

Then they slowly let it roll over their tongues so they could analyze it.

“It’s so good... I thought it still might have some funk to it, but I was completely wrong. It’s really easy to eat! Also, the offal is so soft and the flavors have soaked in really well. It’s amazing how tasty it is!”

“I thought guts would taste... unique, but this is nice and easy to eat. It’s really good! There’s the acidity from the tomatoes, so you don’t get tired of it at all. Also, there’s so much stuff in this stew and I think it would go really well with bread.” The two of them easily finished off what they had in their dishes while praising it to no end.

“Heheheheheheh... Enzo, we can win with this.”

“Heheheheheheh... You’re right, Maynard. We can win with this.”

““Heheheheheheheh...””

Huh? What? I think Maynard and Enzo just broke.

“We can make something grilled with our ultimate sauce, and we also have this stew... It’s perfect!”

“Yeah. We can go for the win with this!”

............What?

“Hey, what’ve you two been going on about?”

“Ah, sorry Master. We got caught up in our own little world.”

“But it’s thanks to you that we have some hope. We might be able to place in the Meat Dungeon Festival!”

“Meat Dungeon Festival?” According to Maynard and Enzo, the Meat Dungeon Festival was something that was started around eight years ago in order to revitalize the town, and it was held once a year. Apparently, the main activity in the festival was just enjoying all the meat that the dungeon produces.

The festival was three days long, and according to those two, the streets were basically buried in stalls selling meat dishes from the dungeon during that time.

The festival for this year was in ten days, and even full-on restaurants with good reputations would open stalls especially for this event.

“Every year it gets bigger. Last year there were almost 100 stalls open!”

“Yeah! And the festival’s gonna give us a chance to open up a stall too!” It seemed the Meat Dungeon Festival was important to these two as well, and they got more and more excited as they talked.

Apparently, during the festival, anyone could open up a stall as long as they handed in an application to the Merchant’s guild, so they were going to do just that.

“Normally you can’t do any business if you aren’t registered at the Merchant’s guild, but the Meat Dungeon Festival is special. Even kids like us who’re still training to become cooks can open one up to test our skills.”

I guess kids like that pool their money for the stall?

“The main event of the Meat Dungeon Festival is the awards ceremony at the end. They announce the five best stalls according to a popular vote by customers!” Enzo said excitedly.

“Yeah. And any stall that ends up in those top five gets a huge boost in popularity! The year before last, a stall run by someone named Marcus got ranked 4th and immediately became a really popular place to eat even though he’d only started his business really recently!” Maynard also sounded really excited.

I see. So you can become really popular regardless of if you’re a famous eatery, just a stall, or even a freshly started business as long as you rank in the top five? That’s pretty inspirational.

“We haven’t even set up our own business, but if we were to get a top rank during the festival, we can probably get hired at a big restaurant or something. Depending on the circumstances we might even be able to take over a store!”

Yeah, sounds like if you do well you’d be spoiled for choice.

Still...

“That’s pretty interesting. Hey, are applications still open?”

““Huh?!””

“M-Master, a-are you going to apply?”

“What? Are you going to tell me I can’t?”

“N-No, you can. But...” For some reason, both of them looked really troubled.

“We should have stayed quiet about the festival...”

“Great, now we have a powerful rival...” The two of them muttered.

“Oh, is that what you were worried about? I don’t plan to use offal at all, so you two’ll stand out more. There won’t be anywhere else serving guts, right?”

““True...””

“Ah! Enzo, there’s the location too! You can apply for the festival up to a week before it starts, but the locations are first come first serve so even if you apply now you probably won’t get anywhere good.”

“Ah, right! All that’s left are the crap spots along the edges. So no matter how strong Master is, he’ll probably have a tough time.”

“Shouldn’t you two be concentrating on your own stuff instead of worrying about someone like me who’s only going to join for fun? You’re aiming for a top rank, right? If you’re going to try to do offal dishes, then you’re gonna need to think about how to get the entrails too, you know?” I told them, and they gasped in realization.

Their brains were so occupied with remembering how to cook the entrails that they’d completely forgotten that they needed to get them first.

But after that gasp, they immediately started to stare at me.

Then they started to rub their hands together, and with a single wheedling voice...

““Master~...””

“W-What?”

““Give us your guts!!””

These two are gradually losing all sense of restraint, aren’t they? I don’t really mind, but I might as well get some extra work out of them while I’m at it.

“I can give you some, but you’re going to have to help me prepare my dishes for the Meat Dungeon Festival too. If you do, I can... Let’s see... give you four drops’ worth of entrails,” I said, and the two of them started conferring with each other.

“Please make it five, Master!”

“Also, we’ll only be helping you for a single day three days before the festival opens. The two days before we’ll need to be doing our own preparations, so we can’t budge on that.”

I’m okay with the five drops, but only that specific day? Well, my Item Box stops time so it’s not like I have to worry about anything going bad... Yeah, there’s no problem with that.

“Alright. It’s a deal.” I shook their hands firmly.

“Hey, have you finished talking?”

“Hm? What’s up Fel?”

“This was quite delectable. I want to eat more, so make it.”

《I want some too.》

《Sui wants more too~!》

............Fine, whatever.

When the two orphans left, I was made to cook an enormous amount of tripe tomato stew at my familiar’s request.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

It was finally time for the Meat Dungeon Festival to start.

I applied for a stall the day after I’d heard about it from Maynard and Enzo.

Even though it was just iron-rank, I still had a Merchant’s guild card, so the application procedure was really simple. All I had to do was pay 3 silver. Apparently if I wasn’t registered, there would have been a ton of forms and hoops to jump through.

After finishing my registration, I didn’t really have anything else planned so we went back into the meat dungeon. My familiars were really bored, so they badgered me into going into the dungeon a full three times. And every time we did, I got an enormous number of drop meat. It was such a ridiculous amount that I actually considered just leaving it, but it felt like too much of a waste for me to stand in the end.

So I picked it all up.

And now there was an absolutely stupendous amount of meat in my Item Box.

I did sell off a large amount of dungeon pork and dungeon beef to the Adventurer’s guild, which made the guildmaster Giannino really happy.

Apparently around the time of the festival, demand for the meat from the evolved forms roughly doubled thanks to the influx of customers.

Even after all that, I still had such a large amount of cockatrice, evolved dungeon pork and dungeon beef, and evolved special individual dungeon pork and dungeon beef (and of course, their entrails) that even with three massive gluttons to take care of, I probably didn’t have to worry about food for a good long time.

Fel and the others wanted to go in an extra time, but my Item Box was already getting taken over by meat dungeon drops at that point and I didn’t want even more, so I stopped them.

I’d finished my preparations for the food I’d be cooking at my stall three days ago.

As promised, Maynard and Enzo helped out and I had more than enough food prepared.

After all, I was only planning to operate a stall on the first day.

From what I heard at the Merchant’s guild, while the Meat Dungeon Festival would last three days, the number of days a stall would open was entirely up to the owners of the stall.

My familiars were dead set on going around the stalls after hearing about the festival, and I myself wanted to do the same.

As for the dish I was planning on serving at the festival... You guessed it, it’s a hot dog! And since I wanted to keep to ingredients that were available in this world as much as possible, I decided to dress the hot dog with fresh tomato sauce rather than ketchup.

Personally, I thought my idea was great.

While there were quite a few stalls serving sausages, none of them seemed to be serving them inside bread, so by my reckoning the unusualness of the dish would make it more popular.

Most importantly, they were delicious.

With Maynard and Enzo’s help, I made a large number of sausages, stuffed with evolved dungeon pork and dungeon beef. The two of them were really surprised when they saw the mithril mincer and my metal sausage nozzle, but I told them it was order made and everything was settled.

Apparently they heard about me being an S-ranked adventurer from Luis, so they just reacted with, “S-ranked adventurers sure are rich...”

I had already made the tomato sauce to replace the ketchup with, too.

To make it, oil up a frying pan and start cooking some minced garlic on low heat until it starts releasing its fragrance. Once that happens, add some minced onions and continue to cook until the onions go transparent.

After that, mix in some roughly chopped tomatoes and a consomme bouillon cube and cook the whole thing down so it loses some moisture before adjusting to taste with salt and pepper to finish the sauce off.

It was a simple sauce, but useful for a lot of things.

So just by cooking my homemade sausage, putting it between some bread, and slathering the tomato sauce on top, I can complete a Mukohda’s Special Hot Dog.

I had the two orphans try it out, and they loved it.

Up until now, they had been stuck with the idea that meat should be meat, and bread should just be bread. The idea that foods should be served by themselves, as themselves, made it so that seeing the hot dog, which had a sausage in bread, had them reacting like they’d received a divine epiphany.

Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen anything sandwiched between bread in any food outside of what I’ve made.

Maynard and Enzo continued to gobble up their food while saying, “We’ll have to try our hardest not to lose to you, Master!”

The bread I used for this test was something that I bought at a bakery in this town, so when the two of them told me that the orphanage had a lot of surplus wheat that they were using to make bread thanks to support from the lord of this territory, I had them introduce me to the orphanage so I could order my bread from them.

I made sure to request that they make it into the shape of a bread roll.

That was when I met the orphanage director and the nuns that staffed the place, and they were all kindly older ladies.

J-Just so you know, I wasn’t secretly hoping for a young hot nun or anything, got it!

They seemed really busy and understaffed so I just said what I needed from them and left so I wouldn’t be in their hair for too long, but I was thanked excessively for my order anyway.

Apparently they were grateful for any source of income.

You can’t just tell me that. I’ll......

Normally a single piece of bread would cost 2 copper, so since I ordered the more expensive bread rolls, they cost 5 copper each. And I ordered 500 of them.

When I paid the 2 gold and 5 silver upfront, the director was so grateful she started praying on the spot, “May you walk with the blessings of the Goddess of Earth, Kisharle.”

Little did she know, I already had Kisharle’s blessing.

After that, I arranged to have the bread I ordered from the orphanage delivered to my house tomorrow morning.

All that was left was to cook and eat something for stamina tomorrow and to get to sleep early.

And offal was just perfect for that.

So today’s dinner will be a highly nutritious chitterling hot pot!

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

The clay pot was bubbling nicely. I was using both my portable magic stove and the magic stove in the kitchen at the same time, with eight clay pots on eight burners. Inside the pots, I was cooking cabbage, bean sprouts, garlic chives, and the all-important dungeon beef offal. I also added plenty of sliced garlic and cayenne peppers, though since I had to be careful about Sui’s tastes, I kept the peppers to a minimum.

It was too much trouble to make the soup from scratch, so I just bought the base from my Online Supermarket. I got soy sauce and miso-flavored soup base packs from a brand that was well known for producing true Hakata flavor. Both soup flavors would have been a whole lot of work to make from scratch, but when store-bought, they only needed to be poured straight into the pot. It was really nice to be both lazy and greedy for flavor like this.

The smell of bonito, seaweed, and soy sauce floated out of some pots, while the smell of miso floated out of others.

“Smells good...”

《Hey, are you done yet?》

《It’s cooked enough, right? I’m hungry.》

《Masterrr, Sui is hungryyy...》 Being able to smell the food, it seemed like my familiars were quickly running out of patience.

“Okay, it should be done now. Hup...” I set some pots down in front of my familiars.

“This one is the soy sauce chitterling hot pot, and this one is miso. It’s hot, so be careful. Also, once the contents are finished, leave the soup. The finisher’ll be fantastic.” But I could tell my words were going in one ear and out the other. Fel and Dora-chan were already completely engrossed in using wind magic to cool down their portions, and Sui never cared about temperature in the first place. It simply engulfed the entire pot.

《Wow! This thing’s delish!》

《Grrr... I want to eat already. I need to cool this thing faster.》

《We’re at a disadvantage in times like this, aren’t we? I’m jealous of Sui since it just doesn’t care about heat.》

“Haha! I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry. The food won’t get up and walk away or anything, so just take your time and enjoy it.” Now then, I guess I’ll get on top of their inevitable demands for more while I have time. There’s no way they’ll be satisfied with just what they have in front of them. Just bring the soup in the clay pot to a boil, throw in some cabbage, bean sprouts, garlic chives, offal, sliced garlic, and cayenne peppers. Then all you have to do is wait for everything to boil together. And in the meantime, I can eat my own food. I’ll start with the standard soy sauce flavor.

*Slrrrp*

I swallowed the soup.

“Ahhh~, this really hits the spot. The flavors of the bonito and seaweed have mixed with the vegetables and the flavor of the offal, so the whole dish comes together really nicely.” Next is the star of the dish.

The chitterlings were jiggly and soft, but also bursting with flavor.

“Yep, it’s delicious. No complaints here.” The vegetables were also delicious, since they’d taken on the flavor of the soup.

“Whoops, I forgot. I should try some of the miso flavor, too.” So I started with some of the miso flavored soup.

*Slrrrp*

“The miso flavor’s delicious too~!” The miso flavor was deep, and with the flavor of the offal added in, it was just as delicious as its soy sauce counterpart.

“They’re both good. Wow, it’s really hard to pick a favorite... Oh, never mind that, I need beer.” I bought some beer with my skill ahead of time, since I knew I’d need it.

*Pssshhht* *Glugluglugluglug*

“Aahhhh, that’s perfect!” After the draught of beer, I quickly turned back to the hot pot...

Then I took another gulp of beer.

“Ahh~, just the best.” As I was repeating that loop, Fel and the others demanded more.

So I put the extra servings I’d already started cooking in front of them.

While I was busy enjoying my own share of hot pot, Fel and the others had already gone through several servings, and...

“Okay. It’s about time for the finisher.” I prepared Chinese noodles for the soy sauce version’s finisher. The flavor of the soup clinging to noodles would be to die for.

As for the miso flavor, I wavered between udon or zosui, but I went with zosui in the end. So, I put rice into the leftover soup and mixed in a beaten egg. This would also be to die for, with the rich soup mixed in among the egg and rice.

It seemed like my familiars really liked the hot pot finisher, since they didn’t even leave a drop of soup behind and looked really satisfied afterward.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Once my familiars were full, they immediately went to bed.

As for me...

“It’s about time to make an offering to Demiurge. Let’s change things up and give him this too.” I made sure to continue making offerings to Demiurge while we were traveling, but I only ever fulfilled his requests, so it ended up always being some sort of sake and some premium kantsuma sets.

In my opinion, the hot pot we had tonight went really well with sake, so I figured I might as well try sharing some with Demiurge. Demiurge had gotten completely hooked on sake, so I was sure that he’d also like what I’d made tonight.

And as for the most important part, the sake, I decided to choose out of the weekly rankings this time.

The first bottle I chose was one from Tochigi. It was a junmai daiginjo that was brewed slowly and carefully at a high temperature. Along with a fruity scent that reminded you of honeydew melons, it was said to be soft and mellow on the palate with a faint sweetness. Apparently, due to its recent popularity, supply wasn’t able to meet demand and it was getting harder and harder to find.

The second bottle I chose was from the Fukui prefecture. It was also a junmai daiginjo that was matured for two years at 0 degrees Celsius. Supposedly, by letting it mature in such a cold environment, they were able to bring out a grapefruit-like fragrance to the sake. Also, it seemed that this particular line managed to win the gold medal at an American sake show three years running.

By the way, the final factor in my decision to buy this was the fact that it was part of a series that was not only used in numerous government-sponsored ceremonies, but was also one favored for serving to important people all around the world.

The third bottle I chose was one from Yamagata. I chose it because the name was unique and the label featured ukiyoe-style art. The sake itself was a rather dry junmai daiginjo, and apparently the series it was a part of was one that was born after three years of trial and error in an attempt to make a drier sake specifically. It had a fruity fragrance and a refreshing taste.

So, I prepared these three bottles and the usual premium kantsuma sets for the offering.

As for the hot pot, I made sure it was still piping hot, and planned to offer it clay pot and all so it could be consumed immediately.

I decided to default to the standard soy sauce flavor, and made sure to also prepare some Chinese noodles on the side for the finisher.

With this, everything should be OK.

After I lined everything up on a table in the living room...

“Please accept this offering, Lord Demiurge.”

＜Oh ho! Thanks as always~. I was just starting to anticipate your next offering.＞

“I have prepared for you the usual sake and kantsuma sets......as well as a chitterling hot pot. It’s something I made myself, and I think it pairs well with sake. Please give it a try.”

＜A hot pot! I’ve been treated to one before by your world’s god! I remember it was quite delicious~. And it was perfect with some sake. Oh, and the finisher that your people make with the leftover soup was also to die for.＞

“I believe this will be different from what you were treated to, lord Demiurge, but this chitterling hot pot is pretty good too, if I say so myself. I’ve prepared Chinese noodles for this hot pot’s finisher, which of course is also delicious.”

＜Ohh~? I see, I see. I’m looking forward to it.＞

“It’s already been cooked, so please eat it at your leisure. As for the finisher, just add the noodles into the leftover soup when you want it and reheat.”

＜You’re really attentive, aren’t you? Making it so that I can eat it immediately. That’s great. I’ll enjoy it now with some sake.＞ The sake and other offerings I’d lined up on the table disappeared after emitting some faint light.

＜Oh, right, I should tell you something. The country that summoned you, Reijseger, was destroyed.＞

“Huh? I’ve heard that they opened hostilities with their neighbor Marveil, but they already lost?”

＜Indeed they did. Just as expected.＞

According to Demiurge, while Reijseger was supposed to be the aggressor, they were on the receiving end of a fierce assault from the demonfolk country and Marveil at the same time. But they were still able to fight evenly with both sides due to sheer force of numbers. Those numbers were mostly made up of enslaved poor people as well as beastfolk, elves, and dwarves. It seemed that they were enslaved by a magic tool called a ‘Dominance Bracelet,’ which was mentioned by Demiurge before. Due to that tool, they couldn’t disobey the country at all.

＜But slave fighters were basically disposable pawns to them. So the slaves all revolted, since they all thought, ‘If we’re going to die anyway, may as well deal a blow to the country that did this to us.’ That basically decided the war, and Reijseger was quickly turned into rubble. The royal family were all beheaded, as were all the nobles of the royal faction that were said to greatly support the royal family’s war policy.＞ So apparently the slaves were prepared to die to the magic tools they were forced to wear, since to them it would be better than dying in service to Reijseger.

It did seem like that country treated their slaves awfully. And judging from that king who swam in so much decadent luxury that he looked like a pig, the only ones benefiting from being in the kingdom were the royal family and the nobles.

Whether you called it karma or simply people getting their just desserts, what should have happened did happen in this case.

I did feel sorry for the slaves who were forced to fight, but I felt no such empathy for the destroyed Reijseger itself.

“So does that mean Marveil absorbed Reijseger’s lands?”

＜It does. The peasants are probably happy about that. You know, since they’d been squeezed dry for so long by Reijseger.＞ Apparently, the people of Reijseger had been exploited heavily by ‘taxes.’ That is, the people other than Reijseger’s royal family, the nobles, and some affluent merchants.

I’d heard that the kingdom of Marveil was much like the kingdom of Leonhardt that I was in now, in that it wasn’t discriminatory and life in it was relatively free. According to Demiurge, they didn’t overly tax their citizens, so of course the people were happy about that.

＜Oh right, last thing. About the three heroes that were summoned with you. They had a wedding in Marveil’s capital and are now formally married. Also, they safely found the lesser elixir you wanted to give them in the dungeon I left it in. Using that, Rio’s arm is now back to normal. They’re living very happy lives right now. It’s quite nice. Ho! Ho! Ho!＞

.........Did you really have to add all that extra info now?

It was great to hear that that Rio girl’s arm was back to normal. I felt relieved after hearing it. Honestly, I was happy for them. I thought that their lives sounded really harsh, so I even entrusted 100 gold to Demiurge for them to find.

But...

Grrrrrrrrr, you handsome bastarrrrd... How dare you marry two beautiful girls! Aagghhhh I’m so jeeeaalllouuuussss! I’m crying tears of blood! DAAAMMMIIIIIIT!! It’s so frustrating. From the bottom of my heart, it’s frustrating... Fine! The 100 gold will be my wedding present to you! You all better make sure you’re happy! *Sigh*~ Meanwhile all I get are 3 familiars...

Of course, that wasn’t a knock on my familiars.

After all, they’re my precious comrades.

But still, I don’t have a hint of females anywhere near me!

Where’s customer service? I want to make a complaint to life’s manager.

Even if I’m destined to not have any luck with women, this is too much.

I can’t stop myself from wanting to curse handsome guys and normies to death.

Tch!

Fine, I’ll just go enjoy the Meat Dungeon Festival by myself tomorrow.

Then I’ll go and hug Sui to sleep to try and heal this wounded heart.