Bonus Short Stories

Some Prefer Nettles

“Let me introduce you to Ceres, my dear fiancee!”

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Grand Duke. I’m Cerestia Twente Hernandez.”

“Ah... Likewise...”

I could only offer a lukewarm reply to the smiling girl. I’d stopped by Strain to meet Prince Robert’s fiancee, but I hadn’t expected to meet someone like the studious and flax-haired girl standing before me. It may have been presumptuous of me, but I had kind of assumed the prince’s fiancee to be a bit more strange or eccentric. She stood by the pumpkin pants prince, smiling broadly and holding his hand. I wondered if she actually liked the way he dressed...

I’d come over to offer her a mass-produced smartphone, so I handed it over. She took to it surprisingly quickly, learning most of its functions on the spot.

“Oh, this is wonderful! Now I can talk to Robert whenever I want!”

“Indeed! It’s wonderful! Now you can call me and I can warp to you whenever you need me!”

I stared blankly. I thought the whole point of giving her a phone was so he wouldn’t have to use his ability and spend all his time with her unconscious as a result. I couldn’t really understand the point if he was just going to warp over anyway, but that wasn’t really my business.

“I’m just glad I get to talk to you more, Ceres. We’ll be able to message each other with this phone. Usually, I just warp here, fall unconscious, then speak to you a little bit before heading right home.”

“Hehe, you’re right. You fell asleep so quickly last time that you forgot to deliver the letter.”

I asked them what they meant, and apparently, he was supposed to deliver a letter to Strain, but ended up sleeping and missing his chance. I guess it made sense that he’d warp to deliver stuff like letters, since it was a much faster way of relaying information from Panaches than using a courier or something.

“I’ll bring you a letter next time I warp, Ceres! You can read it while I sleep!”

“...I’d prefer it if you just texted me instead.”

Frankly, I wouldn’t have been too surprised if Ceres used her phone to take a bunch of pictures of the pumpkin pants prince’s sleeping face. And so, I showed her the camera app.

“Oh, that’s right! I can take a photo of Ceres now! I must do it! Let’s do it! Oh! Could I set it as my background image?”

...He was getting used to phones pretty quickly, apparently. Already wanting to make a photo of his fiancee as his lock screen was impressive. I hadn’t even managed to muster up the courage to put my fiancees on mine yet. I just had a picture of Kohaku.

“I would like a photograph of Robert as my background image as well.”

“How about I take a photo of you both together, then you can both use that image for your phones?”

“Oh, that’s a lovely idea!”

Robert and Ceres nodded quickly, and I took on the role of their cameraman. It took quite a few shots, but eventually, I managed to capture an image that looked decent enough.

Ceres was an interesting girl, and her tastes were certainly unique... I was happy to see that they both loved each other, at least. After all, in a world filled with all sorts of people, there were bound to be some who preferred the taste of nettles.

The Sengoku Era was a Turbulent Time

I quite like historical dramas, probably because of my parents. I’d watch shows set in the Sengoku Era to the Edo Era, but I was just a kid. I didn’t think too deeply about the periods those stories took place in at the time. The idea of those wild and crazy stories was great, but ultimately, the stories are very unrealistic when you take into account the technological limitations of the period. They’re all just fiction.

But among those stories, the Sengoku Era, the time where Japan was broken up into warring states, really stood out to me. It was a time when various feudal lords fought amongst themselves. I ended up basing the island nation of Eashen on that era. For the sake of simplicity, only nine of those warlords exist within my story. There’s Date, Tokugawa, Uesugi, Oda, Hashiba, Chosokabe, Mouri, and Shimazu. I actually wanted to include more, though. One of my favorite heroes from that period has to be Date Masamune. He was a hero who was just a bit too late. If he was born a mere 20 years earlier, he could have taken the whole world by storm, I’m sure of it! He’s an extremely cool character. Worthy of the nickname “One-Eyed Dragon of Oshu.” But he’s not my favorite, oh no. That title goes to a famous man who served Oda Nobunaga, Gamo Ujisato. He was an accomplished military veteran, but also a renowned writer. He died a tragically young death at around the age of forty, but he was a well-loved man who fought bravely and fiercely. He may not be as famous as other individuals from the era like Hideyoshi, but I get a real feeling for the strength of his character. I also like Zhao Yun, though he’s a character from the Three Kingdoms. He seems like he had quite a serious temperament.

Oh yeah, the Takeda Clan ended up becoming pretty important in my story. You might be wondering why that ended up happening. Well, that was because one day I randomly asked my dad, “Hey, what’s our family lineage, anyway?” and he replied with, “We have our roots in Takeda, as far as I know.” After that, I decided to go ahead and write them in with a fun role. I don’t know whether the story of our family lineage going back to Takeda is true or not, but it’s definitely true that a warlord or samurai under Takeda bore our family name. We just might not be directly descended from him, for all I know. Still, his family had a lot of heirs to keep their name alive, so maybe we’re part of that. Also, by a sheer and amusing coincidence, there was a family under Takeda that bore the name Mochizuki. I can’t help but feel this was divinely ordained... Sadly, in my story, the Takeda house ended up dissolving.

To be completely honest, though, I like Uesugi Kenshin a bit more than Takeda Shingen... That probably isn’t a good thing to say, given how they were mortal enemies and all. I just really respect Uesugi’s sense of duty and honor... Shingen didn’t show any remorse at all for breaking Kenshin’s alliances... Kinda feels like he was the ferocious type. Oh, but I do love the taste of shingen mochi! It’s really yummy...

Ah... Now I wanna go eat some shingen mochi. I should go get some.