Learning the Ways of Medieval Society

One Month Later

Yamano Province was one of the most northern counties of the country, situated between Count Claus Bozes and the second Bozes county run by Viscount Alexis Bozes. Mitsuha had entertained the notion that she had been put between a "Bozes sandwich" when she realized it upon picking the county, but decided to stay with her choice, as the province was still ideal for all her other criteria. In the last year, under her guidance, the county's economy and prospects had grown steadily, turning what was once a sleepy, dead-end back-water province into a thriving powerhouse, attracting new residents, businesses and money at a steady clip.

However, recent events were brewing that now threatened their great revival, which meant it was time for the leadership to get involved. In the main conference room, Miriam, Colette, Willem, and Anton were meeting; depending on what was decided here, they would bring in the larger council of the mayors of the surrounding towns and villages if actions needed to be taken.

"We can confirm the last contact was about a month ago at the capital city," Anton the butler reported. "About that time, I got a disturbing call from Princess Sabine using the long-range communication device Lady Mitsuha installed at the mansion, calling from the capital, asking whether she had been seen at the residence or not. She didn't go into any additional details, but that felt to me like she might have gone missing right around that time."

Miriam spoke up. She was Mitsuha's advisor on financial affairs and welfare. "Now, it's not unusual for Lady Mitsuha to go out on her own from time to time. We all know she has tasks and agendas spread out across the lands, but never this long and not without leaving at least some kind of word."

"Why wouldn't they send out the guards then?!" Colette, vassal-in-waiting, and Miriam's assistant exclaimed. "Shouldn't there be a big search going on all over the country for her?"

Willem furrowed his brow and rubbed his chin. He was Yamano County's Chief Army Officer, making him head of the local militia. "Ordinarily, for such an illustrious person to go missing, one would think so. But in the case of Lady Mitsuha, in light of how she handled the recent Vanel invasion, and what she means to the Zegleus Kingdom as a whole, there might be our answer as to why it's being kept quiet."

Colette seemed to squirm a little, but Miriam nodded gravely. "The psychological impact of our own country, not to mention what it would mean to the nations that surround us would be immeasurable if it became widely known that the Lightning ArchPriestess was missing. That said, something this big can't be kept quiet indefinitely; sooner or later, it's going to come out, unless she shows up again."

Willem nodded. "Agreed. We have a window to either find her or...resolve the situation." He glossed over the second choice, though everyone in the room, except perhaps Colette, knew what he meant. Their county had to continue, Mitsuha or not, and it was up to the people in this room to see that it did. If it meant another ruler down the line, then that might be the decision of the King and out of their hands, but until that call got made, they would keep the ship afloat for the good of their citizens. Willem continued, "I'd like to send Ilse and Gritt into the capital city, to be our eyes and ears, and find out more of what's going on. They know the city and the people, and they know how to be discreet."

Anton and Miriam nodded, "Approved."

Willem continued, "One more thing... under these extraordinary circumstances... if they do find anything... and if time is a factor... I want to grant them access to the long-range communication device so they can reach out to us as quickly as possible."

Anton hesitated for a moment; normally, the only people who were allowed that were him, Sabine, and only recently the Royal family during the Vanel crisis. But realizing that this had ramifications that exceeded even that, he nodded his assent. If it meant saving Lady Mitsuha and if seconds counted, radio access was the least of his worries. I could always beg forgiveness later.

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Michiko woke up in the dead of dawn as she prepared for her new routine, as it had become since these past few weeks, stretching into the month. Had she known it was going to be this long, she would have taken up Paradise Diner's offer, but hindsight was as always as ever 20/20. For the time being, she had managed to find a reasonably satisfactory routine that allowed her a semblance of day-to-day living.

Every morning, her responsibility was to prepare breakfast and lunch for Baron Turck's family, along with the household staff, leaving a senior chef and his staff to handle dinners and inventory purchases. The Baron's family got the lion's share of the ingredients; the staff was stuck with whatever ingredients were left, along with any dinner scraps that were left from the night before, naturally. It was here, however, that Michiko could turn on the trademark "Michiko-charm". Evidently, the previous chef didn't put much effort into the staff meals beyond the bare minimum, compared to the ones he made for his boss. It was usually just boiled eggs and meat, day-old bread, sandwiches and cold fruit at best, if it was in season. It didn't take long for the staff to discover what an upgrade they had received; day-old bread... left-over dinner scraps... evidently the man never heard of savory bread puddings, casseroles or omelets... or if he did... he didn't want to put in the effort, and a fresh biscuit turned even last night's meat into great breakfast sandwiches for servants who were in a hurry, not to mention what a good sauce did to dry leftovers that were properly rehydrated. As I told that guy, a real chef can turn even scraps into something special...

Because of this, the staff were more than willing to be patient with her poor communication skills, allowing her to have regular, albeit clumsy, conversations with the staff, slowly building her vocabulary through immersion as the weeks went on. She even managed to make a deal with the cleaning staff for laundry help, in exchange for extra home meals or desserts, which helped solve a particular problem that had been building up. Of course, the original plan was to head to Yamano County a while ago. Mitsuha had said that, if we needed a change of clothes, she had staff at her mansion to handle that, or at worse, she could always just jump back and grab fresh clothes back in Japan. Well, how's that plan working out...? she thought ironically. And while the Baron himself was curt with his staff, Michiko included, the staff were friendly enough amongst themselves and more than happy to have this new girl, who wasn't such a suck-up to the boss like the previous chef had been. So what if her language skills need work... if she cooks like this for us, we'll be just fine teaching her to talk properly...

After lunch, she returned to Mitsuha's shop to reopen it, to the satisfaction of its regulars, all in the desperate hope that Mitsuha would pop in any moment. Occasionally, a customer would bring up Mitsuha's name, and she would clumsily say "Mitsuha come back...!" and though she was pretty sure she was butchering the sentence structure and pronunciation, the customers generally seemed to understand what she meant. Sometimes they had that look on their faces that said, her accent is terrible... but she would just have to accept that as practice fodder. As inventory would deplete, she would restock the shelves from the replacement supplies they had brought with them a month ago, but looking in the stores, she realized those wouldn't last forever. If Mitsuha didn't show up sooner or later, this place would eventually run out and would go from "Mitsuha's General Store" to "Mitsuha's Empty Warehouse" before long.

Well, there was the local inventory of course, Michiko corrected herself, that a man named Petz brought in from time to time, but those rarely had the appeal that the Japanese products did. But at least those products weren't priced as outrageously as the latter was, so selling those didn't bother Michiko's conscience quite as much. It also reminded her that she needed to start familiarizing herself with the local produce more. While much of it was similar to Earth, occasionally, something new popped up that was a complete mystery that she set aside, and reminded herself she would have to ask Sabine what this was the next time she saw her. As a chef, it was her job to know what she was cooking with and how to best utilize the produce in the area; what grows together, goes together , she once recalled hearing. The last thing she needed was to embarrass herself by serving something outrageous like a peanut butter/bitter melon sandwich because she didn't know any better.

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Marquis Eibinger looked at his reports from his subordinates with disappointment. He really couldn't blame them, of course; they were trying to follow plans they couldn't read, going solely by visual diagrams, and even then, trying to build something that had never been done before. As a result, there were reports of worker mishaps, unexpected construction setbacks, and other calamities. He rubbed his head in frustration; the ironic thing is, it was Mitsuha herself that had recommended to the King that he be made Admiral of the newly formed Zegleus Navy*. It's not going to be much of a Navy if she doesn't return, he sighed.

*see Manga Chp66 /LN Chp27

"Marquis, may I have a word?" Chancellor Saar came into his office, which overlooked the courtyard. Eibinger noticed that his expression wasn't one that was going to be making his day any easier, but he nodded, nonetheless.

"How can I help the Chancellor?"

"My office has been going over the requisitions and supply requests that the naval department has committed in the past few weeks. There's been a disturbing pattern of lost shipments and irregularities in payments that has begun to show," He handed Eibinger a ledger book.

Eibinger scanned the book and frowned. A few shipments lost could be attributed to banditry or accidents, but a repeated pattern suggested something more. Several of these seemed to go through the same set of Baronies and counties, he noticed. "It hasn't seemed to impact ship building; at least no more so than not having readable plans has."

"That's what I wanted to confirm with you," Saar replied. "This isn't just a case where we're losing entire shipments; whoever is doing this, is targeting specific shipments." He paused for emphasis. "Specifically, the shipments that contain charcoal, saltpeter, sulfur, and forged iron beams."

Eibinger grimaced; he didn't need a roadmap to put Saar's conclusion together for him. That said, whoever was doing this... did they have access to the actual plans to build Vanel's muskets, or even worse, Mitsuha's proposed Minié rifles and cylindro-conoidal bullets? The latter was unlikely; even if they had access to the plans, no one in Zegleus could read Japanese, but copying Vanel muskets probably wouldn't be all that hard, if they could get their hands on a few of them to copy. And if what he suspected in some of those Baronies was going on, then some of those muskets probably were already in their hands, he feared.

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"Thank you for your business!" Michiko said with a smile she didn't feel, as the latest sucker... err, customer left the store with a sack of overpriced Y100 trinkets and bottles of shampoo and body wash. Michiko sighed... she honestly debated slashing some of the more exorbitant prices for some of the items, but stopped herself, as that really would have been dishonest of her. Besides, she realized, the way things were going, if the prices dropped, then the inventory would end up depleting quicker and that would end up emptying the store all the sooner.

Another week had gone by; the nice servant lady from the Baron's mansion had come by to drop off Michiko's cleaned laundry. In exchange, Michiko had given her two dozen extra-large fresh baked snickerdoodle cookies, much to her appreciation. Having tasted the ones that were being sold in the local shops, she was fairly certain these would be well-received by their family... hopefully her kids don't eat them all at once... it would be bad if they all got tummy aches. Of course, if they're anything like Sabine... then who knows...?

The fact that she was falling into a routine though was beginning to bother her. It was one thing when we were just hoping that Mitsuha would pop back any day... that maybe... at the very worst... she got hurt and was getting patched up at Wolf Fang and would come back and everything would go back to normal. How time flies... we're way past that, she realized. Unfortunately, none of us have interdimensional transfer powers, so it's not like we can go after her, so even realizing that, it doesn't change anything in terms of our ability to directly help her.

However, the other side of the equation was something we had better all start worrying about and that was enemy action. Of that, she was convinced what had to be happened to Mitsuha. Even that first week when she was being introduced around the city, and the various noble friends Mitsuha had made during her adventures, Michiko could see the idolatry and worship in the eyes of the public and the reverence in how the various nobles regaled how her heroic actions during the Aldar invasion saved the city, no matter how much it embarrassed Mitsuha and tried to hide it. What was less obvious though was some of the other nobles off to the sides, and their barely concealed disgruntled looks. Jealously, Michiko knew, wasn't unique to Earth. When one person rises in the ranks, that almost inevitably means someone else was taking a fall, and when that rise was as meteoric as Mitsuha's, that probably meant a lot of people got either passed over, or even downright cast out of noble society. Michiko didn't need to be a noble to figure that out; a simple reading of history taught her that. Apparently, she thought, someone out there finally decided to take action against Mitsuha, and possibly much more.

The problem was, by herself, she was ill-equipped to do anything about it. Were it not for Mitsuha, it wouldn't even be her fight. As it stands, her only stake for this Kingdom was the fact that these people were Mitsuha's friends, and in one case, a surrogate guardian family. So if she wanted to assist in their protection, she would need help... but how...?

She stepped outside the shop and looked around. Let's see if Mitsuha's guess was correct... they were in the commoner district, off the main roads. There had to be a... ah hah... She went to the nearest guard and got his attention. "Um... could you ask Hime-sama... if she wants to watch DVDs?"

The guard looked at Michiko strangely. Was my pronunciation or sentence structure that bad , she wondered. Since having conversations with servants in the Turck household for the past month, she was hoping she could convey at least that much, but now she wasn't sure. Nonetheless, the guard shrugged and motioned for another guard, who then left the area. Mitsuha suspected that Sabine had posted guards to monitor her shop for activity, though that remain to be seen since her disappearance. Michiko was hoping that it was still true because at this point, she needed help and Sabine was her only ally at this point.

She went back to Mitsuha's store and put the remaining batch of leftover snickerdoodle dough into the oven. If Sabine showed up, it would be a common courtesy to have something nice waiting for her. If not, well, I guess I'll give them to the Baron's staff in the morning. Luckily, less than an hour later, the door chime rang, and a familiar figure showed up.

"Michiko-oneesan, did you send news? Did Mitsuha-neesama show up?" Sabine said, with her hopes up.

"Um... not yet," Michiko, hating having to dash them like that. "But I wanted to talk to you about what I think we should do next." She knew she had to be careful with what she said next. Mitsuha was Sabine's long-time friend and a noble; Michiko was neither of these. Talking too directly to a Royal in this society, even one as congenial as Sabine was asking for trouble, so she focused herself. "Hime-sama, it's been over a month. I think... it's time we stop hoping Mitsuha just shows up on her own and start looking into who could have done... whatever they did to her... and help bring them to justice."

Sabine thought about what Michiko said. "But how do we find out who could do such a thing?"

"We start by asking... 'cui bono'..."

Sabine looked at her strangely. "You're messing up our language again."

Michiko shook her head. "It's a saying in my country. It means... 'who benefits?'. I know Mitsuha is a great hero here. But even heroes have people who are jealous of them." She spoke slowly and carefully. She was pretty sure her diction and word choices weren't perfect, and she sometimes lapsed back into Japanese when her Zegleus vocabulary ran out so she could only hope that her overall meaning was coming through after the past month of practicing with Baron Turck's servants, and that Sabine's small amount of Japanese could bridge the gap. "I don't know this country, but you do. So, I'm asking you. Who in this country... or possibly other nearby countries... would benefit if Mitsuha... the Lightning ArchPriestess were to disappear and never return?"

Sabine pondered the question, then her face turned dark. She hadn't really thought about it in those terms, but now that she did, she didn't like where this was heading. "That's... that's a long list..." Nobles who lost position, power and wealth and their families... anyone from the Aldar Empire, or who did business with them... she realized. She had gotten so used to the common people's near-universally cheering Mitsuha's name, she had almost forgotten the resentful glances among the noble courts whenever Mitsuha showed up at the Palace to present her plans or make demonstrations.

"I'm not asking you to do anything like confront people, or ask uncomfortable questions," Michiko clarified. "But you're a Princess. You can go places, and no one can question you, and listen to people. Even so, we need to be careful. Whoever did this probably have bigger plans in mind, and if they're willing to harm Mitsuha, they're certainly not above hurting a Princess."

"Well, what are you going to do?"

"Well, keep practicing your language, for now," Michiko admitted. "But pretty much the same. Baron Turck has announced to us servants that he's going to be having a noble ball next month. I'm going to be with the group of chefs making the food for the evening, so I'll be listening for clues myself."

"T-then you need to be careful too," Sabine exclaimed. "You said they could hurt me, that means they could hurt you too!"

"Don't worry about it!" Michiko promised, with more conviction than she felt. "Servants are invisible; as long as we do our jobs well, we're just the little people beneath nobles' notice."

To a point, that's true, Sabine thought. The two exceptions to that rule though; do your job badly, and you'd get kicked out. She was pretty sure Michiko wasn't a candidate for that. It was the other rule that concerned her though; do your job too well, and you might end up either in your master's bed, especially if you were young and pretty like Michiko or you may end up getting sold like a high-priced prize horse. She took a bite into one of Michiko's offered snickerdoodles; oh dear... keep cooking like this and scenario number two was beginning to look much more likely... She then handed Michiko a microphone and smiled.

Wait... that was just a way to reach you at the palace, Michiko's face said wordlessly.

"You said you needed to practice," Sabine beamed and nodded, pointing to the DVD display. "You've gotten quite a bit better, but practice makes perfect!"

But I need to get to bed...! It's getting late and I'm supposed to be cooking breakfast in the morning at the Baron's place...! Michiko thought, but the words refused to come, considering Sabine's excited expression. It's been a while since her last DVD session, and clearly, she missed it since Mitsuha's absence. Reluctantly, she set the machine up and pulled one of the titles off the shelf. I'll pick one that has a lot of fighting and not a lot of talking so I won't mess up as much. She started it up as Sabine munched on her second cookie.

"You and your family have gone too far...!" the DVD audio announced as a row of animated, fantasy-enhanced samurai warriors faced off against each other. The warrior turned to his compatriots. "We must bathe in the blood of our enemies...! he announced dramatically.

"... we must wash our enemies...!" Michiko managed to verbally stumble out as the scene shifted. She was pretty sure she was still making mistakes and lacked the fluidity that Mitsuha would have produced.

"Put more feeling into it Oneesan!"

" Ugh... " Michiko took a breath and channeled her best 中二病* impression, as the DVD fight scene began. "You will never defeat our fight for justice...! Witness now... our mighty blades...!"

*Chūnibyō - Japanese colloquial term typically used to describe early teens who have grandiose delusions

"Yeah...!" Sabine cheered as the anime characters charged forward.

Michiko started to cry a little inside with embarrassment... Did Mitsuha ever have to endure such humiliation*?

*see Manga Chp24 /Anime Epi8

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Baron Turck poured each of his guests a small drink as they sat in his private office. In the room with him, Count Lansen and Jerome Lafette held scrolls and ledgers from their respective counties with a map of the city and surrounding areas on the table in front of them.

"So, what do you think of our proposal?" Jerome concluded.

Turck nodded. As one of the southern baronies, he wasn't getting much of the recent war boom monies, leaving him feeling slighted. That and their tepid response during the Kingdom's defense of the Aldar invasion had left a sour taste between his family and the ruling monarchy that was unlikely to ever be fully repaired. That said, he wasn't actually committed to this plan just yet; this was just to keep his options open.

Count Lansen leaned forward. "I understand you're having a social gathering in a few weeks, with many of the families who might still be loyal to the monarchy. I think it would be helpful to us if you could provide us with some deals, along with the names of the families that you're convinced will need to be dealt with."

"I think I can arrange an impressive enough a gala to sway some of them," Turck said with confidence. "In exchange, what would be in it for my house?"

"Resources, wealth, and most importantly... weapons that we're arranging to be produced," Lafette offered. "Not just regular blades, but those that were found from the foreign invaders!"

Turck's eyebrow twitched... that caught his attention. He had only heard rumors about them, but he didn't know the details. Of course, he knew about the legendary "lightning wands" that defended the capital last year, though he doubted Lafette could deliver those. If he had weapons that powerful, he wouldn't bother asking for help from a lowly Baron. Perhaps these were lesser versions of those, then if so, he still wanted to see them in action. Yes... he thought... loyalty was the bastion of the fool... a smart man always keeps his options open.