Chapter 465

Day 105 – Nighttime, Gamerein Commonwealth, Royal Castle

The Middle-Aged Men, meek like lambs and scolded dogs. Moreover, it’s kemomimi Middle-Aged Men. Under Pres-sama’s whip and endless scolding, they were educated, no『trained』. Honestly, brainwashing(disciplining) the king and every noble of another nation kinda does sound like a state-level coup, but since they got whipped by a beautiful girl then perhaps they wouldn’t object as hard?

But the real problem isn’t there! Has there ever been such a cruel story that would have one visiting the Beastmen’s forest, get invited into their royal castle, only to find it filled wall-to-wall with kemomimi Middle-Aged Men!? Definitely not, no one has ever written such a story, at least I’ve never seen it, and even if it did exist it likely was banned as a dangerous literature! Inhumane!

Kemomimi maids can be spotted peeking nervously from outside the grand hall, but the suffocating aura of the kemomimi Middle-Aged Men keeps them from entering… And when drinks are delivered, the kemomimi Middle-Aged Men dash to fetch them so they can’t actually approach here! Meaning, all the animal ears, all the tails, every single one are attached to Middle-Aged Men. How sad.

But I was challenged to the so-called vale tudo, a no-holds-barred fight, so I just beat them normally, but I’m getting those flat gazes on me now? I dropped vinegar from the sky, scattered poison, but for some reason was met with Flak(anti-air) Gaze? I checked the rules carefully, they themselves said 『anything goes』, right? Don’t tell me it only says anything goes but vinegar is actually banned? Damn, that’s sour?

「So~ in the end, what’s up with that duels stuff anyway, you rowdy Middle-Aged Men in your rebellious phase!?! Calm down already, acting out in anger is a privilege reserved only for Highschool Boys, and you Middle-Aged Men haven’t even taken your entrance exams, so you’re not entitled. I’m the one in the privileged class here, so I’m not at fault? Yep. Until the day the Graduation Ceremony is summoned, I’ll always be a Highschool Boy, and therefore innocent!」

「「Sir! We are deeply sorry, Sir!」」

The punishment from Pres-sama seems to have worked too well with The Gunnery Sergeant Hartman effect permeating too deep. Receiving Armored Pres-san and Dancing Girl-san’s instructions and beatings, as well as Slime-san’s beatings for the hell of it, and while they were at it also getting beaten by the Horsie, their personalities, no, their beastsonalities, had changed completely… I heard this visit was supposed to be a gesture of diplomatic goodwill, but apparently goodwill is scarier than invasion?

「What do we do with these old timers? They’re standing at attention, not moving a muscle? Totally broken?」

「You’re acting like it’s not your fault, but weren’t you the one going all-in, screaming like Sergeant Hartman with your lines turning into nothing but long strings of bleeps as you showered them with abuse, contributing quite a bit to breaking them? Actually, you are literally the master of the instructors standing behind you, who were happily teaching them fear under the guise of instruction? Didn’t you also jump in yourself, delivering brutal beatings, instead of stopping them? And at the end you summoned the horse to stomp into the ground? Like, that absolutely had nothing to do with training or education, didn’t it!?」

「Haha, Pres, you were the one enjoying it the most, shouting things like, 『You filthy pig beastmen!』 while whipping them, practically descending into full Queen mode. I almost made a bondage dress for you on the spot… I-I mean, no, nothing! I didn’t see anything! At that moment, I was just staring up at the night sky, making a very romantic wish, yep, didn’t see a thing!!」

Well, Vice Pres B-san was still the most cruel. Smash them, heal them, smash them again, heal them again, broken, restored, only to be broken once more in an endless cycle of destruction. Even Armored Pres-san and the others were spooked and kept their distance… The shaking was spectacular, but it was too terrifying to watch. When I asked Wisdom-san to record it, the result was nothing but a mosaic, tagged 『graphic content, viewer discretion advised』. I thought the large ones had maternal instincts, but apparently it was just ferocity. As for the two small yet equally savage ones glaring at me… yeah, better not even think about that. Wait, maybe some small racoon clan might take her in? The Dog(wolf) Middle-Aged Man, was brutalized by the Bitch Leader, so they definitely aren’t taking the Bitches. The question of what to do with violent immigrants is a thorny one.

I’d already secured trade permits from the Goat Middle-Aged Man and the Monkey Middle-Aged Man, so everything I bought in the forest was legal now. The amount of tofu I could buy was limited, but they promised to have more ready before we leave. Worst case, I’ll have to ask (torture) the method out of someone, get some nigari, and produce it ourselves back in the frontier.

Preservable goods like soy sauce, miso, katsuobushi, and dried wakame I cleaned out entirely. I even bought green onions and yuzu, though we missed the mikan season. They also had niboshi and iriko, plus kombu. Sweet potatoes were nowhere to be found, but I did manage to get satoimo and another suspicious tuber calling itself taro, claiming to be a relative of the satoimo family. I’ve heard the name, but I’ve never actually cooked with it. What am I supposed to do? Mash it?

I think I once heard it was used in Hawaiian cuisine, something called laulau, but that’s where pork gets wrapped in taro leaves and steamed, the actual root never even showed up. Whatever. I’ll toss it to the Cooking Club Girl. Surely the tuber will be happier being peeled by highschool girl than by a Highschool Boy like me. Yeah, now that I think of it, it does seem ike a lecherous vegetable, I mean, its name is Taro after all, clearly advertising its maleness! Lewd. If it turns out to be BL thing, I’m returning it.

Anyway, apparently there’s going to be a banquet. I overheard something about a break room, so I poked my head in and there was tatami! Tatami, tatami everywhere! Even zabuton cushions scattered around, free for the taking!

At this point, it’s tempting to rent out another room at the inn just to make it into a proper Japanese-style chamber, but of course that means the lodging fee will go up. A cruel trap! Sure, it’s only a small increase, since we already rented the whole place at a bargain, but even small increases hit me where it hurts, because somehow, I never have any money. Every morning, I’m handed a bag full of gold coins by the guild, the general store, or the weapon store, treated like some magnate. But the moment I go on a light spree of magnate oblige shopping and indulge myself in some bulk purchases, the money disappears? Is this some sort of a supernatural phenomenon?

Tomorrow we head for the Theocracy, so all negotiations with the Beastmen Country are Meripapa-san’s problem. Nothing to do with me.

I don’t know whether Meripapa-san intends to stay until we get back from the Theocracy, but he’ll handle diplomacy at the royal castle. The Geeks and the Idiots, meanwhile, are going to stay at the mountain-side fortress I made in exchange for taro, and the riverside wall I made in exchange for katsuobushi. If Beastmen Country’s safety is secured, if worst comes to worst, we’ve got an escape route. Hold the land and the river, and defense is solid, while offense stays flexible. So I’ve got cheap ingredients paid for with walls and forts, securing strategic outposts. All of which is beneficial for me. My rip-off way has finally gone international.

Well then, time for my side job, this is where I make real profits! Rice is important, and so are miso, soy sauce, and akazake. The kemomimi Middle-Aged Men don’t matter in the slightest, but Japanese cuisine and kemomimi girls must be protected. Who cares if they’re supposedly the strongest warrior race, what matters is that as long as they can make proper Japanese food, it means they have culture, they’ve preserved it, they’ve passed it down. That alone gives it meaning and worth. Praying to some geezer god doesn’t create a single thing, utterly useless.

There’s no need to even weigh the options: if the beastmen perish, Japanese cuisine perishes with them. If the church perishes, all that disappears are some fetishists obsessed with the old fart, society will only be healthier for it. As for the Confederation, the comparison doesn’t even hold. Trade and distribution are important, yes, but the current Confederation produces nothing. An organization that exists solely to increase its own capital is meaningless. I’ve no desire to eat gold coins, wear silver, or live inside copper. And with beastmen teetering on the brink of extinction across the continent, that means kemomimi exist only here!

With proper means to defend themselves they’re formidable, but their spirits broke far too easily. If they hadn’t broken at the start, they could have still fought, but once they realized it was a losing battle, they just lashed out recklessly. That’s when they got the full, heavy, and thorough brainwashing training, if they fell, they were beaten, if they didn’t stand, beaten harder, if they couldn’t move, still beaten, even on the verge of death, still beaten. As M-san once taught『If you don’t like getting beaten up, why not just continue fighting』. Give up and it’s more beatings. The Pavlovian beastman method, conditioned them right down into their souls. No loser’s spirit left, just… broken? Why is it whenever I get done with training someone, they all start licking their knives? Are they that tasty!?