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THE next day, Air said he needed to “borrow Renge” and the two of them disappeared somewhere. He said they’d be training. But I had to wonder if Renge really needed to. He’s already so strong!!!
Renge himself had argued the same thing, claiming that “There’s no point to me becoming any stronger.” But Air wouldn’t change his mind, so Renge was forced to follow him. You couldn’t refuse the actual god who made the world.
I felt a bit lonely without Renge around. But I decided to focus on setting up the new commercial block after I talked with Dad about it. We had breakfast together, left cleaning the dishes to Mirage, and got to talking at our table in the dining hall.
“So…I didn’t have the chance to get into it yesterday, but I wanted to ask you something,” Dad began.
“Yes?”
“Well…there’s way less monsters around now,” he went on. “And there’s been talk going around lately about developing the wider area around Fort Deshmel.”
“Developing the region? What does that mean?” I looked at him, puzzled.
Dad took out a map, almost as if he’d prepared for me to ask. “You mentioned converting the fort’s storehouse area into a commercial block, right? So I thought we could do something like that. But on a larger scale.”
“Like building a shipping district?” I asked.
“No, even bigger than that! It’d be like how De Marl is laid out. Remember what it was like during our last visit? There are three walls, with houses and fields inside them. So we could do something like that. Expand the fort’s walls and build houses and small fields inside each one. It’ll make this place a distribution point that’ll be like a small, independent country. We’d need other countries to acknowledge us, of course. And establishing laws and nobility will be real difficult. So it won’t be easy.”
“Y-Yeah…”
I was taken aback by how big the scope of this idea was. Essentially, what Dad was saying was that, since Fort Deshmel was already at the world’s navel, we could develop it into a larger, safer center for trade and commerce. And it wasn’t just his idea, he explained. Others in De Marl, Fei Lu, and the other continents had similar ideas and had reached out to him about setting something like this up.
“To sum up the proposals others have sent us,” he went on, “we could build new walls and set up diplomatic residences for different countries around the fort. On the outer side, we’d set up homes for the diplomats’ knights and workers…in other words, residential districts. And on the outskirts of that region, merchants could set up stores. It’d basically form a noble town. Then we’d build a wall outside of that town, outside of which we’d build the merchants’ homes. And on the outskirts of that, we’d set up a town for the commoners where we could also plant fields for them to work. Of course, we’d build walls around that town too, to keep monsters away.”
“Th-That really does sound like an entire country… But we can’t possibly have the budget for that, right?” I asked, doubtful.
“The other countries said they’ll help fund it,” Dad continued. “Those nations that sent all those young knights, hoping they could seduce you to their side, are finally starting to make business contacts with us. All the other countries went along with it, refusing to let any one country get a bigger slice.”
Come to think of it, I thought, diplomatically speaking, there really isn’t a place like this anywhere else in the world. When there were talks to be had with the demi-human or Mythical continents, they had to set a host country where the talks would be held. But up until now, nobody had ever thought of a place where diplomats from other countries could live permanently.
But now they all had a reason to do so—me.
From the demi-humans’ perspective, they’d worshipped the Holy Woman for centuries. Despite my refusing to leave the human continent, they still wanted to see me more easily. Moreover, humans kept making absurd demands that I acknowledge their faiths despite the Kathra it’d produce. And the demi-humans felt driven to protect me from that!
Well…that was the reasoning the demi-humans had given me anyway.
This is all such a burden…!
“And this has a lot of benefits for you, Tina,” Dad said, smiling. “You’ll be able to get rare ingredients more easily.”
“That does sound appealing…” I nodded.
“And if we build up and maintain the roads, people will need an inn to stay in…”
“An inn…”
“Yeah. What do you say?”
“Ahh…!!!”
Deshmel was only going to keep growing. And if it did, it could become a revolutionary spot for trade and distribution. But I’d always wanted to go back to Rofola one day; that thought was what had kept me going so far.
“We could make a branch of the Rofola Lodge here…a Deshmel Lodge, if you like,” he suggested. “And you could run it and set up an apothecary for your alchemical medicine here. So, what do you think?”
Dad knows I want to go back home, so he’s trying to prepare a place I can call home here, too…
“A Deshmel Lodge…with me running it…!” I exclaimed.
“Yes. The Rofola Lodge’s getting plenty of traffic from the demi-humans because it’s your old home. And with you sending us potions, we’re making a decent profit there.”
So that’s why he’s considering branching out… I’ve always loved Rofola’s clear air and water and its mountains. But thinking in business terms, filling a hole in the market in a place that needs an inn is an opportunity we can’t pass up. But given the environment here’s different from back home, we’ll have to go about it differently.
“You still want to go back to Rofola, hmm?” Dad asked me.
“Ah! Well, yes. I love living in nature there… But setting up a new inn here does sound very appealing,” I admitted.
“Yeah? Well, if that’s how you feel…” Dad trailed off and crossed his arms like he had a hard time coming up with the right words to finish his sentence.
I waited and, eventually, he spoke up.
“See…during the war, I was dispatched to the demi-human continent. The demi-humans there had a bad opinion of humans. But when I talked to them, I could see it was mostly due to Edesa Kura. Once that misunderstanding was resolved, they acted friendlier.”
“Yeah, they did…” I nodded.
Shida and Ledo were a good example, as they didn’t hate humans on principle. Though I’m not so sure about Cielo…
“So I got to thinking that, once the war had ended, we could keep showing them humans weren’t dangerous. I thought I’d travel back to the demi-human continent and keep changing their misconceptions. But…well, you already know how I ended up getting discharged, right?”
Dad reflexively rubbed his right arm. It was intact now, but he’d lost it in the war. For many years, he’d had to use a prosthetic arm: a stiff wooden one, not a flexible one of plastic or metal like those people had used in my past life.
So him losing his arm, the situation with Grandpa, Grandma, and the inn and adopting me meant he’d had to give up on his dream… I never knew…
“And I ended up giving up on Lico before I knew it, too,” Dad went on ruefully. “I kept making excuses. ‘We’re already married to other people!’ ‘She’s a noblewoman!’ I was so dense, I couldn’t even acknowledge my own feelings.”
I couldn’t deny that last part. And yes, Lico being a noblewoman was true, too. I still didn’t really know much about De Marl society, but apparently, class differences were a big deal there.
“I just kept…giving up on things without even realizing I was doing it. But then you became the Holy Woman, Tina! And not only did you heal my arm, but you gave me another chance to travel the demi-human continent. And your healing the scars on Lico’s face made me remember how I really felt about her… That made me see just how many things I’d given up on way too easily.”
“Dad…” I felt like I was going to cry.
He spoke with a self-derisive smile. But I had to wonder if that’s what he was really thinking; the older people become, the more they give up on things. Dad was a knight who’d climbed the ranks to command and had become quite celebrated in De Marl. But even he couldn’t do everything he’d wanted to. But hearing I’d given him a chance to regain what he’d given up on made me both happy and proud of myself.