Today, we were going to show Marcel around Renard’s castle town, taking him all the way to the Renard River. Since Marcel had traveled around the world, Liam wanted to hear his honest assessment regarding the state of the town and river. He planned to identify which areas our domain was lacking in compared to others, and come up with improvements.
Lord Reineke, Liam, Bal, Marcel, and I were drawing near to the town. Lord Reineke was in his giant form, and I was sitting atop his back.
Renard’s castle town was modest compared to the capital. Much of it had been ravaged by the monsters during last year’s attack, and some buildings were visibly newer than others. However, the common folk looked happy, smiling and walking around energetically. When they saw me atop Lord Reineke’s back, they cheered.
“Oh! It’s Lord Reineke and Lady Lune!”
“Lord Reineke, you’re in your big form today!”
“Lady Lune, please stop by our shop!”
Everyone kept calling out to us. Whenever they did, a golden light of faith spilled from them into Lord Reineke.
“Lord Reineke, you sure are popular,” Marcel said, taken aback.
The spirit looked pleased.
“Lune’s popular too,” Liam added for some reason.
“Well, obviously,” Marcel replied with exasperation, causing Liam to look smug.
“Hey, Lady Lune! We have some new sweets! Come try some!”
The shopkeeper gave me a round, light beige confectionary. It felt hard as I picked it up, and when I took a bite, grape juice filled my mouth. I noticed that the frosting had fresh grapes mixed in. The sweetness of sugar combined with the sourness of grapes created a wonderful taste.
“We can make sugar now, thanks to you and Lord Reineke’s oracle. That’s why I tried making new sweets,” the shopkeeper said with a smile.
Lord Reineke had taught us how to refine sugar from turnips that naturally grew in our domain. Sugar had come to be much more widely used, though it wasn’t white like in the capital. In a poorer domain like ours, mass production was more important than taking extra time to crystallize sugar to turn it white.
“Grapes are delicate, you see, but drying all of them is a bit of a shame. I heard that once the canal is built, we’ll be able to transport goods faster, so I tried coating the grapes with sugar to preserve them longer and see if they could be shipped out,” the shopkeeper explained, a little nervously.
“It’s delicious!” I replied, my ears and tail perking up.
“Really?” Liam asked.
I took one of the sweets and held it to his mouth. He blushed and took a bite, his warm lips grazing my fingertips and making me jolt in surprise.
“Mm, it is tasty,” Liam said, licking his lips.
I wasn’t sure why, but I found the gesture kind of erotic, so I quickly looked away.
“Ah, r-right. It is, isn’t it?” I mumbled in a shrill voice.
“I wanna try too!” Bal exclaimed, suddenly reaching out and stuffing three of the sweets into his mouth.
“Bal! You can’t do that!”
“But you shaid itsh taishty,” he said while chewing, then slapped his cheeks. “Whoa! Shooo yummy!!!”
“Mr. Marcel, you should try some too,” I said.
I placed the sweet onto his palm. It looked tiny compared to his large hand. Marcel threw it high into the air, and it almost looked like a daytime moon against the blue sky. As it fell down, he easily caught it with his mouth.
“Oh, tasty! I want another!”
People around us began clapping, causing Marcel to grin bashfully. Since he was a former swordmaster, he had a knack for grasping people’s emotions.
I also gave Lord Reineke a sweet. He happily gobbled it up.
“This tastes good. I dub this the Moon’s Vestige.”
The shopkeeper looked moved by Lord Reineke’s words and bowed deeply.
“Thank you very much!”
“And thank you for the delicious sweets!” I responded.
The rest of our group thanked the shopkeeper too. We bought a bunch of the Moon’s Vestiges, then moved onto the next shop.
“It’s so good to see that everyone’s thinking about the future,” Bal said earnestly.
“Yes. It’s nice they’re considering how they will be affected by the canal and what comes after,” Liam said.
“This is a good place.” Marcel nodded, impressed.
“So where are we off to next? What shall we show master?” Bal asked.
“I want him to see our local specialty. He’s traveled a lot, so he’ll know what will sell in the other domains!” I said.
Brother patted my head. “That’s a great idea, Lune.”
“And a great responsibility for me!” Marcel added with a hearty laugh.
In high spirits, we entered a compact grocery store with colorful food lined up neatly. There wasn’t a great variety, however, due to transportation to our domain being so limited. The shops could only sell locally grown produce, or things that could easily be preserved and transported from other territories.
“This one’s my favorite!” I said, showing Marcel a peach compote.
The Renard domain was situated in a basin, creating a stark temperature difference between day and night. This made the fruit sweeter, and we were able to grow cherries, grapes, peaches, and plums. As such, our main local specialty was wine and raisins. Cherry syrup was also popular, packed into ceramic jars and sent off to the capital to be sold as a luxury item.
Right as I was trying to come up with another specialty to follow in the footsteps of the syrup, I’d found this shop’s peach compote. All the other peach compotes I’d seen in the past were white, but this one was pink and pretty.
“Oh, looks good!” Marcel said, gazing at the pale liquid and peaches floating in the transparent bottle.
“But you’ve seen this sort of thing before, right?” I asked.
I was still ignorant in many ways, and had no idea how peach compotes looked in other territories. In my time as the crown princess, I had only seen compote after it was prepared and served to me, so I didn’t know how it was bottled.
“No, this is quite unusual,” Marcel responded. “I’ve seen white compotes before, but hardly ever pink. Is this because the peaches are from Renard, or is there some secret recipe?”
The shopkeeper smiled. “Renard peaches have pink flesh, but I was able to keep even the syrup pink thanks to my grandmother’s recipe!”
So the compote was handmade by the woman.
“Go ahead and try it,” she said, opening the bottle.
The shopkeeper served the compote to us paired with white goat yogurt. The colors set each other off nicely.
Just one gulp, and my mouth was filled with a sweet and tart taste that reminded me of summer.
“Mmm! Yummy!” I said.
“You’re right, it’s great!” Marcel smiled.
“But is it good enough to be sold in the capital?” Liam inquired seriously.
“I’d certainly say so!”
We cheered upon receiving the well-traveled Marcel’s seal of approval.
After buying the compote, we exited the shop and headed for the fabric store. They had turned the yama moth thread we’d brought last month into cloth. The very first fabric to be weaved using a hundred percent yama moth silk had already been shipped off to House Renard. Mother and I’d had dresses made from it, while father, brother, and Bal had ties and vests.
The store in town was selling cloth made from a mix of yama moth and silkworm thread. Although that lowered the value a bit, it was still a high-quality item that ordinary people couldn’t afford.
When we entered the store, we were faced with rows of colorful fabrics. A glass case by the payment counter displayed a green scarf made of yama moth cloth in a red rock crystal ring.
“Welcome.” The shopkeeper gave us a pleasant greeting.
“How’s the yama moth fabric selling?” Liam asked.
“It’s difficult to get for common folk, but many merchants have taken notice. Green is becoming trendy in the capital right now, so more and more traders from other territories are stocking up on cloth to sell to the nobles.”
The shopkeeper’s cheerful tone was proof that the fabric was doing fairly well.
“And since the cloth is so pretty, I’ve been advertising it for sale paired with matching crystals.”
With that, the shopkeeper took the red accessory out from the glass case to show us.
Indeed, the Renard domain was also producing rock crystals. They were too plentiful to be of much value within the territory, and once processed, they were often sold to common folk. However, other domains thought this was rather unusual.
“Most people are always happy to buy the crystals to go with the cloth,” the shopkeeper went on, smiling mischievously.
“What a shrewd businessman!” Bal said with admiration.
“Indeed. And it’s great that you’re thinking of a way that benefits both you and the customers,” Liam added.
“This domain’s something else. In comparison, the capital is just...” Marcel muttered under his breath.
Lord Reineke’s ears perked up. I heard that too thanks to my fox ears, but nobody else reacted, as Marcel had spoken so quietly.
Are things different in the capital? I had never walked through the city streets in my past life, so I have no idea what’s going on there. But it sounds like our domain is special.
I was so happy that a knowledgeable man like Marcel had praised my home that my tail started wagging vigorously.