An undeniable tension still lingered in the castle even three whole days after the imperial family’s visit. One of the reasons for that was the court mages. They kept popping up day after day despite having already acquired their spirit beasts. The deputy was especially guilty of this.
Why are you dropping by every day? You have your eyes on Alyssa, don’t you?! You fell in love with the widow! If you want to stand a chance, do something about that shaggy mess on your head. Get yourself a proper meal too. Oh, and get rid of those bags under your eyes.
For some reason, I was starting to root for a guy I hardly knew, though I was pretty sure Alyssa was barely even acknowledging his existence right now.
The second reason for the tension was that summer was approaching, which meant that everyone needed to prepare for the hordes of tourists that would soon be arriving.
Her Imperial Majesty had officially announced to the empire the importance of giving spirits mana and having conversations with them. The problem was that the announcements hadn’t explained the details of what to do and where, or how much mana they should be giving their spirits, so people had been left with loads of questions. That was where the court mages were supposed to come in, but they were still studying under me.
It didn’t help that the number of spirits Belisario’s nobles held had increased dramatically. Our spirits were much bigger than anywhere else in the empire, our lands were now populated with tons of spirit beasts, and the imperial family had made space in their busy schedule just to come visit us—and word of all of that had spread. With all those rumors flying, who wouldn’t want to see if they were true?
To add to the pile, the number of reservations for summer accommodation in our castle’s annex was increasing day by day. There were those who wanted to come and stay right away, but since we were still getting ready, we had to come up with a reason to make them wait.
“The margraves of Kolkett and Noland will be coming in five days, yes?” I asked.
“That’s what I’ve heard,” Brad said.
The northern highlands of Kolkett, where the Wind Royal resided, and the great eastern plains of Noland, where the Fire Royal resided, were both marches, the same as Belisario. In other words, they were way out in the countryside.
Kolkett was our northern neighbor, so they had a similar climate to the northern part of Belisario. The highlands were a lot like Hokkaido—not that Hokkaido itself had been in the highlands, but if I remembered right, there were towns there that had more cows than people. Kolkett was the same.
Farms stretched out as far as the eye could see, and white birch trees were planted as markers for the roadways. An idyllic world where cows and horses roamed free, grazing without a care in the world—that was Kolkett. They were famous for their dairy products, such as cheese and milk, and they hired many adventurers to protect their livestock from monsters.
Noland was the definition of the boonies. Monsters roamed everywhere, from the plains to the surrounding forests. Wyverns flew in the skies, and there were even sometimes dragon sightings. Imagine weaponsmiths, armorers, magic tool makers, and the adventurers who gathered materials for them living tucked away in cities protected by high castle walls. Suddenly sounds just like your typical fantasy, right?
Our land was much more urbanized than the other marches; you wouldn’t find monsters here unless you ventured far into the woods or climbed to the tops of the mountains.
“The adventurers would have more firepower if they had their own spirit beasts,” I mused.
“Farmers and merchants would feel much safer if they had their own too,” Rex added.
Brad also chimed in with his own two cents. “Commoners often have lower mana reserves, so it would be difficult for them to keep several, but many people owning a single spirit would be good for the crops too. That’s the important part.”
Even though the empress and my father had explained everything to the margraves already, they were insistent that they get to meet me. Thus, a meeting had been arranged in five days’ time that would include me, the general, and the three margraves.
“They wanted to learn how to interact with the Royal Spirits or something, right?” Rex asked. I nodded while absentmindedly watching him prepare the tea.
“Though it’s questionable if the Royal Spirits would even want to meet them,” Brad said.
We’d given the castle staff the opportunity to speak to the spirits by the lake before the knights, so Brad now had his own earth spirit. Once you knew how to do it, you could talk to the spirits anywhere, really. It was likely there were spirits in the castle gardens, even.
“More importantly, I want something for the summer,” I murmured.
“Like?”
“We have many guests coming all this way to see the spirits, so I want to find something that will make them want to come back. What’s our annex building like?”
Rex shrugged. “Who knows?”
Dealing with guests wasn’t a valet’s role, so I supposed it made sense that he and Brad wouldn’t know.
“I want to go see for myself.”
“The young lady’s asking for the unreasonable again,” Rex said.
“If anyone asks, I can just go, ‘Whoops, I was just taking a stroll and ended up here!’”
“Do you understand how big this castle is? You can easily get lost in here.”
Really? It’s that big? Could someone pop off back to Japan and grab me a bike or a Segway, please?
“Wouldn’t it be a little boring if the place you stayed on holiday just looked the same as where you live? I think Marquess Johannes has got the right idea. So I was thinking we could renovate our annex too.”
I’d originally had no intention of getting involved with politics or spreading details of things from my world, but in my travels around our march to give lectures on spirits, I’d visited many settlements that had become ghost towns due to a decrease in tourists. The villages and towns that focused on farming or growing tea were doing fine. We needed to do something for the towns whose main business was tourism.