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I slowly advanced through Eyland on horseback. I was up front, to contain the speed of the march. If anyone else took the lead, I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to rush ahead at top speed.
In any case, ever since that morning, Maria had been acting very familiar with me at every opportunity, and it was incredibly awkward. The fact that it was in front of my subordinates didn’t help. Not only that, but the content of what she said was just awful. She kept casually bringing up truly bloodthirsty topics with an innocent smile on her face—asking how she should rule Eyland in the future, when she should annex the Theocracy of Mauve, how she should eliminate all those in her way, and so on. I was sick of it, so I only gave her terse responses, but she had nerves of steel and didn’t pay my bluntness any mind.
No matter what I did, she constantly followed me around. It was a massive headache.
Just when I was starting to wonder, Is there any way I can abandon this woman somewhere? some people appeared to block my path. They weren’t armed, which meant they weren’t part of the Eylish army. One of them was an old man, while the other three were young, and they all looked emaciated.
Chrom, who was guarding me, stepped forward. “Identify yourselves!”
“I am the mayor of the nearby village of Nest,” the old man replied weakly.
“What business does the mayor of some village have with His Majesty?”
The four clearly weren’t hostile, and they didn’t look strong enough to hurt us anyway, but Chrom didn’t lower his guard.
“Right. We were wondering if His Majesty might offer us aid.”
“Aid?” I asked. The word piqued my interest. “What are you guys worried about?”
“Food, sir,” the mayor replied.
“Food? You don’t have anything to eat?”
“No, we do not. In fact, the Eylish army confiscated everything we had…”
After that, the mayor began to explain the dire situation in which their village found itself. Apparently, Eyland was depriving the towns and villages on our route of food in order to cause problems for us.
“As such, I humbly request that you share your provisions with us…” the mayor said, seeming extremely apologetic.
I see. He spoke candidly about the situation, so if there’s anything I can do, I’d like to help. But, how are our logistics coming along? I left it up to others, so I wasn’t paying any attention…
As I was thinking, Ogma stepped forward.
“King Zero, please allow me to handle this,” he declared. “I shall do something about the village’s plight!”
He doesn’t really look like someone who’d be any good at that. Will this go all right?
“Can you really fulfill that duty?” I asked him.
“Indeed I can.”
The villagers’ faces brightened at Ogma’s reply.
“Ah, you’ll share your food with us? Thank you!” the mayor said.
“No, we won’t. Our army has no food to give,” Ogma flatly replied.
We what? Say that again?
“Farune’s rule is local procurement.”
This time, the villagers’ faces turned pale. They were probably afraid that Farune was also going to start pillaging.
“Our army gets fresh food every day by hunting local monsters!” Ogma declared.
Oh, we do? I was forced to eat raw monster meat every day, whether I was in the castle or on the front, so I hadn’t noticed a difference. This must have meant they were taking the time to hunt nearby.
But wait a second. Does that mean we don’t have a supply corps? That makes it sound more like we’re a tribe of nomadic hunters than an army. Are we from ten thousand years in the past or something? Please, can’t we just do things normally? I just want to eat ordinary rations.
“Um, what do you mean by that?” the mayor asked hesitantly.
“It means that we’ll get you to eat monster meat too, of course!” Ogma replied, brimming with confidence as he gave his unwanted answer.
The mayor looked pleadingly at me, but I quietly averted my eyes. If we don’t have any food supplies, then there’s nothing I can do. Sorry.
“My, what a wonderful initiative!” Maria said next to me, smiling brightly. “If that’s the plan, then I would love to be of assistance!”
That’s right, she’s a monster meat lover too. But “assistance”…assist in what way?
Having been offered monster meat by the most respectable-looking people in our cohort, the villagers were utterly bewildered.
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“LISTEN to me, people of the village!” Ogma shouted, standing in the middle of Nest’s public square.
The gathered villagers had uneasy looks on their faces. Although they were glad to see their mayor return from seeking relief from the Farunian army, they were disappointed to see that he had come back empty-handed. Also, they were clearly suspicious as to why the leaders of the Farunian army were with him.
Next to Ogma stood Maria; comments like, “Is that beautiful woman the saint?” could be heard coming from the crowd.
“I envy you!” Ogma continued. “Why, you ask? In the past, my king, Zero, once had nothing to eat and suffered from starvation! The fact that you are able to experience what he did fills me with envy!”
Then why don’t you go without food? the villagers thought, but there was no way they were going to say it out loud, not to this man whose muscular body was covered with what looked to be battle scars.
“What saved King Zero from starvation?! It was monster meat!” Ogma held aloft a piece of meat from a monster he had hunted in the area. It looked obviously poisonous, with a revolting purple sheen, and it somehow possessed the miraculous ability to lessen the starving villagers’ appetites.
He isn’t actually telling us to eat that thing, is he?
A commotion arose among the villagers.
Perhaps Maria sensed this, because she raised a question. “But monster meat is poisonous, isn’t it?” she asked, her tone unnatural and somewhat theatrical. “Are you sure it’s okay to eat it?”
“That’s not a problem!” Ogma replied vigorously. “If you just eat a bit of meat from a weak monster, you’ll only vomit and get some indigestion. You won’t die!”
“Well, that’s a relief!” Maria turned to the villagers and smiled.
What’s such a relief about food that makes you throw up and leaves you in intestinal distress? the villagers thought, but there was no way they could criticize the saintly Maria out loud.
“I see that it doesn’t harm your health all that much, but I’ve heard that monster meat doesn’t taste very good. What about that?” Maria asked in the same forced manner.
“Of course it doesn’t taste good, Lady Maria. Monster meat is awful! It tastes like nothing you’ve ever had before! When I first ate it, it was so bad that I would’ve rather died than eat any more.” As he spoke, Ogma tossed the raw meat into his mouth.
There was a sizable stir in the crowd. They said things like, “Whoa, he actually ate that thing,” “I can’t believe it,” and, “He isn’t afraid of anything, even God!” The response was not very positive.
“It’s bad. Like eating poison. But that’s what’s good about it!” Ogma said, a satisfied look on his face.
What could be so good about eating poison? the villagers wondered, their gaunt faces drawn.
Maria gave an exaggeratedly positive reaction, then raised another obvious question. “But if it tastes so bad, then won’t it be hard to eat for people who’ve never had it before?”
“That’s no problem either! You’re free to cook it, or put some salt on it,” Ogma explained. “Normally, the Hundred frowns on anything besides raw, unseasoned meat, but even the young King Zero drained his meat of blood, seasoned it with spices, and cooked it. So, there’s nothing wrong if you do the same. If anything, you’ll be able to experience exactly what he did! There’s nothing more wonderful than that!” Ogma shouted the final words of his appeal, spreading his arms wide.
“My, how truly wonderful!” Maria added, smiling from ear to ear.