“So, that’s why I’ve nationalized garbage disposal… Basically, I had the country take over handling it. Even if it’s difficult for an individual to do, when the state does it, we can afford to spend money on it, arrange for specialized facilities, and we can take the time to do it right, too. We can pull every last nail out of the wooden boards people throw out, then reuse the iron.”
“That’s amazing and all… but what about the used metal dealers? Aren’t you stealing their jobs?”
“Oh, that’s fine,” I said. “For that work, I’m retaining the used metal dealers as civil servants.”
They were low-wage workers anyway. They paid a small amount to buy up scrap metal, then melted it all down to sell to the trade guilds wholesale. However, since they could only produce low-quality metal, their prices got haggled down to almost nothing, and they saw very little profit for themselves. As a matter of fact, used metal dealers were at the very bottom of this world’s hierarchy. Because they dealt in garbage, people looked down on them.
“However, now that it’s a public sector undertaking, the cost of buying the metal will be footed by the country,” I said. “The items to be melted down can be recast as high-quality metal in good facilities provided by the country, and the country will negotiate with the trade guilds, so there’s no need to worry about their prices being haggled down to nothing. What’s more, they will be paid a monthly salary that’s equal to the average monthly income in this country. If you compare that to what they were making before, it’s probably a ten-fold increase, don’t you think?”
“Well… I can’t see them complaining about that,” Liscia admitted.
As a matter of fact, we hadn’t received a single complaint. Quite the contrary: when the minister of state who had been given the garbage disposal portfolio had gone to survey the reprocessing facility, he had been greeted with tearful thanks by all of the workers.
“But, if you aren’t careful, couldn’t that be more expensive than importing it from another country?” Liscia asked.
In response to Liscia’s point, I nodded and said, “Yeah, kinda.”
Elaborating, I added: “At this stage, we’re probably a little worse off doing it this way. However, money spent inside the country has a completely different meaning from money spent outside the country. If we spend money outside the country, that’s an outflow of capital, but if we spend it inside the country, it stimulates our own economy.”
“Th-The economy again, huh…” For Liscia with her military background, it seemed she wasn’t as strong with this sort of topic. The military had its own bureaucracy, so officers probably only needed to think about maintaining supply lines.
“Okay then, I’ll give you the military angle,” I said. “Let’s talk diplomacy. If we can conserve the resources in our country, other countries can’t use the resources we import from them as a card in their diplomacy. For instance, what would we do if the Principality of Amidonia, which has been eagerly eyeing our country, were to halt their export of iron to us?”
“…We’d be in trouble,” Liscia said. “There’s no telling what demands they might present us with to reopen trade.”
“That’s right. I did it with an eye to preventing that sort of situation, too.”
I’m not going to name names, but in my world, there had been a country that used the rare resources they produced as a diplomatic tool to pressure other nations. Though, once a certain island country got serious, they found new import routes from other resource-rich countries, and they developed alternative technologies, which caused the other country’s rare resources to plummet in value.
“If we can be frugal with our resources, that will limit the damage if another country halts its exports to us, and if we store the excess we have in peacetime, we can be prepared for that if it comes to it,” I explained.
“I see,” Liscia said. “So even if it puts us in the red, there’s still meaning in nationalizing it.”
Liscia was a quick learner when it came to military and diplomatic matters. She was probably the type whose ability or inability to learn a subject was a faithful reflection of her personal preferences.
Incidentally, while we were talking about this stuff, Aisha announced, “Forget about that, I want to eat!”
She looked ready to cry, like a dog that had been forced to wait for a long time.
The singing cafe, Lorelei, stood on a sunny street corner. This was the place where Juna worked.
When I had heard the words “singing cafe,” I’d imagined a place with a karaoke machine, where the customers could sing freely, but the singing cafes in this country were a place to enjoy your afternoon tea while listening to the loreleis sing. In the evenings, it stayed open and turned into a jazz bar. Were there places like this back in Japan, too?
“You’re going to show your face in there, right?” Liscia asked. “Let’s hurry up and go in.”
“I’m hungry…” Aisha moaned.
With both of them urging me onward, we went through the door and into Lorelei.
From the moment we entered the cafe, I could hear Juna singing. When I heard that voice, I went weak in the knees.
Oh, right. I did teach her this song, didn’t I? I realized.
That was Juna for you: she had mastered singing the English lyrics that even I wasn’t so good at.
“Oh, what a wonderful singing voice. I really must hand it to Madam Juna,” Liscia said.
“I don’t know what the words mean, but it’s a nice tune,” Aisha added.
Aisha and Liscia both seemed deeply impressed. Well, of course they were. It was a good song.
I had promised to teach Juna the songs of my world, but once I thought about it, I only knew old songs I’d learned because of Grandpa’s influence, and songs that had shown up in anime and tokusatsu, because I was into those. I was hesitant to go teaching her anime songs right off the bat, so I’d chosen this song, which was like an anime song, but not: Neil Sedaka’s “Better Days are Coming.”
You might know it better as the song that Mami Ayukawa covered as Z — Toki wo Koete, the opening to the mecha anime Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Now, this is only my personal opinion, but I thought for ordinary music, Hiroko Yakushimaru, and for anime songs, Hiroko Moriguchi’s songs would suit Juna’s voice well. I wanted to hear “Tantei Monogatari” and “Mizu no Hoshi ni Ai wo Komete” with her voice.
The cafe had a relaxing, retro-modern style to it. Sitting ourselves down at one of the tables, we listened to Juna sing for a while. A few minutes later, Juna finished her song and came over to us.
“Why, Your…” she began.
“Hello, Juna,” I said quickly. “You may not remember me, but I am Kazuya, the successor to a crêpe fabric merchant from Echigo!”
In order to cut off Juna, I started talking a mile a minute. Being the smart, talented woman that she was, Juna recognized what was going on just from that. “Oh, yes, Kazuya. Right. It’s been so long. How is your father these days?”
“Why, he’s too energetic for his own good. Just recently, Mother found out he was having affair. Now wasn’t that trouble.”
“I see. Kazuya, do be careful about how you handle women yourself,” she said, going along with my story.
I couldn’t very well have her bowing and calling me “Your Majesty” in a place like this with so many people watching, after all. I was supposed to be in disguise. Still, I had to be impressed with her ability to instantly ad-lib a response to my random nonsense. I definitely wanted her at the castle.