Souma sat down there, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Jumping straight to my conclusion, it’s the excessive increase in the number of these cotton fields that has caused this country’s food shortages.”
“…Come again?”
Did he just sort of off-handedly say something incredible now? The cause of our food shortages?
“While I was sorting through the paperwork, I noticed it. With the expansion of the Demon Lord’s Domain, the demand for clothing and other daily necessities has skyrocketed. Of course, the demand for the raw materials has shot up, too. With the selling price of cotton flowers rising, and being able to sell as much as you can produce, the farmers have entirely stopped growing the food crops they had produced up until that point. Crops grown to sell to others instead of to eat are called cash crops. Which is to say: our farmers have turned to growing only cash crops, which has led to a lowering of this country’s food self-sufficiency rate.”
I was speechless. The cause of this country’s food shortages…
I had always just assumed it was bad weather, or that our country had just had poor soil to begin with. Here was a concrete reason, and yet I, who had lived in this country for more than ten years, hadn’t seen it. Meanwhile Souma, who had been summoned here only a few days prior, had managed to.
“If I were to go a bit further, I could say it’s the cause of this country’s poor economy, as well. When the food self-sufficiency rate drops, you have to import from other countries to avoid starving. However, imported food involves transportation costs as well, so the price of food rises. That puts pressure on household budgets, but you can only cut food costs so far. If you don’t eat, you’ll starve, after all. Of course, if you’re going to trim the fat somewhere, it’s going to be in nonessential and luxury goods. This change in spending practices is causing a downward spiral in the economy.”
What had I been looking at? Had I just been a private citizen, it would have been fine to just laugh scornfully at my lack of insight. However, I was a princess.
The ignorance of those at the top kills those at the bottom.
“I’m… a failure as a royal.” I lost all strength, falling to my knees there. In all my life, I had never so keenly felt a sense of powerlessness as I did now.
Seeing me like that, Souma let out an “Uh,” and an “Um,” scratching his head, before resting his hand on my head.
“Don’t let it get you so down. We’ve secured the funding we’ll need. It’s not too late for agricultural reforms.”
“…What are you planning to do?”
“Place limits on the growth of cash crops, bring back the growing of food crops, and improve our self-sufficiency rate. The country will pay subsidies to help support that transition. First we’ll replant the fields with beans, which have a wide range of uses, and potatoes, which are resistant against famine, and over time I’d like to increase the number of paddy fields. After that…”
Souma spoke eloquently of his plans for agricultural reform. He used a lot of words like “paddy fields” that were unfamiliar to me, but as I looked at his face in profile, he seemed so radiant.
I felt I could understand why my father had abdicated the throne to him. He was what this country needed most right now. We had to do whatever it took to keep him tied down here. Our betrothal had probably been meant as another chain with which to bind him.
I guess I can’t afford to be upset about the engagement being decided without my input.
Souma had said that once he got the country on track, he would return the throne, but we couldn’t let him do that. It would be a loss to the country to have a man of such rare talent leave. It needed to be prevented at all costs.
He says he has no family in his old world. If I were to become his family here, could I keep him in this country? I wondered. As his fiancée, if I can just make the marriage a fait accompli… Wait, the best way to make it a fait accompli… would basically be… doing that with him…
The thoughts that came to my mind left my face flushed red.
“So, in the mountains we’ll… Hey, Liscia, you listening?”
“Eek! Wh-Why, yes, I’m listening.”
“Hm? Your face is all red, you know.”
“It’s just the sunrise! Think nothing of it!”
My cheeks were on fire. I was ready to just die of embarrassment.
From there on, I don’t think I heard a single word of Souma’s explanations.
Chapter 2: Start From X
The technology in this world was kind of all over the place.
On Earth, technology had moved like this: from man power, to the water wheel and windmill, to the steam engine, and then on to the combustion engine. It was a series of incremental advances.
If you wanted to fly freely through the sky, before you could build an airplane, you would first need to discover the concept of lift, and a propulsion system (the internal combustion engine) would need to be created. In order to create that propulsion system, you would need to understand the system behind how things burn. In the history of Earth, new technologies had always been built atop other technologies that had laid the groundwork for them.
However, in this world, there were mysterious creatures and magic. If you wanted to fly freely through the sky, you could just ride a wyvern. These people had skipped past the concept of lift and propulsion systems and just gone flying.
In a world where you can create fire, ice, and more with magic any time you want to, the difference between what is possible and what is not becomes extreme.
In this world, they had large tamed beasts that could haul as much as a four ton truck.
There were steel battleships, only they were drawn by massive sea dragons.
There was no electricity, yet the nights were bright in this country. The street lamps had lightmoss in them, which stored light energy during the day and was phosphorescent at night, keeping the town lit.
They didn’t have gas, they used firewood, ovens, and fire magic (or magic items) to cook.
There were no aqueducts; however, all around town, there were wells with water elemental spells cast on them that drew water from deep below the earth… well, that’s enough examples to get the point.
In this country, even without science, many things could be done with magic. Turning that around, if you were to take away their magic and mysterious creatures, this country’s civilization would not be that advanced. Comparing it to a point in our own world’s history, they were probably in the late Middle Ages or early modern period, at best. The feudal system was still intact, and the industrial revolution a long ways away.
That was the kind of country I was now king of.
“Liscia, agricultural reforms don’t happen overnight,” Souma told me. “So, for the time being, I suppose we’ll have to increase our imports from other countries to compensate.”
I sat across from Souma, nibbling on my toast as he talked. On the narrow table, there was a basket of bread, as well as plates with scrambled eggs, sausage and salad for two on them. It was breakfast time.
“But didn’t you say imports are expensive, and that causes a decline in consumer spending?”
“I did. That’s why we’ll probably end up having the country buy up goods, then resell them at domestic prices for a time. We’ll take a loss on the tariffs, but we need to bear it for now. I’d like to make up the shortfall with exports, but first we’ll need to find a replacement for our current primary export, cotton.”