“Yeah… Wait, this again?”
When I looked over the document she passed me, I slumped my shoulders.
It said, “The people of Van want to hold an outdoor music concert in the plaza. Is it okay for us to permit that?” I had already processed several similar petitions just today.
They were for concerts, plays, art exhibitions, calligraphy exhibitions, and circuses, among other things. It seemed that, after seeing that broadcast, the people of Van had awakened to the idea of expressing themselves through the arts. Yes, it was truly…
“A renaissaaaance,” I said, stretching out the word.
“…What’s up? That came out of nowhere,” Liscia said.
“…Nothing.”
Liscia looked at me kind of funny.
Yeah, if I was going to make her laugh by saying the word funny, I was probably going to have to introduce it to the local language first, I thought.
While the original Renaissance had come as a revival of Greek and Roman humanism as the influence of the Christian church had declined, this one would be a cultural revival that came from people celebrating the arts after being freed from militarism.
“But, still… I know fall is the season for art, but this awakening is way too sudden,” I commented.
To be honest, I’d have preferred not being swamped with an endless stream of requests for art and culture events. This city was technically under occupation, after all. If the events drew large crowds, it was possible that conspirators could gather there or they could be targeted by terrorists. I wished they’d put themselves in my shoes, as the guy who had to check thoroughly to make sure that wasn’t happening.
When she saw me holding my head in my hands, Liscia gave a wry smile. “You can’t blame them, really. It just means your broadcast had that much impact, right? It seems like this sort of stuff has been being suppressed pretty heavily up until now.”
“…I’ll bet,” I said. “I doubt a militarist state would let them express themselves.”
Burning books for being slightly critical of the ruling regime, jailing people for singing songs that called for peace, publicly executing the head of a theater troupe for putting on a play that satirized the government… I thought. They’d probably have done all of that without a second thought. This excitement I’m seeing is probably the recoil from that.
“Though, thanks to that, my workload increases,” I said glumly.
“No grumbling,” said Liscia. “It’s better than them opposing us.”
“Well, yes, but… Maybe I’ll set up a bureau to handle events,” I said, inspiration striking. “If I put Margarita in charge of it, I could have her handle everything to do with entertainment.”
“That’s fine with me, but… you do the paperwork for it.”
“Oof…”
It looked like, struggle as I might, my workload wasn’t going to decrease.
Well, I’m the king, so I guess there’s no helping that, huh.
I worked into the afternoon, and just as I was feeling hungry and was saying to Liscia that we should break for lunch, the Minister for the Food Crisis, Poncho Ishizuka Panacotta, entered the room.
Poncho walked over to stand before me, his round belly shaking as he did, then gave a tense salute. “U-Um, Your Majesty, I was hoping I could have a moment of your time, yes.”
He was clearly anxious. He might not have looked impressive at the moment, but Poncho here had been instrumental in solving the food crisis, and he was a man I had hand-picked to work at my side, so he was a respected figure in the country.
That’s why I wish he’d get used to standing in front of me already… I thought.
“Is something the matter?” I asked.
“Y-Yes! There is something I wanted to show you, sire, yes,” Poncho said, pulling something out of the bag he was carrying and placing it on the office desk.
“You wanted to show us… a flower?” Liscia, who was watching us, said in confusion.
Poncho had pulled out a single flower. It looked similar to a lily. However, it had a toxic-looking combination of pink, yellow, and brown petals.
If this were a mushroom, that’d be a clear warning not to eat it, I thought.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Y-Yes! This is a flower called a ‘beguiling lily,’ yes.”
“Oh, okay, I know what a lily is,” I said. “But what’s so beguiling about it?”
“This flower’s pollen has a powerful hallucinogenic effect,” he explained. “It induces anyone who inhales it into a state similar to sleepwalking. It primarily grows in the mountains. Long ago, there was an incident where an army division inhaled it while marching. They fell off a cliff fleeing from enemies that didn’t even exist and were wiped out as a result.”
“Scary!” I exclaimed. Is it like a non-controlled drug, or something like that? “Wait, don’t bring that stuff in here!”
“I–It’s fine,” said Poncho. “I’ve already removed the pollen, yes.”
“…Really? Well, as long as you’re sure it’s safe,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Besides, the pollen from one or two won’t have any effect. If you try to approach a field where hundreds of them are growing, though, even covering your nose and mouth with a cloth won’t help… Yes.”
Well, yeah, short of wearing an air filtration mask, I doubt you can block out all of the pollen, I thought. I’ve never had to deal with it myself, but the people with pollen allergies look like they have a hard time even with a mask on.
“So, you wanted to show me this flower?” I prompted.
“No, the flower is merely a something of a bonus, sire. What I wanted you to see was this.” With those words, Poncho pulled out a small roundish object. This one was… a vegetable, perhaps? It was white, round, and lumpy, like scallion bulbs or cloves of garlic densely clumped together into something like a pine cone.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Th-This is a beguiling lily rootstalk, yes.”
“The rootstalk…” I murmured. “Oh, lily root, huh!”
“Eek!…What was that for, so suddenly?” My sudden outburst had surprised Liscia.
I’d been excited by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a luxury ingredient.
Hmm, so this is lily root, I thought. I’ve seen a single piece as an ingredient in a bowl of chawanmushi before, but this is my first time seeing a whole bulb. It’s supposed to taste like potato, if I remember correctly.
“…Well then, Poncho Ishizuka Paramedic,” I began.
“I–It’s Panacotta, yes.”
“Can you eat it?” I asked.
“Yes, of course you can. This root has no hallucinogenic effect, yes.”
“And, how does it taste?” I asked.
“If you steam them, they’re soft, flaky, and delicious. I might add, these beguiling lilies grow all over the mountains of Amidonia.”
That’s good to hear, I thought. Lily root is rich in carbohydrates. It can be used as a staple food, like potatoes. If we could harvest these, it might lead to a breakthrough in solving the principality’s food crisis.
“But with the pollen, you can’t go anywhere near where they grow, right?” I asked.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And if they aren’t harvested while they’re releasing pollen, toxicity builds up in their rootstalks. That’s why they aren’t customarily eaten in Amidonia, yes.”
“Well, that’s no good, then,” I said. “Even if they’re edible, if you can’t harvest them, then… Wait, huh? Then how’d you get this one here?”