I hadn’t expected her calm reaction. When I’d told Liscia the same thing, she had been pretty shocked after all.
“…I thought you’d be more surprised,” I said.
“When you think about it, even before the appearance of the Demon Lord’s Domain, there were monsters living inside dungeons,” said Jeanne. “Couldn’t it be that there was a dungeon there?”
“It seems our country has no records of that, historical or legendary,” I said. “Though, given that it was thousands of years ago, I can’t deny it’s possible that it was far enough back that there wouldn’t even be legends.”
“Hmm… perhaps we should look into this in our territory, too,” Jeanne said.
If they did that, I couldn’t ask for a better outcome.
“I’d very much like for you to do that,” I said. “The kingdom plans to carry out excavations around the country to investigate the matter.”
“Please, do tell us if you learn anything,” said Jeanne. “Of course, we’ll do the same.”
“Okay,” I nodded.
The Empire had far more territory than the kingdom. If they were willing to investigate the matter, I could expect further discoveries to be made. Of course, I still intended to carry on with our research in the kingdom.
This established a formal agreement for the kingdom and Empire to exchange information on excavations and research.
Jeanne paused for a breath, finishing off her cup of tea. “Now then, I think we’ve veered pretty heavily from the topic of monsters being edible.”
“Oh, right… We were talking about that, weren’t we?” I polished off the rest of my cup of coffee, too, then asked Serina to get another cup for each of us. When I had my coffee and Jeanne had her tea, we resumed.
“The meat we ate was from a winged snake,” Jeanne said.
“A winged snake? Like a dragon?” I asked.
I recalled there was a god named Quetzalcoatl in Central and South America that was also a winged snake, but this wasn’t Earth, and she’d called it a monster, so it was probably more natural to assume it was something like a dragon.
That was my assumption, but Jeanne shook her head. “No, it was nothing so impressive. It really was just a giant snake with four bird-like wings slapped on it.”
What the heck? I thought. It sounds like a total chimera.
“I’m amazed you decided to eat something like that…”
“It tasted like pretty much any ordinary snake,” said Jeanne. “It was more like fish than chicken. Quite tasty, really.”
I was surprised that she’d eaten snake at all, but… well, they’re eaten in some countries. When I thought of snake meat, the image that came to mind was the fake fish meat from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Rashomon, which I had read in my modern literature class, but… maybe it was tasty?
“You’re supposed to be a princess, aren’t you?” I asked. “That’s some weird stuff you’ve been eating.”
“I’m also a commander of armies,” said Jeanne. “If we can live off the land, we’ll have extra rations.”
“That’s… practical of you,” I said.
“Now, as for what made me think to try eating a monster, it was when one of our scouts came back and reported seeing ‘the remains of a monster which appeared to have been cooked by demons.’”
There was another word there that caught my attention. “’Cooked,’ you say? Not just sloppily eaten?”
“Yes,” said Jeanne. “The bones seemed to have been cut apart with a blade, and judging from the charred head left behind, we could infer that it was likely roasted whole, then cut apart and eaten. That made me think that, if we caught a monster of the same variety, we could consider trying to eat it.” Jeanne popped one of the teacakes she had been served into her mouth and ate it. “Of course, I checked that it wasn’t poisonous first, you know? I had it fed it to animals before I let people try it. Then, once its safeness was ascertained, we ate in order of lowest to highest ranking officer.”
“It’s not easy to test food for poison, huh…” I said.
“So, when I ate it, it had a simple but refreshing taste,” said Jeanne. “It tasted good in an ordinary way.”
“No, I’m not concerned about the flavor, there was something more interesting in what you just told me,” I said.
What she’d said about demons eating monsters was far more shocking than the fact that they were edible. Basically, it meant that demons didn’t see monsters as being the same general race as them.
I loved chicken and pork, but no matter how much their faces made them look like pigs or cows, I would never think of eating orcs or minotaurs. Compared to eating something with a humanoid body, even snake was preferable. Maybe demons felt the same way.
Thinking about that, I came to a certain hypothesis. “Hey, Madam Jeanne.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Could it be that demons and monsters are equivalent to what we’d call ‘people’ and ‘animals’?”
The moment I said that, the air froze. Not only Jeanne, but Liscia and Hakuya opened their eyes wide with shock.
Huh? Did I say something that surprising?
“…What made you think that?” Jeanne asked, erasing all trace of an expression from her face.
I thought about explaining my reason… then hesitated for a moment. What I was going to say might seem discriminatory, depending on how it was interpreted. Of course, I didn’t mean it that way, but I still might cause offense, depending on how people took it.
…Maybe I should clear the room first, I thought.
“Um… I’d rather not have what I’m about to say overheard by too many people,” I said.
“…Very well.”
When Jeanne looked to them, the imperial bureaucrats stopped their work, quietly filing out of the office. I made my own bureaucrats leave as well, having Aisha stand by the door to ensure that no one was eavesdropping. The only ones left in the room were Jeanne, Liscia, Hakuya, Aisha, and me. I looked to Liscia, who was beside me recording the content of the talks.
“Liscia, I want you to stop recording, too,” I said.
“…Okay.” Liscia’s pen stopped. Now, the content of our meeting wasn’t being recorded.
In this room so quiet that it made the earlier excitement seem like a lie, Jeanne shrugged her shoulders. “If you have to clear the room first, it sounds dangerous. Just what kind of bombshell statement are you about to drop?”
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just that what I’m going to say could be considered discriminatory.”
“Discriminatory? In a conversation about demons and monsters?” Jeanne seemed doubtful, but I chose my words carefully as I continued.
“Yeah. You asked what made me think that. Well, it’s because… I can’t tell the difference between this world’s animals and monsters. The animals in this world are larger than the ones in my own, with big fangs and sharp tusks, and a generally aggressive appearance. If the animals from your world appeared in mine, the people there would definitely think they were monsters.”
Especially when it came to things like rhinosauruses. If even one giant creature like that appeared in my world, it would probably cause a panic. With their huge bodies, they looked like either dinosaurs, or something out of a monster movie.
“Hmm… Is that how it is?” Jeanne tilted her head to the side quizzically. Not knowing the animals from my world, she couldn’t imagine what it felt like to me.
“That’s how it is,” I said. “And… if I take it a bit further, I have a hard time seeing the difference between races like beastmen or dragonewts and demons.”
She gasped in shock. “That’s…”
I raised my hand to stop her. “Yeah, I know. If the beastmen heard me, they’d get mad and say, ‘Don’t lump us in with them.’ But, still, for me, as guy who lived in a world without demons or beastmen, it’s hard to see the difference.”