When they finished, Little Musashibo excitedly clapped his hands. “I feel like arithmetic just got fun. If I study, will it be even more fun?”
“Of course,” Juna assured him. “If you study hard, you’ll be able to do even more amazing things.”
Then Juna sang a song for Little Musashibo about all the things he’d be able to do if he studied his arithmetic. It had a fun melody and playful lyrics, but if you were listening closely, it expressed a number of mathematical phenomena. It was exactly the sort of song that belonged on an educational program.
The children who were watching the broadcast innocently imitated Juna and Little Musashibo, singing the lyrics to themselves and dancing. The adults, on the other hand, considered the meaning of the lyrics, nodding along with interest as they figured it out.
In among them there was just one person, Juno, who was thinking about something entirely different.
Did he just lend them his kigurumi suit? No… That can’t be it. Juno was closely scrutinizing Little Musashibo’s movements. The way he moves, it’s just like Mr. Little Musashibo. But the voice I heard was a cute girl’s voice. The hand I saw that time was a man’s hand. There’s a different person inside, but he’s moving the same… What does it mean?
As she pondered deeply, something occurred to Juno.
Now that I think about it, wasn’t there that one time I saw Mr. Little Musashibo delivering a letter to the guild? After the receptionist saw it, she told us there was a banquet being held at the castle. In other words, that letter was from the castle. This broadcast is put together by the castle, too, from what I hear. Maybe Mr. Little Musashibo is connected to the castle somehow?
Juno stared hard in the direction of Parnam Castle which was where the broadcast was coming from.
…I’m curious. I want to look into it, but… I can’t exactly go sneaking into the castle. If they caught me, I’m sure I’d be punished. Hmm, isn’t there any way I can look into it?
While Juno was thinking about all of this, the program continued. When Little Musashibo and Juna’s short theater segment came to an end, the broadcast video moved to another place.
This time it wasn’t a stage but what looked like a great hall. There were around ten three-to-five-year-old children there. Owing to their young age, they weren’t coordinated at all, and they would sit down, run around, lie down, and generally move about freely. These were the children of the castle’s workers who had been left at the daycare center.
Souma had thought the audience for an educational program should be made up of children, so, with the permission of their parents (though, with the king asking them a favor, they could hardly decline…), he had arranged for them to appear. Also, in with the children there was a young girl who looked to be around sixteen years old.
“Hey, isn’t that Princess Roroa?” one astute viewer pointed out.
That girl was indeed Roroa, the former Princess of Amidonia. Roroa was wearing a boyish outfit like Juna’s, and said in a cheerful voice, “Look, everybooody. Your singin’ big sister is gonna come out and plaaaay. One, two, aaaand…!”
“““Big Sister Juna!””” the children called.
With Roroa giving them the signal, the children all called her name together. When they did…
“Helloooo.” Juna appeared again, waving her hands. She stood next to Roroa and said, “Now, everyone, it’s time for a song.”
Then she began to clap her hands.
Meanwhile, back where we were recording in the castle, Liscia was crying out in surprise.
“Roroa?! What is that girl doing?!”
“When I told Roroa we would be making an educational program, she said, ‘Sounds fascinatin’! Darlin’, I wanna be on it, too!’” I said. “She forced me to do it. I had no other options, so I decided to let her be on the show as Juna’s assistant.”
“Can you really go around deciding roles on a whim like that?” Liscia asked skeptically.
“…I have a soft spot where crying children or the sponsors are concerned, you know. Besides, this program is being brought to you by The Silver Deer, which Sebastian is the public face of; but Roroa runs it behind the scenes, after all.”
Right now, our country was providing funding for multiple businesses and for research on a variety of topics. We were heavily focused on foodstuffs, medicine, and the military because those were things that would have an effect on the lives of the people. Thanks to that, the national treasury was always on the verge of collapse.
Eventually, as the population grew, the increase in taxes would make back our money on the investment, but we couldn’t count on it to happen right away.
With that in mind, the finance minister, Colbert, kept a tight hold of the country’s purse strings, and he wasn’t about to allocate funds for some new program that had no record of success. That’s why I had asked Roroa’s company to fund it. Because of that, I was now left with no choice but to listen to Roroa, the investor, when she asked me for something.
When Liscia heard the details, she sighed. “It’s always about money, huh. It’s a hard life.”
“You said it.”
…Though I’m sure Roroa set up her own company with this exact sort of situation in mind.
The truth of the matter was, if Roroa hadn’t invested, I wouldn’t have been able to do this broadcast. Besides, if I didn’t let her have a little of what she wanted, I was probably going to be hit with divine retribution someday.
I looked over to the hall where Juna and Roroa were singing “Musunde Hiraite” with the children.
The children watched Roroa’s exaggerated movements and then imitated her. When I saw them bouncing around, moving their arms and legs, it put a smile on my face. While my heart was being warmed by their angelic behavior, Liscia asked me a question.
“I understand why you want to make an educational program, but why are there so many songs?”
“Don’t you have songs from your childhood that have stuck with you for a strangely long time?” I asked.
“Like lullabies?”
“Yeah, exactly. Songs and melodies get stuck in your head, and it’s easy for people to end up singing or humming them on their own. That’s why it’s more memorable if you use songs in education than if you just taught the material normally, and it’ll spread farther, too.”
For instance, before they taught us “Irohanihoheto” in school, I’d already learned it from Minna no Uta’s “Iroha Matsuri.” Also, I feel like a major part of the reason I could remember the ordering of the Chinese zodiac without getting it confused was because I’d learned a song called “Eto wa Merry-go-Round.” If I still remembered those songs even now that I was an adult, Minna no Uta really was incredible.
Liscia said, “I see…” with a grunt of admiration. “Honestly, I think this was really well thought out.”
“Hm… Well, thinking is my job, after all.”
“It’s not as easy as you make it sound. Thinking about the people and coming up with policies to benefit them.” Liscia was looking at me approvingly… I averted my eyes. “Wait, why did you look away?”
“Well… If you were to ask if it’s really for the people, I’d have to admit a bit of my own self-interest came into it, too…”
“Really? How?” Liscia stared hard at me.
…Well, there’s no helping it, I thought. I guess I’ll fess up.
“We’re holding the wedding ceremony as I formally inherit the throne, right?” I asked.