Isekai Nonbiri Nouka Chapter 1080: The Unifying King’s More and More Memories of His Journey

I am the Unifying King.

I am staying in Village Five while waiting for a meeting with Lady Tiselle’s father.

I am absolutely not spending my time sightseeing and enjoying good food.

The meeting with Lady Tiselle’s father should be an important one.

Even I am nervous about it.

Sightseeing and good food are necessary to ease that tension.

Yes, necessary.

You understand the food, but you don’t understand the sightseeing?

Fool.

Just as you can learn a king’s personality by looking at his country, you can learn a village chief’s personality by looking at his city… Ah, no, by looking at his village.

That is why I am gathering information about Lady Tiselle’s father by sightseeing around Village Five.

No, it’s not because I simply want to go see the swan races.

I’ll be passing nearby, but my real destination is the shrine deeper inside.

Apparently, it is a temple dedicated to several beast gods.

Apparently, even non-believers are allowed to visit, so I want to take a look.

And then there’s the cockatrice ranch at the foot of Village Five.

Apparently, many of those legendary demon beasts, cockatrices, are being raised there.

I can’t possibly pass up the chance to see that either.

No, no, I’m not going there because of the ramen shop that uses cockatrice eggs.

I will go there, though.

That’s only because the shop happens to be nearby. I’m not going there specifically for the shop.

Yes.

Ah, but it’s nice that I can ride the carriages traveling around Village Five for free.

It’s a little difficult to memorize the carriage destinations… or rather, the routes, but once I learn them, they’re extremely convenient.

I’m also interested in the golems that carry people through the circular tunnel dug into the middle of the mountain, but… there are so many people coming and going that it’s difficult to get close.

But I did go to the underground shopping district, which is one of the destinations of those passenger-carrying golems.

It’s a place where they sell all kinds of clothes and accessories.

I ordered a new cloak there.

It won’t be finished for quite some time, but they can send it as far as the Six Dragon God Kingdom, so it will arrive in my country together with the shipments addressed to Lady Tiselle.

Of course, I paid for it in advance.

And I didn’t just order a cloak for myself. I also ordered souvenirs to give to my subordinates.

A king doesn’t pinch pennies.

Hahaha.

Ah, no, that has nothing to do with the fact that I won the swan race yesterday.

I-I have to manage within my allowance, after all.

-0-

As a king, what struck me as I looked around Village Five was how clean it was.

There was no filth lying around.

The reason was simple.

One of the few rules in Village Five required people to relieve themselves in designated places.

The guide I hired yesterday warned me about that first.

No matter how large Village Five was, if a large number of people relieved themselves wherever they pleased, it would become filthy in no time.

To prevent that, such a rule was necessary.

And to make sure people could follow that rule, Village Five had public toilets set up throughout the area.

Those public toilets were cleaned several times a day, keeping them clean.

There were no unpleasant smells either.

The scent of flowers and greenery that were replaced regularly was pleasant.

With conditions like this, you’d naturally want to follow the rules.

Everyone would rather have things clean than dirty.

-0-

Next, there were the public hand-washing stations installed near the public toilets.

After using the toilet, you wash your hands.

That’s the second of the few rules in Village Five.

No matter how much of a hurry you’re in, you must wash your hands after using the toilet.

Apparently, this is because waste can cause disease.

Even if you don’t relieve yourself in the street, there’s no point if you leave your hands dirty after coming into contact with waste.

So you have to wash them with running water.

In fact, it’s even recommended that you wash your hands when you haven’t used the toilet.

From this, I can tell that Lady Tiselle’s father, the representative of Village Five, is quite a clean freak.

Or perhaps he fears disease.

Could he have suffered from a serious illness in the past?

Perhaps it would be better to avoid that subject.

-0-

Anyway, in Village Five, causing trouble inside a toilet or interfering with someone using a toilet or washing their hands is considered an extremely serious taboo.

It’s not actually a rule.

It’s probably just a culture that naturally developed among the residents of Village Five.

Still, I was surprised to see people stop fighting in order to use the toilet or wash their hands.

Well, taking a break to use the toilet or wash their hands does calm everyone down and brings the fight to an end.

Oh, right. Anyone who deliberately destroys a toilet is treated as having committed a very serious crime.

About as seriously as someone who commits murder.

Come to think of it, Lady Tiselle also made improving toilet facilities one of her first priorities.

……

Let’s use toilets properly.

-0-

Another thing I noticed while looking around Village Five was that there are quite a few places where people can learn reading and arithmetic.

And those places are usually crowded with students.

Perhaps Village Five places a great deal of importance on education.

I tried to approach one of the teachers and ask if they would come teach in my country, but I ran away.

The teacher was an angel.

That’s right.

This is the village where the angel’s(Lady Tiselle) father lives.

Of course there are angels here.

There were some at the golem factory too.

I had let my guard down.

Still, the angels don’t seem to be feared in Village Five.

Even though the angels were attacking the Demon King’s Kingdom until fairly recently.

Hmm… Since they’re angels, I suppose it wouldn’t be strange if they were making deals with the Demon King’s Kingdom behind the scenes.

So people other than soldiers don’t regard the angels as enemies all that strongly.

I see.

The angels are truly fearsome.

-0-

Perhaps because there are so many places where people can learn reading and arithmetic, papers covered in writing are posted all over the place.

The most noticeable ones are what they call newspapers.

They contain the latest information about Village Five.

It’s surprising that they’re available to read for free.

Apparently, you can also buy newspapers for yourself, but they’re so popular that they’re difficult to obtain.

Well, unless you’re collecting newspapers, the ones posted outside are more than enough.

……

A ranking of the most popular ramen shops?

I’ve eaten at most of the ones near the top, but…

I haven’t eaten at this one in fourth place yet.

I’ll have dinner there tonight.

-0-

Besides newspapers, there are also things called flyers posted around the village.

They contain advertisements for products and directions to various shops.

Some even have illustrations, making them quite pleasant to look at.

What I find particularly unusual is that the prices of the products are written on the advertisements.

It was the same at the ramen shops, but in Village Five, the prices of products are clearly stated.

This is very convenient.

Even a traveler like me can shop without worry.

In most places, merchants raise their prices just because you’re a traveler.

Even when I wanted to buy something, I had to negotiate the price every time, which was troublesome.

There are also… shops that sell books.

I haven’t seen any stores that specialize solely in books, but books are sold in general stores and in corners of restaurants.

Some restaurants even allow customers to freely read the books they have available.

Hmm.

Books have become well established as a form of entertainment.

There must be many people who can read.

And judging by the situation here, there must also be people who make a living by writing books.

Is this what it means to be a cultured society?

I’m jealous.

However, I feel like the books are heavily biased toward romance stories.

I haven’t seen any military chronicles that suit my tastes.

Well, if you’re going to read something at a restaurant, romance is probably more suitable than military chronicles.

A place where I can find military chronicles…

Come to think of it, the guide I hired yesterday said there was a library.

I’ll go take a look.

-0-

I was amazed by the number of books in the library.

Is it really all right to make most of them available to the general public?

Won’t the books get damaged?

They said that books exist to be read, but…

Books are valuable possessions.

This may be none of my business, but I ended up suggesting to one of the library staff that they should collect a deposit from visitors to cover possible theft or damage.

However, the library staff simply laughed and told me that none of the residents of Village Five would treat the library’s books roughly.

Hmm.

Even ordinary residents take good care of books.

The greatness of Village Five is overwhelming.

And then I was shocked to discover that most of the books in the library were romance stories.

Perhaps people in the Demon King’s Kingdom are starved for romance?

No?

They do have military chronicles, but apparently they aren’t very polished as works of literature, so they couldn’t recommend them.

Romance stories are what people find interesting to read.

Apparently, more people have started writing that sort of thing recently.

I-I see.

For the time being, I read the books recommended by the staff for as long as I had time.

…

There are a lot of assertive women in these stories.

I really felt the difference in culture.

-0-

Conquering King「So you were making a secret deal with the Demon King’s Kingdom. The angel race truly is fearsome.」

Angel A「False accusation, false accusation, false accusation! We didn’t do it!」

Angel B「Huh? Really?」

Angel C「But Tier-sama and Kierbit-sama were casually infiltrating the Demon King’s Kingdom, weren’t they?」

Angel A「We only have a gentleman’s agreement not to attack civilians or civilian facilities.」

Angel B「Ah, so it’s not a secret deal. It’s a gentleman’s agreement.」

Angel C「I see. Then it really was a false accusation.」

Conquering King「……..」

-0-

Library Staff「I recommend this one.」

Conquering King「!!!」

TN: Yeah, I have no idea why he was demoted?

-0-

Library Staff A「Who was it?! Who was the idiot who recommended a heretical book(Versa’s) to an innocent traveler?!」

Library Staff B「He ran away at incredible speed!」

Library Staff A「Catch him! And catch the traveler too! They’ll misunderstand what we consider normal!」

Library Staff B「Uh, the traveler seems to be a guest of Village Chief. Youko-sama’s guards came with him.」

Library Staff A「…………….Are we going to be held responsible for this?」

Library Staff B「I don’t know, but should we catch them?」

Library Staff A「Of course not! Ah, right. He came looking for military chronicles, didn’t he?」

Library Staff B「That’s what he said when he entered the library.」

Library Staff A「Prepare some military chronicles that we can give him. Deliver them to the traveler’s inn.」

Library Staff B「A bribe?」

Library Staff A「Just some new books to make him forget about the heretical book.」

Library Staff B「Understood.」

Library Staff A「Make absolutely sure you catch the staff who ran away. I won’t forgive him for this.」

Library Staff B「We’ll do our best!」

-0-

Silver Knight「Because this is an introduction to Village Five.」

Bronze Knight「I thought we might finally get some screen time again.」

Red Iron Knight「We’ve been standing by this whole time…」

-0-

Silver Knight「Bronze, your name keeps showing up here and there as the name of a café!」

Bronze Knight「At least you have a chance because of the stadium!」

Red Iron Knight「…I want to have some presence.」

-0-

Five-kun「(Not yet. It’s not time to panic yet.)」