Episode 8 – New Life

Side: Ohashi Shigenaga

The Young Lord of Nagono was also known to the public as the Great Fool. 

It was true that he went around wearing clothes and displaying a demeanor unfit for a lord of the people, so I do understand why they called him by such a moniker. 

But others didn’t know. The Young Lord was more interested in business compared to anyone else in Tsushima, and he personally comes over often to ask about various things related to the topic.  He asked about all sorts of things; from the flow of money and goods to the ways of conducting business. 

However, I suppose it was only natural that the rest of the Oda clan was not aware of this. 

In addition, the Young Lord also visits Tsushima often and asks about the goings-on outside of Owari.  

I heard that there were some in the clan who wanted his younger brother, Nobuyuki-sama, who hasn’t even come of age yet, to serve as the successor. But I think that the Young Lord was far more suitable as the clan’s successor compared to Nobuyuki-sama who doesn’t even deign to come to Tsushima himself. 

At the very least, no one here in Tsushima would dare to underestimate the Young Lord.  The Young Lord’s memory and intuition were enough to impress even the shrewdest of Tsushima merchants. 

They also jested that he would find it easy to become a splendid merchant if he so wished. 

Nobuyuki-sama hadn’t even undergone his coming-of-age ceremony yet, so it was a little unfair to compare the two of them, but he was quite amiable, and his vassals should find it quite easy to deal with him. 

It appears that the Young Lord has taken an interest in Kazuma-dono.  He plans to come and visit Kazuma-dono often to ask about this and that. 

The Young Lord was not a person of ill character at all. 

Whenever he hunted for fowl and beasts, he would divide the captured game among all his accompanying vassals.  What’s more, whenever he obtained valuable sake or tea, he would bring some to us as souvenirs.  The people of Tsushima were probably more familiar with the Young Lord than Nobuyuki-sama who hadn’t shown his face to us even once. 

Although I suppose the situation cannot be helped because the other vassals and I see things differently. 

I do not think there is much cause for concern, but it might be better to see how Kazuma-dono is doing regularly for a while.  After all, he might get troubled by the Young Lord’s visits while he is staying in a land unfamiliar to him. 

Side: Oda Nobunaga

I have always wanted to know more about it.  Just what was beyond that vast sea?  Just what kind of country was the one that made the matchlock gun?

Those people who recently came to Owari behaved completely from other people.  They were different from the samurai, monks, and merchants I was familiar with. 

That’s why I wanted to know more about them. I want to know more about the places outside of Hinomoto. 

I wonder how those people view our Owari?  This state that was filled with only conflict and jostling for territory.  Those vassals who proclaim fealty to my father but scheme behind his back. 

Father said to simply ignore them, but was that really alright? 

If I do not know of something, then all I had to know was to learn about it.  My father would get furious even at the thought of meeting those from beyond the sea who he saw as uncivilized barbarians.  And his vassals would fan the flames. 

「Alright, let us hunt for game then.」

「Hunting for beasts? Are you not going to Tsushima, Young Lord?」

「I’ve heard that the Nanban people are fond of eating meat. One can easily get fish on Tsushima, but not meat.」

A boar or deer should do nicely as a present.  Shigenaga did mention that the Nanban people from the far south preferred meat to fish. 

They had looked somewhat bewildered yesterday, but a present would do nicely to ease the awkwardness between us. 

 Side: Kazuma

I was able to secretly return to the island at night on an anti-gravity engine aircraft and return before dawn, so I had no trouble spending the night comfortably.  However, since there were plans to continue bringing goods from the island to the mainland on regular flights, it looks like I would be riding on an aircraft straight to Owari.

As for the mansion in Tsushima, we decided to perform a full-scale renovation with the intention of living there for the time being.  When I mentioned renovating the toilet and adding a bath to Elle and the others, we eventually came up with more and more places to renovate.

They also wanted to renovate the kitchen, for example.  I would also like to install tatami mats inside the rooms, and shoji paper screens seemed not to be treated as something valuable in this era.  

In addition, we decided not to bring anything related to over-technology as much as possible.   We can carry comm devices and the bare minimum equipment, but we had to make it so that we would be able to withdraw from here quickly at any given time. 

Ohashi-san seemed like a trustworthy enough person.  However, it wouldn’t hurt to keep being cautious.  Arrangements have been made so that we would be ready to pick up the goods from the island in just a few minutes with only one call.

「About this garden…… Will it be fine to convert it to a kitchen garden instead?」

I’ve walked around the mansion, but the large garden particularly caught my attention.  It seemed that the previous owner used it as an ornamental garden, but as expected, it had been left untouched for quite some time, so it looked a bit messy, with weeds growing all over it. 

「It should be fine. It’s not like there is a particular need for us to put on airs.」

After consulting with Elle, I decided to convert it from an ornamental garden to a kitchen garden for growing vegetables. It was pretty large, so we would be able to grow more than enough vegetables for us to consume. 

Yesterday, Julia and Katie heard that there was a market set up at the Tsushima shrine, so we paid it a visit. But, to be honest, there weren’t that many vegetables being sold.  There were only a few wild vegetables such as edible wild grasses and a few more familiar vegetables. 

In this era, there were many kinds of vegetables that haven’t been cultivated yet, and even if they were, most of them were grown in between rice planting seasons. 

They didn’t seem to put much effort into growing vegetables because the distribution system was still pretty immature, and in this era, having something to eat was already a blessing. 

Now that that’s decided, it’s time for weeding.  We were using robot soldiers disguised as humans as workers in the mansion, so let’s have some of them do the weeding. 

It would be faster if we used a mower or something of the sort.  But in this era, even a farm sickle was quite valuable.  I’ve seen some of the farming tools they were employing, but they were honestly quite shabby.  It would be quite inefficient if we used those.  

「What are you doing?」

「Weeding. I was thinking of converting this into a vegetable garden, you see…… Eh? Young Lord!?」

We’ve been weeding for ten minutes with shabby scythes in hand.  I was so focused on the work before me that I failed to notice Nobunaga-san and his attendants entering the garden. 

「You could have just summoned for me if you had business with me, Young Lord.」

「It is fine. There would be a commotion in the castle if you came there. Right, here is a present for you.」

「Ah, thank you very much, Young Lord.」

A present, huh? It turned out to be a large deer.  It seemed that it was carried over by four of Nobunaga-san’s attendants.  He already came by yesterday, and he came again today.  Did Nobunaga-san have lots of free time on his hands?

I had the deer we received brought to the kitchen and guided Nobunaga-san and his attendants to the veranda.  

「Parched-barley tea, is it? It is cold. Do you also drink this in Nanban?」

「We used the well to cool it down.  I have never heard of this being drunk in Nanban.  However, our islands are closer to Hinomoto, so our lifestyles are somewhat similar.」

Now that they’re here, I thought it would be best to serve them something, and Elle brought over some barley tea. 

「Young Lord! This mochi is very delicious!」

「Uwah! It truly is!」

「Truly. Is it filled with azuki bean paste inside? But why is it so sweet?」

「That’s because we used sugar when making it.」

The attendants were surprised when they tasted the daifuku served together with the barley tea.  Elle made them for us to snack on.  Elle’s hobbies were cooking and making sweets after all. 

「Bufuooo!?」

「S-Sugar!?」

「Young Lord! I have not brought any money over!」

「No, no, I will not charge you for them, so it’s fine.」

In this era, sugar was a very valuable commodity that could only be imported, so that’s probably why everyone was so surprised.  Sugar was cheap back in my original world though.  Besides, we weren’t used to not having sugar in food or sweets, so I had it brought over. 

「……Is it really alright?」

「Go ahead. In addition to the portion we have sold to Ohashi-sama, we have brought enough sugar for us to use, so do not worry.」

I thought that Nobunaga-san would be used to eating stuff with sugar, but he was more surprised than I expected.  I do remember there being sweet steamed buns in this era though. 

「The mochi is soft as well!」

「Oh, that’s because the mochi also have sugar in them.」

Everyone behaved like elated children while savoring the barley tea and daifuku.   Children, huh? Well, they were all in their mid-teens, so I suppose they were all still kids. 

「Um, what is your business with us today, Young Lord?」

「Un? Oh, I was thinking of listening to stories about Nanban and the sea from you.」

After Nobunaga-san and his attendants made short work of the barley tea and daifuku served to them, I inquired about his business with us.  It ended up not being such a big deal after all. 

But stories about Nanban huh?

「In the first place, why did you not proceed to Sakai instead?」

「Because one cannot make money if one went about doing the same things as everyone else.」

Nobunaga-san asked me about why we didn’t go to Sakai, and I felt sorry about it, but I had to tell a white lie.  I actually came all the way here to see you, y’know? But I can’t say something like that, as expected. 

「I see. Merchants do vie for profits often after all.」

「To put it simply, trading is more profitable if there are no middlemen.  If we went to sell our goods in Sakai, we will have to consider transportation costs and pay tolls before our goods reach Owari.  However, part of the profits will not go to other’s pockets if we sell our goods directly.」

「Umu. That is true.」

I don’t really want to be asked too much about Nanban, so I decided to talk about business instead.  With this, I can just talk about some common business knowledge from my original world. 

The price I sold the goods for to Ohashi-san was actually higher than the market price in Owari, so it was also considerably higher than the market price in Sakai. 

There was a shortage of money in this era in the first place, so I couldn’t really generalize, but goods were normally expensive in this era because of the taxes people in authority collected along the way as they pleased.   But the quality of the goods played a part as well, of course. 

Alright then. Next time, I’ll sell goods lower than Owari’s market prices.  They’re all made in the space fortress anyway, so we wouldn’t be losing out.