Chapter 52
2014 Words
Chapter 52
“Because children love to buy snacks, they were being sold in candy shops and stationary stores.”
“Isn’t that natural?”
“It’s not like kids could visit a tavern after all.”
“Isn’t it weird!? That, it’s not natural at all!?”
The Prince was scratching his head, trapped in the weirdness of it all when Rachel gave him an answer.
“Isn’t it normal for each region to have their own unique customs?”
“That is, sure...........but isn’t it too different from what the stores are actually supposed to be selling? Is there something wrong with their heads?”
“Your Highness, that the pot calling the kettle black.”
“I don’t want to hear that from you!”
Rachel made a gracious smile with Elliott’s point.
“Your Highness shouldn’t worry.”
“I’m not worried about some region in another country.”
“Strange people live all over the place, not just in this one region.”
“The story got worse!? Now I suddenly am worried!”
Ignoring the prince that was shaking at her words, Rachel clasped her hands together and made a dreamy smile.
“Shizuoka is such a wonderful place. It’s full of such incredible and inspiring people.”
“...........there’s no way they’re good people if you’re saying something like that. What did they do?”
“What is it, are they a bunch of mob bosses”
Rachel put her finger to her lip..............and made a cute yell when she thought of some examples.
“That’s right, for example.........a certain irrigation channel of theirs.”
“What’s with that?”
“They didn’t have enough water, so they dug an irrigation channel to a lake in a neighboring country by hand. The person in charge of the construction was apparently arrested at one point when he tried to illegally cross the border.”
“...........that, wouldn’t that be a major diplomatic issue?”
“It was, and because it was a source lake that they traditionally had water rights to, the neighboring country held a grudge for the next one hundred years.”
“Of course they did! What was that official thinking!?”
“That official? Hmm, ah, was he the person who built a steelworks in his family garden because he wanted a cannon?”
“What is with this official!? Why!? What reason did he have for doing something like that!?”
“No, or as I hear...........they weren’t being sold anywhere, so he had to make his own.”
“Of course nobody was selling one!? And why would a local official build a steelworks just so he could have a canon!?”
“If you can’t buy something, make it yourself. That’s the basic rule of ‘Do-it-Yourself’ living.”
“That’s not the problem!?”
“That’s just the kind of place it is. A certain rail company had a vehicle inspection on a steam engine while storing it in a garage.”
“An inspection?”
“Incidentally, by the time they were finished, they had a diesel locomotive on their hands.”
“What kind of, and how much of an inspection did they do!?”
“They said, “Right now, Diesel is hot!” or something along those lines.”
“You can’t just remodel something like that because of a feeling! And how do you nonchalantly switch from a steam engine to a diesel!? What were the blueprints like!?”
“They didn’t know enough to be able to make a blueprint.”
“.............Just a moment. This story is too strange. You write a blueprint to guide your work; it’s not something you make after all the work has been done.”
“Isn’t that natural?”
By now Rachel had already managed to finish off her hot sake, so Haley grabbed a regular bottle of alcohol and refilled Rachel’s cup.
“An engineer’s can-do spirit let’s them make all sorts of new things.”
“I can understand that. I can understand that, but this is still way too strange.”
“Besides that........there were some people who thought it too tiresome to peddle their bikes, so they made a market for bicycles with engines strapped on.”
“That’s not a bicycle anymore.”
“As long as you design it in a practical way, it won’t break even if you handle it roughly, and it could still run even if you were to drop if off the roof of a couple story building.”
“Would that kind of sturdiness be necessary normally? Hey?”
“So going off that momentum, a president of a successful company participated in a motorcycle race in a foreign country, but he went into a turn too fast and was blown away from the centrifugal force.”
“That’s not what it’s for at all!? And why is the president of a corporation going himself!? Couldn’t he hire a professional driver instead!?”
“The company president had so much fun flying through the air, he decided his company would start building airplanes after that.”
“What happened to the bikes!?”
The drunken nobleman’s daughter turned a nostalgic face towards the ceiling, recalling even more tales as the distressed Prince was getting left behind. The monkey, who had been drinking with her, was already dead drunk, doing the jitterbug on top of the kotatsu as the Baron’s daughter continued crying “Cute, So cuuuuuuuute!” as he went.
“But really Mister Trask has to be the best!”
“There’s still more!? So this guy.......”
“He was a watch maker with a*****e that repaired medical equipment, and”
“And the story is strange from the very beginning! Rachel, how drunk are you right now?”
“He received a call from the nearby elementary school asking him to ‘fix their organ’.”
“Why is a watchmaker running a medical equipment store being asked to fix a musical instrument!?”
“There were no other craftsmen who could fix instruments in the region because this was the first organ imported to the area. So it was a, ‘You know how to handle delicate equipment right?’ sort of situation.”
“The people around this guy seem pretty weird in the head too. How many people who are like this are out there...........”
“After looking it over, he was able to understand the organ’s structure.”
“So he was able to fix it then?”
“Thinking that he could now build his own, he decided to become an organ carpenter on the weekends.”
“Is he an i***t!?”
“He started work with the assistance of his friend the jewelry store owner, and thanks to a few suggestions from the local fish monger, they were able to finish building their first organ after two months.”
“Why are they taking suggestions from a fish monger!? A watch maker, a jewelry shop owner, and a fish monger, there isn’t an expert among them!”
“Like I already said there aren’t any people in this region who knew anything about organs! But the fish monger had been taking lessons about how to use a shamisen.”
“Just because he was learning about a completely different instrument!? In other words, the other two didn’t know the first thing about music to start with!”
“That’s a good deduction Your Highness. So they were able to finish their first organ, but they quickly realized they had a problem.”
“What? It’s probably something stupid isn’t it.”
“As you’ll recall nobody in the region knew anything about organs, so nobody knew if the one they built sounded right.”
“How many times have I wondered this by now? Why didn’t they think of this while they were building it!?”
“Isn’t it because they were only thinking, ‘I want to try building this’ at the time? But so the two men put their heads together and had a thought. ‘Surely someone in the capitol will know’”
“It’s no good. Something smells here..........”
“And so the two men packed up the organ into a crate and carried it by resting poles they attached to the sides onto their shoulders. It took them seven to ten days to carry that organ all the way to the capitol over unpaved roads in their search for ‘somebody who understands music’.”
“Are these idiots going on a religious pilgrimage or something!?”
“They arrived at the capitol safely and started asking around. ‘Is there someone here who understands music?’”
“Running around without a plan.........”
“And yet they were successful in finding the perfect person? And that person asked them, ‘Are you aware of what a musical scale is?’”
“What are these guys doing.........it makes me want to cry just hearing about this.”
“And so, while one of the men went back to begin preparations on building another organ, the other man stayed in the capitol to learn the foundations of music from his new excellent teacher, and they would try again after two months! On their retry they managed to get a passing grade and successfully started a new business!”
“Hey, just because they’ve learned the basics of music doesn’t mean they can start building perfect organs without a blueprint right?”
“The people who live in this region really prefer to run before they walk.”
“They’re not really bad people, but every single one of these guys are just way too weird..........”
“You write it as ‘calmly odd people’, but it’s read as the people of Shizuoka.”²
George leaned over and whispered into Elliott’s ear.
“Your Highness, you’re going to look like an i***t if you respond to everything Sis is rambling off.”
“R-right. Indeed, there’s no way anything she’s saying is true.”
Rachel frowned and made a completely dissatisfied face as Elliott confusedly nodded his head and muttered aloud his thoughts.
“Well Your Highness, do you doubt me?”
“There’s no way anything this absurd has actually happened! You almost tricked me.”
“Well, then allow me to give Your Highness this book on their local history as a gift.”
“What kind of stuff are they putting in their history books!?”
“Your Highness. She’s just drunk, extremely drunk.”
Sykes furrowed his brow and gave a wary glance to the suspicious looking history book of a foreign region that Rachel was trying to pass along.
“Why were you reading this anyway? What were you trying to confirm?”
Rachel let slip a small, erotic giggle. She was completely drunk.
“Nfufufu, then I’ll let you in on my special little secret. I, want to enhance the education of the commoners for the sake of our country’s future.”
Elliott and George took a long, hard look at the book they had been given before sharing a look with Sykes.
“.............really though, I don’t think there’s anything educational about those stories you just told.”
“Rather, I think all those stories would do a lot more harm than good.”
“All of these guys sound like they’d be able to relate really well to you though Sis.”
Rachel ignored the negative commentary from the peanut gallery and made a grand declaration up to the ceiling.
“In the future, I will make this country full of people just as wonderful as those in Shizuoka!”
Elliott moved his gaze from the book Rachel had given him to the woman herself who was now stuck striking a pose with a dream-like expression on her face.
“You’re more than enough for this country as it is.”
- Writer
