Chapter 4: Pact (part 2)

They were apparently from a

stratum that would have been the surface more than a few thousand years ago."

"What are these... 'fossils'?" Jeanne asked.

Oh, that's not common knowledge in this world yet? I thought.

"To put it simply, they're bones left in the earth by living creatures that have

died," I said. "There are a lot of things that have an effect on the process, but the

bones fossilize underground over a long, long period of time. However, even if the

bones have only been underground for a few thousand years, they can still be called

fossils."

"I see... So does that mean there may have been monsters on the surface several

thousand years ago?" Jeanne had a pensive look.

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."

When I'd first seen Kaede at the singing cafe, Lorelei, in Parnam, I hadn't been

able to tell the difference between her race, mystic foxes, and Tomoe's mystic

wolves.

At the time, I'd asked, "They're both canines, so can't we just lump them both

together as mystic dogs?"

When I'd said that, Liscia had retorted, "If you say that, you'll get both the mystic

wolves and the mystic foxes angry. Kobolds are mystic dogs, so it would be like

lumping humans together with apes," and warned me against doing it.

At the time, I had just accepted that was how it was, but when I'd thought about it

a little more, what was the difference between mystic wolves or foxes and kobolds?

"Can you tell the difference between mystic wolves or foxes and kobolds?" I

asked.

"Of course I can," said Jeanne. "Mystic wolves and foxes have ears and tails, but

their faces and bodies aren't markedly different from humans. Kobolds, on the other

hand, have dog faces."

"But there are beastmen with animal faces, right?" I asked.

To give an example from my own side, our General of the Army, Georg Carmine

was one. If that lion man showed up in Japan, everyone would think he was some

kind of demon.

When I pointed that out, Jeanne crossed her arms and groaned. "When you say it

like that... it makes sense. Hrm... Oh, I know. Kobolds are covered in fur. In other

words, while beastmen have some animal features, perhaps kobolds are just dogs

walking on two feet like a human?"

"In that case, how would you tell apart demons with no hair, or short hair?" I

asked. "By that reasoning, wouldn't beastman be like the orcs and minotaurs, who

have bodies like a muscle-bound human?"

"Murgh..." Jeanne said.

When I shot down her argument, Jeanne thought on it for some time, then said, "I

give up," raising her hands in surrender. "I've never thought deeply about the

difference between humans and demons before. When you pointed it out, for the

first time, I realized I was distinguishing people from demons purely by instinct."

"You're right..." Liscia murmured. "Now that we're being asked to, I can't find a

single defining difference."

"I wonder why we never noticed before now..." Hakuya murmured.

They both nodded repeatedly.

This was probably the common understanding of most people in this world.

Turning that around, it meant the people of this world could instinctively tell people

and demons apart.

To explain from a Japanese perspective, even among those who love clams in

their miso soup, many are probably disgusted even just looking at land mollusks like

slugs.

Also, people who will react with shock to videos of aboriginals from Australia

eating insect larvae from inside trees are perfectly fine with eating shrimp (raw, at

that), which look the same once they're peeled.

It's natural for the environment we're raised in and our customs to have an effect

on the way we understand things.

Perhaps this world's understanding of demons was something like that?

"In my world, humans are the only race of people," I said. "I lived in a world with

no elves, beastmen, dragonewts, or demons, so I don't have a sense that lets me

distinguish between them. To my eyes, demons look like just another race of

mankind."

"S-Sire!" Aisha burst out from her place standing by the door. "...Do you hate us

dark elves, perhaps?" She looked at me like an abandoned puppy

I grinned back at her. "Not at all. A dark-skinned elf is just plain adorable. Of

course, the same goes for an orthodox human beauty, too."

The first was meant for Aisha, while the second was directed at Liscia.

When they heard me, Aisha cried, "Truly, do you mean it?!" her face bursting with

glee, while Liscia said "Yeah, yeah, thanks," curtly, but with a smile on her lips that

showed she didn't mind the compliment.

Jeanne watched the two of them with a wry smile. "I can see how loved you are."

"They're a better bodyguard and fiancee than I could possibly deserve," I said.

"Well, that's lovely... Whew." Jeanne slumped back in her chair. "I'm glad you kept

this between us. If you had said all that without clearing the room, I might have had

to slay my country's bureaucrats."

Slay them?! Isn't that a little violent, out of nowhere?!

"I-Is it really something you'd need to go that far over?" I stammered.

"It is," said Jeanne. "If the way you were talking had spread, it wouldn't just

worsen people's opinion of you. It could have caused war across the continent. Isn't

that right, Sir Hakuya?"

"You are entirely correct," said Hakuya. "I wish I could have taught him that

sooner." Hakuya looked at me with reproach.

Huh, is he mad at me? I thought, surprised.

"You need to understand this, sire," said Hakuya. "If what you said about 'It's hard

to distinguish demons from beastmen' spreads, it would give a human supremacist

country like the Principality of Amidonia, or the high elves of the Spirit Kingdom of

Garlan, who think they're the chosen people, perfect material to use to attack their

enemies. Beastmen and dragonewts would be expelled as demons, or accused of

potentially conspiring with the enemy, and be subjected to undue persecution."

The Garlan Spirit Kingdom was an island nation northwest of the continent, I

recalled.