As soon as we arrived at the palace, a huge feast began.

　Many of the dishes prepared by the Swevi were meat dishes.
　Deer, pig, cow and goat.

　I'm not sure if you can call them all roasted whole, but they were made with a very simple method of cooking, salting and grilling, so they were not bad.

　There wasn't much in the way of vegetables, but the nuts and mushrooms were quite good.

　Personally, the best thing I enjoyed was the sausage.
　Sausage is a kind of preserved food with meat stuffed into the intestines of a pig, which I don't need to explain.

　It is by no means absent from the Adelnian peninsula, but its production is not very active.
　Both Adelnians and Cilician people prefer fish, vegetables and fruits to meat.

　They are not too keen on preserving meat, as wheat is sufficient for winter food.
　But nowadays they don't need to preserve meat anymore because of the rotation of crops that I spread.

　Now that I can raise livestock during the winter months, there is always fresh meat available.
　It is no longer necessary to pack the meat in the path of dung.

　In the near future, the sausage making process may be lost from the Adelian peninsula.

　Germanis, on the other hand, is different from the Adelian peninsula.
　The soil of the Adelian peninsula is limestone, which is not as rich as the soil of the Germanic region, which is as thin as the soil of the Germanic region.

　Moreover, it is colder than the Adelunian Peninsula.

　The agricultural technology seems to be poor as well, as I can see from the fact that there are not so many large fields in the Swevi settlements.

　Of course, they probably produce less wheat and barley.
　And the Germanis do not eat fish.

　As a result, their staple food seems to be heavily weighted toward meat, and they have developed technology to preserve that staple food.

　When it comes to making sausages, they are probably better than the Adelnians.
　Barbaric, I say barbaric, but where they are superior, they are superior.

　That's not to say that all of the food was without problems, however.
　There was one dish, or rather beverage, that showed up that was fatally problematic.

　........beer.

　Well, I've been drinking beer normally in Japan, and beer with sausages was very good, so I had no complaints at all, but....

　In Adelunia and Cilicia, barley was the food for livestock.
　Naturally, beer made from cattle feed is the drink of the cattle.

　As a punishment for disrupting military discipline, the meal is made of barley bread.
　The Adelnians have such a strong abhorrence of barley that the punishment of "I'm not a barley man" is quite effective as a punishment.

　There was no way Ron and his friends could drink beer with a smile on their faces.

　Nevertheless, they were originally aware that the Germanis liked to drink beer, and they had told everyone about it.

　Ron and the others knew that they didn't take offense at all, so they took a sip or so as a social gesture, so it didn't turn sour.

　Me, who originally drank beer in a previous life and therefore had no sense of abhorrence, and Alice and Leah, who are from Germanis and originally liked beer. In fact, Rosward, who had been drinking beer with Leah on a regular basis, and the four of us drank beer together, so the Swevi people seemed to understand that it was just a matter of liking or disliking the beer.

　''Heeka~ Where is my kokki~?

　Alice said this while she was dizzy from drinking too much beer.
　Germanis, it would be easy to say in one word, but Germanis is large enough to contain several peninsulas of Adelunia, and it is also covered with forests and wetlands.

　It's no mean feat to find a home.

　Well, I didn't come here to find Alice's home this time.

　Do you want to go home?

　I asked, "What do you mean?" and Alice, conversely, shook her head widely.

　It's not a good idea, because those people treat people like an idiot. In fact, I was sold out. Father?　and my mother killed herself...

　To sum up what Alice of Goodengden is saying, I never want to leave because it's awkward.
　In fact, she said, she'd rather not run into him.

　'So you'd rather not have come?'
　'Hmmm, geruma ni shuki wa shuki - I wanted to come here, didn't I?　Oh, it's Hegakimoshiki~

　Saying that, Alice gulped and knocked her body over to me.
　It looks like she's completely drunk.

　After putting the drunken Alice to bed in the place that was addressed as her bedroom, I joined the party again.
　I can't keep drinking.

　'Thank you, Lord Almus, for the many souvenirs. The sugar and spices are especially appreciated by all.

　Adalbero sprinkled some pepper on his meat and thanked me with a good mood as he bit into it.
　For Germanic peoples with no local products and limited means of earning foreign currency, pepper and other spices and sugar are very rare and precious commodities.

　Silk is also wonderful. My wife will be pleased.'
　'Don't worry about it. It's a sign of friendship.

　I poured the beer into Adalbero's wooden cup.
　Adalbero poured it down his throat in one go.

　'But there was one strange thing. What's this?'

　Saying that, Adalbero took out a jute bag.
　Inside were many small black grains.

　'That's the source of the barley tea. ........It's roasted barley. You put it in hot water and you get a nice drink that is different from beer. I just wanted to share it with the Swevi people.

　A long time ago, they tried to promote barley tea in Adelunia, but again, no matter how much they roasted it, it didn't catch on at all because livestock food is food.
　The Germanic peoples, who were beer lovers and had no resistance to barley, had no problem with it.

　At first he thought that the Germanic peoples would be able to trade in barley tea... but when he thought about it calmly, he realized that it was just roasted barley.
　It's obvious that the story will be exposed in a year, and you won't make much money from it.

　If that was the case, it would have been better to teach them from the beginning and establish a friendship.

　''Barley tea........huh? How is it different from beer?''
　Beer contains alcohol a poisonous substance that makes it unfit for babies, children, and the sober ones to drink. But barley tea contains no alcohol, so even babies can drink it. It's also good for when you can't drink alcohol, like before a hunt.

　Like the Adelunian Peninsula, the water in the Germanic region is hard water and not very good.
　It would be a plus for the Swevi people to have a decent drink other than beer.

　''I see. That's great. That's a very good lesson. I thank you.'

　With that, Adalbero pours the beer into my cup.
　I gulp it down in one go.

　Hmmm, something good.

　When it comes to diplomacy, I've always done nothing but gut-checking with a knife in one hand.
　But I don't feel that kind of thing with Adalbero.

　Their friendly demeanor has none of the constant smoke and mirrors of Pofenia's Azul Hanno, nor does it have the wickedness of Merlin.
　They don't threaten with force like Emperor Xerxes, nor do they care about their faces like Fardham or Gilbed.
　It's not like a certain Puddin' girl who has an ulterior motive.

　And he doesn't use sophistry like Ial does.　
　No, I don't mean to accuse Ial of anything.

　There is no true friendship between countries.
　That's something I've kept in mind, and Adalbero is acting in his family's best interest.

　However, I felt that his desire to get along was the only thing that was not false.






　The next day, after the banquet was over, I left Alice groaning cooing with a hangover and I had a meeting with Adalbero alone, leaving only Rosward as my interpreter.

　'It's not like the banquet,' he said, 'it's about politics.

　'Given the distance between us, it would be difficult for both sides to take military action,'
　''Mm. Well, but the important thing is to show the Kingdom of Roselle that we are close friends. At this point, I suppose the existence of specific cooperation is not so important.

　To begin with, the Swevi territory and Romalia are far apart from each other.
　Both sides would be limited to exchanging information.

　''If we see any movement of the Roselle Kingdom's military action, both sides will immediately inform us by hawk mail. ''The extent is the limit.''
　'But that's big enough for us. We don't know the movements of Roselle's army in the south. Romalia, on the other hand, can't understand the movements of Roselle's army in the north. It would be great to be able to understand this.''

　It would be a good idea to start by exchanging information with each other.
　Eventually, if one side has a move to take military action against Roselle, the other side will take the lead.

　Ideally, they should be able to work together to the same degree.

　Now, the conversation is gradually moving from military cooperation to trade.

　We Swevi are poor. As far as I'm concerned, we don't have much in the way of trade goods. As far as I can tell, we are poor, and we have no trade goods as far as trade goods go. To be frank, I don't think there's anything Romalia would want.
　'Is there some demand for furs, let alone wood?　But we want more.
　What's that?

　Adalbero leaned forward.
　I opened the illustrated book Nikolaos had lent me and showed Adalbero.

　'The queen spider - or, if you want to be more precise, the page on army spiders.

　'I have heard that this spider lives in Germanis. Actually, I would like this spider alive. Is it possible?

　Then Adalbero frowned.

　'It is difficult to capture a queen spider once it has built a web. However, it is easy to catch single individuals, eggs and larvae that have not yet built a nest.''

　I see. Well, it's indeed difficult to take a big one in its entirety, and it's probably easier to take a larval body or something.

　It depends on the size and s*x of the individual, but the queen spider alone can produce ten tarrant.

　The first thing we need to do is research for domestication.
　It will be somewhat smoother because of Alice, but it will take a certain number of them to achieve full breeding and breeding.

　Considering that the national budget for Romalia is 5,000 tarangs, you can see the enormity of this initial investment.
　However, it is a project that will surely generate great wealth in the future.

　An initial investment of this size is necessary.

　That's it?　Mm, okay. We'll talk to the other tribes and bring you a spider. But what are these spiders for?'
　I'm trying to get at the fibers.
　"...we tried to do that a long time ago, but it didn't work. Well, I'm not gonna stop you.

　Apparently, Adalbero and his team have tried this before.
　I'll ask them about it later.

　Speaking of which, there's a military spider queen building a web about a week from here. Then we might still be able to catch them. Originally, I was going to attack and kill her before she could increase her numbers, but.......what do you think?
　I would love to have that.
　"All right. We'll leave in three days.

　The Adalberos were very cooperative.

　I learned later that the Swevi tribe's monetary income is about 100 tarrant a year.
　It's natural for them to be so cooperative.