Yuri Empire

Recently, some strange people have been coming to the city of Ulysses.

For example, six days ago, five assassins from the Volmisian Empire invaded the city of Ulysses from the city of the Principality, using the【Transfer Gate】.

The city of Ulysses is monitored by the magic【Spatial Grasp】, and if anyone with a criminal record enters the city, their presence is immediately notified to Yuri, the caster.

So, with Yuri’s instructions, the assassins were naturally immediately captured by the children of the Yuri Empire.

All of them were Volmisian nationals, but they did not belong to the military, but were apparently a small group of people who were paid to do assassination work.

If they sent assassins belonging to the military, it could be considered as a kind of offensive action that could be enough reason to start a war. But it would be too much to ask the other country to take responsibility for the visit of a group of civilian assassins.

The assassins were two men and three women, so the men were turned into food for the <Kuroyuri> children, and the women were taken to Yuritania and imprisoned under the city.

Once their training by <Kuroyuri> girls is complete, they can be made to give up all the information they have and can be used as pawns.

I don’t know what the purpose of the invasion of Ulysses was, but I’m sure that will be revealed in the near future.

The fact that the human resources are coming from the other side is something that Yuri should welcome.

Also, yesterday, a group of merchants from the duchy came to Ulysses via the trade route in an eight-horse carriage and applied to settle in Ulysses.

Since Ulysses is quite bustling these days, it’s not that unusual for merchants to migrate with their entire merchant associations to run their stores.

We are always accepting immigrants to Ulysses, so this is basically a welcome situation. This group of merchants had over thirty ‘slaves’ with them.

According to the laws of the Yuri Empire, it is clearly forbidden for ordinary citizens to enslave others. It is also illegal for people of other nationalities to bring slaves into the country, and basically, the slaves will be confiscated upon discovery.

These merchants are considered to have become citizens once they have completed the immigration procedures to Ulysses, and are captured as criminals. The merchants were all deported, and the slaves were given housing in the city and two months of living expenses and welcomed as citizens of Ulysses.

The slaves seemed to have been overworked, and all of them had many fresh wounds, and many of them had been severely injured as an example.

Perhaps the merchants had learned that there would never be any deaths in Ulysses, which is protected by a 【Life-Saving Ward】, except for those with a long life expectancy, and they wanted to move here because they thought they could use their slaves more severely in this city.

After their injuries were completely healed by the hands of the <Water Lily>, the slaves showed their deep gratitude to the Yuri Empire, and I’m sure they’ll become good citizens from now on.

The population is coming from the other side, which is something Yuri should welcome.

―――I think we’ve basically been able to deal with the situation promptly.

If good rumors about Ulises spread, it was to be expected that some bad people would come to take advantage of the city’s rapid development.

In the future, I will continue to deal with the matter in private, while doing what I can to benefit the country.

“My Lord, Meteora of <Kikyou> has requested that we decide on a name for the Mining City.”

“Oh, yes, of course…”

Yuri was troubled by the words of Murasaki of the <Red Plum>, tonight’s “love duty”, as she made her a cup of tea in her office.

The children of <Kikyou> want the city they built to be named after Yuri. So, just like Yuritania and Ulysses, the Mining City must also have a name that begins with the word “Yuri”… 

The truth is that Yuri is not very good at thinking of names.

And it’s even more difficult to decide on a name when it’s limited to names that begin with “Yuri”.

“Hmmm, yes… Eurika… no, I’m thinking of naming the city “Eureka”.”

“I think that’s a very good name.”

Murasaki responded immediately to Yuri’s words.

Eureka is an exclamation derived from the Greek word『Eureka』, meaning “I have found it”. It is probably best known for the episode in which Archimedes is said to have shouted it in his bathroom when he came up with a way to measure volume.

In a sense, it is a very appropriate name for a city inhabited by those who dive into the mines to search for rare mineral resources. I hope that they will not be afraid of demons, but will boldly challenge them and shout ‘I found it, Eureka!’.

“The name of the new city will be Eureka, I guess. What kind of ore can be mined in the mines of Eureka?”

“I’ve heard that you can find pretty much anything…”

Murasaki asked, to which Yuri responded with a half-hearted smile.

It seems that both Kanayama-Hiko and Kanayama-Hime are free to add anything to Eureka’s mine, most mineral resources if they want to.

At present, in addition to copper, iron, and silver, gold, platinum, zinc, tin, chromium, nickel, bauxite, and coal can also be extracted.

“Hmmm… But I’m sure Cuna will be pleased.”

“Yes. Oh, yeah, she’d be over the moon about that.”

As the second-in-command of the <Rindou> and a member of the top blacksmithing class, <God Hammer>, she was overjoyed to learn that the mines of Eureka yielded more ore than she expected.

Even though the mining city hadn’t even started operating yet, she had already visited the mines, mined a number of ores, and had even made ‘stainless steel’ that day.

Well, stainless steel is an alloy that can be used in many ways, so the country is thankful for it.

“At any rate, now that the Mining City is done, <Kikyou> can begin building the next Divine City.”

“Come to think of it, have you done with the ‘sanctification’ of the planned city?”

“To be honest, it’s been a bit of a challenge since the city is supposed to be quite large. 60% of the work is already done, but you can expect it to take until the end of the month or so.”

Murasaki responded to Yuri’s question.

The first step in the construction of the next Divine City, the ‘Sanctification’ of the planned city site, is being carried out by the children of <Red Plum>, to which Murasaki belongs.

“At the end of this month, I understand. So the plan to create a hot spring city where the eight million gods reside has begun.

Oh, and by the way, did the hot springs come out okay?”

“Yes, I heard that they had already dug it up on the first day of the survey.

There was not even a minute’s error from the point where Kanayama-Hiko-dono told them that if they dug here, they would probably find it, so they were able to minimize the cost of digging.”

“That’s wonderful. I’ll thank Kanayama-Hiko later.”

It seems that Kanayama-Hiko was telling the truth when he said that he had little insight into the affairs of the earth.

However, the word ‘little’ seems to contain a great deal of humility.

“… By the way, can we use the hot spring already?”

There are baths in the palace in Yuritania, but if it’s a hot spring, I’ll be interested.

But when Yuri asked, Murasaki shook her head.

“Unfortunately, it’s too hot to take a bath in it. The water is said to be over 90 degrees Celsius at its source. It needs to be cooled down to a suitable temperature for bathing, so I think it would be wise to wait until <Kikyou> has built a bathhouse.”

“Is that so… It’s a shame, but I’ll just have to hope for the best.”

“I think that would be a good idea. Also, going back to what I said earlier, we are consuming a large amount of Omiki (sacred wine) and millet straw in the process of transforming the proposed site of the “Divine City” into a “Divine Realm”. By the time the work is completed, we expect to have consumed nearly 80% of our stockpile. Please be aware of this.”

“Eighty percent… That’s quite a painful amount. Maybe it’s time to start thinking seriously about growing rice and millet in our world.”

Millet and rice, which is the material for the Omiki (sacred wine), are grains that we have never seen before in this world.

If our stockpile is reduced to 20%, we will have to think about growing them to replenish our stockpile. 『Leangard』is a world where the year is 365 days a year, so trying to grow rice from that world in our world, where the year is only 160 days a year, will probably not go well.

In some cases, it may be necessary to use the magic of <Weather Manipulation> to operate paddy fields and other facilities while sequentially manipulating the seasonal environment as if the year were 365 days long.

It may be a burden on the children of the <Red Rose>, who are the users of <Weather Manipulation>, but rice is an essential part of our diet, and we will need to grow it in our world sooner or later anyway.

“My Lord, I think the problem can be solved by welcoming Ogetsuhime.”

“What? Oh… there is such a god, isn’t there?”

Ogetsuhime is a goddess from Japanese mythology whose name means “Great Goddess of Food”.

In the game『Atros Online』, she was a very high-ranking goddess and had the ability to produce the five grains at will: rice, wheat, millet, soybeans, and azuki beans.

So, indeed, if we summoned Ogetsuhime to this world, we would have plenty of rice and millet without having to go to the trouble of cultivating paddy fields and fields.

In addition to the five grains, Ogetsuhime is also the goddess of sericulture, so having her in the land would greatly improve the efficiency of the cultivation of the five grains and sericulture in the area.

It might be interesting to make use of these advantages to turn the “Divine City” into a city of agriculture and sericulture.