What does “Barbarians” mean? It is a generic name for the tribes that inhabited the region located north of Balveil.
The tribes of the so called Barbarians didn’t tand united in their actions, fellow tribes frequently had territorial conflicts with each other, and they almost had no concept that can be called a nation.
As the aftereffects of those territorial conflicts, the Barbarians descended to Balveil with the intention to attack and take over Balveil’s territory for their own to live in. For the last ten years, Balveil was plagued by this.
However, recently Balveil had succeeded in negotiating a peace with some parts of Barbarians tribes.
「Yes, with the lessening of threat from the north, they could launch an invasion on the countries in the southern Arcadia without worry. In the previous war Balveil was fighting on two fronts, so the next war will be considerably severe for us.」(Zirconia)
「If they could gain total control of us, in the south is the Ocean. Without the need to be worried about their rear, they could turn their whole attention to the nearby continent..... I understand. We will maintain the number of personnel in border fortress construction at status quo. I will also work out a solution as quick as possible to allocate the needed personnel to construct another fortress. However, the city’s defense wall construction will cease completely and the people who worked in the construction would be turned to food production. Please inform this to the military officer, Zil. I will tell the civil officials.」(Nelson)
Hearing those words, Zirconia smiled sweetly.
「Thank you. We will not lose easily if there is a fortress. Please leave the rest to me.」(Zirconia)
After Zirconia said this, she bended at the waist and kissed Nelson.
Receiving Zil’s reply like this, Nelson made a wry smile in mild surprise.
「Good grief, I don’t know for what reason I am referred as Arcadian’s Shield. Rather shouldn’t it better for Zil to be called that?」(Nelson)
「What are you saying? I couldn’t handle domestic affairs, military affairs, and diplomacy at the same time. If only by military affairs, we wouldn’t be able to protect the country. That’s why that nickname suits Anata[6] more.」(Zirconia)
Zirconia said that and smiled once again to Nelson before saying see you later and left the room.
Nelson stared at the door that Zirconia passed when she left the room for awhile, took a deep breath for a moment to psyche himself, and began to write instructional documents for his subordinates.
✦✧✦✧
At the time Nelson and Zirconia were busy with their work, Kazura and Valetta were squatting down together in the residence’s garden. They were giving fertilizer to the peppermint seedling plant pots.
Nearby those two were paper bags of empty plant pots and herb seed bags that Kazura had purchased in Japan.
「Before it was dried, it already had a nice scent. It’s different from the herb tea that we drank yesterday, this is somehow cool and refreshing.」(Valetta)
While Valetta was putting fertilizer with gardening shovel in the peppermint plant pots her nose twitched from their unique scent.
「Even if they are not dried, they can already be used to make tea as is. The tea made from this is also delicious.」(Kazura)
For confirming if there was transformation on the fertilizer effect, he orchased 2 types of herbs. Only the peppermints received fertilizer, while the lemongrasses were left as they were.
With doing so, he could compare each growth to the other.
Kazura confirmed that Valetta had finished putting the fertilizer on the peppermint, and then he took out empty plant pots and herb seed bags from the paper bag.
「Now then, the next work is planting these seeds.」(Kazura)
「Ah, let me put the soil.」(Valetta)
Although for the growth condition experiment using only seedlings were sufficient, but since he had bought a lot of seeds, he decided to raise them all at the same time in this place.
There were different kinds of seeds; the ones that were raised in the pot would receive fertilizer, while the ones that were planted on the ground wouldn’t.
Assuming that if by any chance the seeds, which were planted in the ground, had massive growth, he had make some kind of flower bed with wood boards so they wouldn’t spread out excessively. The more he raised it the more he could harvest. So, if it had explosive growth, Kazura would feel happy, since if it was possible he wanted to share the harvest with the other villagers.