Chapter 109
Chapter 109. Don't Die, I Have Questions for You (1)
Bell, having naturally taken a seat at the dinner where all the executives had gathered.
Her goal was to bring Y&P down from the inside, but there was something she needed to do first. To firmly layer False Familiarity over every single person present.
For that, she needed to blend into this space as naturally as possible.
And yet……
The atmosphere here was remarkably casual.
"Brigitte has been learning a lot of difficult words lately. Now then, let's see what you can do, Miss Brigitte."
"Th, the price of rock salt flowing in from the north…… has, risen more than twice the usual amount……. Some, some quarters? Are raising sus, sus-pi-cions of col, colla?"
"You can read it as Collusion."
"Yes! Suspicions of collusion have been raised! Wow! I'm reading well, aren't I!"
"You're doing well, Miss Brigitte. One must be able to read the newspaper for one's eyes to open to the world."
"Thank you! Lord Keystone!"
Brigitte, having learned difficult words from Serena, reads the newspaper aloud, while Baron Keystone smiles at her with the warmth of a grandfather praising his grandchild.
"What's gotten into you, being so praiseworthy all of a sudden?"
"I, I'm always praiseworthy, you know?"
Even Penelope, who normally kept her mouth firmly shut, had the tension melted from her cheeks as she traded small talk with Serena. Even Branch Manager Belheim was leaning back comfortably, chatting with Baron Keystone.
"……"
A complete contrast to the Rosemore family's meetings, which carried the chill of thin ice. This was closer to a social gathering.
Truly pitiful. Without structure and discipline, an organisation crumbles. To think this was the enemy she'd been up against—had she been overestimating them all along?
"Right then, it's ready."
Jurgen, who had stepped into the kitchen, came out carrying a large pot. A cast-iron pot placed over the adventurer's heating plate at the centre of the table.
A broth with all manner of vegetables and mushrooms scored in a cross pattern bobbing about inside.
"This dish is called Shabu-shabu. It is a dish where thinly sliced meat is briefly blanched in boiling broth before eating."
Spotting the beef sliced paper-thin and stacked neatly on the side plate, Keystone was aghast.
"Good heavens, Jurgen…… you've gone and sliced up the sirloin I gave you like this?"
"Is there a problem?"
"Of course there's a problem! Oh dear, oh dear…… what a waste……. I was expecting your special steak!"
"Now now, it would be a shame to be disappointed without even tasting a single bite."
"Hmph……. What texture could there possibly be in meat this thin, what juices……"
Jurgen patted Baron Keystone on the back as he sulked in a most undignified manner for his age.
'Far closer than I expected.'
She'd had a rough sense of it when she'd pulled Jurgen out of the Financial Supervisory Service's custody, but they appeared considerably more personally close than that. Given that he was treating Baron Keystone, famous for being prickly, with such easy familiarity.
"How does one eat this?"
Bell naturally inserted herself into the conversation.
"Just a moment. I'll demonstrate myself."
The broth bubbled and simmered as the vegetables softened. Jurgen picked up a thin slice of meat with tongs and moved it back and forth, swoosh swoosh, through the broth.
Instantly, the beef turned an appetising shade of brown.
"Now you dip it lightly in this mustard sauce……. And eat it together with the vegetables."
"I'll enjoy it gratefully."
A piece of meat dropped thud into the bowl in front of Bell. Bell managed to keep her smile intact.
'I don't like beef.'
Beef has its own particular smell. There are those who call it the Meat Aroma, but Bell thoroughly disliked that smell that wafted up with every chewy bite.
She reminded herself of why she was here. Building maximum familiarity on the foundation of False Familiarity was her primary objective.
"It looks incredibly delicious."
Bell said words she didn't mean and popped the beef into her mouth.
And then.
"……!!!!"
She was astonished.
The tender elasticity of the meat. And yet, at the same time, a softness that seemed to melt away. Not the slightest trace of any unpleasant odour—the rich, savoury meat aroma melded with the salty umami of the broth. The sharp, stinging scent of the mustard that burst forth perfectly cut through any richness, delivering a clean finish.
A perfect flavour she had never experienced in her life.
"Try this as well."
Bell tried the vegetables that had been added to her plate.
"……Wow."
An exclamation escaped her before she knew it.
Crisp, crunchy Napa Cabbage. Chewy, springy mushrooms. And even some green vegetable she didn't know the name of, carrying a distinctive fragrance.
"Sluurrp!"
By the time she came to her senses, she had lifted the bowl itself and was slurping up the broth.
"Huh……"
Bell, having let out an exclamation that welled up from her very soul without meaning to, noticed that all eyes in the room had turned to her.
'I—I, what have I done……!'
Even she couldn't believe it herself. Bell was a maid, but she had received strict lessons from an etiquette instructor. No matter how delicious the broth was, to have become Clarisse's attendant and conduct herself in such an undignified manner!
"I, I'm so sorry. I was rude without realising……"
However.
"Huh, you end up like that too, don't you?"
"It's only natural. It would be your first time at a Y&P dinner, after all."
"Miss Mel, there's no need to be embarrassed. Everyone here was the same the first time."
Penelope, Serena, and even Baron Keystone. All of them were nodding with knowing smiles. Each of them as if to say, they'd all been exactly the same once.
"It warms my heart to see you enjoy it so. Do have some more."
Jurgen smiled a kind, generous smile and added more freshly cooked beef and a few more pieces of vegetables to her plate. Ladling a generous portion of piping hot broth over it all.
Under normal circumstances, she would have politely declined. Even if she was pretending to be a comrade, there was no need to make a spectacle of herself in front of the enemy.
But……
Gulp
Wasn't it simply too delicious? Was this the level that CCC's chicken was at as well?
"Then…… perhaps I'll have just a little more."
This too is part of valuable intelligence gathering. Bell rationalised it as such and reached for the remaining Shabu-shabu.
All the while, she didn't forget to keep her ears tuned to the conversation.
"Miss Penelope, you've shown considerable skill. Thanks to you, our sales figures have leapt up handsomely."
"Not at all. We would have run into trouble with our supplies ourselves if it weren't for Lord Keystone."
"Lord Keystone, can you manage when poultry supply volumes increase tenfold going forward?"
"My good man, don't you worry. I've had the chicken sheds greatly expanded this time around. We'll get at least ninety thousand birds per shed, no less."
Indeed, valuable information was flowing freely. Between this Shabu-shabu and all of this—a most pleasant harvest.
"I have an important announcement."
Just as the atmosphere was reaching its peak warmth, Jurgen called for everyone's attention.
"I have a proposal I wish to put forward regarding a new matter."
"A new matter? Out of the blue?"
"It concerns the raw materials that go into the Cola and chicken."
Y&P Trading Company's supply had up until now been handled by entering into supply contracts with nearby wholesalers.
"Of course, for meat, I intend to continue leaving that to Keystone Company as before. However, in order to prepare for the further growth in scale ahead, we will need to build our own independent lines for the other foodstuffs as well."
Bell read Jurgen's intention.
"Surely not……. A Pioneering venture?"
"Precisely."
The Labyrinth Demon Realm is so vast that its total area rivals the entirety of the North. Correspondingly, the routes that adventurers use are limited.
Routes marked with signposts, cleared of traps, with rest stops placed at intervals, and regularly maintained through monster subjugation.
These routes, for the most part, are not built for free. They are paths carved through the massive investment of adventurers' guilds, corporations, or noble families.
Conversely, the act of forging a new extraction route beyond the existing ones is called a 'Pioneering Venture.' When a pioneering effort succeeds, certain rights over the produce gathered through that route are recognised. In the form of a kind of toll, so to speak.
The reason the Rosemore family holds interests across Demon Realm produce broadly is also thanks to this Pioneering Venture.
"It doesn't seem like it would be easy."
"Does one really need to reach all the way into a Pioneering Venture?"
However, even Branch Manager Belheim and Baron Keystone, who trusted Jurgen, showed signs of displeasure.
"If the Pioneering Venture succeeds, we can reduce the current raw material unit cost by thirty percent."
"That may be true, but the number of interest groups that throw themselves into Pioneering Ventures every year runs into double figures. Only one or two of them manage to secure a new route, and even then, cases where it is operated well are rare."
A Pioneering Venture is a business of laying trade routes through a labyrinth where one never knows where monsters might spring out.
Not only must one hire a great many expensive specialists, but even building a single hut costs more than ten times what it would outside the Demon Realm.
In other words, it was a beast that devoured money. Belheim had seen far too many companies that had leapt into Pioneering Ventures dreaming of a rosy future, only to end up swallowing dust and going bankrupt.
"Moreover, the verification of the most efficient routes has already been completed over many years. To pioneer a new path would be to plunge into the reddest of Red Oceans."
As everyone nodded in agreement— Only Bell shot her hand up and called out.
"No! I think it's a wonderful idea!"
"You're supposed to talk him out of it, not fan the flames!"
Why on earth would she talk him out of it? This was a golden opportunity where the enemy was going to stumble and fall all on their own without her having to do a single thing!
"A Pioneering Venture is hard to get off the ground, but once you've secured it, it's a money-printing event, isn't it."
"Mel, this isn't something to take so lightly. What about the management side of things? You can't just build it and be done—you have to keep hiring people for maintenance and upkeep."
"For something like that, I can put my own strengths to use."
"Your strengths?"
"Yes, I am, as I appear, a Demon Realm Scholar and former adventurer, after all."
Bell had merely let slip a single offhand remark, and yet……
"Ah, that's right, wasn't it?"
"That's right! Miss Mel saved me back on the sixth floor of the Demon Realm!"
"Well…… if that's the case, then it might be worth attempting at least once."
Everyone accepted this as though they had belatedly recalled something they already knew.
This was the terrifying aspect of False Familiarity. Once caught in its trap, the target falls under an ever-deepening self-induced suggestion.
"We'll need to work out an estimate. I intend to go and assess the situation in person."
"When do you plan to leave?"
"Directly tomorrow. Which is why…… may I impose upon you?"
Without any further need on her part, Jurgen turned his gaze toward Bell and asked first.
"I'm glad there's something I can help with."
Bell smiled pleasantly.
***
The following day. Jurgen and Mel stood before the portal leading to the Labyrinth Demon Realm.
The schedule for this trip was four nights and five days. The objective was an on-site survey for pioneering a new supply chain.
There had been Penelope's sulking about whether she couldn't come along, but Penelope had too much to take care of here. And so the initial survey would proceed with just the two of them—Bell and Jurgen.
"There won't be anything particularly remarkable. It's not as though an estimate comes out in a single visit, after all. It'll likely differ greatly from the maps too…… there are many variables on the ground."
"That was something I hadn't thought of."
"You've prepared thoroughly, haven't you? It would be troublesome if Jurgen were to get hurt."
"Don't worry."
Soothing Jurgen, who was radiating an air of inexperience and was wound up tight, Bell inwardly exulted.
'How fortunate.'
To think things would fall into place this neatly. Four nights and five days, completely cut off from the outside world, a Demon Realm date for just the two of them.
Within that, countless options presented themselves.
She could continue to win Jurgen over and dissolve herself completely into Y&P Trading Company— Or she could stage an accident and remove him from the picture entirely.
Whatever it came to be.
It meant victory was right before her eyes.