Water Magician

Vol 4. Chapter 724: Food Diplomacy

After spending the night, Skidbladnir departed Pishkan.

On its deck, the water-attribute magician was full of praise.

“As expected of Abel. Even I was shocked by your surprise move, the Karaage Shower!”

“A surprise move? Karaage shower?”

Ryo was praising him, but Abel, the one being praised, had no idea what he meant.

“The move you used yesterday, feeding the Strange Man huge amounts of karaage. I never imagined you would overwhelm him with a move like that.”

“R-right...”

“Though the Strange Man certainly was built like a mountain of muscle, so he did look like he would eat a lot of meat. And he really did look like he was enjoying it. Of course, I’m sure that was only possible because of Head Chef Kovac’s wonderful skill.”

Ryo nodded over and over as he praised him.

Apparently, he was impressed from the bottom of his heart.

“By ‘the Strange Man,’ you mean Mottzare, yes?”

“Yes. I heard he has the epithet ‘Strange Man.’ So I decided to call him that.”

“I see.”

Abel had not known that Mottzare had the epithet “Strange Man.”

He was curious about why, and when, Ryo had learned that, but...

“Abel, did you know moves like that existed? Did someone teach you in the past?”

“Moves like that?”

“Food diplomacy!”

“Food... diplomacy?”

Ryo answered, and Abel tilted his head.

Abel had not thought of using food for diplomacy.

Given that, his reaction was only natural.

“You use food for diplomacy?”

“Yes. That reaction means you invented that surprise move without even knowing about it. What terrifying genius...”

Ryo was astonished.

Abel still had his head tilted.

But Ryo’s words interested him.

“There is a method that uses food for diplomacy?”

“It was a form of diplomacy carried out at embassies in my homeland.”

“At embassies? You mean the ones I know, the embassies established in each nation’s capital?”

Abel tilted his head even farther.

“Those. There are embassies from all sorts of countries in the royal capital, aren’t there? And the Knightley Kingdom also has embassies in foreign capitals, right?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Most embassies have a head chef, don’t they? And in every embassy, that chef should be an extraordinarily skilled cook.”

“Now that you mention it, yes...”

Abel nodded as he searched his memory.

Back when he had been the second prince, he had visited several Central Countries as an envoy.

When he did, he had stayed at the Kingdom’s local embassies.

Now that Ryo mentioned it, the food at every embassy had indeed been good.

“They serve food to ambassadors from other countries and local ministers. Naturally, highly skilled people are dispatched for the job.”

“Dispatched? They don’t hire them locally?”

“In my homeland, they were chefs from the sending country. That is the heart of food diplomacy!”

To be honest, Abel had never paid attention to who was cooking the food at local embassies.

Even now... of course, he knew that detailed records existed for the servants, including cooks, at the Kingdom’s embassies in the Empire and the Federation.

He was fairly sure those cooks were people of the Kingdom.

But as for the Kingdom’s embassies in other countries...

How had that been handled?

“On foreign soil, you serve your country’s cuisine and have people eat it. Depending on the situation, you might even adapt it to local tastes and stage an expression of friendship.”

“I see. Food diplomacy...”

Abel began to understand what Ryo was trying to say.

A nation’s position, a performance of friendship, unfolded across the table.

The food served there was already part of diplomacy.

Naturally, the menu would reflect the ambassador’s intentions.

“Having that Strange Man eat karaage became part of diplomacy too, then. I did think of it as a diplomatic setting, certainly... but to be honest, I wasn’t thinking ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) about the food.”

“That is what makes you terrifying, Abel.”

Ryo nodded.

Yes, Ryo knew.

Abel did things naturally.

At the same time, he was also a kind of genius.

He understood it by instinct.

What needed to be done right then, in that place.

What would be most effective.

And he could act on it, or order it done, without hesitation.

“I always think this, but Abel, you’re unfair.”

“Why am I suddenly being subjected to an unreasonable accusation?”

“Everyone else studies, gains experience, and thinks as hard as they can to arrive at the right answer... but you just do things vaguely and casually and still arrive at the answer!”

“So I’m not unfair. I’m pitiful.”

Abel shrugged off Ryo’s denunciation.

“One day, someone may become envious of your genius and set some terrible scheme in motion.”

“A scheme?”

“Yes. Among human emotions, envy is the most troublesome and the ugliest.”

“Hmm.”

“Compared to envy, anger is far better.”

“Is it?”

“Anger can turn into frustration, and depending on the person, it can even drive their growth. You know, ‘Damn it, I’ll show them!’ That sort of thing. But envy does no such thing. It only drags others down. A person trapped by envy looks ugly even from the outside, and to the people around them, that person is nothing but harmful. Please be careful.”

“R-right. I’ll be careful.”

While the Premier Duke praised His Majesty the King and offered him frank counsel, Skidbladnir continued racing over the sea.

If all went according to schedule, they would apparently arrive at the Banban Kingdom by evening.

As usual, Abel sat on an ice chair at an ice table on deck, reading through documents.

After finishing his praise, Ryo peeked at those documents.

“Information on the Banban Kingdom?”

“Yes. Apparently it was gathered when Skidbladnir put into port there on the way from the Western Countries.”

“I see. ...Doesn’t it have quite a large population?”

“It says roughly three hundred thousand. Pishkan, which we left this morning, had a population of one hundred thousand, so about three times as many. That is a considerable difference.”

Abel nodded at Ryo’s observation.

A population three times larger was a major gap.

Pishkan and the Banban Kingdom were both island nations and maritime states.

Apparently, they had been locked in rivalry for a very long time.

But when two countries existed far away from any other nation, and the difference in population was that large... in most cases, the less populous country ended up in a position close to that of a vassal state under the more populous one.

At worst, it was annexed.

History had seen that pattern many times.

And yet these two countries were rivals.

“Pishkan must have worked incredibly hard.”

“Or the Banban Kingdom may be in a state where it cannot bring its power to bear as a nation.”

Ryo and Abel each put forward a possible situation.

“By ‘cannot bring its power to bear,’ do you mean it might be divided, or that its regions are fighting each other?”

“Yes. Compared to Pishkan, its population is three times as large, but its territory is also about three times the size. It apparently has three islands, each about the same size as Pishkan, and the nation’s politics are centered around them.”

“...The people on Skidbladnir have amazing investigative ability. They only made a brief port call, and they still gathered that much information?”

“They really do. I wonder if they were trained in that sort of thing in their homeland too.”

Abel agreed with Ryo’s observation.

Skidbladnir’s crew were citizens of the Principality of Gosron in the Western Countries.

The ship’s registry was with the Knightley Kingdom, but her mooring port was Gosron Harbor, and her maintenance and sailors were also registered as citizens of the Principality of Gosron.

The Principality of Gosron had never gone to war with its neighbor, the Republic of Mafalda, and had also produced many popes throughout its history. For that reason, it maintained friendly relations with both the Holy State camp and the republican camp.

Moreover, many citizens of the principality had apparently learned seamanship in the Republic of Mafalda, the greatest maritime nation in the Western Countries, and the principality produced many excellent crew members.

That was why the Franzoni Shipping Company, which had built Skidbladnir, had introduced them to citizens of Gosron.

But that they even possessed excellent information-gathering ability...

“Abel, your information may be stripped bare and leaked to the Western Countries!”

“My information? What would that be?”

“Information saying Abel is a battle maniac, a tyrannical master of plots and schemes, and a terrifying man with ambitions of world conquest.”

“Right. Impressive. Not a single thing in that information is correct.”

“Then let us leak that information! By spreading false information, we can confuse the other side!”

“The people of the Kingdom would probably be embarrassed, so rejected.”

Abel sighed as he dismissed Ryo’s proposal.

Yes, having information taken from them did not feel good, but being misunderstood because of false information did not feel good either.

No, in the first place...

“The crew of this ship are not enemies.”

“Of course. We sink or swim together, strange bedfellows sharing the same ship—if anything, they are allies.”

“That was a lot of expressions I don’t know, but yes, they are allies and comrades. Very capable ones, at that.”

“Yes. As crew members who operate the ship, I trust them one hundred percent. They simply also extract information...”

“It’s fine even if they do.”

“Huh? It is?”

“We only need to make the Principality of Gosron our ally.”

“Ah... I see...”

Indeed, the problem was only if information reached an enemy.

If it reached an ally, there was no issue.

In fact, it could even become a stronger force to keep that ally tied to their camp.

It could make them think, “Turning such a powerful existence into an enemy would be a disaster. We should remain allies.”

Something like that.

It was not a small, makeshift solution.

It was a political solution on the largest possible scale: drawing the other country in as a whole.

“As expected of Abel... what a grand-scale solution.”

“Is it?”

Ryo nodded in sincere admiration, while Abel looked a little embarrassed.

“Increasing allies instead of enemies... it’s wonderful from a broad strategic perspective too.”

“I’d rather avoid making enemies if I can.”

While Ryo and Abel were having that conversation, Skidbladnir sighted the Banban Kingdom.

At three in the afternoon, she put into Ichiban Port on Ichiban Island.