Jigglypuff's Diary

“I am so stuffed, nyaa…” [Miya]

After dinner, the adults sat together in the dining room with satisfied looks on their faces.
It was a pleasant nostalgic experience for me, but the others were on a another level.
At some point, it seemed they had shed their mortal coils and transformed into machines with but one purpose–Eating.
They would shovel one spoon after another into their hungry maws and throw drinks straight down their throat before resuming their onslaught.
But then again, I was more or less the same way back in the Fatma territory when I was eating crabs, but do people in this world really forget how to talk once curry is served?
Well, in any case, I’m happy that they’re satisfied.
It makes it that much meaningful to have made it.

“This curry is the best! I could just eat it forever!” [Mizelia]

“The dessert was incredibly delicious too.” [Syria]

“That was so good.” [Wereanna]

For dessert, I had prepared ice cream with soy milk and ice magic.
The flavor was “vanilla,” what you could probably call the standard in my previous life.
The plant that vanilla beans come from is actually one of the materials you can forage in the Great Forest.

It requires a bit of processing before it can be used, but since I can get as much as I want by going to Cormi Village, I essentially have an unlimited supply.
If anything, keeping fresh milk constantly in stock is a much harder problem.

Since I didn’t have any stockpiled this time, I substituted with soy milk, but maybe I should look into getting some cows to keep alongside the clever chickens in my Dimension Home…

“A tongue and body set aflame by the spice of curry, only to be cooled by this refreshingly sweet desert. Ah, what an indescribable feeling of happiness this brings.” [Sebas]

While I was thinking about milk, Mr. Sebas started a food review as though in a trance.
To think I would receive such high praise from Mr. Sebas.
He once said that his hobby was touring different eateries, so to receive such praise from him means that I can be confident in my ice cream.
I’ll have to try making a milk version next time.

“By the way, I prepared some alcohol. Do you guys still want to drink?” [Ryouma]

I meant for it to be drank alongside the meal, but everyone was so engrossed in the curry that it fell by the wayside.
Should I just put it all away now?

“Do I still want to drink? Of course! A delicious meal, a delicious desert, and finally alcohol to finish it off?
Hmm~ I’m finally starting to realize how a noble can become so spoiled. I’ll have just a little.” [Wereanna]”

“I’ll have some too. I’ll leave which to you.” [Jeff]

Wereanna and Jeff were the first to say that, then the others joined in as well, and just like that we officially transitioned into the banquet phase.
However, since everyone was stuffed and still basking in the afterglow of the curry, the atmosphere was more geared toward a relaxed, light drinking rather than a wild session.

It didn’t seem like we’d need a large quantity, so I decided to serve everyone standard wine.
The goblins’ baijiu and sake tasted great, but they were unfamiliar beverages in these parts.
If the goal was heavy drinking, I figured it might be fun to have them try a variety of liquors, but given the current mood, sticking to something they were accustomed to drinking would be best.
I’ll keep the snacks on the lighter side as well…

“Well then, cheers!” [Ryouma]

“Cheers!” [Everyone]

Everyone began to enjoy the wine at their own pace, but the person who caught my eye was Ms. Eleonora, who sat directly across from me.
The moment she took a small sip from her glass, she froze stiff. Looking closer, I saw her staring down at her glass with wide eyes. She’d mentioned it had been a while since she last drank, so maybe it was too much for her?

“Ms. Eleonora, is everything alright?” [Ryouma]

“No, I was just a bit startled… Has wine always been this delicious?” [Eleonora]

Fortunately, the taste was to her liking.

“I’m glad you like it. I don’t know much about wine, so it’s just something I bought randomly a while ago.” [Ryouma]

“Randomly, you say? I think this is genuinely delicious. I can’t deny the possibility that I only feel this way because I haven’t had much experience with high-quality wine, but… it has very little astringency or harshness, making it incredibly easy to drink.

As I mentioned before, my family’s territory has a mine. There’s a high demand for alcohol among the mine workers, and massive quantities are imported from outside the territory, making it relatively cheap and easy to acquire. On the flip side, clean drinking water is hard to come by, so our default beverage was always wine… But as I thought, this is simply on another level compared to what we drank back home.” [Eleonora]

Now that I think about it, I’ve heard that even on Earth, there were regions and eras where people drank weak alcoholic beverages instead of water.
I suppose Ms. Eleonora’s hometown shared a similar culture.

“So that’s what you meant when you said you’ve had wine before.” [Ryouma]

“Initially, it was low-alcohol wine diluted with clean, magic-conjured water to stretch it out… but I think I was already drinking it by the time I was old enough to remember. As I grew up, they gradually increased the ratio of wine.

The first time I ever drank pure, unadulterated water was when I left my territory to enroll in the academy at the royal capital. Back then, before I got used to it, it felt completely bizarre for a beverage to not be wine.”

As she spoke, reminiscing about the past, I could feel the usual tense aura surrounding Ms. Eleonora soften just a little. That’s good. If she’s the sort of person who can bond over drinks, then I think we’ll get along very well indeed.

She genuinely seemed to love the wine, tilting her glass, savoring every sip. It didn’t take long for her glass to run completely dry.

“Would you care for another glass?” [Ryouma]

“Gladly.” [Eleonora]

“Well now, look at you put ’em away. How about some of this cheese to go with it?” [Wereanna]

“I’ll gladly accept that as well.” [Eleonora]

When Wereanna held out a plate of smoked cheese, Eleonora accepted it with a slight bow.

“I’m glad to see you hit it off with the adventurers.” [Ryouma]

“I’m glad about that too.” [Eleonora]

“Haha, well… to be honest, I did think she seemed a bit stiff at first.
But once we actually talked, it turned out that she wasn’t really the nagging sort.
And whenever she did say something, it felt like there was a proper reason or logic behind it.” [Mizelia]

“It’s not just Eleonora; the four nobles here are pretty decent, both as nobles and as people, nyaa. We’ve taken jobs for nobles several times before, and the awful ones are truly awful.” [Miya]

Oh, so things like that happen a lot after all… As I was thinking that, not only Miya, but Syria and Mizelia also showed their agreement.

“It’s not necessarily limited to nobles, but in my experience, I have the impression that many of them are tyrannical…” [Miya]

“Since our rank is fairly high and we’re an all-female party, it might be because our noble-related requests are often guarding their daughters.” [Syria]

“Emergency monster subjugation or herb gathering is one thing, but with guard duty, you inevitably end up spending a lot of time face-to-face. I don’t really want to do guard duty for nobles, either.” [Mizelia]

Everyone really has it rough, huh…

The nobles I’ve been involved with so far are those connected to the Duke’s family and Count Porco of the Fatma territory.
There’s also Knight Commander Lord Schieber and the former Court Mage Lady Remilie.
I already knew this, but I guess I’ve just been riding a streak of luck to have met only good people among the nobility.

“I can understand why you adventurers would find working for nobles unpleasant. Even from my perspective as a fellow noble, there is no shortage of those with terrible attitudes.” [Eleonora]

“Come to think of it, we talked about something like that before, Ms. Eleonora.” [Ryouma]

“Yes, my ex-husband was a textbook useless noble.
He used his parents’ money and power to play around day in and day out, and whenever something didn’t go his way, he’d take it out on the servants…
He was someone with such a shallow inner self that putting it into words only takes that much. His body was pointlessly thick, though.” [Eleonora]

“Pfft?!” [Everyone]

The room nearly burst into laughter in an instant.
I don’t think Ms. Eleonora intended it as a joke, but maybe because the atmosphere was a bit serious, it felt like a sneak attack, bringing out suppressed chuckles.
Silence filled the room, much like when a certain year-end TV program in Japan started.

“Y-You must’ve had a rough time with a husband like that. Here, have one on me.” [Weranna]

“I’ll gladly accept.
It’s true he was a bothersome and unpleasant person, but directly, it wasn’t all that bad… You see, our marriage was arranged entirely for the convenience of our families, and since my ex-husband had a mistress even before we married, I was given an annex on the estate and left completely ignored.” [Eleonora]

“Huh? …Noble marriages are about relations between families, right? Is it really okay to do that?” [Jeff]

“On that point, you are exactly right, Mr. Jeff. If it were a normal marriage, it would be a massive scandal.
However, my marriage to my ex-husband was a ‘ploy to control my family, which possessed a gold mine.’
I was simply being managed by the other family as a ‘hostage,’ so I was neither treated nor expected to act as a wife. Furthermore, the power dynamic was overwhelmingly against my family.
I never even once thought I wanted my ex-husband to like me, either, so a marriage in name only was exactly what I wanted.” [Eleonora]

Perhaps because of the alcohol, Ms. Eleonora stated this bluntly, without a care in the world.

“You had to marry someone despite hating them, so might as well just not deal with them? That sort of makes sense, nyaa.” [Miya]

“It definitely makes sense. But oh, is that why you joined the territorial army, Ms. Eleonora? I heard you led a unit.” [Ryouma]

“Yes. Even if I stayed at the estate, I was just shoved into the annex, and as a hostage, it seemed they couldn’t care less if I died… When a swarm of monsters appeared and they told me to go help out because they were short-handed, I used that as an opportunity to just stay in the territorial army.
Although, my assignment was a penal unit made up of those who had disturbed the discipline within the army.” [Eleonora]

“A penal unit?!” [Yurdum]

Mr. Yurdum looked dumbfounded upon hearing ‘penal unit.’ Lord Rosenberg was the same. Mr. Sebas seemed to have already known; his reaction wasn’t as large as the other two, but he silently frowned.

I could guess she wasn’t treated well, but as expected, it must be an unthinkable place to send a noble lady, especially one married to the lord’s son.

“No matter how unequal a political marriage it was, that’s a bit…” [Yurdum]

“The lord at the time, my former father-in-law, loathed the idea of me holding even a sliver of power. A penal unit is placed in a lower position than other units. Even as a captain, the authority you can wield is severely restricted, and in the military, the orders of a superior are absolute. You are aware of that as well, aren’t you, Lord Verdure?” [Eleonora]

“Even so… By its very nature, you can’t say the conduct of the members in a penal unit is good, and isn’t it a department given the most dangerous and grueling missions in the army? Throwing a woman married into the family in there would be terrible for their reputation, I’d think.” [Yurdum]

“My father-in-law was a creature who valued his own profit more than public reputation. Because I could be a decent fighting force using magic, it saved him some expenses. Moreover, he likely judged that it was more profitable to keep me in a moderately difficult situation, as it acted as pressure on my family and made it easier to siphon the profits from our gold mine.
Also, it seems there was a push from my ex-husband as well. That man had absolutely no talent for swords or magic, nor did he put in any effort. Despite that, he was intensely jealous of anyone stronger than him… He would constantly rant about how much he despised women who were stronger than him, in particular. It seems that was also the main reason he hated and avoided me.” [Eleonora]

“…I know it’s not really my place to say this about your ex-husband, but that guy is straight up trash.” [Mizelia]

“Indeed, Ms. Mizelia.” [Eleonora]

Everyone in that family was the kind of person who could throw away common sense and ethics as long as their pockets and egos were satisfied… She smiled as she said this, but her eyes were completely dead… Is this because of the alcohol? Or just sheer pent-up frustration?

“However, being able to join the territorial army was a stroke of luck for me. Even a penal unit had advantages unique to a penal unit.” [Eleonora]

“Interesting. Do you mind sharing more about that?” [Rosenberg]

When Lord Rosenberg asked, Ms. Eleonora moistened her lips with wine before continuing her story.

“First is the freedom of movement. I could use training and missions as an excuse to get out of that suffocating estate, and I was able to secure a certain amount of free time in between.
Second is financial freedom. In addition to their standard wages, it is customary to pay soldiers an allowance corresponding to the danger level of the mission. Payment methods vary by territory, but in the Rufred Barony, it was stipulated that ‘materials from subjugated monsters and bounties from bandits belong to the soldiers who participated in the subjugation.’
This hazard pay was no exception for the penal unit; in fact, since we were frequently drafted for highly dangerous missions, we had more opportunities to earn it. Thanks to that, I could cover the cost of some entertainment to a certain degree, like eating at restaurants in town or occasionally buying a book.” [Eleonora]

“Is that so… Finding some form of solace gives you the strength to overcome adversity. You were able to achieve that by joining the military, Lady Eleonora.” [Rosenberg]

Being forced into a situation where you can’t go out, have no entertainment, and have no money. And in exchange for escaping that, being given dangerous missions in the territorial army… I honestly admire Ms. Eleonora for fighting a lonely battle and continuing to resist, but objectively speaking, this goes way beyond domestic violence. It’s only natural that Mr. Yurdum and the others were dumbfounded.

“Sir Takebayashi, thank you, but there is no need for concern.” [Eleonora]

“Sorry, was it showing on my face?” [Ryouma]

“You were frowning rather hard.
My time in the Rufred Barony cannot be called a good memory.
However, it is a thing of the past.
Now, thanks to His Excellency Duke Jamil, my life was saved, and I’ve obtained true freedom and a new job. You could call it an unexpected stroke of luck.” [Eleonora]

She said that and nodded at her own words. Since I’d heard that in the worst-case scenario, she could have faced an execution route alongside her ex-husband, I suppose that’s true, but… has she really come to terms with it?

“Everyone has periods of hardship. Didn’t you also experience your share of hardships in the past, Sir Takebayashi?” [Eleonora]

“There was a time when my relationships with those around me weren’t exactly great, but I was never in so much danger that I got sent to a battlefield. At most, there were just people who came to kill me every now and then.” [Ryouma]

“Boss, that’s plenty crazy in its own right. What do you have to do to end up in that situation?” [Yurdum]

“I don’t know why either, but in the past, there were times when I’d get attacked out of nowhere—like a fortune teller on the side of the road suddenly screaming, ‘You’ll become a mass murderer in the future!’ and lunging at me with their crystal ball of all things. Maybe I was under some kind of curse that attracted those kinds of people.” [Ryouma]

That wouldn’t be possible on Earth, but I think I have enough experience getting dragged into unreasonable and weird incidents that if it were a curse, it would make total sense. But even I was never sent to a battlefield, so Ms. Eleonora definitely had it rougher.

“No, in my case, it was ultimately just a mission, a job. While I was treated coldly, it wasn’t as if they actively wanted me dead, so I believe you must have suffered more, Sir Takebayashi.” [Eleonora]

“No, no, Ms. Eleonora, you definitely had it worse—” [Ryouma]

“Sir Takebayashi, you—” [Eleonora]

As a bizarre modesty contest was about to break out, I suddenly noticed something.
At first glance, Ms. Eleonora had her usual calm expression, but her eyes were wavering slightly.
Her complexion hadn’t changed at all, but she was talking more than usual, and her tone and articulation were perfectly clear; however…

“Ms. Eleonora, by any chance, could you be drunk?” [Ryouma]

“Hm? Am I drunk, you ask? I feel a little flush, but that’s about it.” [Eleonora]

“I see… wait a second, how many glasses have you had?” [Ryouma]

“One glass for the toast, one from Sir Takebayashi, and another from Ms. Wereanna. Plus about two more while we were talking—oh?” [Eleonora]

As she counted the number of drinks she’d had, it seemed the alcohol really hit her. This time, her upper body swayed so visibly that anyone could see it.

“Hey, are you alright?” [Wereanna]

“Please excuse me, it seems I am indeed drunk. I feel a bit sleepy.” [Eleonora]

“I thought so. I’ll get you some water.” [Ryouma]

Five glasses of wine in such a short amount of time is actually quite a lot.
She might not be feeling sick, but she definitely needs to hydrate.

I hurriedly pulled out a large cup and poured cold water into it with a water spell, but… she leaned back against her chair, her back perfectly straight in a beautiful posture, and she closed her eyes.

“Ms. Eleonora?” [Ryouma]

“…” [Eleonora]

“Hello? No good, she’s asleep. Completely out.” [Wereanna]

“I see. In that case, let’s leave the water for when she wakes up… Could I ask you to take care of her, Ms. Wereanna?” [Ryouma]

“Just leave it to me. I’m used to looking after drunks.” [Wereanna]

Ms. Wereanna, as good-natured as she was, happily accepted my request and carried Ms. Eleonora off toward the women’s room.
To help her out, the other three drained their glasses and followed, bringing our banquet to a natural end.

…Thanks to this incident, I learned that Ms. Eleonora is the type whose drunkenness doesn’t easily show on the surface.
I’ll be sure pay her closer attention the next time we drink.