Neighborhood Visitor (2)

Make round rice balls with plain rice.

In a round bowl, mix rice with salt and sesame oil.

When making rice balls, the salt seasoning is very important. It needs to be slightly salty.

Inside the rice balls, put the summoned tuna and mayonnaise. Shape the rice nicely after forming it and put the tuna and mayonnaise inside.

Then shape it with seaweed to complete the delicious-looking rice balls.

Rice balls in prison.

Feels like a picnic?

I handed the round rice balls to Rurin. She had been watching me quietly, and now drool was dripping from her mouth.

“Are you hungry?”

When I asked, Rurin shook her head vigorously. Her long hair flew in all directions because of how strongly she shook her head. As a result, her hair hit her face, and she started spitting it out from her mouth.

There’s only one thing I want to say.

“What are you doing?”

Then she shook her head again. She clenched her fists with both hands and raised her arms, shouting loudly.

“No! It’s not just hunger! I’m suuuuuper hungry!”

Yeah, I could tell since you were drooling.

Did you shake your head that much to emphasize it?

“Alright, alright. Here you go.”

I handed her the rice ball, and she immediately started eating. Seeing the tuna and mayonnaise inside the plain rice must have piqued her curiosity, so Rurin put the whole rice ball in her mouth.

“Nom nom nom!”

She mumbled something unintelligible. The rice ball was quite large, so it’s no wonder she mumbled with it in her mouth.

Oh dear.

Munch munch.

But she quickly started chewing the large rice ball she put in her mouth.

Very deliciously.

Her expression looked blissful. Was she that hungry? It’s not like I starved her.

Using her face as a side dish, I took a bite of the rice ball too.

As expected.

The right amount of salt in the rice and the tuna and mayonnaise inside make a perfect combination. It’s no wonder tuna mayonnaise is one of the best-selling flavors of triangular kimbap. This combination is very delicious, especially when made by hand.

As proof, some rice was stuck to Rurin’s lips. It showed how eagerly she was eating.

“Give me more!”

She had finished eating and stuck her hand out. So I gave her another rice ball, and she leaned her back against my chest.

“Hehehe.”

She giggled brightly and then put the whole rice ball in her mouth again.

“Hey, eat it in bites. There’s no rule that says you have to eat it all in one bite.”

“Mmmm!”

What is she saying?

I gave up. She’s tough in her own way, so I let her eat as she wanted and continued my meal. Although, Rurin’s head resting under my chin was a bit distracting.

So I patted her head, and she looked up at me with rice still stuck to her face.

Her cheeks were puffed up as she chewed on the rice ball she put in her mouth.

As we ate, I felt the intense stares of the thugs.

“What are you looking at?”

They looked like thugs. Some might not be, but I lumped them all together as thugs.

“We, we also…!”

They must be asking for food too.

But I immediately used electric magic. I warned them earlier not to open their mouths, but they had the nerve to do so.

They are scum who don’t deserve mercy.

Thugs, robbers, rapists, arsonists, murderers.

Those are the kinds of criminals in front of me.

Moreover, they said unforgivable things about Rurin.

That alone makes me want to kill them a hundred times over. The only reason they’re still alive is because I need information from them.

“Nooooo!”

Yeah, right.

I want to tell them this is their own doing.

Rurin had finished eating the rice balls and was dozing off. She had no interest in the thugs. She seemed more interested in the dust gathered in corners. At least dust can be brushed off.

She treated the thugs as if they didn’t exist.

It was amazing how she could sleep even with the thugs screaming. Well, in a way, it’s understandable.

Even regular people are susceptible to post-lunch drowsiness. Moreover, Rurin is particularly affected by it.

She kept bumping her head against my chest.

Her head drooped forward and then back.

“Goro… roro… rong.”

Her breathing tickled my ear. I debated whether to wake her up or not and decided to remove the rice stuck to her lips and eat it myself.

As I chewed on the salty rice, I looked back at the thugs.

The effect of shocking them with electric magic again seemed to work. When our eyes met, they quickly lowered their heads. It looked like the lesson was finally sinking in.

I carefully laid Rurin down.

Then I stood up to approach the thugs. They had started to fear me, so it was time to extract information.

“Mmmph.”

But as soon as I moved away, Rurin rubbed her eyes and got up. She slumped over my back, wrapping her arms around my neck. If I moved forward, she would be dragged along. I didn’t know what kind of instinct this was.

“Where are you going…!”

At this point, I doubted if she was really asleep.

I dragged Rurin along to the thugs. Seeing this, the thugs twitched their facial muscles, trying to suppress their laughter.

They still hadn’t learned their lesson, so I lightly used electric magic again. Sparks flew from my hands, and seeing this, they snapped to attention and clamped their mouths shut.

“From now on, only answer my questions. If you don’t, you’ll be shocked by electric magic until you die.”

The thugs, eyes wide at the sparks flying from my hands, began nodding vigorously.

So I pointed to the one who looked the most scared. The other thugs turned their gazes toward their comrade.

“I’ll tell you anything. Anything!”

He looked desperate to live, so I smiled at him.

How kind.

“Just answer one thing. Tell me everything you know about that guy Rieden or whatever you were talking about earlier.”

“Th-that is!”

At the mention of Rieden, fear flashed across the man’s face.

Fear from just the name.

What kind of guy is he?

My curiosity grew stronger. But hesitation is a sin.

“Aaah!”

When I used magic on the thugs on either side of him, they began to speak, succumbing to the immediate fear rather than the distant one.

“I-I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you! Rieden is…”

The thug continued.

In conclusion, Rieden is a bad guy.

In other words, he’s the mastermind. The root cause of Dedran City’s current state.

It seems Rieden was behind all sorts of shady dealings for the Count of Dedran. It looks like he’s planning to take over Dedran City while associating with notorious organizations like the southern Empire’s assassin guilds and slave traders.

The head of a criminal organization.

I don’t know how such a person plans to take over Dedran City, but it doesn’t matter if I don’t know.

Rieden seems to be planning something, with all the nobles arrested and the new magistrates unable to do their jobs properly. But whatever his plan is, I can just crush it in advance.

A swift and decisive blow.

That’s such a resonant word for times like this.

His main business is usury. Behind the scenes, it’s human trafficking, slave trading, and even assassinations.

“Rurin.”

After extracting information from the thugs, I pinched Rurin’s cheek hard as she hung on my back.

“Mmmph!”

She flailed her hand.

“Isn’t it time to get up? We have a lot to do.”

“Mmmph. No.”

“It’s wake-up time.”

“No, it’s sleep time.”

Still talking nonsense with her eyes closed like she’s sleep-talking.

“We’re leaving here, so get up.”

“Really!”

Earlier, she was reluctantly okay with being in the prison because I was there, but now her eyes lit up with excitement at the prospect of leaving.

Well, no one likes a stuffy prison. That’s a fact.

“Yeah, we’re leaving. But first, teleport those guys to the northern lands.”

“The northern lands?”

“Yeah.”

Rurin didn’t even ask why. She just used magic with a nonchalant expression and teleported them.

We can’t let anyone know that we questioned them about Rieden. And we can’t just release the villains.

Well, the place is full of monsters, but if they’re lucky, they might survive.

The Imperial Capital.

After sending the thugs to the north, Rurin and I immediately moved to the Imperial Capital.

Magnificent streets.

A broad, straight boulevard.

The Imperial Palace rising in the center of the boulevard.

A huge wall surrounds the Palace, and a moat protects the wall from enemies.

Honestly, seeing these magnificent structures makes me gasp in admiration.

Of course, we didn’t come here for sightseeing.

It’s all for Dedran City.

Honestly, getting rid of Rieden is a piece of cake. But just eliminating him won’t solve everything.

To annex Dedran City into Greek City and quickly bring about peace and stability, I need to speak to the Emperor directly.

It’s a bit of a hassle to meet the Emperor again after declaring my retirement.

But if a bit of inconvenience can bring peace to Dedran City, it’s unavoidable.

It’s a fact that I purged the Count of Dedran. The citizens of Dedran City lived hard lives under his rule, but things got even harder after he was gone.

Since I bear some responsibility, the fastest way to normalize the City is for me to get directly involved.

But it would be painful to hand over the City after normalizing it, so annexing it into Greek City is the best option.

Convincing the Emperor won’t be difficult.

The Emperor owes me a huge debt.

Even if that weren’t the case, normalizing Dedran City to generate tax revenue from a financially ruined city is something to be welcomed.

It’s been a while since I’ll be meeting the Emperor.

“You, it’s much noisier here than before.”

Rurin made an observation. The times we were in the capital were mostly during the war. So people lived in hiding, and only the skies were noisy.

Because the dragons were fighting in the skies.

The capital, which was destroyed, has been restored by the great power of humanity. There are no traces of the war left.

The city’s scale is incomparable to Greek City.

The wide roads are large enough to line up two or three dragons. Such roads stretch across the entire city. Buildings densely line the inner sides of the roads.

Especially the Imperial Palace. Its unique round golden roofs are strikingly similar to the Kremlin in Moscow from my previous life.

However, unlike the Kremlin, all the round roofs here are entirely gold. And there are many such roofs.

Even before the war, the Empire was one of the most prosperous countries on the continent, and even after the war and subsequent restoration, its national dignity overflowed.