Three days earlier.
I agonized over it a bit, but in the end I bought the Folklore Kingdom Traditional Cuisine Collection.
The shopkeeper helped me study up a little. Appreciated that.
"Got myself something good."
Pleased with that, I swung by the butcher's next. Picked up some offal and a bit of decent beef.
After that, the greengrocer — a few kinds of leafy greens and an abakate that looked just like an avocado.
Looks just like one, too. Everything about it screams avocado.
"Oh, daikon."
Nice. I'll grab that too.
Stuffed everything into my pouch, and there we go. Time to head home.
"WAAAAAAAH!"
"YEAHHH!"
"Over here, Shiro!"
"Maimei's the best!"
"Invincible, Shu! Invincible!"
What the...? The plaza had suddenly gotten noisy.
Wait — Shiro? Maimei? Shu? What the heck was going on? I made my way toward the plaza.
And there I found a whole bunch of... spectators. And a stage.
I'd seen something like this before. In my past life.
On stage, girls in dazzling costumes were singing and dancing.
Wait — Shiro!? And... come to think of it, Suu is Juicy's big sister!
There were other girls and women I'd seen before, too.
Ah, right. So this is *that*. The rumored Hayarn Trading Company idols.
No, this is straight-up an idol group.
"WOOOOOOOOO!"
"KYAAAAAA!"
"WAAAAAAAAAA!"
"OOOOOOOOOOO!"
"ROOOOOOO!"
"..."
The cheering and passion were something else.
From my past life, I'd once worked part-time doing concert security.
That had been rough. This idol stage had the same kind of intensity — it brought it all back.
"Idols, huh..."
The local dungeon girls and ladies Garado told me about were exactly like this.
Personifying a local dungeon — that's basically an idol.
This could totally be a mobile game. They've even got mascots.
At least they had microphones, costumes aside.
Or did the Hayarn lab invent those too?
They were singing and dancing, but what surprised me was the song.
"Wow. It's like an idol song."
The music in this world was all classical-sounding stuff and folk-ish tunes.
That's exactly what you'd expect from a fantasy world, but this song was different.
The instrumentation was string-heavy, and the vocal ability was by no means impressive.
But all of that combined made it sound like an idol group's song.
An idol-group-style song in a fantasy world. That was a first.
How should I put it?
Someone who really grasped the essence of music—or something like that—must have put it together.
"This is the Hayarn Trading Company's new product—the Warm Box!"
"With the Warm Box, you can enjoy a hot meal in the dungeon or anywhere else!"
"Say goodbye to cold meals! Warm up your body and soul with the Warm Box!"
"The Warm Box will change your lunches!"
"The Hayarn Trading Company's Warm Box is now on sale!"
They were selling the new product near the stage.
Shrewd business sense. That'd be Akindura-san, no doubt.
It was selling like crazy. Not that I'd buy one.
"...Guess I'll head home."
On the way back, I picked up some cheese and butter.
Once I got home, I put away the things I'd bought and went into my room.
I'd at least get the prep work done in the kitchen right nearby.
I filled the pot with water... and then it hit me.
"Hey, with my past-life memories, couldn't I put together a modern kitchen system?"
Actually, the kitchen in the witch's giant carriage — now the foreigners' residential quarters — would work just fine.
But that could wait for now.
The truth was, I wasn't really all that inconvenienced.
After all, this world had water stones and fire stones.
Crack a water stone open and you got water. Crack a fire stone open and you got flames.
And they were cheap and available in huge quantities.
You couldn't find them in ordinary mines.
Every last one came from dungeons.
"Hm? A call? It's from Shiro."
"Hello?"
"Hello?"
"Ah, sorry, nothing. What's up?"
"You came to watch the stage earlier, right?"
"Yeah, I did. But how did you—"
"I saw you."
"O-Oh, right. That was incredible, by the way."
"Good. Anyway, that reminded me — about searching for the King of the Death Wind. I think it's about time we got serious about that."
Ah, r-right, yes.
I'd forgotten. Oh yeah. That was a thing.
Searching for the King of the Death Wind. I still don't have any concrete ideas.
"Let's meet at Ambrosius's place tomorrow."
"Y-Yes."
The call ended.
What do I do. I flopped onto the bed. Nothing came to mind.
There wasn't even any criteria for how to choose in the first place.
Lord Yomid probably doesn't worry about stuff like that.
Hagen. No, the previous one was more like Hargan.
He looked like a complete palette swap of Pakira, yet was the exact opposite.
Well, I guess that kind of thing is pretty palette-swap-ish.
Anyway, Shiro's idol costume. It was frilly and cute.
It wasn't gothic-lolita or anything — just a white mini-skirt — but it really suited her.
"......Whoa, no, no, no."
Let me think about this seriously.
The reason the search for the King of the Death Wind hasn't budged at all is that there's no decisive approach for how to go about it.
That's exactly it.
And along similar lines, there's only the scouting method.
And that was only making the difficulty worse.
That scouting method too... no, maybe it actually could work.
Alright. Let me visualize it first.
First, I'd want to conceal my identity as much as possible. And please, no more talk about a Night King.
So, something conventional—like pulling the hood of a black robe low over my face.
Even that feels uncertain, so I'll add a mask. That should do it.
Then, I'd just approach people on the street.
The approach should be simple, clear, and easy to understand.
'Excuse me, you there. Are you interested in the King of the Death Wind?'
That's perfect.
"................................."
Yeah, with my luck, I'd get arrested by the guards. Or maybe even without my luck, that's totally reportable.
In short, let's be blunt—this is way too difficult.
There's just no future where that succeeds.
"Thinking about it, this is hopeless..."
The next idea is to turn an acquaintance into the King of the Death Wind.
Since they're an acquaintance, it's easier to talk to and they'd understand me better. But I'm rejecting this outright.
The King of the Death Wind is generally considered an undead.
Just because an acquaintance already is the King of the Death Wind doesn't mean it's something to take for granted.
"In that case..."
The next move doesn't come to mind. And I'm probably not the only one who feels that way.
Ambrosius is the same. And so is Shiro.
Ambrosius especially had it rough — not with the predecessor Hagen, but with Hargan.
So he's being cautious. That's, well, yeah. Can't really argue with that.
And that's why the search for the King of the Death Wind has been going nowhere.
So what would actually work?
Hmm. Searching for them myself is too risky.
Then they should just come to me.
If they're coming to me, that means they're volunteers.
People who want to become the King of the Death Wind, gathering on their own. Now that would be easy.
"But that's just... a pipe dream. It'd be like some kind of audition."
My past life memories — yeah, there were definitely idol audition shows. I used to watch them sometimes.
An audition...?
"That's it!!"
I practically flew out of bed. That's it. That's exactly it.
I found it. The method. An audition.
All I have to do is hold an audition!
An audition for the King of the Death Wind.
Tomorrow's King of the Death Wind could be you!!
This is it!