Dungeon Exchange Meeting*3
“I’m not an elf… I’m not. The elf is over here.”
“Yes! I’m a half-elf!”
As I corrected him and Mishisia-san cheerfully raised her hand, Aura-sama tilted his head and started muttering something like, “So they weren’t elf siblings after all…”
Hold on. Was he thinking I was Mishisia-san’s younger brother?
“I see… um, then perhaps you were taught elven arts…?”
“No, that’s not really the case either…”
“Asuma-sama was already doing that thing where he changes seeds even before meeting me, you know.”
“I see. Still, it’s quite an unusual technique. It was something I’d never encountered before, so I assumed it must be an elven art…”
Yeah. Well, in any case, genetic modification has nothing to do with elven arts.
Because this is… the power of science!
I can understand why I can do genetic modification and Aura-sama can’t.
I can’t use magic, while Aura-sama has no knowledge of science. Things I consider common sense and can recognize naturally, Aura-sama can’t even recognize them in the first place.
For example… to Aura-sama, creating quartz from granite and creating gold from granite are apparently the same thing.
I think, “Granite has a lot of silicon, so if you extract the silicon and change the crystal structure, it becomes quartz easily,” and then I reconstruct it.
But Aura-sama performs alchemy with the understanding of, “You are creating a completely different object from stone.”
That’s because Aura-sama has no concept of “elements.” He doesn’t have the awareness that granite and quartz are composed of roughly the same things. So to him, making quartz from granite isn’t “changing the crystal structure,” but “transforming it into an entirely different substance.”
… Genetic modification is the same.
I think along the lines of, “After breaking it down and analyzing it, this part is probably the factor related to fruit size, so I’ll turn that off, then turn off the part that produces bitterness, and then splice in genes that give disease resistance!” And then I do genetic modification.
But if Aura-sama tried to do that, it would turn into, “So you are bestowing Blessings upon each individual plant seed? However, I cannot use Blessing-type arts…”
… Right. He has no concept of “genes.” Which means… he can’t see “genetic information.”
“I feel like anyone could do the same thing as me if they just acquired a basic level of knowledge in that area, even without being an elf…”
Well, yeah. Unlike magic, this is probably purely knowledge-based. You know that thing, “You can’t identify what you don’t know,” right?
For example, in Japanese, butterflies and moths are distinguished, but in French they’re both just papillon, so native French speakers don’t distinguish between butterflies and moths.
In Japanese, everything is just karasu, but in English there’s a distinction between crow and raven. And katakori, stiff shoulders, exists in Japanese but not in many other languages, so apparently only people who know Japanese really perceive that sensation.
… And it’s not limited to language. Someone who knows mathematics probably sees Fibonacci sequences in sunflowers and nautilus shells. Someone who knows music hears each instrument’s sound separately within a single piece.
And someone who knows science sees genes inside plant seeds, and silicon inside granite.
… So if Aura-sama learned science, he’d probably be able to understand these things too.
But Aura-sama gave a wry smile.
“Who knows. There is aptitude for magic… and above all, I can’t quite believe that what you do is accomplished by knowledge alone. Magic was something I was immersed in as something natural. Knowledge and techniques cultivated as something natural. Those are not things one can simply acquire later in life.”
“Is that how it is? … Well, maybe it is. Yeah, I’m starting to feel like that’s true…”
… Yeah. I’ve heard that if you grow up without knowing something, the human brain changes to discard what it never learned, making it “unrecognizable.” That’s why people raised with Japanese can’t distinguish between L and R sounds… Maybe science and magic are similar in that sense.
“For example, elves naturally converse with plants. It’s natural for them, but it’s not something I can do.”
“I can’t either!”
Though I have seen Mishisia-san do it. You know, when we camped out. That time she asked a nearby tree to make a sleeping place for us! That was an elven ability, huh.
“Eh? Want me to teach you how?”
“No, I feel like I wouldn’t understand even if you told me, so let’s save that for another time.”
… Well, even before brain function, I don’t want to pay the cost of massive amounts of study and training! That’s the real reason!
“One’s cultivated aptitude is not something to be underestimated.”
At Aura-sama’s profound words, all of us nodded with expressions like, “I see…”
He’s sixty years old in actual age, after all. Plenty of wisdom...Though if we go by that logic, Mishisia-san, who’s over a hundred in actual age, should have an incredible amount of wisdom too, but let’s not think too hard about that!
“So whether all dungeon masters could summon slimes in the same way is a different matter, I suppose…”
“Well… I feel like anyone could probably create slimes, at least. Though whether a bear could do it or not, I can’t really say…”
… The idea of setting up a nationwide slime mass-production system will probably have to be put on hold. It’d be impossible for Uparupa anyway, and having someone kill Uparupa and take the dungeon master position would be cruel. And above all, it’s better if people don’t know that dungeons can be taken over…
“So, for now, it seems slime mass production will be handled here…”
“Given that this is the royal capital’s dungeon, it is fitting in that sense as well. I will carry out my duty faithfully.”
And with that, our dealings with Aura-sama concluded safely.
There’s more to think about now, and we learned things we didn’t know before… It was truly a meaningful dungeon exchange meeting.
Just as I was feeling satisfied… Aura-sama suddenly put on a slightly troubled expression.
“However, from what you’ve told me, it seems that not only planting things into slimes, but also the seeds being planted involved special ingenuity… Do you intend to distribute those seeds?”
“No, not for now. I’m thinking of keeping them exclusive to Panis Village...Even using ordinary seeds and seedlings, I think we’ll still get better results than before, so the connection between food shortages and ‘Blessings’ should be resolved.”
Well, yeah. Someday, descendants of genetically modified vegetables will probably spread across the world. But most of the seeds I make are F1 hybrids, so even if their descendants spread, it wouldn’t mean much…
“I see. It may be better if those specially prepared seeds are not widely known.”
“Oh?”
Thinking, Well, Aura-sama wouldn’t know about F1 hybrids, I listened on as he glanced at Mishisia-san, hesitated a little, and then said:
“… Their high value is one thing, but more than that, if word spreads carelessly, the elves will not stay silent.”
“I heard that the former Great Cathedral group fled to a country with an elven forest this time.”
Ah, yeah, I did hear something like that...I hadn’t really thought much of it at the time.
“How do elves perceive ‘Blessings’? And how they would perceive something like ‘genetic modification’ is also unknown.”
… Yeah.
I kind of get that. I really do.
In my world too, there are quite a few people who have an intense aversion to genetic modification… Yeah, I get it. I get that there would be people like that in this world too!
“Elves are a people who have lived alongside plants. There is a tendency among them to disapprove of human intervention in plants.”
“Really!? Hey, Mishisia-san, is that true!?”
“Eh? Well… yeah, there are elves who think that way…”
There are!? I didn’t know that! Are elves really that ‘nature-oriented’!? Or are they the type who want to say, ‘Elven techniques are the best in the world!’!?
“Well, you see… when it comes to plants, their pride is really high. There are lots of elves who can’t stand the idea of anyone but elves being the best at techniques involving plants. Yeah. That’s putting it mildly.”
“Putting it mildly!?”
This is going way beyond what I imagined! I’m starting to get seriously worried!
“… Huh? Mishisia-san, you don’t really mind that kind of thing?”
“Eh? Yeah. I don’t mind!”
On the other hand, Mishisia-san herself seems pretty unconcerned.
But… well, that’s probably because she’s a half-elf, and she seems like a very flexible thinker. I shouldn’t assume all elves are like her…
Thinking that I’ll need to be careful about how genetically modified seeds are handled in this world, or rather, among elves, we decided to report everything to Laperesiana-sama.
We had Aura-sama’s approval to report to her as well.
According to him, “Ah, that young princess has now become a fine knight commander. She was a wise princess from a young age,” he said with a smile. His trust in Laperesiana-sama was deep, and that made us smile too.
And since barging straight into the royal castle would be a bit much, we headed to the royal capital’s experimental farm first… Well, also to send back the Giant-Ass Slime that we’d once brought charging into the gold mine dungeon.
So, while moving along with a soft, squishy bounce and drawing plenty of attention, I quickly wrote a letter to Laperesiana-sama atop the Giant-Ass Slime. Knights are always stationed at the experimental farm, so if we ask them, it’s possible to have Laperesiana-sama summoned, an incredibly luxurious privilege.
… Or so I thought.
“Laperesiana-sama is already here!?”
“Ah. I heard that a gigantic slime suddenly started moving. I thought something might be going on, so I waited… It seems I was right.”
Laperesiana-sama was already at the farm. And there she was, sitting atop the Giant-Ass Slime, relaxed in squishy.
… Mm, truly a wise princess indeed!
What do you think about this chapter?
