Extra Story – To the Royal Capital [Part 2]
Hippopotamal was originally popular as meat for consumption, so it was a highly competitive product.
Other parts besides the meat were usually thrown away, but they recently discovered another use for hippopotamals other than for consumption. After Emma made the monster karuta, she had muttered, “Can this actually be used as a replacement for tires?” and had received complete support from the Stuart family.
As the family had memories of their lives as Tanakas, they always felt a little dissatisfied with the ride comfort of carriages. In the past few years, the family had worked on laying stone pavings and maintaining the roads in Palace County, so they always had a smooth carriage ride within their territory. However, they had heard there were many bad roads on the way to the Royal Capital.
Hippopotamal skin was hard but had just the right elasticity. The skin on its back was even durable enough to bounce a sword off.
The family left all the work… er, requested Joshua to do all the difficult manufacturing, such as the tiresome process of attaching and fixing the skin to the wheels.
Palace’s specialty products continued to develop and increase year by year thanks to Emma’s random ideas and the Rothschild Company’s capability.
“Hippopotamals’ skin is a huge discovery, Emma-sama! The shaking when driving on an unpaved road and running over pebbles was reduced to an unbelievable extent. How did you think of such a great idea? It’s really amazing.”
Even Joshua’s father was pleased because this new type would definitely sell even if he raised the price a little, as many buyers of carriages were nobles.
One unfortunate thing was that this monster called hippopotamal didn’t have a high appearance rate, only once a month at most. Moreover, as soon as it was taken to the market, it would immediately be cut up for the meat.
The outer skin was the part that had always been discarded until now, so whenever they wanted to buy it, they could just cut it roughly with a large saw. But once the hippopotamals were chopped into small pieces, securing a big enough sheet that could be used for wheels would be difficult.
Joshua decided to head to the market from House Stuart to purchase the skin and have it cut efficiently for the wheels before it was cut up into small pieces.
“George-sama, thank you for the info! Depending on the size of the hippopotamals, I may be able to prepare another set of hippopotamal wheels for the carriage Emma-sama and the others will ride on. Emma-sama, I will have to leave for a while, but I will definitely come back, so please ask Koumei-san and the cats about their requests for the cat carriage.”
Joshua drove the Rothschild Company carriage and headed to the market in a dashing manner while leaving the cat carriage in the Stuarts garden for the cats to evaluate.
“…As busy as ever, huh… that Joshua.”
“Nii-sama, have Kan-chan and the others returned too? Joshua has brought the cat carriage here, so aside from Koumei-san, I want to ask the other cats’ opinions on it too…”
“…Make sure you don’t talk with cats in front of others after we move to the Royal Capital, okay, Emma…”
There really isn’t anyone else immune to Emma’s eccentricities, like her family and Joshua are.
It feels like we’re sending a rare animal to an academy filled with noble young ladies and sons who have mastered etiquette, after all… George felt nothing but worry about the move one month later.
“My, Onii-sama. I think I was the one who lived the steadiest and most decent life among us three siblings in our previous world, though? I fully understand what I’m supposed to do. You can let go of your worries.”
Emma looked at her older brother with a look that said, “You’ve started to annoy me,” but unfortunately, because of the scar on her right cheek, her words held zero persuasive power.
“*sigh…* Hey, or rather this thing… rather than a cat carriage, it already looks more like a cat container, huh. It looks like nothing but a box with neither windows nor decorations…”
The carriage had a box shape that looked like cardboard. Joshua finally settled with this design after considering the feedback he received from several interviews with the cats.
George peeked inside the cat container, formerly called the cat carriage.
“It’s really pitch black with no windows, huh… Hm? This roof can be opened?”
As soon as George got inside and slid open the sunroof, sunlight shone inside the cat container.
The winter fur of one-horned rabbits was pure white, but the one used to blanket the floor of the cat container was the summer fur, so the interior had a brown or yellow color.
The thick fluffy winter fur seemed to be popular among the high-end oriented nobles in the Royal Capital, but the summer fur was more commonly used in Palace where the climate was warmer.
With spring approaching, the sunlight felt especially warm and pleasant.
