Chapter 186
The Fifth Tanaka Family Meeting [Part 3]
"But, judging from the ongoing situation, it'll be hard for us to continue getting rice after this."
Melsa started explaining Imperial Japan's problem, as if to remind the rejoicing family not to be too complacent.
"A plant hazard...? ...It's rare for it to happen in the southern continent, isn't it?"
Plant hazards were supposed to rarely occur in the southern continent, unlike the local barrier hazards.
"Ugh..." George groaned.
"Oh my, George. So you have been studying properly, huh?" Melsa laughed, seeming as if she found it surprising.
"O-Of course, I have! Mother..."
He kept silent about the fact that he just so happened to hear about it during the talk with the Prince. Upon hearing his answer, Emma looked at him coldly.
"What's more, Over? Mother, I thought Over only existed in the northern continent."
William asked in wonder because none of the books he had studied so far stated that Over would grow en masse in the southern continent.
"It was Over. I saw it with my own two eyes, so it couldn't have been wrong."
Melsa, who had once passed Advanced Monster Science class with the best grades in the academy, would never identify a monster wrongly.
"When will it shoot its seeds?"
Leonard had a grave face as he said so.
Over's trunks were hard, so it couldn't be cut down like other plant-type monsters. Even if they went out of the barrier and were lucky enough to find the parent plant, it would still be difficult to damage the roots, stems, flowers, and even seeds. Also, the seeds could scatter over a wide area of several kilometers or more.
"The flowers are currently blooming, so I think the seeds will fly and scatter at around summer. Even when taking the rest of Imperial Japan's land into account, the country can only hold on for a year at most..."
Over, which shot every six months to encroach on larger territories, was classified as a monster which had its weakness listed as unknown, like slimes.
"Eh? Then isn't that terrible for the Imperial Japanese people? Are they planning to migrate?" George asked, after sensing the seriousness of Imperial Japan's crisis from the looks on his parents' faces.
" "Nii-sama..." "
" "George..." "
"Huh?"
The family looked at George disappointedly.
"Nii-sama, it's hard to migrate in this world, you know?
"Ah, so it's like that..."
Humans in this world could only survive by living on islands surrounded by the sea, or inside barriers with no monsters.
Every country had no more land or food supplies to spare for it to take in immigrants from other countries.
If the populace increased by too much, the country would perish.
Even in the Kingdom, the church was responsible for keeping the population in check by having an approval system for marriages. As a result, non-marital children faced severe discrimination, and no one would say anything even if the slum children didn't receive any support from the church.
Due to such circumstances, a cross-national agreement prohibiting mass migration was made to protect each nation and its people.
"It's not impossible to get permanent residency in exchange for a lot of money, valuable technology, and magic stones, but it will probably only be possible for a hundred people at most. Besides, Imperial Japan has language barrier problems, and I don't think there's any place who will lend a hand to a country which has been closed off to the outside world for so many years."
"Well, our kingdom definitely won't either. We could help if it was just a food shortage, but if it's a plant hazard... What's more, the propagation of Over..."
Leonard also began to think this problem through after hearing what Melsa said. Although population number was also one of the factors, most countries couldn't afford to help resolve the hazards in other countries because they already had their hands full dealing with monsters that appeared on the borderlands.
If, by any chance, Over's seeds from Imperial Japan slipped inside the Kingdom and germinated, the Kingdom would be the next to perish after Imperial Japan.
They couldn't just leap out to help Imperial Japan, thinking it was merely 'someone else's problem'.
"...But we have to save them!"
When the family fell into silence, only Emma alone spoke up.
They couldn't get involved in Imperial Japan's problems in the name of the Kingdom. Imperial Japan, too, had given up. There was no way out of it whatsoever.
Emma understood that. Even so, she still decided to stand up.
"We won't be able to eat rice otherwise, right?!"
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Author's words: Hey, appetite wins in the end after all.