“Hmph. It looks like an apple, but it is no longer an apple. It’s the same as if you brainwashed a human.”
“Sandra, what did I say about toning it down?”
When she started comparing the apples to humans, everything she said sounded terrifying.
I had a feeling we were going to be seeing a lot more weird apples—“brainwashed,” as Sandra would say—that went beyond our wildest imaginations.
At least we wouldn’t be bored.
As we moved forward, we started to hear a familiar lute melody coming from somewhere farther down the aisle.
It was Kuku, singing and playing at one of the booths.
“Are the apple blossoms blooming now where you are~? —Oh! It’s Azusa and family! How have you been?”
I waved at Kuku and headed toward her booth.
“I had no idea you’d be here, too, Kuku. It seems this expo has everything, even mini concerts.”
“Oh, no, I’m here at this booth because I helped cultivate some of these apples.”
“What? Why would they need a minstrel…?”
Kuku held out a sample for me.
“Just try one.”
I was a little scared after the last apple set my mouth on fire, so I gently bit into the slice.
“Hey, Kuku. Can I be honest with you?”
“Of course,” she said with a smile and a nod, so I gave her my opinion.
“It’s awful!”
I scrunched up my face as I gave my immediate impression.
“It doesn’t taste like anything, actually. It’s like I’m eating paper…”
I really wanted to know how she’d cultivated an apple with no taste.
“Yes, exactly. I grew these apples while playing sad music for them the entire time!”
It sounded a little like how people played classical music to encourage plant growth.
“You remember how Her Majesty started those magic broadcasts, no?” said Beelzebub.
“There are also artifacts for listening to music now, aren’t there?” added Kuku.
That’s right—this world now had video streaming, with items like CDs arriving a little later. It was Pondeli who developed the CDs.
“Thus, ’tis possible to keep music playing constantly, even if the musician is not personally present. Behold, the rewards of technological innovation,” Beelzebub explained proudly.
“I can make the plants listen to sad songs on an endless loop!”
Kuku looked a little pleased with herself, too. I wasn’t so sure this was something worth boasting about.
“But is there really any point in making bad apples?”
“What?” Beelzebub said. “We have discovered that music affects the resulting flavor. Isn’t that incredible?”
“It is an interesting experiment, but…I wish you wouldn’t ask me to eat bad food.”
“Oh, Falfa, Shalsha?” said Beelzebub. “That variety is quite awful, so no need to try them. They’re incredibly tart.”
“You should’ve stopped me, too! You had more than enough time.”
I knew it. I’m being treated like a guinea pig…
As I stood complaining, Kuku brought over another tray of samples.
“These apples were raised on the songs I wrote as a student when I was hoping to break out as a minstrel.”
I was a little hesitant to try one, despite the offer…
Oh yes—I knew just the person for this task.
I called over Flatorte, who had been standing behind me, munching on apples, and had her taste them for me.
This had to do with music, so she would be the one most qualified to comment.
“Sure, I’ll have one.”
Flatorte bit into three slices at once. Dragons were wild even when it came to eating.
“Hmm… It’s like…I feel the passion, but the flavor quality isn’t quite there yet…”
“What a perfectly accurate description! That’s exactly it!” Kuku exclaimed. “It has passion, but it’s still an amateur! It tastes as though the apple is still only concerned with its own interests and doesn’t yet have room to think about what its audience wants.”
This conversation seemed a little out of place at a fruit expo.
“The passion itself isn’t a bad thing,” Flatorte continued. “It just needs a little more originality. I’m not really feeling that from this flavor.”
“You’re right. I get the feeling it hasn’t been exposed to many different kinds of music yet.”
Laika piped up with a question: “Um, those two are talking about apples, right?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” I replied.
After that, Kuku fed all sorts of samples to Flatorte.
“This is an apple I cultivated with ballads by a very talented minstrel, written in the middle of their career after they started playing it safe.”
“Mmm. It’s solidly tasty but not very impactful. I don’t think this apple would top any charts.”
“I grew this one with songs by a popular minstrel group written just before they broke up due to creative differences.”
“The flavor, texture, juices—they’re not bad, but there’s no unity.”
“And I raised this one with songs by a minstrel who wasn’t too skilled but knew how to ride the trends to a relative degree of success.”
“I feel like I’ve tasted this somewhere before, but there’s no personality to it. This apple will probably vanish in another two years.”
This was a very strange way to discuss flavor.
It seemed to me that they were simply discussing the music Kuku had played and rephrasing it to be about the apples.
Laika and I sampled them all, too, but we couldn’t make heads nor tails of any of them. At last, Laika put my vague feelings into words.
“Um, Miss Kuku? Do you not have any apples raised on iconic songs by incredible minstrels?”
“Oh, I’m afraid not.”
“Why not?” I couldn’t stop myself from butting in. “According to your logic, truly good music would make for extremely delicious apples! So why didn’t you try doing that? If you had, you’d be feeding people tasty apples, and they wouldn’t complain!”
But Beelzebub, who was standing next to Kuku, gave an irritating little scoff.
“You are constrained by stereotypes,” she said. “You must take a step back from the belief that it is necessary for apples to taste good.”
“I must disagree! Apples are supposed to be food, and as such, I believe every effort should be made to ensure they are delicious.”
“Exactly! What Laika said! Why are you acting like we’re shallow for wanting our food to taste good?”
I would have expected the minister of agriculture, of all people, to try to grow delicious apples.
Flatorte, however, looked as though she’d just awoken to some great truth.
“Mistress,” she said, “if you cultivate apples with the preconception that they must taste a certain way, then you can make a decently tasty one, yes. But in the long run, that thinking will only lead to the decline of apples as a whole. Animals will get bored of them.”
“Uh, I’m pretty sure apples aren’t just some passing fad.”
I got the feeling she was talking about music again, but she wasn’t, was she? This was about apples, right? Or had we started talking about music when I wasn’t paying attention?
Flatorte turned to look at Kuku.
“Listen to me. It’s important to consider what your customers and the farming cooperative have to say, but you’re the only one you can count on in the end. Your customers may suddenly get bored and leave one day, or they may change their minds and decide they prefer sour apples to sweet. You’re the producer, and you’ve gotta trust in yourself. You’ve gotta follow your gut and make the apples you want to make.”
“I understand. A farmer who has concentrated on making nothing but sweet apples cannot suddenly shift to making sour apples.”
Okay, yeah, this was about music.
“Next time, I’ll raise apples on recordings of minstrels singing their hit debut songs again after leaving the scene for twenty years and staging a comeback!”
“Yes, Kuku! That’s good!”
I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but it looked like the two of them were now master and apprentice.
Laika glanced at me.
“It feels strange to compare us to them, but I am thankful your teachings are so easy to understand, Lady Azusa…”
“Oh, well… I suppose I don’t usually say anything too weird…”
We’d left the subject of apples far behind, but it seemed like the weird samples were still coming.
“Look, Shalsha, there are apple trees growing over there~!”
The girls had grown bored standing around Kuku’s booth. Falfa grabbed Shalsha’s hand and took off down the aisle.
Just as she said, there were apple trees sprouting up in one corner of the venue. I bet those things were costing them a lot of money.
I left after Falfa and Shalsha, and Beelzebub followed.
It looked like Flatorte and Laika would be hanging around Kuku’s booth for a little longer.
I suspected that while Laika was a bit exasperated with the other two, she still thought she might learn something from them.
As I approached the apple trees, I spotted cat ears.
“Oh! Miss Azusa and family! It’s good to see you!”
This booth was being watched by the undead catgirl, Pondeli.
“I had no idea you’d be here, too, Pondeli. Are you making apples for a crossover event with your games?”
Pondeli was now a famous game designer. “Yes!” she said. “I’d like all of you to eat these.”
She produced an apple cut into eight slices—a common way to divide the fruit.
I couldn’t exactly refuse to try it, so I took a slice and quickly threw it into my mouth.
Falfa, Shalsha, and Beelzebub did the same.
“This is just a normal apple,” I commented. “It’s nice and sweet.”
Falfa and Shalsha were nodding as they ate. At last, we’d found a good, solid apple.
But then Beelzebub brought a hand to her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Mmmgh… My nose feels all prickly…”
What was happening now…?
“You got the special slice! A characteristic of this apple is that one slice out of eight will have a wasabi flavor.”
“Just what do you have to do to cultivate an apple like that?”
“I bet this one would be a big hit at parties! No doubt about it!”
I was pretty sure they’d only be a hit at parties… No one just looking to eat an apple would want one like this.
“The flavor is quite strong, so I am going to go cleanse my palate…,” said Beelzebub. “The booth at the tree beside us has normal apples—perfect…”
Now that she mentioned it, Pondeli’s booth wasn’t the only one with a tree—there were others. Did that mean the other trees were for different kinds of apples?
There were a lot of crawlers gathered at the neighboring booth. These were a kind of demon, too—they took the form of big green caterpillars and were quietly munching on the tree’s leaves.
“I guess they’re growing trees with tasty leaves here.”
This was a line of thought very suited to demons, since they were so diverse. It seemed some demons came for the leaves rather than the apples.
“Precisely. Since these are for children, we paid careful attention to the taste and nutritional value.”
At the booth was a demon with butterfly wings—Nosonia. If I remembered correctly, she was in the fashion industry.
“All sorts of people come to this thing, huh…? Apples have a broader appeal than I thought…”
“I simply wanted others to know leaves could be even more delicious, and so I came to exhibit.”
I figured this was something only those with a larval stage could understand, but it sounded worthwhile. Still…leaves as a palate cleanser? I would have preferred the fruit, myself…
It seemed Beelzebub felt the same way.
“Nosonia. I’d like an apple for each of us. The fruit, that is.”
“Okaaay, coming right up.”
Nosonia took out a knife and cut off the top of each apple.
The inside was filled with nectar—no, scratch that. This was a watery liquid.
“These are for the adult crawlers. The inside of the fruit has been made into juice.”
“I would not have expected that to work. Some of these improvements are simply unbelievable.”
Nosonia stuck a straw, made of what looked like a plant stem, into the liquid.
“Here, now you can have apple juice any time you like. This product is supremely convenient—no need to go through the trouble of pressing the apples to make juice.”
It certainly seemed convenient, but I was starting to wonder if it was okay to change a plant so drastically. Wasn’t a god going to come down and smite them or something? But the demons didn’t believe in gods like Nintan, so I guess it didn’t matter.
I saw a cynical smile cross Sandra’s face.
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