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Britain.
Fifth-century Britain was a demonic realm where the last vestiges of Mystery lingered, the sole land that still preserved the environment of the Age of Gods.
That was why so many coveted this land.
From the Picts, who could not survive without Mystery, to the foreign peoples driven out by Rome.
Britain was a place where countless battles erupted over possession of its abundant Mystery.
And I had been born as the heir who would lead this Britain.
Arthur Pendragon.
I was no ordinary human.
"Brother, is it almost ready?"
"Yeah! Almost! Once I finish tenderizing the meat, we're done! Your big brother will make you something delicious soon!"
I pounded the meat with a mallet while my little sister watched beside me.
The two of us were preparing to make tonkatsu.
We were twins, only four years old.
It might seem strange for four-year-old children to be preparing a meal, but what could I do when British food tasted so awful?
That's right. I was not an ordinary human, but someone reincarnated.
In my previous life, I had been an ordinary person who lived in the twenty-first century.
Well, just another unemployed young man, really.
Then, on my way to yet another job interview, I got into an accident and died. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn as a baby.
As Arthur in the world of Fate, no less. And Artoria's twin older brother, at that.
For someone like me, who had lived an insignificant life without even a family, gaining a little sister was unbelievable.
And that little sister happened to be my favorite character.
In a way, it was somewhat like Oshi no Ko.
In any case, this reincarnation was an opportunity. I, who had always lived alone, had finally gained the family I had dreamed of—and my favorite character was part of that family.
That left me with only one thing to do: live for my family.
I liked Artoria.
That was why the people I hated most were Iskandar and Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh went without saying. As for Iskandar, some of what he said was fair enough, but he knew nothing about Artoria. He got to live comfortably as the King of Conquerors, yet never experienced Britain, a hellscape that made Macedonia look cute by comparison. To me, he was nothing but an old fool.
Just as Richard said, Artoria only lost because she was facing someone who had eroded her self-esteem. She was a far greater king than Gilgamesh, who abandoned his country to search for the Elixir of Immortality, or Iskandar, who mindlessly pursued conquest without even naming an heir and blew up his empire as a result.
To begin with, what kind of King of Conquerors was Iskandar supposed to be? He was merely an ordinary man born in an age without Genghis Khan—someone who would not even have been able to meet Genghis Khan's eyes.
And hadn't Genghis Khan actually conquered far more territory than Iskandar? His state probably lasted longer, too.
The only reason Genghis Khan had not appeared in Fate by the time I was alive was because his presence would tarnish Iskandar's image as the King of Conquerors.
Anyway, that introduction got rather long.
The point is that Artoria was more amazing than either of them. It was an extremely subjective opinion, but she was my favorite, so naturally I thought so.
If anyone had a problem with that, they could try being born a beautiful blonde girl and starring in a story of relentless suffering.
If you did not dote on Artoria after everything she went through in the cruel Fate setting and among those damned Britons, then who were you supposed to dote on? Every character from Britain ended up starring in a story of suffering.
Even in a Lostbelt, if it was Britain, the Britons still ended up suffering.
Of course I wanted to treat anyone from Britain well.
Now that I had become a Briton myself, though, my task was simple.
To feed Artoria, my favorite and my little sister, until she was full and make her happy.
Wasn't that the duty of an older brother and eldest son?
As one might expect, Britain's food culture was barren.
The food tasted bad and had little nutritional value. That was why I resorted to the cheat of modern knowledge.
It was amateurish, but I used what I knew from the modern era to make Artoria all sorts of food.
One of those dishes was this tonkatsu.
This was an age before tonkatsu existed. Fried food did exist, so there was probably fried pork.
But the cutlet, the prototype of tonkatsu, did not yet exist. How did I know? I had never heard of one.
At least, not in this era. This land had been ruled by Rome, so if nobody knew it here, that meant Rome did not have it either.
Perhaps because this land was overflowing with Phantasmal Species, hunting wild boars to make tonkatsu was easy enough.
Our meat came from Ector, who acted as our foster father.
He had once been a knight of our father Uther and was famed as the Black Knight. He had retired because of his age, but he was experienced and still strong enough to work as a blacksmith.
He could take down several monstrous boars by himself.
Once I dressed the boar Ector had caught, I rendered its fat to make frying oil.
Cooking oil was as hard to obtain as a star from the sky. It was the exclusive luxury of nobles.
So I rendered lard and used that for frying.
One good thing about Britain was that, if not crops, it had animals to hunt in abundance. I could understand why it was filled with dishes like roast beef, where one simply grilled the meat.
Meat tasted good even when prepared roughly, after all.
As a result, British seasonings were terrible.
To begin with, it was difficult to obtain spices for seasoning. Pepper was out of the question, and the crops needed to make sauces were so rare as to be practically unavailable.
Soy sauce was a prime example.
I would need to make fermented soybean blocks, but setting aside the fact that I did not know how, I had never even seen the soybeans needed for them.
I had not seen the ingredients for other kinds of seasoning either, so people in Britain mostly used salt.
Being an island nation, it had salt in abundance.
That was why Western-style tonkatsu was impossible without sauce, and I made Japanese-style tonkatsu to dip in salt instead.
"It smells good~"
"It's nearly done."
Bread was a staple, so flour was easy to obtain. Eggs were also easy enough to find, since there were many Phantasmal Species of chicken.
I did have to go through the trouble of crumbling bread myself to make breadcrumbs, but that much was not difficult.
Since British food tasted terrible, I made every meal in our home.
"Smells good. Eating fried food this often is a luxury in itself. Are we really allowed to live like this?"
A boy entered the house after chopping firewood.
It was Kay, a little older than us.
"You're back? It's almost done. Could you call Ector?"
"Father went to the village. He won't be back until this evening, so we'll have to eat without him."
"Really? Then just get the dishes ready."
It seemed he had gone all the way to the village to trade. We lived some distance from it, in a cabin deep in the forest.
Because of that, the village was somewhere we only visited to trade goods.
I had made a little too much, but that was fine. Artoria would eat it all, and I had a healthy appetite too, so there would be no leftovers.
"There! It's done! Let's eat!"
Thick stacks of tonkatsu filled the dishes. Cut into bite-sized pieces with a kitchen knife, the pork cutlets were piled high on Artoria's plate.
"Thank you for the meal!"
"Good grief, you little pigs."
Artoria smiled as she stuffed tonkatsu into her mouth. My little sister chewed the meat with bliss written across her face.
Kay stared at us in disbelief. There was only one pork cutlet on his plate.
Well, he was still a child under ten, so that was an appropriate amount. Artoria and I only ate several because we had unusually large appetites.
"Eat slowly. You've got crumbs all around your mouth."
"Mhm."
Fried crumbs covered the corners of Artoria's mouth. I wiped them away with a handkerchief.
Unlike me, Artoria was still a pure child.
There was much I had to do for this child's happy future.
I had to grow stronger. I needed strength, wealth, and power.
And I needed to become happy, too.
There was one thing Iskandar had said that was unquestionably true.
A king had to be greedy. A king had to desire much.
One reason Artoria had failed was that she lacked overwhelming strength, power, and treasure.
That was why I would seize all of it.
For the sake of a happy future.
Smack!
That was why I had to grow stronger.
"You seem lost in thought, Arthur. Focus a little more~"
That was why I had begun training now, at four, rather than waiting until I was five as I normally would have.
After every meal, I spent the afternoon sparring with Merlin and honing my skills.
To grow stronger. To protect my precious little sister.
I had to become the strongest king in Britain.
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