Genjitsushugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki - Vol. 1 Ch. 2 - Return of the Investment

[Lysander]

So uh.. any explanation why a 19-year old is so unrealistically competent?

 

[MNP92]

"With an empty stomach, moral and patriotism are just words."
That's so true

"There's no wardrum louder, than a growling stomach"
"A nation that can not feed its people, is no real nation"

 

[ShadenKnight]

@Lysander He wanted to go to collage and go into a government position. He seems so competent in this world because it isn't as advanced. I would think most modern countries know this stuff already from history. Souma is only as competent as he is because he has our history and documentation to learn from. His knowledge is nothing in our world, and he would only be equally as competent as several characters that show up later who are from that world.

@Nessen I honestly think you're going a bit far in this, I get that any competent ruler should've seen this happen and that Souma is only as smart or seems that way because he was sent into a medieval fantasy. I think that a large majority of why the crown (Albert and Elisia) didn't know what was going on was due to incompetence on Albert's part, Negligence, and the interference by the Principality. I don't get why people hate on isekai as much as they do. It personally is my favorite sub genre.

To tackle your point on why the demons stopped their invasion, I think it's because they only did so in defense or because they needed land. While we don't know enough to say for certain, the demon lord's domain has a large majority of uninhabited land. The demons seem to live in the far north of the domain, so the countries further to the south lost more to the monsters than they did to the demons with the exception of when the Gran Chaos empire sent out it's expedition.

 

[Nessen]

@ShadenKnight I (and perhaps others) dislike the isekai genre because it has truly become lazy wish fulfillment copy-pasted. There are usually only minor, superficial hiccups that get in the way of the protagonist and on the flip side the protagonist habitually manages to solve multiple problems at once with expediency (the laws of convenience usually bending itself to allow the protagonist to do so). The protagonist is never challenged, he never doubts himself, he never questions if he's actually in the right; he just keeps going and going blithely. It's masturbatory, and if I wanted that, I'd just go watch actual porn.

"Souma is only as smart or seems that way because he was sent into a medieval fantasy"
Is there a law that says medieval fantasy people are automatically stupid? Even if so, they are stupid in a way that automatically favors Souma? If they're so stupid, why don't they just deem Souma as crazy or torture him for information? There are a lot of ways to be stupid, yet it conveniently results in Souma becoming king. Think about that for a second. So these medieval fantasy people are automatically stupid, but they're also just smart enough to abdicate the crown to a guy from another world because he may or may not be just making bullshit up. It strains the suspension of disbelief.

My point on the demons was simply repeating what the chapter itself said. I don't know why they stopped their invasion, the chapter didn't give the reason why, and I don't really care. I'm also willing to bet that, as is typical of the isekai genre, the poor demons' circumstances led to them invading the human world, that they're people just like you and I, and that they could all get along if they just forgive and forget!

 

[Nessen]

@MNP92
Morals and patriotism are by definition the adherence to a value or nation despite material gain or loss. Are religious zealots full of just words when they strap a bomb to their chest? Or Japanese kamikaze pilots?

 

[Sesame_IceCream]

@Nessen when the religious zealots strapping bombs, they weren't starving, same thing for a kamikaze pilot. Have you ever been starved for more than 3 days? to a point where you're willing to eat moldy food? when a person is starved, he can only thinks of food, nothing else. my grandparents witnessed it first hand when the Japanese invaded my country and switched all the crops to cash crops, there was mass famine for years, my people who used to boast themselves as the most united against invaders had to resort to cannibalism. Seeing how you don't agree with the quote "With an empty stomach, moral and patriotism are just words." I can clearly tell you have never experience starvation nor the people you know had. It's really ugly when the masses are starved. If you want the easiest example then look at German Empire in WW1, before WW1 Germans were proud to serve the country and the Kaiser, the moment they experience starvation for a couple years they immediately revolted and forced the Kaiser into exile.

 

[Nessen]

@Sesame_IceCream "the moment they experience starvation for a couple years they immediately revolted and forced the Kaiser into exile."
These are two separate circumstances of starvation. I agree you're right that when mass famine occurs over several years, it may appear that the people have abandoned their morals and patriotism, but I argue it is not the people who have failed in their morals or patriotism, but the government. To belabor the point, you could still say it is not the "empty stomach" of the citizens that erodes their morals and patriotism because it is not a question of immediate starvation (after all, they have apparently put up with it for years), but of the inability of their leaders to uphold their end of morals and patriotism which naturally justifies a revolt. When the citizen revolts under these circumstances, it is he who has still adhered to his morals and patriotism - despite having undergone a mass famine for several years.

And a mass famine over several years is different from being "starved for more than 3 days". I may or may not have been starved for more than 3 days, but either way, that alone would not be enough for me to renounce my morals and patriotism, and apparently, nor is that the case for your grandparents or the German people pre-WW1 - it was a mass famine of several years AKA gross governmental incompetence.

 

[jeriks]

Ah yes, potato trees are my favorite trees

 

[StickyTar]

LMAO I was not expecting that Jojo stand bullshit out of nowhere

also wtf is up with the paragraph long arguments below, you guys its really not that serious lol

 

[Gundamotaku]

Good god this dude knows Hamon

 

[RealLotto]

@Tatherwood People seeing supply and demand in certain goods is fine, but it's not a "revolution" by any stretch of the word. The problem is that the author wants to drop terminology to make the MC look smarter than he actually is. It's not "agriculture revolution" - it's simple economics.

There is a period to notice when things are going wrong and talking about it and then there's letting a famine happen. Famines don't slowly happen (which seems to be the case here) without someone noticing it unless a natural disaster or sabotage occurs. If a famine actually manages to gradually happen, it says more about the incompetence of the rulers than the MC being smart.

Being at war =/= giving supplies. But either way, currently the demons have stopped expanding their territory for some as-of-yet unexplained reason. The countries are currently at a tenuous peace. The country we're currently observing definitely did not face the full brunt or horrors of the war. I'm not repeating this a third time.

"People see profit in clothing, therefore move production to clothing, therefore there's famine" - That's wrong. "There is famine, therefore everyone is an idiot" is actually what YOU and the author are saying. Read the chapter again. We're told there's a famine, and then the author/MC shows us later it's because of people planting too much cotton trees. Before the MC actually goes into the reason why, it could've been x, y, or z. It could've been anything. The author ultimately chooses, "It's because people keep planting too much cotton trees instead of edible crops, and then wondering why they're starving, which is pretty stupid of them". We are chronologically given the effect first, and then any number of causes could be made up later - this is lazy writing to try to cheaply show off how "competent" the MC is, which is a general failing of the isekai genre.

This is what I hate about the isekai genre. It assumes fantasy people are stupid. Alright, if a country is continually ravaged by famine, plague, war and ruled by self-entitled aristocrats then it would make sense. But the first chapter literally shown the Kingdom being ruled by people who actually care about the people, has a somewhat decent economic model for a medieval/renaissance setting and their inhabitants are not village idiots. Isekai authors always seem to project what I like to call "colonial mindset", where disrespect towards the local populace is disguised under "civilization and enlightenment".

 

[Kaarme]

Ah yes, potato trees are my favorite trees

I hate it how potatoes are always harvested when the potato trees aren't even half a meter tall. It would be so cool to see a field of 20 meters or 30 meters tall potato trees. The tubers themselves would probably be as big as a barrel.

 

[Deathhappens]

The comments about the famine being convenient aren't wrong (I'm not gonna tag the guy from a 2 year old discussion), but there's plenty of factors not mentioned here that could be affecting matters. The King doesn't directly command the farmers what to plant in what field, this isn't Age of Empires. There's a dozen layers of foreman, village mayor, lesser noble, higher noble, etc between a farmer and the king, and each of them can be of varying competency levels and/or simply looking at their own individual situations rather than the kingdom as a whole. Let's take for example Agriculturalist A, owner of a reasonably sized field in a decently fertile part of the kingdom. He used to grow strawberries to sell at the local produce market (ignore for a moment the difference in needs between strawberries and cotton, I don't know many cash crops), but times have changed so now he grows a few potatoes to feed himself (not enough to export) and has dedicated the rest of his field to cotton. He doesn't have a food problem.

Next is Baron B, owner of 200 fields suspiciously similar to Agriculturalist A's. His farmers have been planting cotton the past few seasons, which sells for really high at the neighboring textile industry city, which makes him a rich baron who doesn't have to worry about going hungry regardless of food prices. He doesn't see a people either.

His superior, the Count C, could lean on him if he wanted to, but he has an entire city with five attached villages to oversee, as well as the responsibility to raise a regiment of horse when the king calls. The Baron pays generous dues and has never caused problems, so he sees no reason to intervene in his affairs (especially since if he did, the rich Baron could cause all kinds of trouble behind his back at the capital). He is aware the prices of food in his city are rising, but he blames the neighboring country's traders for being money-grubbing savages who try to bleed his people alive. Anyway, it can't be that bad if he can still eat.

HIS superior, Duke D, one of the three more powerful people in the country, can see there's an emerging food shortage problem in the country, but he has no idea what to do to stop it. His training has been all about warfare and tactics (and indeed he is a great strategist on the field) and he lets his retainers handle the day to day affairs of his dukedom.

And thus we get to the King, who has been made aware there's less food coming in the country now than before the war and, in an effort to fix that, has signed a very disadvantageous trade deal with the neighboring kingdom to import more food. After all, what more can he do? It's not like he has the time, agricultural knowledge, or even the authority to just waltz into a farming village and order them to just plant rice instead of cotton, if he ever even came up with the idea. That would cause no amount of scandal and ill feeling to his subordinates who own and/or manage those lands in his name (depending on the exact flavor of feudalism going on in this kingdom).

Enter isekai'd hero, stage left. He doesn't know anything about the kingdom, its traditions, people, who's who, etc. He can just look at spreadsheets (or what passes for medieval spreadsheets, I can't imagine they had itemised receipts or detailed import/export ledgers back then), figure out what needs producing, and just order it to happen, just like a videogame... because to him it might as well be. Nevermind the dude being trained specifically as an Agricultural Government Official, just being an unconnected stranger who can do math is enough to kick-start a solution. (Of course, the upcoming political fallout is another issue).

 

[Jinto]

Not sure what it worse all people crying their booba was the Queen or LHT correcting the world that potatos and cotton come from trees

 

[kamentierr]

oh that's her mother? I'd pick the mother instead.

 

[thycondrius]

Ah... that was the queen...

The princess is super cute but a bit less absurd. Her assets are more in the range I like.

 

[Dumbass5509]

LET'S GO, BASIC ECONOMICS