Ch.239239. Macho-ku (1)

The Wu Empire. This self-proclaimed and widely acknowledged superpower, which holds hegemony as the strongest nation in the Eastern Continent, truly resembles a typical China in every aspect.

With a population easily exceeding hundreds of millions, advanced civilization, and overwhelming scale, this empire guarantees a minimum level of power in whatever it undertakes.

What’s particularly remarkable about the Wu Empire—unlike China in our reality—is that it has managed to survive for thousands of years without collapse because its imperial family is, surprisingly, composed of actual dragons… Eastern dragons.

These Eastern dragons, also called Celestial Dragons, are closer to semi-divine beings similar to what we commonly think of as ascended serpents. Notably, the current emperor, who is also the founding emperor, is astonishingly a figure who ascended to become a Celestial Dragon while in human form.

However, loving and cherishing his own kind so deeply, instead of enjoying a comfortable life in the celestial realm, he chose to remain on earth and establish a nation—this was the very origin of the Wu Empire.

Thanks to this, the empire united under an absolute leader and achieved tremendous prosperity, eventually becoming a great power exerting its influence in all directions.

…Under normal circumstances, this might have been the expected outcome.

But the reality is that the current Wu Empire is… nothing short of chaotic—essentially a living punching bag.

It’s not that the Wu Empire is weak and thus receives such treatment; rather, its overwhelming size makes it both a target of containment and attracts numerous enemies.

From the south, pirates regularly plunder coastal villages and cities, even traveling up canals to raid inland regions.

From the west, the great steppes—a paradise for nomads—continuously pour in nomadic raiders, causing western cities to fall into ruins within a month unless they maintain fortress-level defenses.

From the north, the frigid lands, supernatural beings like ice spirits migrate southward every winter, and if they aren’t eliminated before spring arrives, agricultural plans are ruined, leading to famine.

To make matters worse, the Celestial Dragon who should be fighting these threats has developed a dementia-like illness from staying in a realm where he shouldn’t dwell, leaving his far less capable children to barely manage the country’s affairs.

This was the result of a being meant for the celestial realm clinging to life on earth. The emperor’s mind deteriorated and collapsed, unable to withstand the toxic terrestrial environment.

Eventually, unable to match the emperor’s overwhelming abilities, his descendants abandoned the long-standing isolationist policy and introduced measures to somewhat ease the xenophobic atmosphere.

In this context, “Machoku,” the Wu Empire’s open port, is one of the areas opened under this policy shift.

As mentioned earlier, the Wu Empire originally maintained extremely isolated and closed policies—so extreme that they implemented a “maritime ban” policy that effectively sealed off the sea.

However, such isolationist policies were merely stopgap measures. No matter how well they could handle most issues within their own sphere, they couldn’t address the social problems accumulated over thousands of years.

The situation was so severe that class isolation had become so extreme that the commoner and noble classes of the Wu Empire were treated almost as subspecies of humans.

To use dogs as an analogy, it was like comparing a Chihuahua to a Golden Retriever. Considering that these dogs are the same species despite different appearances, the isolation in the Wu Empire—where people looked similar but were subtly different species—was truly serious.

Commoners were naturally robust but produced disproportionately fewer middle and upper-tier individuals relative to their population, while nobles were born with various hereditary diseases but many possessed the potential to develop into middle-tier individuals.

Thus, open ports like Machoku were one result of policies aimed at somehow escaping this excessive isolation.

“It’s vast….”

“Everything is generally large-scale. And there are many people too.”

This was the impression Sofia and I had upon first seeing Machoku—that this open port was at least hundreds of times larger and more exotic than I had imagined.

This port, which permitted the entry, settlement, and trade of foreigners, was virtually the only direct trade line for people from the Western Continent.

Considering how the great steppes completely blocked and isolated land routes, this port was essentially the only viable means of trading with the Wu Empire, aside from transit trade through the Kingdom of Kore.

The powerful phrase “the only gateway to access a market of hundreds of millions” meant that traders could afford to pay even insanely high tariffs.

Of course, this fact doesn’t particularly affect us much.

“Shall we go, Sofia?”

“Yes. …Look, something smells good over there.”

While Machoku might be a city resonating with the scent of gold and wealth for some, for us—whose destination is the Kingdom of Kore—this city is merely a stopover.

Since we needed at least a few days for resupply and reorganization anyway, Sofia and I spent time admiring the familiar yet exotic scenery and visiting various local restaurants.

These were restaurants that preserved cuisines that would have disappeared during the “Cultural Revolution” elsewhere.

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The culture that the Wu Empire built over thousands of years naturally included food culture.

Of course, in Earth’s reality, much of their traditional cuisine was destroyed as a result of the “Cultural Revolution,” but that’s just their story.

In this world, where not only is there no “Cultural Revolution” but even the original Communist Heavenly Horse hasn’t been born yet, the ancient food culture of the Wu Empire has been preserved intact.

Particularly, with the addition of fantasy world ingredients to this Wu Empire cuisine, if you’re willing to pay the price, you can eat food even more delicious than modern cuisine….

“Delicious…!”

“It’s crispy… and juicy!”

For example, the White Gold Chicken roast we’re currently eating is a prime example of this.

The White Gold Chicken, a poultry-type magical beast that inhabits only certain parts of the Eastern Continent, has a chicken-like appearance but is characterized by its goose-like size.

Apart from its ability to cast minor illusions based on its beautiful white-gold feathers, its pure combat ability is just slightly tougher than a goose, making it a quite popular livestock in the Wu Empire.

Particularly because the White Gold Chicken itself is quite finicky, making it difficult to raise, it commands a relatively high price, though it’s not an extremely premium ingredient.

Of course, having tasted it myself, I can say it’s worth every penny—beyond the trite expression that it’s worth the money, there’s hardly any other way to describe an ingredient that lives up to its value.

The skin of the White Gold Chicken roast, prepared according to traditional Wu Continent cooking methods, is crispy, while the meat is unbelievably moist and tender considering the long cooking time it requires.

This is evidenced by the fact that poultry dishes in the Wu Continent are generally cooked to enhance the crispiness of the skin, and the White Gold Chicken itself is famous for its distinctive flavor that accumulates in the fat layer beneath the skin.

The unique umami of poultry meat is on a different level from that of ungulates like beef or pork.

If I had to describe it, it’s like the distinctive taste of duck and chicken skin condensed to the extreme.

-Crunch!

‘Should I get this to go…?’

I sincerely want to pack this and feed it to my animal friends—in some sense, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call this the pinnacle of poultry roast cuisine.

And of course, a restaurant considered a local gem wouldn’t serve just this one dish.

Beef noodles made with a broth of tough buffalo meat simmered and seasoned to remove gaminess.

Stir-fried peppers and pork, using a vegetable that seems like a hybrid of bell peppers, chili peppers, and paprika.

Soup dishes made with precious ingredients like abalone, matsutake mushrooms, and ginkgo nuts.

Sweet and sour fish, crispy fried whole and topped with sweet sauce. Stir-fried noodles with sea cucumber and pork. Dishes like deep-fried sparrows seasoned afterward, or whole roasted suckling pig stuffed with egg fried rice were also impressive.

There were also dumplings filled with pickled shrimp roe, stir-fried bok choy with soy sauce-based seasoning, and fried tofu dishes that made me wonder how long it had been since I’d eaten tofu.

With my eyes rolling back in my head at the “familiar taste” I hadn’t experienced in so long, I was determined to make the most of our few days here, even if it seemed a bit excessive….

Well, naturally, the results were quite successful.

After all, pre-“Cultural Revolution” food culture could rightfully be called nothing short of the best.