“Thanks for the input, Miss Dragon!”
“Hm. Delicious. Perfect amount of salt.”
“Is that so...?”
Was she really tasting them? I doubted it.
After watching our little comedy routine, Milon and his daughter timidly reached for the edamame. Animals ate it, after all, which meant that it at least wasn’t harmful to the human body. What was bothering them was their reservation of eating what they considered to be for livestock. Often, people discover some foods they can really enjoy once they get past the preconceptions they have about them.
“Ooh! These are quite...!”
“It’s so good!”
Their eyes widened. As it was only seasoned with salt, its taste was simple, and therefore approachable. More complex and deep flavors required a developed palette to appreciate. Take it from me, who had a palette so cheap that I didn’t find foie gras or truffles particularly tasty.
“There are soybeans grown especially for edamame that are selectively bred for it.”
“Those taste better than these, then?” Mister Milon asked with much enthusiasm, as he popped one bean after another into his mouth.
Of course, this wasn’t a dish one should be concerned with table manners while eating.
“I would think so.”
I couldn’t give an educated answer, as I was neither a farmer nor a foodie.
“I bet we could sell these, Dad!” Miss Millia said, with a beaming smile.
All right, let’s calm down for a second.
This wasn’t a tasting for a new food product.
“For now, I need you to eat a lot of these. What do you think?”
After clearing my throat, I got us back on track.
“This will treat my lethargy?”
“That’s right. Really, I would like you to eat about 600 grams of it every day...”
The recommended daily value for vitamin B1 is about 1.4 milligrams. I remembered that there was about 0.24 milligrams of it in 100 grams of edamame. That adds up to 600 grams a day, if edamame was going to be his sole source of vitamin B1. While brown rice has about half the vitamin B1 per gram as edamame, it would feel more natural as rice was something people ate every day. It would be rather difficult to eat 600 grams of edamame each and every day.
“That’s a bit much. I wouldn’t mind a day or two. It tastes good.”
“Thought so...”
That was the hole in my plan. Unlike beans or potatoes, there was no way that people could eat enough of it every single day.
“Can’t you just cook them differently?” Tiamat interrupted.
She was chomping on the edamame, still in their shells. Despite the good point she just made, it wasn’t convincing at all. She could eat 600 grams or even a kilogram every day, I was sure.
“That’s true. But I don’t know how else to cook them.”
I was a bachelor, living with my parents. I could count on my fingers how many dishes I knew how to cook. Oh, how would I ever impress my future husband?
“How useless. That’s hardly news, though.”
“Well excuse me!”
“We can come up with changes to the recipe! It’s soft, so we can do a lot with it!”
Miss Millia pounded her chest. There’s someone who knew the shortcut to a man’s heart.
“Mister Eiji! We can sell these here, right!?”
Her eyes were gleaming with excitement. It seemed her interest was business, rather than a relationship.
“Keep them affordable, please. They are to treat people with beriberi, after all.”
“Don’t worry, sir! We’ll throw our profit margin out the window!” she declared.
But would they really? There was little I could do, even if I had my doubts. I had no distribution route nor method of advertisement. In this department, I really needed the help of a merchant.
“Don’t go too crazy,” I chuckled.
10.
This is a weird way of putting it, but I am an adult. Not for being of a certain age or for having sexually matured, but because of the years I had survived out in the workforce. I worked a job and I got paid for it.
For many, making excuses was no longer an option out in the real world. Through high school, for example, the only unreasonable adult one might come in contact with would be their teacher or parent. Once in the workforce, though, everyone one met could be one. Bosses, coworkers, subordinates... most of them are unreasonable. And so, you become one of the unreasonable adults, too. Society is a lot more complicated than the textbooks make it out to be.
“I’m grown up enough to recognize that kind of thing, in my experience.”
“Hm. I have no idea what you’re trying to say. What’s the connection between you being an adult and us living with Milon?”
I had spent a good portion of the day speaking to Mister Garish at the Adventurers’ Guild and later cooking at the shop. It was nearly dusk. While my pockets were full from selling my wristwatch, it would have been a hassle to start looking for a place to stay at this hour. And I was tired. I just wanted to take a bath and go to bed. So, Mister Milon offering us a bed at his house was of great help.
“It means I’m grown up enough to not turn away goodwill.”
“But won’t it cause trouble later if we become too close to one particular merchant? You’re more of the expert on the subject.”
“You’re right.”
I was an employee of the government. Even when buying some miniscule stationary at the office, we had to make sure not to order too much from one particular company or the other. The most feared outcome was to be accused of favoritism.
In our case, we had to avoid people thinking that the Hermits had a vested interest in Mister Milon’s business.
“But we need connections, in any case. The names of those connections don’t really matter.”
Even if we did turn down Mister Milon’s offer, we would have to create connections with some merchant in the future. No one would buy edamame from us off the street, after all. If we aimed to make connections with each of them anyway, there was no point in shopping around for a special merchant now. It seemed better to cherish the connection we’d stumbled upon.
“I see. This the grown-up response, then?”
“You get it?”
“I thought you only accepted because you didn’t want to go back out on the streets tonight.”
“N-N-N-No way, José!”
“I won’t ask you why you won’t look me in the eye, but we have a bigger problem ahead of us.”
Rolling onto the bed provided, Tiamat changed the subject. On her stomach, she had her arms outstretched and her tail curled. She reminded me of a cat starting to make itself comfortable.
“Edamame alone won’t cover the necessary nutrients, right?”
“That’s true. I’ve got to think this one through...”
I laid down, too. Not that it mattered, but we were sharing a room. Just wanted to mention that one of us was male and the other female.
In any case, since reverting to eating brown rice wasn’t an option, the people of this world had to get the necessary nutrition from non-rice dishes. Edamame wasn’t a sustainable option. While it was reasonable and tasty, there wasn’t enough variety in ways to cook it.
“Research may be needed to validate the lack of variety,” Tiamat chuckled.
“I’m sorry.”
The lack of alternate uses of the edamame was my fault. But what was I supposed to do? I’m a public worker, not a chef.
“What about the other foods you’ve mentioned? Like potatoes or pollock roe?”
“The season for potato harvest depends on when they were planted. Technically they can be harvested year-round.”
There was a slight problem to make potatoes a common food, though: their eyes are toxic. While it would only cause minor food poisoning and wasn’t fatal in any way, it was a little dangerous to advocate eating potatoes without proper advisory.
The
pollock roe was even more troublesome, because of the season. The Alaska pollock fishing season is the middle of winter. There was no way for me to obtain any in early summer, let alone the fact that I didn’t know how to process it.
“And you call yourself a Dosanko.”
Dosanko being what people from Hokkaido call themselves.
“Nowadays, I’m sure many Dosanko don’t know how to clean fish.”
“The times we live in.”
“Even if I knew how to clean them, it’s doubtful that they gillnet in this country.”
“It seems we’ll need to do more research on seafood.”
“Looks like it.”
We would have to look for other foods while edamame held them over. The realistic option seemed to be the gagd.
“Let’s hit up the guild again tomorrow. We have to find out things like where they live and how to hunt them.”
“You’re going to hunt them?”
“Don’t make me laugh; I’ll hire a hunter. Or that’ll be your job, Tia.”
“The antithesis of self-reliance,” Tiamat said, with a giant yawn.
The next morning.
As I was washing my face at the well in the courtyard, Mister Milon appeared. Compared to the previous day, he looked much better.
“Good morning. How do you feel today?”
“I can’t remember the last time I’ve woken up without feeling sluggish.” he responded, with a smile.
While one might wonder how a single night could make such a difference, beriberi is an ailment caused by malnutrition. When the body is provided with the necessary nutrition, it healed at a remarkable speed. With plenty of vitamin B1 and a week or so of rest, his symptoms would completely subside. However, since the diet of the people of Azur Kingdom perpetually lacked vitamin B1, his symptoms would come right back unless we made a drastic, nation-wide change to people’s diets.
“That’s great to hear. Keep eating those edamame.”
“I had some this morning already. It’s refreshing enough to have for breakfast. The problem is...”
“The problem is?”
“That it makes me want some ale, I suppose.”
“Ah-ha. I agree with you there.”
The merchant’s sense of humor put a smile on my face. Ale was a form of beer that was quite common in fantasy fiction. While there was a distinction in taste between ale and the common lager beer from modern-day Japan, they were both beer. How could ale not be good with edamame?
“You can’t drink for a while, though.”
“You break my heart.”
“It won’t be too long.”
“I’ll be looking forward to the day, Sir Eiji.”
We had already explained to Mister Milon that we wanted to obtain some gagd. While not nearly as much as pork, boar meat contained some vitamin B1. About the same amount per weight as edamame, in fact. However, meat could be a real dish.
That was huge; people could eat it every day. Boar meat was nutritious all around, too. High protein, low calorie, and abundant in minerals... I was almost sure, although I couldn’t be quoted on it as I didn’t remember the exact amount.
“Are you headed off to the guild today?”
“Yes. I don’t know about Tia, but I’m not a hunter. I need to post a quest or hire a hunter outright.”
“Don’t worry about the financial aspect. We are ready and willing to support you on that front.”
Mister Milon declared himself a sponsor. He didn’t grow his business this big on dumb luck; he knew how to strike when the iron was hot. Feeling the change in his condition, he must have assessed that edamame would be a hit, along with boar meat.
“We may have the right knowledge, but we don’t have any way to spread it. Your assistance in that would be invaluable.”
“It’s my honor to aid in your endeavor, Hermits.”
We shook hands. While his response was filled with platitudes, I didn’t doubt that he was sincere in trying to achieve the same goal as I. After all, business would only go up when people were healthy.
Nothing but Problems!
1.
“...I want to go home...”
“What are you talking about, Eiji.”
“I’m tired... My feet hurt...”
“What’s the use moping over it?”
Tiamat rolled her eyes, but I couldn’t help that I was tired. We were walking down a highway under the early summer sun, the view never changing. Surely there were plenty of other people who would have been disheartened if they were in my place.
“We’ve barely walked for three hours. Get yourself together.”
“Urf...”
I hobbled along, using a random branch I found as a walking stick. Fancy dress shoes were never meant to be worn for long walks.
“A salesman’s job is mostly legwork.”
“I’m more of an office worker.”
Just a little public worker. The most manual labor I’d done was planting flowers in front of the building. Even during my student days I never spent a day on a sports team.
“Weakling.”
The dragon’s fangs clicked together. Apparently, that was a laugh. The difference between a dragon’s physicality and a human’s aside, I was simply too weak. How were all of those Isekai protagonists so physically active? Some of them who had spent a few years never leaving their room should’ve had less endurance than me, if anything.
“Damn cheat codes.”
“You might want to curse your old age instead. Most of those protagonists are high schoolers, aren’t they? A big difference from a man in his thirties.”
That was harsh. It wasn’t like I turned thirty by choice.
“Any complimentary rides on your back, Tia?”
“Sure. If you can figure out how to stay on it.”
She walked on her hind legs. Her height was similar to mine at 180cm or so. Accounting for her thick and sturdy tail, she would have been over 195cm easily.
“Piggy-back style?”
“Idiot.”
Couldn’t argue with that. I couldn’t hold onto her to begin with. Dangling on her neck by my arms would have been more exhausting than walking.
“Not that I can’t walk on all fours. I don’t think it’ll be all that comfortable, though.”
With that, she put her arms / front legs down on the ground. Since those were shorter than her hind legs, her back sloped down to the front. It seemed terrifying to ride like that.
“Here. Hop on.”
I did. My feet still touched the ground.
“Thought so...”
We were nearly the same height. What was I supposed to do with my legs while riding on the back of someone my own height?
“Bend your legs. We’ll try this out.”
“A-All right.”
As soon as I managed to bend my knees, Tiamat started running. Thud. Thud. Thud.
“Graough!! Ow! Ow! My butt’s going to crack open!”
There was no saddle or anything. The bumps in the road directly shot up to my tailbone. And there was still nothing to grab onto, not even a pair of reins. Bumpy, painful, and scary from the sharp lean forward. It was the worst.
In the end, I decided to walk myself.
“I think I understand why humans almost exclusively ride horses,” I remarked as I rubbed my butt.
“There are many animals faster than the horse, and a good number of those would follow commands. The biggest reason for riding horses has to be their steady galloping form.”
A thoughtful explanation from Tiamat. I recalled a video game where I could ride an ostrich or something, but that seemed limited to the realm of fiction. I suppose horses were the go-to species for humans to ride.
“At the end of the day, I don’t even get a mode of transportation. What is this world coming to?”
“There’s no audience to hear your showboating lamentations. You have two legs your parents gave you. Why not be grateful that you were born with an able body.”<
br />
“No cheat codes. No transportation. No items. All I get is a preachy sidekick. My life sucks.”
“I see. You don’t need me, then? This is where we part ways, it seems,” Tiamat declared with a distant tone. What had I done? Our duo was at the brink of destruction. Without a doubt, I was in the wrong.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean that.”
“Remember, Eiji. We are partners. Not a master and his subject.”
“Won’t happen again, Tia.”
“Hm.”
With a light nod, my partner accepted my apology. Japanese people often get themselves in trouble because of what they say. Almost every day, some politician loses their job over saying something they shouldn’t have. While we Japanese are often seen as humble, it seems we get carried away and say too much, too. It appeared I was no exception.
“You reading too many Isekai fantasies was a bigger contributing factor than your genetics, Eiji.”
“You got me there.”
In many Isekai stories, the protagonist is rewarded for no reason, sympathized, respected, loved, and worshiped. I must have considered that to be the norm. I’d mistakenly thought that I could disrespect Tiamat with impunity; of course that wasn’t the case.
We had spent much too short of a time together to form a powerful bond. If this was an average interpersonal relationship, we would have still been in the stone ages. Because she had appeared before me with the role of assisting me in this world, I had gotten it into my head that she would accept anything I did. Even under the most generous assumption in my favor, she was only here because it was her job.
“I was full of myself, I have to say.”
Had I learned nothing during the past 31 years of my life?
“You noticed that fact, and tried to correct the course. That’s good. It’s important to learn from your mistakes, but you shouldn’t keep them around your neck.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I chuckled at what Tiamat said. I could hear the early summer wind rustle through the grass field.
Even a loving married couple can end up in divorce from the smallest rift in their relationship, whereas Tiamat and I had only just met. We could expect plenty of instances to come in the future when our gears wouldn’t click. That’s exactly why Tiamat told me not to drag it on. When I make a mistake, I just have to learn from it and do better next time. My partner was too good for me.
Isekai Rebuilding Project: Volume 1 Page 5