“Long story short, they have beets. Albeit an unaltered species.”
Apparently, its sugar content was much lower than the modern-day variety.
“About 1%, to be specific. The modern-day species are about 20% sugar, so that’s not even close,” Tiamat explained.
“1%... Yeah, I wouldn’t call that close...”
“The world today was sharpened by the tireless efforts of those who’ve come before you. This is just one of the many examples of that.”
Of course. While we accept all of our modern-day technologies and conveniences without question, not a single one of them was possible without someone somewhere having an idea. These things are built off of someone dreaming of a future and dedicating themselves to making it a reality, through numerous trials and errors. Our lives are built upon the unfathomable efforts of countless people. And our efforts are carried onto future generations. That’s how human history has been woven together.
Now I could understand why the inspector of the Interstellar League of Nations (who didn’t call herself a goddess) had such a disdain for inter-world travel. It was blasphemous. Those who know the end result guiding a civilization to it. It may sound good on paper. It might even feel virtuous to those performing the deed. But it’s not.
People of worlds outside our own have the right to make mistakes. To make the wrong choice. To end up in a helpless situation. To correct those mistakes. To learn from their wrong choice. And to find a ray of hope at the brink of hopelessness. Not even a god should be allowed to take that away.
But that’s what that piece-of-shit Hero did. Were they the ones that selectively bred the white rice to make it the species they introduced to this world? Were they the ones that discovered how to refine the rice? Weren’t they the ones that simply showboated some tidbits of information they got from textbooks and the internet? Taking credit for those before you wasn’t enough? You had to go and ruin this world, too?
Dear Mister Piece-of-Shit Hero, I’ll fix the world you broke... using the same knowledge you had from modern-day Japan.
The Gears Begin to Turn
1.
“Help me, Tia-emon!”
“Hm. Are you really the guy that made that serious declaration a moment ago?”
“Sorry.”
No matter how grandiose a promise I made, there wasn’t much I could actually do. Even if we were to obtain some sugar beets (the unaltered species), I had no idea where to find them.
“Sugar beets were originally from the Mediterranean. They mostly grow in tepid climates, but they’ll also grow fine in subarctic climates, and they will grow sweeter the more the temperature changes throughout the day.”
I knew a place like that.
“Like Hokkaido.”
“Yep. Kitami, for example, is particularly well suited for growing them.”
“I remember there was a pretty large-scale beet farm there.”
“Hm. And as for the rice we have been eating these past few days... any guess on the cultivar?”
That was a tough riddle to crack. I wasn’t enough a foodie to pinpoint the cultivar of a bowl of rice just from eating it.
“Urgh...”
“You eat it all the time. You don’t even recognize the rice from your own home?”
“Whuh?”
“It’s Kirara. Kirara 397.”
“It’s Hokkaido rice!?”
“Yep. The climate here is very similar to that of the Donan region. One couldn’t ask for better conditions to grow Hokkaido rice.”
Donan, a southwestern region of Hokkaido, has long, dry days in summer and wet winters. The opposite of mainland Japan, particularly Tokyo and the rest of the Kanto region.
“This hero must have known to choose Hokkaido rice based on the climate.”
“If he had thought it through that much, I wish he would have considered the long-term ramifications...”
Or just bring over a rice from Kyushu or somewhere and fail miserably at growing it here. Why did he have to think of Dosanko rice? Resilient to cold and still yields a ridiculous amount, Kirara is one of the best tasting cultivars to boot. Why did he have to make the perfect choice in this particular department?
“In any case, there should be some beets nearby.”
If the climate here was similar to Hokkaido, it could easily be growing in the wild.
“Hm. Milon, where can we find some rygel?” Tiamat asked.
That was what they called sugar beets in this world.
“Rygel...?” Mister Milon contemplated. He had What do these Hermits want with that? written all over his face. It was only natural. I assumed that they considered rygel a weed.
“Mister Milon. I will teach you how to make a sweetener... of the Hermits.”
“Will you, truly...!?” Mister Milon’s eyes widened.
“But, please keep in mind. The knowledge I bestow upon you will change the world... just like the knowledge of rice did.”
“Yes. I am well aware.”
The white rice brought over by the hero caused the beriberi epidemic. What turmoil could we expect from importing sugar into this world? To be honest, I didn’t really know. It could very well be a door with another form of imminent doom on the other side.
“So, if you feel like you shouldn’t hear it, I won’t tell you.”
“Sir Eiji. That would be cruel after telling us this much.”
Milon laughed, and Syfer and Millia nodded in agreement. If anyone here wasn’t ready to jump at the prospect of obtaining a sweetener other than maple syrup and honey, they weren’t a businessperson, to say the least. Well, Syfer was an adventurer.
“All right. Then we will go harvest some rygel.”
Rygel was growing in a hilly area about four days north of Lishua. Of course, that was four days by foot for a resident of this world. It would take me a week or so. I was more concerned with whether or not I could continue walking for a straight week.
No. No I could not.
“Hm. Nothing to be proud of there,” Tiamat remarked.
And so, we decided to arrange for carriages. Four carriages, in fact, each drawn by a pair of horses. It shaped up to be a little caravan.
Unbelievably, I was appointed leader of the pack. Tiamat and Baze would accompany me as advisors, Syfer’s team would guard the caravan, and one of Mister Milon’s assistants, Rigarte, would tag along as a representative of his business. In addition, sixteen workers joined the fray to dig up the sugar beets. Funds and supplies were provided by Mister Milon, and the hiring of members was done by the Adventurers’ Guild.
This was a major project. Mister Milon was concerned that, despite all of them being A-rank, a team of merely four adventurers would not be enough. I disagreed. It wasn’t like we were transporting precious goods. We were just going to dig up some beets. Besides, we had a dragon and a Fenrir with us. Even if bandits were to attack us, they’d be killed in the blink of an eye.
Also, since we would have to make camp a few times along the way, I acquired some new equipment. The suit and dress shoes I was wearing on my way to my date wouldn’t cut it for an adventure. The early summer still brought about cold nights, so I dressed in warm clothes, as well as in knee-high boots and a cape. In addition, I hung a shortsword on my waist for my protection. Not that it would be of use to me any time soon!
“I think a longsword would suit you better, Sir Eiji, since you’re so tall,” remarked Syfer, who had accompanied me in acquiring my new equipment.
He was attentive, kind, and genuine, not to mention good-looking. If I were a woman I might have fallen for him.
“No thanks. That’d be heavy.”
“You’re supposed to slam it down, using its weight. There’d be no point to a light longsword.”
Yeah, right. What did he expect from me, when even a set of leather armor was too heavy for me to wear.
“Hm. Absolutely nothing to be proud of.”
“You’re starting to sound like a broken record, Tia.
”
“I don’t enjoy repeating myself, either. People may doubt my reserve to remain the straight man.”
Straight man? Are you kidding me? You’re definitely the comedic relief.
I felt like that was unanimous, anyway.
And so, the day of our departure had arrived. Mister Garish and Mister Milon had come all the way to the city gate to see us off. Along with their wives, and Miss Millia, of course. Somehow, it seemed like I was the hero departing on a quest to vanquish the Demon Lord! We were just going to do some farm work though!
“Let us depart.”
I instructed the coachman, sitting down next to him. He nodded and picked up the reigns. The wheels began to turn, clanking and clonking. My first adventure in this world. Curtains were rising.
That being said, there was not a single noteworthy event that took place on our trip. No monsters attacked, and there were no bandits. Not even a chance to save a beautiful woman stranded on the side of the street. It was as peaceful as it could have been, and it wouldn’t be amiss to call it boring, either. The real trouble began after we arrived at our destination.
I had vaguely expected to come to a beet farm, which, as with a little bit of thought I should have foreseen, was not the case. Our destination was nothing more than a vaguely hilly field. We were forced to look for rygel amidst the overgrown grass.
At first, work was tedious. We had no equipment, but only our hands to dig them up with. To top it off, the workers didn’t know what a rygel root looked like. They were figuratively searching in the dark for these things after Tiamat had shown the one she had plucked out of the ground.
It’s worth noting that I wasn’t the first one of our group to tap out, rather Baze was. He had grown bored of it. He was grumbling something about why he, the king of the forest, had to dig up some potatoes. Well, these were beets, though. In any case, his sabotage stunted our progress quite a bit, since Fenrir claws could dig up a lot more dirt than a shovel could.
Then Tiamat came up with a scheme. She had Baze eat one of the rygel roots we had acquired. Even though its sugar content was only at 1% or so, the sweetness was there. After realizing that these would be collected to make something sweet, Baze returned to work, way more enthusiastic than before.
...Apparently, Fenrir were omnivores.
2.
“Have you noticed, Baze?”
“Of course.”
Tiamat and Baze were conversing. This was our second day out in the field. With some tips and tricks under their belt the workers were much more efficient, steadily increasing our yield. Our goal, for the time being, was 1000kg, or a metric ton. While that wouldn’t be enough to completely fill four carriages, we weren’t going to ditch our water and food for the trip home to make room for more.
At this rate, I guessed that we would reach our goal in the next day or two. The morale of the workers was high with plenty of pay, food, and rest. Mister Garish would never recommend anyone that wouldn’t be dedicated to the work with these conditions, and Mister Milon would have never paid for their services.
Because the workers were hard at work, the rest of us were left with less work to do. Tiamat’s anatomy wasn’t well-suited for farmwork, and I would have only gotten in the way. While Baze was good at digging up dirt and had plenty of physical endurance to keep at it, he was casually sent down to the minors since his work was too... rough around the edges. What a useless trio of a human, dragon, and Fenrir we were.
It didn’t seem right to just stand around doing no work, so we were keeping watch for the time being. Not that we were at risk of being attacked, but we couldn’t leave the site completely unguarded. There was the added bonus of the workers’ piece of mind in knowing that they were protected. While on our watch, Tiamat and Baze held that exchange quietly.
“Of course, what? Mister Baze?”
Naturally, I hadn’t noticed anything. I wondered how I could acquire the special skill of picking up on the presence of something.
“Someone has been watching us since yesterday.” he informed us nonchalantly. I couldn’t help but turn to and fro in search of said figure, but all I could see was waves of green as far as the eye could see.
There were many short trees around, which provided countless spots for someone to hide, and the grass wasn’t short either. If someone could conceal their presence, I imagined it would be difficult to notice that character until they were extremely close to us. Tiamat, Baze, and Syfer’s team were another story, but the workers were in a very precarious situation.
“We should warn everybody that—”
“No need. I don’t sense any animosity. The eyes pointing our way are filled with curiosity,” Tiamat interrupted me.
“I see...”
What’s a dragon and a Fenrir doing with some humans? might have been what they were thinking. That was easy to understand. From a bystander’s perspective, we were clearly a weird group of characters. We were the kind of gathering that one would be extremely intrigued about, but not really want to approach. Uh-huh. And tragically, I was the leader of the bizarre bunch. Were there any volunteers to take my place?
“But it’s kind of embarrassing to have them just stare at us. Let’s let ‘em join the club, while we’re at it.”
“Why did you say the last part in the Hokkaido dialect, Tia?”
“The word I just used originated in Tohoku, around Tsugaru. The Hokkaido dialect is a melting pot of dialects from all over.”
“We didn’t really need that tidbit, though, did we?”
“Just a little wit for you. So, why don’t you join us? Let us share a meal.”
Tiamat called out towards a direction with no creature in sight. Eventually, a face peeked out from the tall grass.
“Woah!”
I was surprised. It was a cat. Well, a little more wild-looking than that. From my quick estimation, it was about two meters long, and it had large ears with a body full of grey fur. Imagine a giant Russian Blue.
“Hm. A Cait Sith. A rare creature to sight in a field,” Baze explained.
While they were magibeasts, Cait Sithes rarely attacked humans, and mostly lived each day as they pleased. They had a curious and trickster nature. Though they were both intelligent and physically gifted, they were not very aggressive.
“Uh-huh.”
As I took in the characteristics of Cait Sithes being explained to me, the one I was looking at disappeared. In an instant it was right in front of Tiamat, making an incredible jump. We were at least twenty meters away.
“An incomparable honor to receive your invitation, Dragon Princess,” it said with a smoky baritone, and bowed its head. What an elegant cat.
“And it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance too, King of the Forest, Human.”
Its long tail swung to and fro, elegantly. Baze had a sense of royal presence, and while Tiamat appeared coquettish, she had a sense of authority, somehow. In contrast, this Cait Sith had the aura of a nobleman.
“I am a little fool by the name of Hieronymus. The pleasure is all mine,” he introduced himself. No wonder he was elegant. He shared a name with the famous Baron Munchausen, after all.
And so, my team grew to four, just like Syfer’s. With the same male to female ratio, too, at three to one. The definitive difference was that I was the only human on my team... not that I was bothered by that or anything, dammit.
“Hold on, Sir Eiji. There’s no comparison when it comes to combat strength. I don’t even know if the four of us could take on Hieronymus together.” Syfer offered as consolation.
As a guideline for combat strength, apparently about ten Hieronymuses would be a good match against Baze, and about ten Bazes would be a good match against Tiamat. Leading these creatures alone put me in great light... or so he said. I wasn’t too sure. It seemed more like the fifth installment of the most famous JRPG in the world. Well, come to think of it, the protagonist from that title was pretty strong. And the same definitely could not have been sai
d about me. Which meant...
“I’m the flower child?”
“Your name is Eiji. I don’t think I’ll be going to your town one day.”
Tiamat, the magic girl, tied up my insane rambling. Thanks for that.
“You shouldn’t be old enough to know that one, though,” she added.
“All hail the internet.”
In any case, my party ended up being mostly comprised of non-human creatures. As Syfer pointed out, we collectively boasted incredible strength in combat; that was sure to cause its own set of problems. I was just an ordinary human, after all. Albeit with the bizarre status of a Hermit.
A Hermit, dragon, Fenrir, and Cait Sith. Drawing attention to ourselves was becoming unavoidable. Since we were on a quest to save lives, I could foresee the potential of us being worshiped or idolized.
“There you go overthinking again. Who would look at you and think you were sent by a god?” Tiamat cackled. Thanks for the honesty.
I had to wholeheartedly agree, though. If one were to peg a puny bureaucrat like me as a god, they should head straight for either the optometrist or psychiatrist.
“But that wasn’t what I was getting at.”
Things were fine, now. While I stayed at Lishua, and displayed my shortcomings for the world to see, there wasn’t a problem. One could arise after I leave. The rice the hero introduced to this world started an epidemic, which was to be quelled by the Hermit Beans and gagd meat I introduced, and their quality of life would improve with beet sugar.
In the end, what would the people of this land have done? With the right answer given to them from the start, they would only reap the benefits. Was I not about to rob these people of their brain power, imagination, and willingness to take on a challenge? If they were to grow accustomed to some hero or Hermit saving the day every time they were in a dangerous situation, they would all be doomed.
“That’s what I mean when I say you’re overthinking.”
Exasperated, Tiamat bit down my head. Chomp.
Isekai Rebuilding Project: Volume 1 Page 10