The Crumbling World

1.

Surely, there is no person alive who has no complaints about their life whatsoever. Even those living lives that seem picture perfect to others can have a soft voice in their heads whispering what could have been. It’s not an unusual feeling to have. That being said...

“I wasn’t sincerely hoping for something like this...”

I mumbled, as I stared into the empty space. There really was nothing there. It was too empty to even call it barren. If I had to make a comparison, it felt like the end of the universe. However, as I had never visited such a place before, I had no idea if that comparison was accurate. All I knew was that I wasn’t in the south-side entrance of Sapporo Station, where I’d planned to meet up with my belle.

“You don’t seem too troubled.”

An androgynous voice. I couldn’t see the speaker, though.

“...You may be surprised. I’m at my limits, here and there.”

I shrugged my shoulders. In the empty space, I could barely tell up from down. If I did appear to be keeping my cool, it was solely because I’d accepted the plots of various Isekai, or transported-to-another-world, stories I’d read or watched as vicarious experiences.

“Am I dead?”

I had no recollection of being hit by a semi or anything like that.

“Eiji Kazama, you are not dead. I am almost curious enough to ask how you reached that conclusion.”

The voice said my name. I felt no fear in learning that this entity had my personal information. That ship had sailed a long, long time ago.

“Allow me to explain.”

With that, the entity appeared before me: a woman, who appeared to be in her twenties.

“...A goddess, perhaps?”

“I see. That is how I appear to you?”

“Which means?”

“My appearance merely reflects your mentality. In short, I only appear this way because you think that anyone who comes out to explain things in this kind of situation must be a goddess or someone of the like.”

“Hmm... That’s how it works...”

I gave a vague nod. To be honest, I didn’t understand the entirety of what this woman just said, let alone accept it. That being said, if I kept interrupting our conversation would never move forward. Any disagreements or counterpoints could be made after hearing the other party out.

“There is something I want you to do.”

The woman stared at me intently. Her face was attractive, and her expression lively. If she was the embodiment of my imagination, that would make me a rather shallow man. I apologized silently to my fiancée for the fact that the woman looked nothing like her.

“I want you to save a dimension, or a world, from your point of view, separate from your own.”

“...It’s not that I didn’t expect it, but now that I’ve heard it out loud, it sounds incredibly vapid.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. A chosen hero saving the world, a very common story in the fantasy genre; however, it is only acceptable within the realms of fiction. An entire world saved by a single hero? How cheap can it get? I hadn’t spent my 31 years on Earth thus far under a rock. I had some sense of logic. There’s only so much a single human being could possibly accomplish. Even if that person were to perform to the best of their abilities, the results would be far from perfect.

“The predicament itself is vapid, so the explanation of it can be nothing but.”

The woman, too, cracked an ironic grin.

“Hm?”

“‘Save’ may not have been the correct word to use. What actually needs to be done is ‘repair.’”

“Repair?”

“Correct. Repair of a world on the brink of destruction, thanks to one of your kind.”

The woman explained as much, without changing her expression. Apparently, a few Japanese people traveled to this world where they spread various pieces of knowledge, bringing about various changes in the world.

“The overpowered protagonist type. I’ve never considered that to be morally questionable.”

“At its core, it isn’t. There are plenty of precedents, too.”

“Really?”

“Same as your world. It was shaped into what it is today through all manner of interference and ripple effects.”

It sounded similar to Official Development Assistance performed by first-world nations in developing nations. A world that possessed advanced technology or knowledge bestowing those things to worlds that were falling behind; the history of the universe must have been woven that way for all eternity. Come to think of it, technological revolutions on Earth had periods of rapid improvement and periods of stagnation throughout history. There is even a theory that claims that there were people in ancient Greece who were convinced that the Earth was round, way before methods of crossing an ocean had been invented.

I sighed. The topic of conversation was getting a little too grandiose. I needed a little more time to comprehend everything.

“So, in summary, I am to travel to a world where other Japanese people have been sent and counteract the things they have done. Is that correct?”

“In general, your understanding is not incorrect.”

“Why me?”

That must be a ubiquitous question. This time, the beautiful woman wore a distinctive smile.

“No real reason.”

“How irrational...”

“If I must give a reason, you are the polar opposite of the types who have been selected so far.”

“That’s...”

I knew exactly what she meant. Nowadays, many of the overabundant Isekai works star an unprivileged protagonist. Agoraphobic, bullied, neglected, abused... It’s my guess that no protagonist has lived a life as utterly ordinary as mine. Born in a normal household, I spent my youth with no noteworthy events to speak of. I’d attended an average-level high school, then a nameless private university. After graduating, I became a city clerk without really questioning my path, and served as a government worker ever since. Receiving one promotion in my twenties was neither especially early nor late, but expected.

I also had a fiancée. At 27, she was four years younger than me. We’d dated for three years, and had already introduced each other to our families. We planned to get married next year.

“Your employer will never go out of business, and you will never be fired, barring extreme circumstances. You have days off when you’re supposed to, and have enough time and money for leisurely activities. Everything is well with your fiancée, and you respect each other’s interests. Quite the Instagrammable life; I’m envious.”

I had no need to fantasize about another world. I was mostly content with my life.

“A boring life. No plot twists. No adventures.”

“Many would take offense to that comment.”

“I’m sure. I know there are people who struggle to survive day-to-day, and people who can’t find hope or aspirations for the future.”

The woman chuckled, and I reciprocated. I wanted this life. No one can choose their place of birth or the sex they are born as, but people can choose which schools to attend and which occupation to pursue. I was living my dime-a-dozen life of my own volition.

“Which means you are the polar opposite of those who proceeded you. That’s why you were chosen.”

A forked road presented to the everyman.

“...Is it possible to refuse?”

“It is. But do you want to refuse?”

“...”

She saw right through me. It was true. Ever since I arrived in this space I was elated. My heart was clamoring. I could feel it: something was about to begin. Still, I couldn’t walk away from the life I had. My parents, fiancée, friends... they were all chains dear to me. I couldn’t let them go.

“When you die in the other world, I’ll bring you back to this moment in time.”

As I hesitated to answer, the woman proposed a condition.

“When I die?”

“From ailment, combat, old age. No matter the cause. The time limit is your lifetime. Just try the best you can during that time.”

“Try... What about results?”

“I don’t ask any of you. Trying one’s best doesn’t always work. What’s important isn’t the end result but whether or not we’ve explored all avenues. You understand, don’t you?”

Ridiculous. And she thought I understood?

“In the bureaucratic sense, you mean?”

“Correct.”

“Well, that’s the worst.”

In bureaucracy, results are not entirely important. Putting in the effort and yielding no results is commended more than achieving results without any effort. Working hard until closing time with nothing to show for it is preferred to achieving spectacular results with five minutes of work.

“It’s not too different in our business, either. There was a complaint from the god on-site that the humans pulled from your world were less than ideal. So, we settled on sending someone with characteristics that contrasted theirs.”

If I didn’t hit the mark, no problem. All that would happen is these entities would deem humans from my world unfit for the job. No more recruiting from my world. That’s it.

“I’m sensing an anyway-the-wind-blows kind of stance, here...”

“Mr. Eiji Kazama. I, personally, am not a fan of inter-world travel. Whether a world flourishes or collapses, I believe it should happen under the sole responsibility of the occupants of that world.”

“I see...”

“Now, let me ask you, Eiji Kazama. Ja? Or Nein?”

2.

God does nothing. No matter how prideful humans become, there will be no wrath nor judgment. No matter how much humans suffer, or stand at the brink of extinction, there will be no saving grace. God only watches on. Like an audience devoid of emotion and interest.

That’s not a bad way to think about things, though. Should a god, a super-human, or a Warrior of Light appear every time humanity is at stake, and guide them towards the righteous path? How dare they? How could anyone call that an authentic history of humanity? A side character who exists only to be saved by someone superior; is that the sole purpose of humans in this universe?

I defy that notion. Humans have saved themselves out of pickles in the past, and that will be the case in the future. If, one in a million, we find ourselves in a situation we can’t handle, we will ask for help. We will grind our foreheads to the ground and beg for mercy. Of course, whether they will accept our plea or not is another matter entirely.

“Now that you’ve explained it’s like an ODA...”

I scratched my head. Before me wasn’t Sapporo Station. Instead there was an endless field of green grass and a single path. It didn’t look like Japan, but it’s not like I was familiar with every location within my home country. I couldn’t say without a doubt that I was no longer in Japan.

“I mean, I’m sure this is the world in question.”

While I couldn’t confirm it with absolute certainty, I had no reason to doubt it. That beautiful woman (who never called herself a goddess, after all) had no reason to send me anywhere but. I had accepted her request.

It would have been easy to refuse, saying ‘ain’t my problem.’ Even though Japanese people caused the mess, it was not something I was personally responsible for. What’s more, the entities from this world were the ones who summoned them in the first place. It didn’t make any sense to deem my world responsible for the damage. They should have accounted for it. They should have foreseen what kind of actions someone who had lived an oppressed life would take when suddenly given immense power and the ability to affect the destiny of others, as well as what kind of effects those actions would have. Once used in any other way than those specified in the manual, any appliance would be out of warranty. In that analogy, someone being sent to repair the product isn’t protocol. This is basically customer service.

“It all seems pretty stupid.”

“You didn’t take too long to make your decision for someone who feels that way.”

“True. It wasn’t like I was coming up with some grand justification, though. It just sounded like fun. I couldn’t help it.”

A stable job, a wonderful fiancée, a family dear to me... I had no dissatisfaction with any of them. But somewhere deep inside, I felt some adoration for a life different than my own.

“So, I have the same motive as my predecessors. Just in a direction. I guess that means I felt confined, too.”

“Not an easy way of life, is it?”

“You said it. Speaking of...”

I looked over to see the creature I was having a friendly conversation with. It had a body covered in scales of a color somewhere in between blue and green, a long neck, and a horned head. There was a pair of something that resembled wings on its back, and its tail was slapping the ground with some force. One of the staples of fantasy: a dragon. Except this one wasn’t that big; it was as tall as me, at most.

“What are you, anyway?”

“That’s a long story. In short, I am your partner, Eiji.”

“Isn’t that a little too short!?”

My partner was a tiny dragon. There was definitely more explaining to do.

“Tsk.”

“I heard that!”

“That was a dragon’s tonguing. It serves as a starter when breathing fire.”

“Hey! Was that little blurb necessary!? Was it!?”

“For style points. Anyway, I am basically an interface. I know your kind finds it easier to gain and organize information if you’re speaking with someone, face to face.”

The dragon burst out into laughter. Its meticulously aligned fangs scared me a little. In other words, this dragon was here to guide and assist me as I traveled through an unfamiliar world. Why was it a dragon and not a human? For style points, probably.

Well, it’s true that having the beautiful woman I met earlier as my travel companion would not work out in my favor. Traveling with a beautiful woman alone while I have a girlfriend, nay, fiancée? That would spell all sorts of trouble for me. While I have never once considered myself to be an aggressive type, I have as much libido as anyone else. Having a travel companion for whom I could in no conceivable fashion grow feelings toward is a better option to prevent unwanted circumstances, I’m sure.

“I get the gist. What should I call you?”

“I have no name. Call me by any name. Ayano, for example.”

“I don’t want you to share a name with my fiancée...”

“Then something like Zeke is fine.”

“I don’t get the reference... My name isn’t Van...”

“Hm. You get the gist. Were you even born?”

“Actually, yeah. I was pretty much the target audience.”

I was born in 1986, which puts me in middle school around the time. Which doesn’t really matter.

“Which sex are you, by the way?”

“Female.”

“Tiamat, then. Tia for short.”

Tiamat is the name of the dragon god who appears in Mesopotamian mythology. A dragon goddess, actually, so I wasn’t too far off the mark.

“A little thoughtless, don’t you think? What were you going to do if I was a male dragon?”

“Bahamut, I guess.”

“Your knowledge seems to stem from video games rather than mythology, Eiji. Bahamut was only depicted as a dragon for the first time in Dungeons and Dragons.”

“You know a lot of things, don’t you, Tia?”

“I have been implemented with most knowledge presumed to be useful, and most knowledge presumed to be not.”

“Why bother with the latter...?”

“For witty conversation. It would be lonely to traverse a strange world alone.”

“Thank you for your thoughtful concern.”

I chuckled. I didn’t consider myself particularly lacking in social skills, but could I jump right into a crowd of people and engage in conversation in a world where I had no knowledge of their culture or customs? I had to say no. I didn’t even know if we could understand each other. I decided to ask Tiamat about it.

“You can speak with them, no problem. You have also been implemented with the bare essentials of communication tools.”

How reassuring. It seemed that I had been tweaked with on my inter-world journey. There was even a chance I’d been given some broken power.

“Nope. No special abilities for you, Eiji.”

“Dammit! You didn’t even let me ask!”

“Were you even listening to me? Bare. Essentials.”

“...Thanks for the flawless double tap. Can’t I dream a little dream?”

“You are human, after all. Tia-o.”

“A little too much wit, don’t you think?”

It looked like I wasn’t given any special powers out of respect for the god of this land. I guess they would be a little on edge after a bunch of Japanese people with broken powers messed up their world. That makes this god rather human-like, I thought.

“The gods from Earth’s mythology are pretty human-like, too.”

I couldn’t argue with that. In most cases, gods were created by men. Which wasn’t entirely accurate. They were essentially the product of human imagination and faith. That’s why none of them take shapes beyond human imagination, and their characteristics are similar to humans.

“In that sense, the goddess I met was cut-and-dried.”

“That wasn’t a goddess.”

“Oh, really?”

“Something a little more realistic. An Inspector for the Interstellar League of Nations.”

“What part about that is realistic? Huh? Huh?”

“I don’t mind answering, but it will take some time to explain the intricacies.”

“How long?”

“If I were to only use words you can understand, about four years.”

“All right, Tia. Basically a goddess, then.”

“Wise choice of comprehension. Now, it seems we’ve reached our destination while we entertained ourselves with idle chatter.”

Close to the horizon I could see a pretty intimidating gate to a city. The wall that seemed to enclose the entire city was just as intimidating.

“That’s Lishua, the royal capital of the Azur Kingdom.”

“Big city. I wonder if they have some good cuisine.”

I don’t think I’m the only one who first looks forward to food when traveling. When I visit a place for the first time, I want to start off by getting some good food.

“May not be a delicacy for you, Eiji. You can eat rice here,” the dragon said, with half a chuckle.

“They have rice.”

“They do. Silver rice, at that.”

“Silver rice...”

I nearly laughed at Tiamat’s old-fashioned vernacular, when my face stiffened halfway through. In other words, purely white rice. Anyone from modern-day Earth may wonder what the problem is, precisely because they live in the modern day. Even in Japan, commoners mostly ate brown rice until the 1930s. And bam. There’s white rice available in a medieval fantasy world.

“Eiji. Let me repeat. This is a world turned Waya by the Japanese.”

3.

Waya. A regional word from Hokkaido, my home province, that means a state of utter chaos. It was pretty surreal to hear a dragon speak the Hokkaido dialect, but not as surreal as the things taking place in this country. White rice in a medieval fantasy world? Where to start...?

“You want me to change things back to how they were...?”

“You can’t,” Tiamat replied with a swift declaration. With a look, I pried her for an explanation.

“Once lives have been enhanced, no one will accept the inconveniences of their former lives. You’re familiar with that, Eiji.”

“...You got me there.”

It’s true. I had lived my whole life with modern technology. I couldn’t go back to live in the caves. I want to drink cold beer; I want to take clean baths; I want to live in a comfortable house. I want to easily gain information through my electronic devices, and I want to be able to get food or snacks whenever I want. The same sentiment must hold true for society as a whole. This becomes apparent during power outages, for example. They illuminate how much modern civilization depends on electricity, and how modern-day humans can’t live without it.

After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, electricity in Japan was scarce. It was only natural, since the production of nuclear power, which was a major contributor, had been practically halted. More natural ways of producing electricity had been spotlighted in the media, but those weren’t enough to make up for the loss of nuclear. Despite our predicament, how many Japanese people spent their lives consciously preserving energy? I surely was not one of them. Just as Tiamat pointed out, I couldn’t stand to lower my quality of life.

As my occupation called for it, I’d listened to some concerned citizens from time to time. One such time happened when I was still being called a rookie. I believe they had come in to ask questions about their taxes. Saying their business wasn’t doing well, so they couldn’t pay their taxes, or something like that. After the bubble popped, the Japanese economy had been in a steady decline with no indication of that changing.

After listening for a while, assuming that this must be a common concern, they said something that stunned me. Apparently, no matter how much they tried, this couple could not live off of anything less than about 400,000 yen a month. The thought crossed my mind to give them a head-butt over the counter. At the time, my first salary out of college was about 160,000 yen a month. After insurance, taxes, etc., I was left 140,000 yen or so each month. How could they need nearly three times the amount of my salary to survive a month? They ate as much as they wanted, played as much as they wanted, and claimed that they were being frugal. To top it all off: “Must be nice to work for the government. You live off of our taxes,” they said. Dammit. Just remembering it makes my blood boil.

“Come back down, Eiji. Where are you floating off to?”

“My bad. I just remembered something infuriating.”

“I thought it was supposed to be something funny. A new use for colloquialism, I see,” Tiamat said, kind of distant from me, as I was unleashing my anger against the innocent ground of the Azur Kingdom.

“So it’s difficult to downgrade your life. I get the point.”

“Mm-hm.”

At the end of the day, you can’t sleep in your baby crib once you’ve grown out of it. It seemed impossible to force the people of this world, who had tasted modern-day technology, back to their old ways.

“Unless we blow it all up, or something.”

“Same goes for Earth. If all technology were to return to dust, people would be forced to be cavemen again.”

“It would be easier here than on Earth. The knowledge of technology is still hoarded by the select few.”

“That’s a weird comparison. It’s not something I can accomplish, anyway.”

It would be difficult to rob the world of knowledge that had already been made public. If information was being kept close to the chest of a select few, killing those few would be an option. Except that was impossible. A feeble bureaucrat like myself had no combat skills to do so. Even if I did, I didn’t want to kill anyone.

“Hm. I know. That’s why I don’t know what your next step is yet, Eiji.”

“Thought so...”

Things weren’t so easy. The god on-site apparently wanted it fixed. How could I fix it? I didn’t even know what state the world had to be in to be deemed fixed.

“First, we need to find out what problems are occurring here,” Tiamat said, with a big yawn.

It’s only natural, but there was a security check when entering the city.

“Young man. From where have you hailed?” a soldier asked, holding a spear. He must have been one of the guards. I would call him a burly man with a shapely mustache, but he was shorter than me. Just about 175cm, I figured. I didn’t know the details, though, as I didn’t have any special abilities that allowed me to accurately assess one’s height, weight, or bust size. In any case... ‘young man?’ After the age of thirty, it’s not often that one is called young. In fact, I was on the cusp of ‘middle age.’ Perhaps in nine years...

“We are travelers. We came from...”

“The Dragon Realm. I am Tiamat. This is Eiji.”

“Ah. A Hermit in the flesh. Forgive me.”

“Mm.”

Tiamat returned a light bow. I interpreted the quick look she gave me to mean ‘leave it to me.’

“Ordinarily, we remain detached from the lower realm, but the Azur’s flourishment has piqued our interest. I humbly request permission to enter,” she declared with eloquence, boasting an impressive attitude. Her dragon body added to the intimidation factor, too.

“In that case, you are most welcome here. Please fill out these columns here, Master Hermit.”

The soldier, pleased by the compliment of his nation, showed us to what looked like voting booths. He gave us each a piece of paper and a pen.

Hold on a minute. What time period on Earth did this world equate to? While the paper was primitive, this kind of paper didn’t become common in Japan until the Meiji period, or after 1868. As for the pen, this type that contains its own ink wasn’t invented until the 1800s. It just seemed like... things were thrown together sloppily just to eliminate some inconveniences in life.

That was my thought process as I faced the piece of paper. I was tasked with filling them out, as Tiamat’s hands / paws / talons weren’t suited for a pen. I filled them out one by one; it seemed I had no issue reading and writing the language of this world.

“Oh. How old are you, Tia?”

“No idea. I never had a custom to keep track of my age, either.”

“Really... Oops...”

It’s possible that Tiamat was created at the moment of my inter-world travel, but I couldn’t put down ‘age: 0.’ Could I turn these in partially blank?

“No problem, sir. These are formalities.”

I gave the soldier a pleading look, and he returned a big nod of approval. Although I couldn’t help but think that they should probably maintain a front, especially if these were formalities, I was not about to go poke a wasp’s nest.

With a fake smile, I handed over the papers with good portions of them left blank.

“Oh, you are 31, Master Eiji! I would have guessed that Hermits age differently than us!”

He was surprised, for some reason. Is there a problem with the fact that I’m thirty, huh? Is there?

“I can’t believe you are a whole ten years older than I am!”

Oh, okay... “Wait, ten!?”

I couldn’t help but yelp. This soldier was 21? There’s no way he’s anywhere below his mid-forties. That was when a certain possibility crossed my mind.

4.

During the Edo period, the Japanese people appeared much older when compared to people of the same age today. It’s not like there’s accurate data, or photographs, so there is no way to verify this. The life expectancy data doesn’t help either, since the high infant mortality rate lowers the mean. The infant mortality in 1899, when we do have data from, was more than 15%. In other words, only about eight out of ten people lived past the age of five. That was in the 32^nd year of the Meiji period. These numbers would not have been better back in the Edo period.

In 1891 (24^th year of Meiji), life expectancy was about 44 years. It’s worth noting that the life expectancy of a particular year is not the mean of the age of people who died that year, but the average lifespan of the people born that year. Which meant that, if they were born in 1891 in Japan, men would live 42.8 years and women would live 44.3 years on average.

So did no one live past the age of fifty? Of course, some people did. There were always people who lived longer lives than expected. However, it’s also true that they didn’t live as long as modern-day people in Japan. At age fifty, one was considered to be of old age. In the example of Natsume Soseki, who has relatively well-preserved photographs... How old does he look in his famous portrait? The one used on an iteration of the 1000 yen bill. By the way, he passed away at the age of 49.

Back to the Edo period. First of all, the health of the average person was inferior to today. Foods that build strong muscle and bone were hard to come by. Everyone worked hard labor without any skin care products or makeup. Who knows how true this is, but there is even a theory out there that people in the Edo period looked two decades older, when compared to someone of the same age in modern day. Considering this, maybe it’s not too outlandish that I thought this 21-year-old soldier was in his mid-forties.

“How wonderful, Master Hermit. You must live much longer than us, I’m sure.”

“...We’ll see about that.”

I decided to give a vague response. If the life expectancy of these people was forty years, mine was double that. I didn’t think that’s something I wanted to bring to light during small talk.

“Then, please enjoy your stay in Lishua.”

The soldier accepted our papers, and held up his lance for us. What a nice young man.

“It seems you’ve been wandering deep into your thoughts since earlier,” Tiamat said, as we were walking down the main street.

“Yeah, like that soldier’s age...”

“About how he looked older than you?”

“Something like that...”

Of course I had a few thoughts about it. I was a resident of the modern-day real world, and he’s in a fantasy world. I guess the only difference between us was how progressed each of our societies were. Still, I couldn’t brush off the fact that the person I had just spoken to expected to die twice as early as I did.

“Hm. Since he looks that old at twenty or so, you don’t think the women will be lookers, either.”

“Wait. Wait wait wait wait! That’s not right! How did you reach that conclusion!?”

“Hm?”

The dragon crooked its neck. It was not cute.

“I have a fiancée!”

“You know. A side chick. Or Resort Lovers.”

“Nasty! And I don’t get the second one!”

“A hit single from 1989.”

“How the hell...!?”

At the time, I was three years old.

“A song that epitomizes the height of the economic bubble. The phrase ‘Resort Lovers’ became less and less used in Japan after the bubble burst. Now it’s obsolete...”

“Who asked you for the trivia...?”

This dragon really does know a lot of crap. I guess this is an example of the useless knowledge implemented in her. So utterly useless.

“Don’t sweat it. We’re not of this world, anyway. No good will come from being sentimental here.”

This little... Did she only make the absurd proposal to get my mind off of the aging thing? I wasn’t expecting that.

“...I owe you one, Tia.”

“Make sure to include some interest when repaying it.”

“All righty.”

Just as in numerous fantasy stories, the city of Lishua hosted an Adventurers’ Guild.

“Naturally. Titles aside, the formation of unions by those in the same industry are historically inevitable.”

Tiamat had a good point. Whether you’re an adventurer, or handyman, or Mr. Fix It, or whatever, trying to earn contracts on your own was no easy task. Especially when advertising (in our modern sense of the word) was nonexistent. People could barely advertise their occupation to those in town. Those with their own shop or office space could bring in customers by putting up a sign, but I’m sure that’s unattainable for most. On the other hand, that’s why a sign for a business guaranteed a certain level of trustworthiness.

“They couldn’t get contracts on their own, so they formed a guild to make that process easier. Yep, seems like a natural course.”

“If the guild had formed naturally, you’d be right on the mark,” Tiamat said with sarcasm, as she slapped her tail against the ground.

Our first destination: the Adventurers’ Guild. Of course, we weren’t here to register as guild members, nor to look for any contracts.

“Guess you’re right.”

I shrugged. There was no way that an occupation like an adventurer would hold a vital part in society. Exploring dungeons, defeating monsters, gathering herbs, guarding travelers... It’s only in the world of fiction where people can make a living doing these kinds of things. The first is out of the question, and if someone with a certain level of strength is required to handle any of the other tasks, it’s already serious enough that a government agency, local or national, should be doing something about it. Each of them represents the presence of a threat close to civilization. Not something you’d want to trust a band of lawless fighters with.

“I suppose it all starts with what an adventurer really is,” said Tia. Were they mercenaries? Speculators? Private eyes? Jacks-of-all-trade?

“In any case, there’s not much demand for them.”

With a chuckle, I opened the door to the guild. There were a few sets of tables and chairs in the large hall, and there was a bulletin board on the wall, surely for posting quests on. At the far end of the hall was a reception counter. A few groups were hanging out in the hall who must have been parties of adventurers. They were giving us less than friendly glances. I couldn’t deny that we were eye-catching: a man much taller than this world’s average walking in with a human-sized dragon. At this rate of clichés, I expected a thug or two to come up to us ready to start a fight. Sadly, all they did was watch. I had no desire to be the object of voyeurism, so it was just awkward. We approached the reception counter.

“Excuse me...”

“Are you here to file a quest? Or to register as a member?”

A female employee greeted us with a gentle tone and friendly smile. A model receptionist. She appeared to be in her early forties... so she must have been in her early twenties.

“Well, neither, actually. We just have a few questions.”

“What might they be?”

She crooked her neck. A cute gesture unbecoming of a woman in her forties, but I then remembered that she must be in her twenties. The reality in front of me wasn’t clicking with my preconceptions.

“We want to know how this guild came to be.”

“I see...”

She wore a puzzled expression, and I couldn’t blame her. There must not be too many people that come in and ask such a thing. Not that I would expect the receptionist to be able to tell us the whole story, anyway. Not so much from any lack of authority, but rather from the lack of knowledge. I would love to have her show us to someone higher up who’d know. Now, how to put it...

“Lass. We are traveling Hermits. We are quite interested in how things are in the lower realm. That includes this guild. Won’t you call the Guild Master for us?”

Tiamat came to the rescue, having seen that I was struggling.

Wow. Way to wave the Hermit title in her face. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to be a little more reserved... I thought, as I am Japanese, and we Japanese believe humility is a virtue.

5.

“Hermits!? Pardon me, sires. Please wait here a moment.”

The receptionist retreated to the back, apologetically. The magic word did wonders. Not only that, but some whispering started in the hall, too.

“At times like these, don’t be coy when you don’t need to, Eiji.”

We entered the gates of Lishua under the title of Hermits. Now that we’ve used the title once already, it didn’t make a difference how many more times we used it. In fact, it’s a selling point for our character; we might as well use it every chance we get. That’s a guide to job interviews too, by the way. Whether or not it was necessary here and now, it’s hard to say. Remaining silent, I shrugged. Even when made aware of it, it takes a long time to get out of an entrenched behavior.

“You’re the type who puts on a monster mask to do your dirty work.”

“Got to give those meddling kids a chance.”

“This time, they’ve already had their chance.”

As we concluded our trivial conversation based on trivia, the receptionist returned with a man who seemed to be the character in charge. He was a portly man who appeared middle-aged, but it was tough for me to read the ages of the people here. I imagined I’d get used to it after a few years of living here.

“It’s an honor, Hermits. My name is Garish. I’m in charge of the Lishua branch of the Adventurers’ Guild.”

“Thank you, sir. My name is Eiji, and this is Tiamat. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

I mirrored the man’s bow. A polite first impression is something any Japanese worker learns to strive for, until the point it becomes second nature. I’d seen so many protagonists in fantasy pieces acting brazen toward people they’d never met before. Act that way in real life and most of their negotiations would end negatively for them. An adult thinks one thing, and says another. This isn’t even a noble concept, either.

“I was told you’re interested in the formation of our guild.”

“Mm. Unless I’m mistaken, this organization didn’t exist a century ago.”

Tiamat was the one who answered. Whether or not she really had knowledge of this world from a hundred years ago, I didn’t know.

“That is correct. The Adventurers’ Guild itself was only created about fifty years ago.”

“Hmm. A fresh business, then.”

Apparently a long-standing organization of fifty years was ‘fresh’ to Tiamat. Mister Garish didn’t seem offended, though. In fact, he seemed proud. An up-and-coming business managed to beat the competition. Perhaps he was boasting. At any time in history, traditions and name value are obstacles to someone.

“How rude of me not to offer you a seat, Hermits. This way, please.”

He lead us further in. We were the rude ones, showing up without an appointment. Such a polite welcome made me feel a little guilty.

“Is this a good time? If it isn’t, we would...”

Don’t ask me to finish the sentence. Take the trail-off to be a Japanese accent.

“Oh, it’s most always a good time for me. My wife has been handling much of the business, lately.”

Mister Garish gave a quick look to the receptionist. She’s the wife, surprisingly. A family-run business.

“It’s so hard to move around these days. I’m taking plenty of rest, though.”

Woah, woah, woah. So he’s sick somehow. More the reason he shouldn’t be speaking to us now.

“In that case, you should rest, sir...”

“I just feel heavy, that’s all. I’ve seen a doctor just to be safe, and I was told that it wasn’t any illness.”

I had no idea what the standards for medical practices in this world were. At this point, I couldn’t decide whether to take the doctor’s word at face value. Still, upon reevaluating, Mister Garish didn’t look too well. While his stature was large, he was more swollen than portly. As I’m not an expert, I couldn’t discern more than that; but something was nagging at the corner of my mind. Lethargy and swollenness. ...It couldn’t be. That would be ridiculous. But the clues click. What did Tiamat say before we entered Lishua? That we could eat white rice here. White rice, lethargy, and swollenness. Was it what I thought it was? If I was right, the Japanese party who came here before me made a devastating blunder. If I recalled correctly, tens of thousands died from it each year. I became aware that my expression was turning more and more worrisome.

“What’s going on, Eiji?” Tiamat asked, probably concerned.

“...Mister Garish may be ill,” I said, with a face that must have made me look like the sickest man in the room.

We were then shown to what looked like the Guild Master’s office that also seemed to serve as a meeting room, as it contained a couch and coffee table in addition to a desk. I was entirely uninterested in the interior or furniture of the room, however, as I desperately searched for a particular item.

“Is something the matter, Sir Eiji?”

“Um... Do you have a hammer? A small one will do.”

“Hammer? What would you do with such a thing?”

A confused expression crossed his face. It was only natural. Who in their right mind would request that of their host? But it was absolutely necessary. Apparently one can do the test with no tools whatsoever, but I didn’t possess such a skill.

“Would this do?”

Still with the confused expression, Mister Garish produced a hammer from his tool box on the shelf.

“Then, sit on that desk please. Relax from the waist down so your feet dangle.”

“Uh-huh...”

Incredulity was written all over his face. If he didn’t consider me a Hermit, he definitely would have kicked me out. I must have looked insane.

“Like this?”

The Guild Master shoved some papers on the desk away and sat down. I reached out and made sure that his legs were dangling.

“Mister Garish, I will lightly tap below your knee with this hammer. I just need you to stay relaxed.”

“All right...”

I assumed he didn’t know what I was about to do. Tiamat must not have known either, as she was watching with enthusiasm.

I exhaled. Hit below the knee, where it’s a little dented. Just a tad of an upper swing. Like hitting a tennis ball. Pop.

“...”

It didn’t move. Did I do it wrong? One more time. No movement. It didn’t move for me.

“Gr...”

“Um... What are you doing, Sir Eiji?”

A young man with sweat on his brow and a terrified expression repeatedly tapping a man’s leg with a hammer. What a bizarre tableau.

“It’s called a tendon reflex. When I tap this part, your leg is supposed to jolt up.”

“Well, but, what does that mean?”

Mister Garish looked utterly confused. Of course he was. There was no way for him to know what the condition is called, what causes it, or how to treat it.

A demon brought over by a Japanese person into a medieval fantasy world. Also known as the Edo affliction in Japan, it became an epidemic in the 1870s, feared as one of the two most deadly diseases in Japan alongside tuberculosis. Each year tens of thousands died from it. It wasn’t until the early 1980s when the annual death count in Japan dropped under a thousand.

“Mister Garish, you are ill. You are afflicted with a disease that will cause your death if untreated.”

As calmly as I could, I declared my findings. It was scary for a non-medical-professional like me to make a diagnosis. But I believed that this was something I had to do. Clean up after the mess one of my kind left behind.

“What!? But the doctor said...”

“Of course they wouldn’t know. None of the best doctors would, either.”

It was a disease that wasn’t supposed to exist in this time period, well, this world at all.

“Mister Garish. The disease you have is called beriberi.”

6.

Beriberi. A bizarre disease that was epidemic in Japan from the 1870s to 1920s. For a long time, its cause was unknown. First of all, it rarely affected elders and children, who had weaker immune systems. In fact, young and strong soldiers were often afflicted. The wealthier people, who ate better food, were afflicted more often. This happened at a time when the existence of vitamins was unknown. To boot, there were almost no examples of beriberi in western medicine, which had rapidly increased medical technology in Japan. A truly mysterious disease. Symptoms include lethargy, swollen limbs, and dulled senses. In the end, the disease is complicated by Wernicke’s encephalopathy or heart conditions, resulting in death.

“Well, Mister Garish? Have you experienced any of those symptoms?”

“...I have,” Mister Garish answered, after a moment of silence.

That wasn’t good. In modern times, beriberi isn’t a disease to be afraid of. Which may not sound right, but I only mean that it is curable. Since beriberi is caused by vitamin B1 deficiency, the treatment is to increase it. It’s not complicated. The problem wasn’t the complexity of the treatment, though. The problem was this situation where beriberi was already widespread. What to do...? What should I do?

“...Sir Eiji. Am I going to die...?” Mister Garish asked me, pale as a ghost. He must have dedicated his life thus far to his work to earn the title of Guild Master at such a young age. Married a few years ago, his life was smooth sailing. Now, he was about to die from a disease he had never heard of. That wasn’t right. I could hear the frustration in his voice. Who could blame him? Most diseases are senseless. If two people share the exact same lifestyle, one could develop diabetes while the other doesn’t. Some people get cancer, and others don’t. That’s how it is. In the case of beriberi, though, it can be cured and prevented. It wasn’t like I was facing up against an infectious disease that required antibiotics to treat.

“It’s all right, Mister Garish. We can cure it.” I gave a reassuring smile.

“Are you sure? Eiji, giving false hope can be crueler than telling the truth,” Tiamat interrupted. She knew I was not a doctor and just a clerk, after all.

“Beriberi can be cured with a change in diet.”

“Oh?”

“For example... Mister Garish. You enjoy your white rice, don’t you?” I questioned, searching for confirmation more than an answer. He returned a nod, looking curious as to how I knew.

“And your liquor?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not the type to shy away from exercise.”

“How do you know all this, Sir Eiji?”

“Let’s see. I’ll say it’s because I’m a Hermit. First thing, I want you to change your diet until I formulate a cure.”

“Yes, sir...”

“No drinking. Eat as little rice as you can, and don’t exercise for a while.”

His lack of vitamin B1 had caused beriberi; I couldn’t let him lose any more of it. Since vitamin B1 is required to process carbohydrates, he should cut down on his carbohydrate intake. Exercise wasn’t a good idea, either. Beriberi was common among athletes and soldiers because exercise boosts metabolism, and therefore burns more glucose, spending more vitamin B1. Cutting back on those things should help with the symptoms somewhat. Then, he just needed to eat more foods rich in vitamin B1. Specifically, protein like red meat and fish. There’s a good amount of it in soybeans too, but just by changing from white rice to brown rice, he should see drastic changes.

I mean, none of that was necessary if you had a bottle of B1 supplements. I couldn’t expect something like that in this world, though, and I couldn’t go making this world dependent on modern medicine and supplements, either. Not if I wanted to avoid making the same mistakes as my predecessors who molded this world to be easier, more convenient, and better suited to their own needs.

“...I understand.”

“I hope to bring you some good news soon. Although, it might be better for us to have a title we can use when traveling to gather ingredients, for example. Can we register as adventurers, too?”

“Eiji. You’re going to be an adventurer?”

“You too, Tia.”

“Me!?”

“...You want to be adventurers, Hermits...?”

“Yes. We can’t go hunting or shopping or anything if we cause a commotion everywhere we go by letting people know we are Hermits.”

I shrugged. In short, I couldn’t deal with people reacting like Mister Garish or his wife had everywhere we went. Things would be easier if we were common adventurers.

“In that case...”

With a chuckle, Garish wrote us a letter. We had the recommendation of the Guild Master, it seemed. I was sure it would help with registering as adventurers.

“Thank you. Then let’s hop to it.”

Patting Tiamat on her shoulder, I exited the room. Thudding footsteps followed a few paces behind me.

Back in the hall, we went through the registration process at the reception. The receptionist (aka Mister Garish’s wife) provided us with some details. Apparently, there were ranks in the adventurer world. A newly registered rookie started as an F-rank (the bottom) and climbed up the ladder by gaining experience and producing results. The top rank is S-rank. A common system found in many of the Isekai fantasies out there. In other words, it worked like a video game.

“Come to think of it, it’s like classifying freelancers and part-timers.”

There are many people in this day and age who can’t or won’t work a full-time job, and make a living by temp work or part-time work. This is a system that ranks those kinds of people, limiting the type of contracts they can accept and the pay they can take.

If you want to work for our company, you at least have to be a B-rank.

We don’t have any work for an F-rank. Try somewhere else.

These conversations may be had if the system existed in modern-day Japan.

“That’s gross,” Tiamat said, as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. It sure didn’t sound like a society where the freedom of job selection was guaranteed by law.

“Well, I guess it is efficient in a way. No need to waste your time going to job interviews at companies you have no chance of getting into.”

“Less waste but also less progression. Do you think the potential of a human can be quantified?”

“You hit the nail on the head, Tia. This system is blasphemous to humanity.”

I knew I had a sour face on as I looked at my newly acquired Adventurer Card. On it were my abilities, quantified.

Strength — E

Magic — F

Intelligence — C

Luck — D

I was so grateful I could cry. That was all figured out by placing my right hand above a literal crystal ball, by the way. How incredible. Just like that, apparently they could figure out that I had no physical strength, no magical powers, not even good luck, and barely average intelligence. In other words, the card read that I was worthless. What a joke.

“Just like a fortune teller machine, it’s not based on any facts. No sense letting it affect you.”

“Uh-huh...”

Well put, O’ Majestic Dragon. All of your stats are S. Very convincing. I just gave a half-hearted agreement. My stats didn’t matter, anyway. It’s not like I wanted to make a living as an adventurer or anything. First, I should look for any quests that mention symptoms similar to Garish’s. While I was limited to this area, I should be able to get a grasp of how widespread beriberi is.

“Um. Sir Eiji...?”

The receptionist called me back as I walked away.

“What is it?”

“I need the registration fee...”

“Oof.”

They charged a fee. It’s an unfriendly world we live in.

“Tia.”

“Why would you think I have any money, Eiji?”

“...Saw that coming.”

I was wearing the same clothes as when I was heading to meet my fiancée. Tiamat was naked. She’s a dragon, after all. Naturally, neither of us had any of this world’s money.

7.

“Ugh... I want to go home...”

“You’re a grown man. Stop sulking already. It’s annoying,” said Tiamat.

Of course. You’re not affected. You got off scot-free!

As we were penniless, I had to sell something I was wearing. That was the only way. We couldn’t have borrowed money from anyone when they had no reason to trust us. Our saving grace, as it turned out, was a merchant that happened to be in the hall. He offered to buy the watch on my left wrist. I checked with Tiamat, and they counted each day in twenty-four hours, just like on Earth. As I didn’t want to adjust to a new system of keeping time, I was willing to accept this rather convenient fact. It was probably a concept imported by the Japanese before me, anyway.

In any case, we couldn’t do anything without some money. Not even pay the registration fee to become adventurers. When push comes to shove... The thing was, that wrist watch was very dear to me. It was very dear to me. That’s right, I said it twice. An IWC Portugieser Chronograph. I’d wanted it so bad I saved up for three years. It wasn’t expensive for an IWC watch, but my model cost me about 650,000 yen. The price didn’t matter, though. I was in love. Love at first sight. I was born only to wear you on my wrist.

“How lucky that you had something valuable on you.”

“Yeah! You’re right, you know!? I know you’re completely right, but...!”

The Portugieser was first crafted by the Swiss watchmaker for a seafaring Portuguese merchant. It’s full of that sense of wonder!

“You can’t eat a sense of wonder, after all,” said Tia.

After much conflict and self-questioning, I finally parted with my beloved watch. I had sworn not to wear any other watch as long as I lived... The merchant paid one hundred gold coins for it. Apparently that was a ridiculous amount of money. Tiamat explained that I should consider a gold coin to be the equivalent of about 10,000 yen. On paper, I turned a big profit. Again, that didn’t matter. The only thing was, even a merchant like him doesn’t carry that much cash around. I was given ten gold coins to start, and I was to visit his shop with the certificate later. This promise was made while the receptionist and the other members of the guild watched, so I doubted he’d breach it. Adieu, my dear Chronograph.

Many of the quests posted on the bulletin board were, in fact, for gathering herbs. Most of those quests were made by treatment wards and mage doctors.

“More than I expected.”

“Of course, we don’t know that all of these are related to beriberi.”

Some of them must have been for unrelated ailments or injuries.

“Hm. So, which quest should we take?”

“Just from what I can see, none of them.”

I wasn’t an expert on medicine in this world, but I knew that herbs couldn’t cure beriberi. There would have been a chance if any of the quests had wanted soybeans or potatoes.

“Which means that doctors in this country haven’t figured out how to cure beriberi, yet.”

“Yep... This might be worse than the Edo affliction.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s walk and talk.”

In the end we left the Adventurers’ Guild without even taking a quest, while feeling some stares on our backs asking why we even bothered to become adventurers. We headed toward the shop of the merchant who bought my watch.

“Explain what the Edo affliction is first,” Tiamat asked, as we walked through the main street side by side.

“Mm-hm.”

The Edo affliction was another name for beriberi in Japan. It came from most cases of the disease occurring in Edo (modern-day Tokyo), whereas in the countryside, there were almost no examples of it. People with the disease who moved to the countryside even saw their symptoms subside.

“How strange.”

“Yep. But not once they figured out why. Edo at the time was wealthy, and the epicenter of culture.”

And the height of luxury at the time was white rice. Apparently, even the lowly samurai who moved there from the country ate white rice just to keep face. Once out in the country, they ate brown and wild rice instead of white rice, which naturally treated the beriberi.

“So silver rice was the problem?”

“No. If that were the case, all of us in modern-day Japan would be dying from beriberi.”

I wondered what percentage of modern-day Japanese people ate brown rice regularly. There were important differences in meals from the Edo period and meals in modern day: the amount of rice each person ate, as well as the variation and amount of sides.

“At the time, they ate about two kilos of cooked rice a day. Per person.”

“How hearty.”

That was a little surprising, in my opinion. That’s about ten large bowls of rice. While their love for carbs was astonishing, so was their lack of sides. In fact, lunch was just about the only meal with any semblance of a side, which was usually a small grilled fish. As for breakfast and dinner, they might have had a few slices of pickled vegetables, as well as miso soup in the morning.

“How did they live like that? They were much more physically active than people in modern day, surely.”

“Carbs are energy. They did have plenty of fuel, at least.”

“I see. That’s why you asked Garish if he exercised,” Tiamat recalled.

I nodded. Exercise improves metabolism, which spends more and more vitamin B1 to break apart the carbohydrates.

“And a lot of vitamin B1 can be found in brown rice, or the bud to be specific. It wouldn’t be a problem...”

“If they didn’t throw that nutrient away by refining the rice.”

“Bingo.”

“Why don’t you and other modern-day Japanese people suffer from beriberi? You eat white rice, don’t you?”

“Vitamin B1 comes in other foods, too. Pork, eel, cod roe, soybean, potatoes.”

“That a good variety.”

“Mm-hm. If you eat a balanced diet, you usually won’t get beriberi. Pork, especially, is the superstar.”

“Oh. I think I’m beginning to see what you’ll prescribe.”

“I think so. Food culture is another thing, too.”

For example, I couldn’t expect a Muslim person eat pork, even for their health. While for different reasons, pork had been avoided by most people during the Edo period. There was even a poem from the time that reads Yang Guifei / Such a pretty face but / eats pork meat. Apparently, this was a poem expressing disgust towards the Chinese affinity for eating pork. A divide in food culture could run deep. Personally, I love the dish Genghis Khan, but many people in mainland Japan don’t enjoy lamb. It’s so good, though.

“That’s why we’re seeing the merchant.”

“Yep. It’s a good connection I wasn’t expecting to make. It’s our chance to ask some things about food in Azur.”

“You didn’t seem too heartbroken when handing over your watch. So this was your plan all along. Quite the strategist, you are.”

That was not true. I was heartbroken, and the decision was very difficult. I just knew that we couldn’t do anything without money, just like in my world, and we had absolutely no other way to procure any than to hand over my watch. Now that my watch was gone, though, I wanted to get the most out of it I could. It was the least I could do out of respect for my dear Chronograph.

8.

The shop we arrived at was nearly as big as the Adventurers’ Guild.

“As expected, I’d say,” I mumbled.

This shop belonged to the merchant who purchased my wristwatch. From how easily the man had struck up a hundred-gold-coin (or ¥1M) deal, I had estimated the scale of this man’s finances. I would have hesitated to make even a 100,000 yen purchase. I would’ve hesitated a lot. In any case, if this man was a successful merchant, that was all the better. A successful merchant surely had considerable influence in this town.

We entered the shop with a greeting. Immediately, an apprentice or sales clerk welcomed us.

“Welcome! Are we looking for anything in particular today!?”

It was an energetic voice that belonged to a young girl with brown hair and eyes. Her small stature seemed ready to burst with excitement. As far as I could tell, her age was around fifteen or sixteen. If I had seen her in Japan, I would have pegged her to be in high school, but it was really difficult to guess the age of this world’s residents from their appearance. I could never be sure.

“My name is Eiji. The shopmaster and I struck a deal earlier. Has he returned?”

“Yes! We’ve been expecting you! This way, please!”

She showed us the way with a great smile. It seemed like the merchant had already set things up.

Tiamat and I followed the girl. The shop had a spacious interior too, and I could see a few customers looking at the items on display and speaking with some of the employees. All in all, business seemed well.

“Oh, Sir Eiji. I’m so glad to see you,” Milon, the shopmaster, greeted us.

He was a portly, middle-aged man like Mister Garish at the Adventurers’ Guild. He invited us to his table, where he seemed to conduct his business negotiations.

“I hope we weren’t too early.”

“Of course not. I have been looking forward to your arrival... Oh, excuse me.”

As we were walking together and chatting, Mister Milon tripped... on air. He reached for the table to hold himself up.

“...”

He could barely lift his toes. He was afflicted also; it was only natural. Mister Milon was wealthy, had plenty of food on his table, and seemed to move around a lot since he was busy running his business. He checked plenty of the boxes.

“Mister Milon, how are you lately? Do you feel lethargic at all?” I asked, as I took my seat at the table. It’s not worth noting, but Tiamat managed to sit up in a chair, too. Wasn’t her tail in her way? How did the chair support her weight?

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing...”

“Yes, I do feel lethargic. My doctor told me to get out of the shop and get some exercise, so I’ve been walking quite a bit, but it’s not doing much. Although,” he concluded, “I suppose the silver lining is that I’ve run into you and a good deal on one of my walks.”

Pleasantries aside, that doctor...! Vitamin B1 can’t be made by photosynthesis. What was the point in making him exercise?

“Hm. This is grave, isn’t it? This doctor’s prescription would only worsen his symptoms,” Tiamat said, crooking her neck.

At the same time, her chair creaked.

Just don’t break the chair, please... I couldn’t help but plead silently.

“Ignorance isn’t a sin. Something like this was a common case in history, I think.”

“Is everything all right? Sir Eiji? Miss Tiamat?” Mister Milon asked, suspicious of our whispering.

“In fact, Mister Garish has also been troubled with lethargy. We have just started to take some action against this seemingly widespread condition.”

“Oh, that is wonderful news! I would love to have mine treated, too.”

“Yes, of course.”

I returned a smile. This was my opening.

“Do you know of anyone else with similar symptoms, by the way?”

“Yes, quite a few.”

Mister Milon’s expression shifted, his cheerfulness fading as he grew somber.

“I hear that many of them have lost the ability to walk, and have passed away,” he added, with somewhat of a hushed tone. I hadn’t realized how bad the situation was; I had to hurry.

“Have you heard of anyone who improved after leaving Lishua?” I asked.

“No... Not that I know of.”

“I see.”

All right. This wasn’t the beriberi that became widespread during the Edo period but the beriberi that was an epidemic during the Meiji and Taisho period, when commoners could begin to regularly eat white rice after the improvements in rice refinement technology: the beriberi known as one of the two diseases the Japanese were most affected by in history. Things were much worse than I had thought.

During the Edo period, the symptoms of beriberi subsided somewhat just by the patient moving to the countryside. In addition to eating less white rice, the patient would have more access to soba noodles, beans, and potatoes. Surely the economic disparity between the city and the countryside must have been a factor, but I assumed that there was a sort of general knowledge on how to prevent beriberi.

Possibly through old wives’ tales; they can be more on the mark than one might expect. It isn’t too uncommon, for example, for tsunami predictions calculated by a pinnacle-of-modern-technology super computer and the predictions given by the fishermen according to their generations-old signs to match up.

When Mister Mightier-Than-Thou Piece-of-Shit Hero overwrote entire cultures in this world, he made sure to stomp right over the failsafe that is cumulative knowledge. I was so thankful, I would have bowed to that hero in worship if I could have... and begged for the smiting to stop.

“Mister Milon. Your lethargy is caused by an illness. Without treatment, you will die.”

“No...”

“We will treat it. Not just you and Mister Garish, but we will treat all who are afflicted.”

“Oh, mighty Hermits...”

“But I need your help, Mister Milon.”

“Anything.”

He pounded his chest. As a powerful merchant, he might have expected us to ask for his help in the financial department. We would get to that eventually, of course, but not for a while.

“First, I need to know your diet. Do people eat pigs here?”

“$%&? What is that?”

The word he used was unintelligible. I glanced at Tiamat, who nodded.

“Since the word doesn’t exist in this world, it seems it wasn’t translated. Of course, Milon doesn’t know what it is, either.”

“I see.”

Pigs aren’t entirely a product of nature on Earth, after all. They were originally boars. Through a painstakingly long time (since the ancient Mesopotamian civilization) the species was gradually modified to become livestock. Different worlds lead to different civilizations and histories. This was only natural.

“Do you know what boars are, then?”

“Do you mean gagd? A magibeast species?”

It seemed that he understood this time. The different name for it wasn’t a big deal, as long as knew that they existed.

“Do you ever eat them?

“Are they edible? I imagine hunters may eat them on occasion, but I have never seen them in shops.”

“Hm.”

While he hadn’t eaten the pork variant before, it seemed that people in Lishua didn’t have an aversion to eating meat. That alone was an important piece of information to gain.

I went down my mental list of foods rich in vitamin B1 in the same manner. As a result, eel was a no-go. Mister Milon couldn’t even understand what sort of creature it was. While he knew of soybeans and potatoes, they were not commonly eaten by humans here. Apparently, those were mainly used as feed for their livestock, which was a creature akin to the ostrich or emu. That was a major food for them. I wondered if it would taste good; its taste aside, though, I didn’t know and didn’t have any way of finding out how much vitamin B1 the particular meat contained. I shouldn’t count on it, I thought.

The other option was brown, unrefined rice, but this was out of the question too. Mister Piece-of-Shit Hero had instilled the technology of refining rice at the same time as introducing the crop itself. Everyone in Azur had it in their minds that rice is, and will always be, white. No matter how much I campaigned for eating brown rice and its nutritional value, I doubted that I could overturn the image in these people’s minds that rice must be white.

In truth, it could have been possible over a long-term awareness campaign, but countless people would die in the meantime. In Japan, from the start of the epidemic in the early Meiji period until a decade into the Showa period (when the quality of food declined across the board due to World War II) about 10,000 to 20,000 people died to it annually over those seven decades or so. According to a quick calculation, that adds up to more than a million.

Don’t you get it, Mister Piece-of-Shit Hero? You’re about to kill off so many more than the oh-so-evil Demon Lord ever did.

9.

I had decided on a direction to take. I would popularize soybeans and potatoes, currently used as livestock feed, as food for humans. If soybeans were presented as edamame and potatoes as french fries, I doubted that anyone would consider them livestock feed. This was my first-aid.

In the meantime, I would hunt gagd and normalize eating it. Luckily, the people here didn’t seem to have an aversion to eating meat. My guess was that if it tasted good, people would eat it. As long as it tasted good, people had no problems eating pigeons that symbolized peace or killer whales that ruled the sea.

“Let’s start by making edamame. Even I can cook up something like that.”

“Shall I prepare some soybeans, then?” Mister Milon offered.

I was just thinking about getting some at the market, so him taking care of that would be great.

“If you don’t mind. Green, unripe ones in their shell. It’s fine if they’re sold by the branches, too. I’ll also need salt and water. Oh, is salt valuable here?”

“It’s far from free. The soybeans are cheap, though.”

So salt cost a considerable amount. Of course, salt in modern day did seem too cheap, in a way. In any other time in history, it was a precious commodity; wars had been started over sources of salt. On the other hand, I couldn’t boil edamame without salt. Some expenses couldn’t be avoided.

“That’s fine. We’ll need a good amount of it. Specifically, we’ll need about 40 grams of salt for every 300 grams of soybeans.”

They didn’t use the metric system in this world, so the actual quantity and units of measurement Mister Milon heard must have been different.

“I can get that, no problem. In fact, I can pull that much from my kitchen,” he said with a laugh.

With a long-term production plan in mind I knew I had to properly stock up, but this was just a test run.

Soon, at Mister Milon’s orders, one of the employees from the shop brought over some edamame on their branches. It was the same girl who had welcomed us when we first arrived.

“Here they are, Dad!”

“Call me ‘Boss’ when we have customers. How many times do I have to tell you, Millia?”

“Sorry!”

A heartwarming exchange. It seemed that the girl was Mister Milon’s heir.

“What am I going to do with this one? She’s nearly sixteen and has no prospect for a marriage. Where did I go wrong?”

Mister Milon chuckled with humility, but it was clear as day how much he cared for his daughter. I was willing to bet that he would be bawling at Miss Millia’s wedding.

“Why doesn’t she give it a try while she’s here? It’s an easy dish to cook.”

“Dish? I thought you were making medicine.”

“Hermits don’t believe that pills should be hard to swallow.”

I gave a bogus response to Mister Milon’s question. I couldn’t very well have called edamame a medicine.

The three of us (plus the dragon) moved to the kitchen. This really wasn’t a difficult dish. I was sure that they would be able to cook it themselves after watching me do it once. In fact, they didn’t even need to recreate my process faithfully. I only remembered it from a life hack show that was playing on NHK (Japan’s national TV station) a few years back. This was just a method of boiling the beans that made them plump. Edamame that was simply boiled tasted fine, too.

I took the edamame shells off of their branches and massaged some salt into them after cutting off both ends. I boiled the water in a pot, put in the salt and 300 grams worth of edamame, then let it cook for three to five minutes. I had used a liter of water in the pot, rubbed in ten grams of the salt and used the other thirty grams in the pot. Once they were boiled, I drained them in a colander before fanning the steam away. That was it.

“How easy. You call this cooking, Eiji?”

“To be honest, you don’t even have to be this exact with the ratio.”

I decided to give Tiamat something more to roll her eyes about. Milon and his daughter stared at what they only knew to be livestock feed. The fresh edamame shone a vibrant, verdant green.

“The shell is inedible, so try pushing the beans out with your fingers, like this.”

I popped out a few beans onto a plate and ate them myself. It didn’t taste too bad. Being in early summer helped too, as that was the harvest season for edamame. A little bit later in the year and it would have been off-season. In other words, I was just in time arriving before midsummer, when beriberi would be at its worst.

Tiamat chucked some edamame into her mouth. While they were still in their shells.

“I told you, you can’t eat the shells.”

“Don’t sweat it. Totally edible.”

“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.