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 said 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.

“W-W-W-W-What are you doing!?”

It was more of a nibble, and didn’t really hurt. Just stupidly scary.

“I thought if I bit off a piece of your head, it might take away some of that bad brain of yours that keeps complicating things on its own.”

“Please don’t. I’ll die.”

Humans, as far as I knew, would die if a piece of their head was bitten off. We were thinking reeds, after all.

3.

“There’s no sense in worrying about the future. You’re not a superhero.”

I couldn’t save everyone, anyway. The best I could hope for was doing something about the situation at hand. Even in that case, I would end up far from perfect. I could save some lives, but others would be left to their demise for my lack of ability.

Some triage would be required of me, like a rescue team during a natural disaster. They couldn’t spend all of their time trying to save someone who couldn’t be saved, but had to turn to those they could save. That doesn’t make them heartless, because they’re not gambling out there. They have to make sure to save those with the highest chances of survival.

“That’s how things are. I don’t expect you to get over it, though.”

“Tia...”

“Do what you can. Neither the Inspector nor the god of this world would expect you to perform something you can’t.”

“Tia...”

“If it still feels too heavy on your shoulders, just let me know, and I’ll bite your head to pieces with a swift chomp. Then your job here is done.”

She put some force into her bite.

“Ow! Ow! Your fangs are digging into me! Your fangs!”

Nothing about that was a swift chomp. She would totally torture me to death with those fangs, like for real.

“Thank you, Tia.”

“Hm. I am your partner, after all.”

The dragon finally released her bite on my head.

Now that we had Hieronymus on board, our efficiency was higher than ever. Cait Sithes were a species very well versed in magic, and he had various magic spells under his belt, too. One of those spells, Lock-On, was extremely useful in our situation. Countless rays of light shot out of Hieronymus, illuminating where the beets were. The workers now only had to run over to those spots and dig up the plant. We no longer had to spend any time looking for the plant.

“I’m sure it’s a variation on targeting, but I wonder if there’s a point when he’s multi-locking so many targets at once?” said Miss Maley, the only other spellcaster in our party.

“There’s no point in debating whether or not there is one, fräulein.”

The magical cat elegantly waved his tail.

“I thought it necessary, and magic answered the call. Voila.”

“So you made this spell up on the spot?”

“Is magic something that can be made? Is it not something that should be sung to the rhythm of one’s heart? What is there, has always been, wise fräulein.”

I had a hard time deciding whether or not I understood what he was saying. Of course, I had no knowledge of magic, so I had no way of telling if what he said was accurate. However, Miss Maley looked amazed, and Tiamat was nodding to it, so I decided that he must have hit the mark.

Or else, just like Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen, he just dodged the question with his eloquence and likable attitude. The man that shared a name with the Cait Sith was famous for telling tall tales, after all.

“No, he is mostly correct. The wind, the tide, and the phases of the moon, for example, all have a purpose, but you could say they don’t have one at all. The same goes for my magic,” Tiamat explained.

Um, sorry?

I was more confused than before.

“Tia. Can you dumb it down some more?”

“No, I cannot. And since you have no talent for magic, there would be no point in explaining it.”

“How cruel! Maybe if I work hard enough, I could use magic, too.”

“It’s not just you, Eiji. Anyone from modern-day Earth won’t be able to use magic.”

The dragon sighed. Magic, superpowers, abilities... no matter what the name, it seemed that one needed a predisposition or a particular anatomy in order to wield it.

“Humans have little magic in them, and aren’t good at using it, anyway.”

Even in this world, there weren’t too many human spellcasters. It wasn’t something anyone could pick up and do. In addition, people on Earth have long forsaken the occult. Countries used to be governed by seeking the guidance of gods, and by horoscopes and prophecies. Those are the olden days.

Earth today is ruled by science and hard evidence. Nothing is acknowledged as law until the experiment proves the hypothesis under the same conditions regardless of who performs the experiment, and when, where, and how many times the experiment is performed. Even if a clairvoyant individual were to give the name of a wanted serial killer, no arrests or charges can be made without evidence.

“Do you consider that foolish?”

“I don’t. Much better than the alternative.”

Arresting someone based on the intuition of a detective, for example, would be ludicrous. Imagine the countless false convictions on our hands. Who could guarantee that said detective wasn’t acting on the basis of personal gain, anyway?

“Hm. A healthy way of thinking. That’s exactly why you’re not suited to perform magic.”

“I don’t really understand.”

“Magic is distortion. When the distortion is explained, there is no more mystique. That’s how magic faded away from Earth.”

While her explanation was rather shapeless, I decided that all I needed to know was that people from Earth, including myself, could not wield magic.

“But didn’t the hero and his party use magic?”

“They were a cheat code.”

“Touché.”

I shrugged. Using something or having something you ordinarily can’t is the definition of cheating.

As we continued our rather fruitless discourse, the beets were being rapidly harvested. With the pace we were at now, we would reach our goal earlier than expected, thanks to the mighty baron.

“It’s an honor to serve you, Lord Eiji.”

Picking up on my glance, the Cait Sith called back with the elegant wave of his tail. Lord? That kind of tickled. I had been using ‘sir’ and other honorifics of the like, but the word ‘lord’ carried a whole other meaning than reading it in books when I was the one being addressed by it.

“Oh, please. I should be thanking you, Lord Hieronymus.”

I tried using it in return, and it was super embarrassing. There was something painful about talking in a showboaty way once you hit thirty.

“A blushing middle-aged man calling out to his lord. There’s some indication for fiction of the fan variety.”

“And who exactly would be the target audience for that?”

A giant Russian blue and a man in his thirties...? I definitely would not ship that. I hadn’t realized that this sort of knowledge was implemented in Tiamat, too. How useless could her knowledge get? Eh, Miss Inspector?

“At this rate, our work should be done by the end of the day. Are we going back to town as soon as we’re done?” Tiamat asked me as she assessed our progress.

Our time of departure was actually a rather important matter. Enough that we should not have been engaging in discussion of fanfiction.

From the harvest point to the city of Lishua, it would take us about four days by carriage, which meant that we would have to make camp a minimum of three times along the way. Since we have a base camp set up now, everyone can take adequate rest, but on the road both our meals and rest would be more lacking than they are now, and we would have to spend manpower guarding the camp. This was because, unlike on our way here, we had cargo.

While we were the only ones who should have been privy to the value of sugar beets at the moment, who knew how that information could have leaked? It wasn’t too hard for me to imagine that someone might suspect that we were transporting some valuable goods under the guise of transporting the vegetable, especially when the job involved Mister Milon, the major merchant, and Mister Garish, the chief of the local Adventurers’ Guild, along with A-rank adventurer guards. If anyone was out there watching us and just thought we were here to dig up some vegetables, perhaps they were a little naïve.

“Let’s leave first thing in the morning. I’ll discard all of our food tonight, save for five days’ worth,” I declared.

4.

Keeping five days’ worth of food despite the return trip taking four days was basically an insurance plan.

“That’s one cheap insurance. A day’s worth of extra won’t do any good if something were to happen.”

“Peace of mind can make a difference.”

I chuckled at Tiamat’s logical counterpoint. On the topic of how much backup stock to keep, nothing was truly enough, actually. These were things not intended to be used to begin with, as long as things went according to plan. Keeping ten days’ worth of food for a four days’ trip was pointless.

“If something were to happen,” Tiamat had said, but the job of the brain is to draw up the plan so no accidents would happen. Preparing for the unexpected isn’t in the job description. If a party has to prepare for an unexpected event from the get-go, there was something wrong with the plan. ‘Never tell me the odds’ is, unfortunately, not a plan but more of a declaration of determination or a rationalization of impulse. A plan’s no use at all if it’s made with room for error.

“I can’t really tell if you’re careful or daring, Sir Eiji.” Syfer laughed as he approached us.

“Indeed. In other words, he draws his lines in strange ways,” the dragon chimed in.

“You think so? I’m just saying there’s no point in considering a back-up for the back-up for the back-up.”

“Still, you kept five days’ worth of food.”

“I told you. I’m buying my peace of mind.”

With exactly enough, we would have always been plagued by the anxiety of ‘what if there isn’t enough?’ As the amount decreased, our insecurity would have magnified. With insurance that we can be up to a day late in our journey, said anxiety would be drastically lower.

“But we’re out of luck if we’re two days late, right?”

“True, Syfer. But a plan with a chance of a two day, so 48 hours, delay is flawed to begin with.”

“I see...”

Despite nodding along, my theory didn’t seem to click with him. That couldn’t be helped. Alas, it was the unbridgeable gap between management and talent.

“In any case, Lord Eiji, we shall feast tonight.”

Hieronymus approached us too. With Miss Maley at his side. Since when were they so chummy? Not fair.

“Is anything the matter?” he added.

“Nothing. Not jealous or anything, no sir.”

“What is this? Surely these can’t be the words of a gentleman accompanied by the exquisite Dragon Princess.”

The Cait Sith laughed, taking my remark to be in jest. I mean, of course it was, but...

“You’re being showered with compliments, Tia.”

“Hm. With my sublime beauty, it can’t be helped.”

Was that so? I couldn’t get with that standard of beauty. Tiamat? She was just a greenish Zeke with wings.

“Just so you know, that one is quite the beauty too. Whether you can see it or not.”

I really couldn’t see it. I had seen a version of Zeke as a little girl though, which was super adorable!

“Humans do have trouble seeing the beauty of the opposite sex in any species other than their own.”

“And you guys don’t, Tia?”

“We do, generally speaking. But some species are sexually attracted to humans, too.”

Orcs, one of the staples of fantasy, for example. Half-demon half-humans, as well as half-human half-elves are common within the fantasy here. The protagonist of Dragonlance, one of the pioneers of epic fantasy and the predecessor to many Isekai fantasies, was also a half-elf, I thought.

“Although Tanis was born of an elven queen violated by a human man.”

“You’re familiar with the material, Tia!?”

The series’ first publication was back in 1984. I doubt that fantasy readers of today are familiar with it. Even I was only a year old or so when it came out. However... If we lose sight of the classics, or laugh it off as outdated, what are we to carry on into future generations? The shoulders we stand on aren’t as insignificant as that.

“I’ve read the whole series. I’ve shed tears for Sturm’s death, too.”

“Woah...”

How should I put this? I felt like I could share a good drink with her.

“Shall we discuss it through the night, Eiji?”

“Of course, Tia.”

“No. We’re leaving early tomorrow. Please get some sleep.”

At Syfer’s exasperated interjection, Tiamat and I shrank apologetically.

“We’re leaving,” I called out from my seat beside the coachman of the leading carriage.

Rays of morning light were beaming down on us. All four carriages were filled to the brim with beet roots; they weighed about a literal ton in total. If the sugar content of rygel was 1%, we should yield about ten kilograms of sugar from this haul.

With a confident neigh, the horses began their march.

“It does look like there is a little more sugar in these, thanks to the good soil and climate.”

“There is? ...You can tell?” I asked Tiamat, who sat beside me.

“I ate a few of them whole. It tasted too sweet to only contain 1% of sugar.”

Ate them whole...? Come to think of it, Baze did the same while in the field. What wild spirits they were.

“Tasted like 4 or 5, maybe even 6% if we’re lucky.”

“That’s super accurate, isn’t it!?”

Wow. Did she have a Brix meter for a tongue?

“All the foodies would be impressed.”

“Yep. I’d give you a standing ovation if I could.”

“That being said, I can’t be too concrete with the numbers. It’s only a guess.”

“That’s still impressive.”

My tongue, on the other hand, couldn’t tell the difference between beer and a low-malt beverage. And I wasn’t struck with awe or anything when I drank from a bottle of Kubota, a super fancy sake. I just felt like I was drinking water. Apologies to the sake connoisseurs of the world.

“Even if it’s 4%, that’s amazing.”

“Mm-hm. Ten kilos turns into eighty kilos. This calls for some forethought, Eiji.”

“Yep.”

I nodded, picking up on my partner’s shift in tone. If that much sugar could be produced from the rygel it had the potential for profitable business. We couldn’t expect Mister Milon to be the sole keeper of the sugar’s ingredients and manufacturing technique. We go about this the wrong way, there will be blood.

Only the inhabitants of modern nations have the privilege of underestimating the value of sugar. Even on Earth, and even on the streets of America, there are boys who commit murder for a couple of bucks.

...And sugar was worth way more than a couple of bucks.

“...I think we need to visit the king.”

“A government cap?”

“Exactly.”

A type of economic control. Even in Japan there are a few examples of this amidst its free-market economy. Tuition for kindergarten, for example. Since the government has set a minimum and maximum price for it, institutions are forced to set their prices within that range. Of course, the goal of these restrictions is to prevent anyone from gaining an outrageous profit. This could be something that becomes necessary for the bartering of sugar in this world.

“We can’t rest easy just yet. The king of this nation is a descendant of the hero who imported white rice into this world.”

“Yep. Dark clouds ahead.”

“Of course, it all depends on the successful refinement of sugar.”

“Oh, right. We can screw up there.”

We shared a chuckle. Discussing the ramifications of sugar upon this world at this point was, even with the most generous interpretation, counting our chickens before they hatched.

5.

We were never attacked on route, but we were (apparently) being watched the entire time. Of course, I had no ability to detect that. Tiamat and Baze took notice, and they along with Hieronymus kept watch round the clock, so whoever was following us couldn’t find a good time to strike.

The coupling for the night watch, by the way, was Tiamat and Syfer, Baze and Gorun, the archer, then Hieronymus and Maley. I couldn’t help but think that the Cait Sith kept getting the longer end of the stick. She was one of the few women I’d seen that looked her age. Besides, her and Miss Millia were just about the only single women I knew in this world.

Unfortunately, as Miss Maley was sixteen and Miss Millia fifteen, neither of them were within my target range. As an adult with morals, I wasn’t being attracted to highschool-aged girls. I would only ever go for women around my age, give or take five years. The only thing was, in this world, women of that age range were clearly grandmas, visually speaking. It was a dark world.

By the way, Yuri the ranger did not participate in the night watch as he had to prep and take down the camp, in addition to performing other miscellaneous tasks. Oh, and I didn’t either... because there would have been no point to it! I slept in the dog pile comprised of the field workers and Mister Milon’s assistants. I’m sorry, I was useless.

In any case, upon our safe return to Lishua, we received a thunderous welcome by Mister Milon and Mister Garish. They knew when we were returning thanks to Yuri running back to the city ahead of us. He served as our scout.

“Welcome back, Sir Eiji. We have everything ready on our end,” said Mister Milon.

Come again? I don’t get a break, or anything? We’re about to dive right into sugar making.

“We’re back. You’ve prepared things?”

“Of course.”

What was he going to do if I didn’t return with rygel? I had a feeling that there would be blood if I wasn’t able to refine any sugar. Terrifying.

“Don’t expect too much. We can’t fully recreate our refining techniques here.”

This was true. They didn’t have a filtration device, a centrifuge, or even a refrigerator. That tied our hands, forcing us to do this with a primitive method. Since my knowledge on the topic was very fuzzy, Tiamat’s assistance was a must.

That being said, the method itself was not difficult. First, we would wash the roots of the sugar beets before peeling them, dicing them, and soaking them in hot, but not boiling, water. The hot water would extract the sugar from the beets. We needed a lot of water, and firewood to heat it up.

I had checked these matters with Mister Milon before leaving for the harvest trip. The city of Lishua had plenty of water, and he said that we wouldn’t be short on firewood. I mean, I never doubted the abundance of water in the city after seeing so many public baths. Since the dawn of time, water has been critical to a civilization’s growth. That’s why cities were built close to large rivers.

In addition, the common diet of rice in Lishua was an indication of how much firewood they spent. The forest appearing in the middle of a field seemed to epitomize the aftermath of this to me. The end result of humans chopping down tree after tree. Encroaching upon nature. Since they had no concept of planting and farming trees, this was sure to become a major issue in the civilization’s future. In other words, the distortion caused by the hero’s imported culture reached far beyond the outbreak of beriberi. In fact, there were sure to be countless examples.

At the moment, I didn’t have the ability to start tackling deforestation, too. First, I had to save the people of Azur from beriberi. That was my top priority. As pathetic as it sounds, my plate was full from that. I was about to make sugar to make the people eat edamame to give them enough vitamin B1. What a roundabout method. Half of my problems would not have arisen if they were at least eating brown rice.

Let’s get back on track. After an hour or two, the sugar would start melting out of the beets into the hot water. At that point, we would take out the beets from the water and simmer down what was left. Once it was reduced and thickened, we would pour it into a container and let the rest of the moisture evaporate on its own. When that’s completely dried, we would have beet sugar, which was nothing like the powder white sugar we know.

Beet sugar is brown, and has a little bitterness to it. Still, it was one of the few sources of sweetness in this world, and could be used to cook. This would drastically increase the variety in available recipes. Now this world would have two of the five principal ingredients of cooking in Japan: sugar, salt, vinegar, soy sauce, and miso. As for the other three: my apologies. I don’t know how to make them.

While I could ask Tiamat for the technique, and they already had soybeans, I guessed that making soy sauce and miso would still take an incredible amount of work and time. At this moment I didn’t have that kind of time. We were in early summer. In the hottest time of the year, the number of beriberi patients would explode, because they sweat. Before that happened I wanted to have gagd meat and edamame popularized as much as possible among the residents.

“I introduced the doctors in town to Senzu. They were overjoyed to find that the patients they prescribed the beans to have begun to improve.”

Mister Milon spoke to me as I was lost in random thought, watching the sugar refinement process. I returned a vague smile. The patients would need to eat too much edamame each day to call it a prescription for the disease. I don’t think anyone could eat 600 grams of edamame each day.

“They seem to be experimenting with it, like grinding it into a tea.”

“Ooh. That’s...”

That’s it. That was the desperate struggle of humanity. I nodded wholeheartedly. The people of this world were working to save themselves.

“I hope they succeed.”

“So do I.”

Mister Milon seemed genuine, too. As promised, he seemed to be working on the edamame front without too much concern for profit. Of course, that doesn’t mean he would hurt his bottom line. He had done the math to make sure that, even after selling the goods for next to nothing, he would end up in the black. We were about to distribute an incredible amount of it, on top of the added bonus of the Senzu brand. To boot, if a sweet Senzu dish were to come out, he would end up with a more than healthy profit.

Saving people, being recognized for it, and getting rich off of it. What a beautiful stroke of accounting genius. This was how Mister Milon had built up the business he had. I would never expect a businessman to work for charity, either.

“I can smell the sweetness in the air.”

Mister Milon formed a smile. As we engaged in chit-chat, it seemed that the sugar-making was coming down to the homestretch.

“Hm. It looks like we got more than expected.”

Tiamat nodded, looking at the test batch of beet sugar. We had used about ten kilograms of beets to yield about 500 grams of beet sugar. That wasn’t half bad.

The remains of the now-sugarless beets, by the way, were to become livestock feed. While it wasn’t something any human would enjoy consuming, the faintest leftover sugar made the livestock chomp it down with glee.

“Then, let’s give it a taste, shall we?”

Lightly tapping on the congealed brown beet sugar, I made them into bite-size pieces. It wasn’t sandy like white sugar, but more clumpy. Most likely because it still contained some moisture. This couldn’t be helped, as we didn’t have a method to mechanically dry it.

I tried popping a piece into my mouth. With some thickness to it, the sugar contained a particular hint of flavor. A gentle, natural flavor. Still...

“It’s not that sweet... Did we screw up...?”

It had no overwhelming sweetness like the kind you taste when taking a spoonful of sugar. In comparison, the beet sugar was maybe a little sweeter than half as much as that.

“...Are you kidding, Sir Eiji?” Syfer, standing beside me, asked, as if he was holding something back.

“It’s good. Really good. This’ll treat that disease, right?”

“Yep. More precisely, a bean dish using this sugar will.”

“I see... I wish mom could have tasted this...”

A streak of tears fell down the swordsman’s face.

6.

Syfer’s mother had already passed away. She was a hard worker who loved her family, smiled often, and ate a lot. Her favorite food was, as expected, white rice. She too fell victim to beriberi, with all the boxes checked off. After her death, Syfer became an adventurer to support his family financially.

It had been two years since then. I had no way of bringing someone back to life.

“Syfer...”

That was beyond my abilities. What a powerless man I was. Alternatively, if I had been transported to this world a few years back, could I have prevented this tragedy?

“But you’re going to avenge her, Sir Eiji. With Senzu and gagd meat.”

There were no more tears in Syfer’s eyes as he said this and smiled at me. The seasons of his heart were turning. He’s strong, I thought.

In just two years, a seventeen-year-old boy was beginning to overcome the death of his parents and walk towards the future. The impression of sorrow I felt in that very strength must have been a product of my arrogance.

“We aren’t in Japan anymore,” Tiamat said, with a slightly conservative tone.

“Life isn’t worth as much. Many lives are born and many lives are lost, every day. They’re desperate just to survive. No time to spend mourning the dead.”

And there are places like that on Earth, even today. My homeland just happens to be one of the most peaceful and wealthy places on the planet. Mister Hero, who hailed from that peaceful and wealthy country, must have felt sorry for the lives of the people here. That’s why he taught them some simple joys of life, like better food and a hot bath.

“Not out of malice, most likely. Out of desire, perhaps.”

The desire for validation, acknowledgment, popularity. While he might have had those desires, I suspected that he felt pity for these people. He must have wanted to do something about this world, where everyone was struggling to survive.

“And that was definitely in good faith. In a court of law, anyway.”

In Japanese law, good faith (or bona fides in Latin) can translate to the defendant being unaware of a certain fact, not necessarily as any indication of morality. The hero wasn’t aware of the beriberi epidemic caused by the popularization of white rice and lack of balanced diets. He just wanted people to have good food. Therefore, he wouldn’t be held responsible in a court of law, and I had no intention whatsoever of prosecuting the man.

“You’re harsher than I am, Eiji.” Tiamat chuckled.

Even as we conversed, people were tasting the beet sugar. One clump after another. In fact, the team was starting on a second batch. I had thought we were only in for a tasting today. Why were they cranking up the gears for another batch?

“Before you can worry about that, our first batch is beginning to run out. At this rate, we won’t be able to taste any Zunda.”

“You said it. We have to stop them.”

With that, I intended to notify everyone to stop the tasting, when I was frozen in my tracks. Everyone was glaring at me! Boy, was that scary! Even the gentle Mister Milon and the formal Mister Garish were staring at me for trying to bring the tasting to a halt.

Was the sugar that good? It wasn’t all that sweet, and had a strange taste to it. It didn’t seem like much of a success. To me, it had only seemed less than pointless because we were able to yield more of it than expected. Why was I afraid for my life just for moving to cut off the tasting?

As I shuffled backward out of cowardice, Tiamat stood in front of me as if to protect me behind her back.

“Calm down, everyone.”

The clamoring room began to quiet down. Wow. I was awed by the power of a dragon’s voice.

There were some twists and turns, but we settled on making a trial batch of Zunda.

Syfer and Gorun pounded the steamed white rice. Since we were without proper equipment, we just threw it in some container and were poking it with some random stick. It seemed like quite the workout. As expected, it didn’t stretch as well as mochi rice.

“It looks delicious in its own right, though.”

This was the kind of mochi used for Ohagi and other treats. Personally, I didn’t dislike it.

“This would be a type of Uru mochi, which uses Uruchi, or gluten-free, rice,” Tiamat explained.

Meanwhile Millia, Maley, and the other ladies were creating the Zunda paste. The recipe was very simple. Grind down peeled edamame, stir in any amount of sugar, and add salt to taste. That was it. However, the beet sugar we created was of a bronze color, which could muddy the edamame’s beautiful green. We had to be careful not to overuse the sugar.

Besides, judging by the reaction from earlier, people here were not used to sweetness. Everything we’ve worked for would be in vain if people started developing different diseases from overconsuming sugar. It was probably best that we kept the sweetness subtle.

It wasn’t until our sixth batch or so when we had our first match of pleasing color and gentle flavor. All of the previous batches were utterly oversweetened. They kept putting in so much sugar that I was about to ask if they were screwing it up on purpose. 50 grams of sugar in 100 grams of edamame? Who in their right mind thought that was appropriate?

While this would vary a bit by preference, we figured out that we only needed about five grams of sugar for every 100 grams of edamame. That’s about a packet of sugar, for your reference. The failed batches, by the way, were properly disposed of by the ladies, Baze, and Hieronymus.

And so, our Zunda mochi was complete. I took another bite-size piece. I had done nothing but eat all day, and, at this point, I was getting tired of the sweetness. I could have definitely gone for some meat.

“Hm...”

After trying it, edamame and beet sugar paired better than expected. They were great along with the mochi too. Could this really work?

“What do you think? Mister Milon, Miss Millia?”

I turned to our sponsor and his daughter.

“It’s wonderful! Simply wonderful, Sir Eiji!”

His compliments came with tears. This was too much.

“Will it sell?”

That was the million-dollar question. With the people of Lishua not used to any kind of sweetness, I was sure that they would accept the dish’s taste. That much I could tell by watching the tasting, but our problem laid with the price. Set it too high and commoners would not be able to afford it, and business wouldn’t last if there was no profit made from each sale. This was something we had to think through.

“We would need to charge for labor.”

The ingredients were practically free since they were livestock feed and the roots of a weed. However, harvest and treatment cost time and money. This had to be accurately accounted for in its price.

“I would have to do the actual calculations, but I imagine that a price for one would be about one silver coin.”

That was pretty steep. About 1000 yen or so. At that price I doubted anyone in modern-day Japan would buy it. Still, with no industrialization and all work done by hand, it was undeniable that labor costs would skyrocket in comparison.

“Does that include your cut, Mister Milon?”

“With my cut, I would price it at one silver coin and one bronze coin.”

“That’s not enough.”

He had to set up at least a 30% profit margin for himself. If Mister Milon’s business were to go down, we, and eventually the entire city of Lishua, would suffer.

In the end, we set the price temporarily at one silver coin and three bronze coins. There was no point in considering shelf life at this stage. We would only allow people to eat it at the establishment. No take-outs, since there was no form of preservatives. The dish wouldn’t last at all. If we didn’t have them eat it right away, it would spoil before they knew it... especially once it was summer. The beet sugar itself should, once completely dehydrated, last for a while though.

“I understand.”

“I’m glad you understand, Syfer. Now take the sugar out of your pocket.”

“Well... I just wanted my little brothers to have a taste...”

“At least wrap it in something... Why would you shove it straight into your pocket?”

Very telling of the hygienic standards of this world.

7.

Day by day, it became hotter as we approached midsummer. Our Hermit Beans sales were only rising, along with the sales of Zunda mochi. Both were selling out every day, enough that I was beginning to worry if there would be any edamame left to use for livestock feed. But that problem was somewhat mitigated by feeding the livestock leftover beets after taking out their sugar.

A research team and harvest team were sent to the beet field, in order to experiment if the plant could be farmed closer to the city. We were having more trouble when it came to gagd meat. While demand was high, supply couldn’t catch up. Half a month had passed since we introduced the meat to the public, but we had only been able to hunt four gagds.

Apparently this was a decent outcome, but it definitely wasn’t enough for the meat to reach each of the tens of thousands of people in Lishua. It wasn’t the season for storing food to boot. While its climate was similar to Hokkaido, the northernmost prefecture of Japan, it was still hot in summer.

“Do we have to make refrigerators...”

“Even the most basic of electric refrigerators would be impossible to make with the current technology in Azur.”

“Thought so.”

We had completely settled into Mister Milon’s manor. Since we had gone hands-off with the endeavor itself, we had some time on our hands. True to a Japanese saying ‘small minds and free time make for no good,’ we had begun talking about inventing a refrigerator.

The predecessor of the refrigerators we have today was a model that chilled its contents with ice. Its structure wasn’t complicated: a box with two compartments. The top compartment held the ice, while anything that needed to be chilled was put in the bottom compartment. Since cold air falls, this would chill the contents at the bottom.

However, we were missing a couple of things before we could recreate this contraption in this world: insulation and ice. Without the former, the ice inside it would melt in no time, and how could we obtain the latter at this time of the year? Perhaps we would need to transport it from a high altitude, or have spellcasters create some with their ice magic.

Both options seemed extremely impractical. The ice would melt over such a long journey, and the thought of creating ice by hand (in a sense) was madness. We would run through every qualified spellcaster in the blink of an eye. Whether it was called magic or superpowers, it was unthinkable for a society to rely on the ability of a select few of its inhabitants.

What would happen if, after completing the refrigerator and popularizing it to the point where it was a necessity and each house, the spellcasters went on strike? People’s lives would be drastically altered, since they could no longer store any food.

In order to prevent such an instance, the spellcasters would have to be constantly paid and treated well, not to mention enough of them would need to be employed so they can take vacations. They would be treated differently. In other words, they would be elevated to a privileged class. Without them, life would become unsustainable.

“The birth of arcane rule.” Tiamat cackled.

This was more than a certain group of people ruling by force. In this hypothetical world, the spellcasters controlled the very aspect of life.

There was a novel I really enjoyed that had a similar premise, where a high school-aged girl is transported to a world where magic rules all. People who can’t use magic are not simply ruled by those who could, but protected, like animals being protected by humans. That was a good one.

“In any case, I want to avoid that kind of future.”

“It may not even be worth entertaining the possibility.”

“Refrigerator’s a no-go, I guess.”

“We aren’t completely out of options.”

“Let’s hear what your—”

Interrupting me, the door to our quarters opened and an employee of the shop came flying through it.

“Sir Eiji! There’s a messenger from the royal court!”

Here we go, I thought. There was no way that the Kingdom of Azur would idly watch as we furthered our plans.

From just looking at the numbers of Mister Milon’s business over the past half month, it was easy to see the exorbitant amount of money that was coming in. There was no reason for the government not to take notice, especially since our intention was to save the people of Azur from an epidemic.

Unfortunately, I was sure they hadn’t taken notice too kindly. In modern-day Japan, anyone was free to help people, do good deeds, and volunteer their time. In a medieval society, though, it wasn’t that simple. The most popular person in the kingdom had to be the king. A hero other than the king saving the people? Unthinkable!

I may sound like a broken record, but the only reason some high schooler transported from our world can get away with such flashy accomplishments was because they occupy a fictional world. Someone who was summoned for the benefit of this world in its time of need would, of course, be used for the benefit of this world, and discarded after there was no use for them. While that may sound awfully cut and dry, that’s reality for you.

“He is a lazy bum who wanted a hero to take care of all of his problems. Naturally, he would take the easiest method when dealing with the aftermath,” Tiamat said. I mostly agreed.

“And if the hero wants to avoid such a fate, he’s left with two options.”

Once peace was restored to the world, the hero could say his farewells and disappear somewhere, or else he could utilize the cheat codes bestowed upon him to usurp the highest power. He had to choose one or the other.

“In Azur, the hero chose the latter.”

“Right.”

I chuckled, as I cleaned myself up before meeting the royal messenger. According to legends, after vanquishing the Demon Lord, the hero married the king’s daughter, and eventually inherited the throne from his father-in-law.

Who knew how much of this was true? Any institution, a country, army, etc. would be hard pressed to give up the power they have. This is evident just from looking back on the history of Japan. When Tokugawa Yoshinobu moved to return governmental control to the emperor, it wasn’t like everyone obediently followed. Even Oda Nobunaga, who was promised the nation by Saito Dosan, took a decade before he controlled the state of Mino by taking down Tatsuoki, Dosan’s grandson.

No country has gone through a change in power without blood. It was only evident. I imagined that Mister Hero slaughtered every one of his opposition on his way to the throne. That in itself wasn’t out of the ordinary. Any kingdom must have started with some form of robbery or usurpation or conquering. Even the very beginning of the British Empire is said to be of some pirate captain or a leader of a gang of outlaws.

We were shown to the meeting room, where the messenger was already waiting for us. He was a middle-aged man, sitting at the seat opposite from the door like he owned the place.

With just one glance, I knew I hated him. While he was the guest, and might have been been entitled to that seat, why did he have Mister Milon and Miss Millia sitting on the floor?

However, despite how much I despised and loathed someone, I had a special ability of never showing a lick of it. Most bureaucrats employed the same skill, since anyone coming to complain at a city office had the same kind of attitude this messenger had. I didn’t know if they thought they were above everyone else, or if they thought government workers were below everyone else, but I did know that trying to genuinely talk to these types was a waste of time.

I would treat this man by the book. Put myself down, and it would only inflate their ego. Speak logically, and they would start claiming that the government was oppressing them.

“Nice to meet you. My name is Eiji. I was told you’re here to see me.”

“I am Viscount Zahreed,” the messenger introduced himself, full of self-grandeur.

Interesting. A noble sent as a messenger. Apparently they weren’t sending any lowly bureaucrat as their first scout. They either didn’t have the time for it, or had some other reason to send this man first.

“And how can I help you?”

I sat down on the couch opposite him. While I wasn’t offered to sit, Viscount Zahreed didn’t reprimand me for it.

“There are rumors that you are using disreputable knowledge to deceive the people of our nation.”

That was rather straightforward. Hmm. Perhaps, despite his self-grandeur, he wasn’t given too much power to negotiate.

“I see.”

“A Hermit’s knowledge is disreputable? Has the royalty of this nation no decency?”

While I only acknowledged the question, Tiamat, standing behind me, called out in an offended tone. The messenger’s expression froze.

8.

“N-Not that I share those sentiments. I am here only by obligation to my assignment.”

The messenger’s voice cracked a little. We didn’t have to bully the guy too much.

“Now, now, Tia. It’s not easy being a bureaucrat.”

“Hm. Not much he can do if he’s here by orders.”

With my consolation, Tiamat backed off. This was a little skit of ours. Good cop, bad cop. The more Viscount Zahreed cowered from Tiamat, the more approachable I would seem in contrast. While either of us could have played either part, I wouldn’t have made for a very intimidating bad cop. Of course a dragon’s glare packed more of a punch than a measly bureaucrat’s.

“Our Great King, His Majesty will question you.”

Managing to control his voice, the messenger told us this.

“So, he wants us to come to the castle?”

“Indeed.”

Getting angry over the king’s lack of etiquette in summoning us when he was the one that wanted something from us would not have advanced our situation. The will of any nation’s sole leader supersedes its own laws and common decency. If the king calls it white, so must a crow be white.

“Understood. I have a matter I would like to bring to the king’s attention as well. I’ll take it as a lucky coincidence.”

“Very well. I have a carriage waiting out front.”

He certainly came prepared. With a nod, I rose to my feet, and Tiamat followed. In the corner of my eye I noticed the Viscount’s relieved expression. It seemed that the title Hermit did, indeed, carry a special weight.

I felt no special emotion regarding the castle itself. I had no knowledge of their architecture and style, after all. I only acknowledged that it seemed at least bigger and more elaborate than the Melon Castle in Yubari or the NIXE castle (slash aquarium) in Noboribetsu.

We were not shown to the royal hall or anywhere, but to a courtyard. It was several times larger than Mister Milon’s, and well maintained. There was even a gazebo, too. It was super extravagant, but a common man’s (albeit a successful businessman’s) manor and a royal castle wasn’t much of a comparison.

“Private meeting, you think?” I asked.

“Most likely. He can’t publicly denounce our doings, but praising us could put a ding against the king’s power. Seems that he does want to meet us face-to-face in order to discover our intentions.”

While we were left waiting, Tiamat and I engaged in a short huddle. That being said there wasn’t much to decide at this point. We would meet with the king, have him decide on a price for the beet sugar, and begin controlling its pipeline. In addition, we would have him encourage the public to eat edamame and gagd meat. These would be our two requests. We had already completed more detailed planning, like which negotiation tactics to use, over the past half-month.

“My guess was that we would end up defending ourselves in the royal hall.”

Actually, that would have been better. Any decisions made in that situation would have directly been implemented in policy... I assumed. Since I knew little about the governing of medieval nations, I wasn’t entirely sure. I only had my own preconception that a public promise would not be broken too easily.

“That would be difficult. We are Hermits. He couldn’t very well place those that share the origin of the Hero King on the same level as his other petitioners.”

“Mister Hero was a Hermit?”

“Didn’t I tell you?”

“Only just now.”

“More precisely, he was thought to be a Hermit. He didn’t call himself one. According to his biography, he was depicted as a Hermit and hero who hailed from the realm of dragons.”

Tiamat added that it was most likely a backstory added to boost his authority. Glorified. Idolized. This was the sort of description found in any account of a nation’s founding, including Japan, of course. While some of these myths could be shrugged off by residents of the modern world, we were in a medieval fantasy world.

“That’s why we called ourselves Hermits.”

In order to give authority to our actions that would follow. It was an explanation easier for people to swallow than mere humans trying to save other people.

“Hm. It’s not really a lie, either. It’s true that you’ve both come from the same place.”

The dragon cackled. If the people in this world wanted to think of modern Japan as the realm of dragons, that was their prerogative, she added.

“A con artist would be blown away by that logic.”

I shrugged. Moving things along with the assumption that people will misunderstand, and making no efforts to correct them. That was the definition of intent, if you ask me. Under Tiamat’s clutches, the innocent people of this world were conned easier than those tricked into paying off their unsuspected debt to the IRS in gift cards.

“I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“Okay. It wasn’t really, though.”

As we engaged in stupid chatter, a figure appeared from within the inner quarters. The figure had a large stature for a resident of this world, and while they were faint, he still had some East Asian features. He was a young man with brownish-blonde hair and mahogany eyes, with an impressive build. His age seemed close to mine or a little older, but it was difficult to judge his actual age by appearance.

He was the master of the castle, the ruler of Azur, Reinhart V. His full name was Reinhart Mishima, a direct descendant of the hero who overtook this country. The hero’s great-great-great-grandchild. He was the fifth because the direct line of royal heirs have all been called Reinhart.

I couldn’t help but find his surname, Mishima, a little funny. Of course, no one is responsible for their own name, so I wouldn’t show the disrespect of laughing at it.

The king was accompanied by merely three guards. Tiamat and I stood and bowed.

“An honor to be in your presence, Your Majesty.”

“I apologize for having you come all this way, Mister Hermit.”

While he didn’t go as far as to put himself down in the apology, that was a pretty frank response. Or else he might have caught wind that his messenger had upset Tiamat.

“You can’t make the trip yourself, Your Majesty. I understand that it was necessary.”

“Thanks for saying that, Lord Eiji.”

The king gestured to a chair in a gracious manner. He didn’t seem like the malicious ruler I was expecting. Then I realized he wasn’t malicious at all. In this country, no tax was higher than it needed to be, there was no war... His people lived in peace. He just didn’t know that, in the shadows of peace and prosperity, the downfall of his nation was quietly approaching.

“You may know this already, but my ancestor was also a Hermit.”

“Hm, I do. Shizuru. I’ve spoken with him a few times.”

Tiamat was the one who answered. I couldn’t tell if that was true or not. Actually, I was pretty sure she was lying. This dragon practically exhaled smoke instead of air. What a character.

“Oh!”

And the king was easily fooled. You know, I wanted to say, you should be just a little more suspicious. There was no guarantee that anything a Dragon or a Hermit said was fact.

Shizuru Mishima, huh...?

That name rang a bell. It evoked a none too pleasant memory too. I never expected to hear that name after traveling across worlds. Was he really the hero I’ve been hearing about? Was he shepherded to this world after ending his own life?

“Not that I was too close to him.”

“Please. I sense some work of destiny. I don’t even know my own ancestor’s face.”

King Reinhart burst out laughing. Well, duh. It would have been bizarre for him to have held a conversation with his ancestor six generations before him. Since the photograph hadn’t been invented in this world, I assumed he had only seen his face in a painting.

A servant, holding a tray of tea and snacks, approached us courteously. It seemed that the king was ready to spend a portion of his afternoon for us.

9.

Tiamat was picking at the treats, throwing one after another into her gullet.

Hey dummy, have a shred of self-control, will you?

The king’s going to think Hermits starve themselves.

“Hm. Rather tasty. Much more refined than our Zunda mochi.”

No surprise there. They must have honey or something in it instead of beet sugar, and it must have been made by the best of the best. Why make the comparison with our amateur sweet?

“That’s it. I requested your presence because I am intrigued by the things you are selling.”

King Reinhart smoothly segued into the topic on his mind. It was impressive, unless Tiamat teed it up for him on purpose. The intrigue between them seemed so high-level that I couldn’t really interject.

I slurped on my tea, which was really sweet. Perhaps it was a flex, like ‘taste how much honey is in here,’ and ‘that’s how rich I am!’ Everything in moderation, Your Majesty.

“In order to explain our products, we need to begin at the ailment plaguing the city.”

“Ailment?”

“Hm. An ailment caused by eating too much white rice. We Hermits call it ‘beriberi.’”

The king began to ponder, it looked like. I’m sure he had never heard of such a disease. Still, there had been indirect deaths caused by beriberi for years. Those he must have heard about. I wondered how King Reinhart interpreted the disease that previously had unknown causes and no cure.

“The Hermit Beans you are selling is medicine for that ailment?”

“Not medicine. Senzu contain nutrition that prevents beriberi. Same with the gagd meat. We taught how to make Zunda mochi as another method to feed it to the people.”

Tiamat laughed. Her explanation was largely on point. Was there anything I could add?

“Hm. You are saving my people, then?”

“Not as grandiose as that. We’re only cleaning up Shizuru’s mess.”

Don’t say it like it.

“What?”

And now the king was upset. Even the most forgiving person would have been, if their ancestor’s shortcomings were mocked. I felt the need to clear the air. Almost as if to raise my hand in interjection...

Huh? My arm won’t move. Wait, why am I so groggy all of a sudden?

“Wh...”

What’s happening, Tia? was what I was trying to ask my partner.

But I couldn’t. What came up my throat wasn’t my voice but a red glob. It fell out of my mouth.

What is that...? What’s happening...?

“Eiji!? You bastard! What did you do!?”

I could hear my partner’s enraged voice in the distance. That was the last thing I sensed in that world.

“A little short of a month. That was quite the quick return, Eiji Kazama.”

In a space with nothing in it, my consciousness gradually becoming more clear, a woman’s voice slid into my ear canals. I knew this place.

“...I see... I died...”

Back where I started. Me, standing still like an idiot, opposite the gorgeous lady.

“Yes. With your life ended, you came back as promised. Surprising that it took you less than a month, but not so that you were poisoned.”

Ah, I was poisoned. Probably through the tea that was served. It was probably over sweetened to mask the taste of it or something. That was rather careful of him. With or without sweetener, I wouldn’t have been able to taste any poison.

“He seemed friendly to me...”

“He had summoned you with intent to kill you from the beginning. Surely he would put on a friendly act.”

There was no room for discourse from the get-go. King Reinhart was asking us questions, but I was sure that was an act, too. He had already done his research on what we’d done and why. His motive? Easy. His country wasn’t big enough for two heroes. Anyone who would discredit the accomplishments of Shizuru the Hero-King was only an obstacle. So, he killed me.

“That’s right. I assume you’re mostly correct. Good observation.”

“A fool thinks in afterthoughts, right? What’s the good in observing things after I’ve been killed?” I shrugged.

“Touché. To add a little more context, the kingdom had been keeping tabs on you the entire time, since you called yourselves Hermits when entering the city.”

“Ooh. It goes back that far, does it?”

The guard we met was loyal to his job. He had reported us to his superiors. As he appeared, he must have been the kind of person to do things by the book.

“So we were being walked on a leash.”

“Correct. Want me to explain why?”

“I have a pretty good guess.”

A traveling duo of Hermits. They were about to come across the population of a country plagued by ailment. Would they let them be, or move to save them? The government pegged us to do the latter. So did the hero-king of old, after all. Overzealous to save anyone who needs saving. Both the hero-king and I were typical Japanese.

And so, I showed them the cure for beriberi. The answer Azur had longed and waited for. While I was at it, I even provided them with a refinement method for sugar, which would bring boundless wealth for the country. Yep. That was enough. No reason to keep me alive. They had the knowledge they needed. All that was left was taking care of me before I became too famous.

“Incredible calculation. How smart of him.”

I crooked my lips.

“There’s no point in throwing your malice at me, Eiji Kazama.”

“...I’m sorry.”

“In any case, let’s talk about what happens next.”

With that, the Inspector began to tell the story. After I (aka Eiji the Hermit) was killed, the official story became that the cure for beriberi was developed by the hero-king’s descendant. Anyone who knew that to be false was someone the kingdom wanted gone. Directly following my death, assassins were sent to Mister Milon’s business and the Adventurers’ Guild. As a result, both Mister Milon and Mister Garish, along with their wives, perished.

Miss Millia, who barely made it out alive, managed to escape Lishua guarded by Syfer’s team, with Baze and Hieronymus in tow. After their daring escape, they met up with Tiamat, who had caused a storm at the castle. They turned to the neighboring Noura. Noura was another country that, thanks to the rice introduced by the hero-king, had experienced a boost in their quality of dining but was suffering from an outbreak of beriberi.

Meanwhile, after monopolizing the knowledge for it, the Kingdom of Azur became the sole provider for edamame and sugar. The medicine for a mysterious disease and a new sweetener. Those were meant to bring wealth in historical proportions to Azur. But they didn’t. This was because Syfer, who had usurped the throne of Noura with the aid of a dragon, Fenrir, and Cait Sith two years later, attacked Azur.

That was the beginning of a war that spanned decades. The continent was thrown into chaos, and many lives were lost. There was no time to spend farming anymore. Food supply, along with rice production, drastically decreased, to the point where people couldn’t afford to decrease the amount of it by refining the grains. In order to eat as much as possible and consume as much nutrition as possible, people began eating brown rice.

“And so, the threat of beriberi disappeared from the continent, and the entire world.”

“Thanks to war?”

“Thanks to war.”

“What sort of ending is that!? Even more people died because of war!”

“Most likely. Millions died from the war, either directly or indirectly.”

“No...”

“But those deaths weren’t caused by a disease that was never supposed to exist. Millions and billions have died on Earth from warfare.”

The Inspector paused for a moment.

“Congratulations, Eiji Kazama. You saved that world.”

10.

I didn’t know what end result would constitute my actions as a success. That was how I felt when I first embarked on my journey in that world. Now, the Inspector had provided me with the answer. How to eliminate an ailment that never should have existed, and revert the course of history. In the midst of war, the culture provided by Shizuru the Hero-King and the knowledge I had provided would be forgotten and lost. A ridiculous ailment called beriberi, which didn’t exist on Earth during its fifth century or so, would be eliminated.

“...What the fuck?” I squeezed out in a whisper.

Now they were saved? Dying from a disease that shouldn’t exist was taboo, but dying from war was A-okay? Those were people, dammit. How much mockery were we supposed to endure?

“It’s only natural to be offended. Cleaning up someone else’s mess can’t be a fun job.”

“You knew that much, and you still...!”

“I told you in the beginning, Eiji Kazama. I don’t like inter-world travel.”

...That’s right. She had said so. And I didn’t like it either. A world we toyed around with and destroyed. In order to fix it, there had to be even more bloodshed than before?

“...Can you give me one more chance, Inspector?”

“Oh? I believe your job is done here.”

“...”

“Besides, I don’t understand why you are so passionately concerned with that world. What drives you so?”

The beautiful lady wanted an answer. Somehow it felt like she was smiling a little. That was exactly why I could respond with confidence.

“Inspector. You lied to me, didn’t you?”

“Oh?”

“The role of correcting that world, of cleaning up the hero’s mess wasn’t given to me, but to Tiamat. Am I wrong?”

The Inspector’s lips formed a crescent. She was clearly enjoying this.

“Let’s hear the reasoning for your deduction. This is very intriguing.”

“Her powers are way too strong for her to be the assistant. At no point was I needed.”

“I believe I told you that I specifically chose an average Joe.”

“I doubt that.”

I was an ordinary, average Joe. That much was irrefutable. However, there were literally billions of people like me. I wouldn’t be average if I was a rare specimen. Still, if I was someone completely unrelated to the hero, I wouldn’t have been able to deny random selection for sure, no matter how low the odds were. But I’m not. I have a connection with the hero, albeit not directly.

Shizuru Mishima was the younger brother of my fiancée, Ayano Mishima. He ended his own life six years ago. I had never met him in person. In fact, I had only met my fiancée after his death. She had only told me about her younger brother who was bullied at his high school and ended up killing himself years after his death. I imagined that that was the amount of time required for the leaves of her heart to turn, for her to tell that story to another soul, even though I was already her boyfriend.

“Tiamat wasn’t my assistant, but I was hers.”

Pausing here, I stared down the Inspector straight-on, with an intense gaze.

“And Tiamat is Ayano,” I declared after a deep breath.

“Oh? You’ve figured out that much?”

“Come to think of it, there were a lot of things that didn’t make sense.”

She suggested Ayano as the first potential name for her. That alone could have been explained by her knowledge packs. Even when we slept in the same room, or right next to each other, Tiamat showed no sign of aversion. Because we were different species? Because we didn’t see each other in a romantic light? True, and I thought those were the reasons at the time.

However, she said that she had read my favorite series. Not that she knew of it through a knowledge pack. If Tiamat had always existed in that world, there was no way that she could have ever read a book from Earth. Prime delivery didn’t cover inter-world shipping, after all.

The icing on the cake was when she was asked where she was from. “The realm of dragons,” she’d answered. In other words, she was from modern-day Japan. A Japanese woman named Ayano who had read my favorite series and felt no aversion toward sleeping next to me.

“There isn’t anyone else that meets those criteria, Miss Inspector.”

“...Amazing. That was amazing, Eiji Kazama.”

After my conclusion, the Inspector let her mouth hang open for a moment before beginning to applaud.

“I knew I couldn’t underestimate Earthlings. You recognized your lover, even with a completely different appearance.”

“A pathetic lover that didn’t notice until he’s dead.”

Of course, there were many other things that didn’t make sense. Like, despite being a dragon, not knowing how much damage her breath would deal. There were hints along the way, but I was only sure of it at the moment of my death. At the very end, it hit me from how she lost her temper. Her lover? Her fiancé? How could I still call myself that?”

“Your deduction is correct, Eiji Kazama. The one summoned to that world as a repairperson was not you, but your fiancée. The god on-site attempted to have the blood relative of the culprit who ruined the world take responsibility for it.”

Stopping her applause, the beautiful lady became straight-faced.

“What...!?”

Adding insult to injury to a woman who lost her brother to suicide. It was the god of that world who summoned a hero in the first place. If anyone should be taking responsibility for that, it was that god. Forcing a relative of the hero to clean up the mess? The audacious thief, indeed. I gritted my teeth, with nowhere to direct my rage.

“I opposed it too. I objected to the very thought of it. But, according to policy, we must accept the requests of the god on-site. So I proposed that someone who could share her load accompany her as an assistant as a stipulation, and pushed it through.”

“And I was chosen for it.”

“Are you unhappy about it?”

“No. Thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”

Her saving grace. That should be me. It had to be me. I would never pass this torch to anyone else.

“I thought you’d say so, Eiji Kazama.”

“With that in mind, I beg of you.”

On my hands and knees in the void, I scraped my forehead on the ground.

“Please give me one more chance. One more chance to help her.”

“Please get up, Eiji Kazama. If you grovel so easily, you’ll devalue yourself.”

The Inspector smiled. Her expression was filled with compassion.

“Incomplete job description. This is clearly a mistake on our part. Therefore, I will accept your request.”

She winked. This woman...! She had knowingly kept this excuse up her sleeve, so she could grant me a re-do if I pointed it out.

“But, Eiji Kazama, this is the only card I have. There won’t be a next time. You die again, and your job really will be done.”

With no cheat codes, and below-average abilities, I had to survive.

Bring it on.

I welcomed it. I wanted to protect her for the rest of my life. That’s why I proposed.

“Just watch your back, Eiji Kazama.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Inspector.”

As I replied, my body was enveloped in light. I wasn’t surprised, since I had already experienced it once before. When the light would fade, I would be back in Azur. The beautiful lady faded out of my vision.

“Huh?”

I crooked my neck. The Inspector had disappeared just like last time, but someone else had appeared. This effect was new. The person appeared to be high-school-aged. A boy with kind eyes. I didn’t recognize him, but he looked a little bit like my fiancée.

“...Are you Shizuru?”

No answer. I didn’t even know if he had heard me. Probably for some vague reason like ‘we’re not existing on the same timeline’ or something. My interpretation was too sci-fi-esque to know for sure. I didn’t mind it, though. He was my dear brother-in-law.

“It’s all right, Shizuru. They’re your descendants. I just missed a button last time, that’s all.”

Although he may not have heard me, I tried to tell him in a comforting tone.

“They’ll understand. Trust me. And Ayano.”

The boy began to fade. I thought I saw the faintest smile on his face.

I nodded again. I wasn’t going to have the story my brother-in-law told conclude with a bad ending. I wanted the people he saved to be happy. So... I jumped, one more time.