Do-Over!

1.

After sending the messenger back, I invited Tiamat for a stroll. We walked, heading for a little hill that overlooked the town.

“You’re inviting me to go outside... What’s the occasion?”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“Did you do something that warrants an apology, Eiji?”

A natural question. I prepared myself with a short inhale.

“I called your brother a piece of shit, several times.”

“...You knew?” Tiamat said, after a moment of silence long enough for light to travel three million kilometers. She looked at me.

“I realized after I died. I’m surprised at how incompetent I was.”

In summary, I explained my story so far. My partner listened to me, nodding along.

“I’m surprised the Inspector had such a trick up his sleeve.”

“His?”

“That’s the kind of existence it is. It’ll appear as a man or a woman, according to your mindset. Didn’t he explain that to you?”

“Right... I remember something like that...”

Something about shaping herself after what was in my mind. In short, I figured that she appeared in a form we can understand. If she had appeared to me in a form reminiscent of Nyarlathotep, my Sanity would have hit zero in the blink of an eye.

“I don’t know about that comparison. Who are you trying to appeal to with your Call of Cthulhu reference?”

Sorry, I couldn’t help it.

“By the way, why do you look like that?”

“If I was going into a fantasy world, I wanted to play something non-human.”

That’s it?! That’s why you’re a dragon?!

Nonhuman is a wide spectrum, too. She could have been an elegant elf with gold locks and blue eyes, or a glamorous she-demon, or a cute little hobbit... Not even a Dragonborn, but she had to be a straight-up dragon. That was a little too kinky for me!

“And you’d sleep with that elf, right? Without realizing she was your fiancée.”

“N-N-N-N-Never! I’m a f-f-f-f-faithful man!”

“That’s something you should say without avoiding eye contact.”

Tiamat cackled boisterously. While I remembered my fiancée to be a woman full of humor, she was never this eccentric. What happened?

“Besides, I would have too much resemblance to Shizuru if I looked like my human self. Although the people alive today are generations after him, I didn’t want anyone to see the connection,” she added in a rather serious tone.

Someone who doesn’t know her might think that this was the real reason, but I wasn’t about to fall for that trick. Without a doubt, and with all sincerity, the first reason she gave was her real reason for her decision. Tacking on some legitimate-sounding reason to manipulate my psyche was one of her usual tactics. She was a master of conversation; she didn’t make a living as a student counselor for giggles.

“Can you return to your human self, by the way?” I changed the subject.

Even if the real reason was the one she added on, or even if she had some other reason, no matter how dire that reason was, she would crack jokes with all of her might. She would risk her life for a laugh. That’s the kind of woman she was, never letting anyone see her in pain. I knew that well, and that was why I wanted to support her. That much has never changed.

“No. More accurately, this is my form in this world. I could use a transformation spell to take a human form, but that would only be a disguise.”

“So, you can...”

I would have preferred that, if it could be done.

“I can.”

As soon as she confirmed it, her appearance changed with a puff of smoke... to a middle-aged man with rippling muscles like Conan the Barbarian.

“Why did you turn into a man?!”

“It’s a transformation spell. I can be whoever I want to be.”

The man laughed, as he twitched his pecs up and down. Yep. Not exactly what I was hoping for.

“...Dragon, please...”

“Mm-hm.”

She returned to her old form with another poof. Oh, how nice it was to recognize her again. Dang it.

“We may have scared off the messenger, but danger is still afoot,” Tiamat said, looking down on the city from the little hill.

In the far distance, we could see the castle. That’s where I was killed.

“Right. We just dodged the first bullet.”

Follow that messenger, and I would have been killed. We simply avoided that. Now that we’d sent away the messenger, they would soon be moving on to their next move. It was difficult to predict, at this point, whether they would try to get rid of us diplomatically or by force. I didn’t get the script for what was about to happen. A re-do was a re-do, but I didn’t really gain any edge from it.

“Hm. I did warn Baze and Hieronymus about it using Thought Speech. They won’t fall for a sudden attack.”

“Magic’s pretty handy, isn’t it?”

“Too bad you can’t use it.”

“You’re a Dosanko too, Tia.”

“My body belongs to this world. And, I’m a dragon. The most powerful species alive.”

“Dammit! Dammit!”

I have nothing, and my fiancée is loaded head to toe with cheat codes. It wasn’t fair. Could I not have gotten something? I wasn’t asking for laser eyes or anything.

“That being said, they shouldn’t be coming at us with blunt force.”

“Why do you think so?”

“All of your friends, including me, are strong, Eiji. If we clash head-on, Azur would be left with considerable damage, too.”

“Guess you’re right.”

I could definitely agree with that. That’s why they had poisoned me, to cut off the head of the group to eliminate structure from our party.

“A long con, then? Like talking crap about what we’re doing.”

“Seems feasible.”

They could ban or prosecute the edamame, gagd meat, and beet sugar as the devil’s food or something. Even on Earth, this was a tactic in the playbook of religious groups. In modern Japan, health products with no science to their merit are promoted on TV all the time. Even when distributors are prosecuted, the media that promoted the product get away scot-free. Just a testament against wholeheartedly believing any information you hear on TV, or on the internet. Any words spoken without liability is worth no more than a rumor.

“That being said, rumors can be a powerful force. No sense looking for proof or liability in them.”

“Right. It’s not something anyone could handle alone,” I agreed.

“And, what is your plan if the throne employs those tactics?”

“There is no plan. We turn away and run.”

“Oh?”

“The Inspector told me...”

I relayed to Tia that there are many people suffering from beriberi in the neighboring kingdom of Noura too. In fact, I figured that the disease had spread throughout the entire continent.

“Well, most of the continent is not occupied by humans.”

The area that was occupied, apparently, was only a little bit larger than Hokkaido. We were in a medieval world, after all. The area in question was nowhere near as vast as a continent on Earth. On the flip side, that was probably why rice farming spread so quickly. Without a civilized method of communication, it was natural that the affected area was limited.

In any case, only saving the kingdom of Azur was pointless. Our endeavors were far from successful if we couldn’t spread our cure to all of the areas where people mostly ate white rice and not much else.

“That’s why... I thought we could go on a trip.”

“The world tour of saving the world.”

“It’s nothing to get hyped up about. But if there are countries where we can get close to the center of the government, we could gain a lot more reach.”

In Azur, we couldn’t even do that. It was stressful to have a target on your head, and to be honest, being killed once had kind of traumatized me. Even if it was by the descendant of my fiancée’s brother. How could I be chummy with someone who held malicious, or even murderous, intentions towards me? Sorry, but I wasn’t that noble. I had no desire to approach the royalty of Azur anymore. Of course, if they were to approach us, I was willing to hear them out.

“Chicken.”

“But when I was killed, oh boy, did you lose it. It was adorable.” I grinned.

“Shut up.”

The dragon’s tail swished around and forcefully spanked my butt.

2.

The edamame buyouts had begun. The Azur government had pressured the producers to limit the plant’s flow into the market. The same thing had happened in Japan, when the government bought up all the rice they could before setting their price and putting it on the market. The intention was to keep the producers from overpricing their people’s main source of food.

“That’s just plain dumb.”

That was my partner’s opinion, and I agreed. A ubiquitous food, like rice, was one thing. The people would buy it regardless. But edamame wasn’t that. It was far from becoming a staple, and we were still in experimental stages when it came to recipes. That’s why we had to draw people’s attention through the sweetness of the Zunda mochi. Even if the government ordered the people to eat it, they wouldn’t know what to do with it without knowing how to cook it. Edamame was livestock feed in the first place.

If things would resolve by some governmental force-feeding, we would have never needed to explore alternatives like edamame or gagd. All the king had to do was to tell his people to eat brown rice. Tokugawa Yoshimune (who massively improved the country during the Edo period) ate brown rice himself, as well as promoted it to his men and commoners alike. Still, most people in the city continued to eat white rice. That’s about how well these things go.

Even a modern man like myself can understand the pushback against any government power dictating what to eat. What’s worse, since there was no way of watching the people eat the foods shoved down their throats by the government, they were most likely just discarded.

“This may be the worst move they could make.”

Mister Milon chuckled. Since we had no way of obtaining edamame, we had halted the sales of Zunda mochi, too. Just selling the beet sugar would only wreck the market. This would not have been a laughing matter for us if it wasn’t for one reason: we had already developed a substitute prescription for beriberi, and it was ready to go on the shelves.

Ten days had passed since we sent back the royal messenger, and Tiamat and I had done a little more than just goofing around during that time. The next weapon in our arsenal was potato croquette. Potatoes grew most anywhere, but because of the minor toxin in their eyes, historically it took a while for them to become popularized. Also, continuously growing potatoes apparently weakened the soil. In recent history, the population of Europe practically depended on its yield of potatoes. It was a little too risky to make it our main weapon.

So we decided to sell something pre-processed. We had rye, so we could make panko, and while they weren’t exactly chickens, there was a similar livestock from which we could gather eggs. In addition, we would stuff the croquette with ground gagd meat. We would be able to counter the king’s move. Although, considering the issue of preservation, we also wanted a refrigerator. So that’s exactly what we were making while waiting for the kingdom’s response.

The idea, of course, came from Tiamat. Her trivia came in handy yet again. There is a type of refrigerator that doesn’t require electricity or ice: a zeer, or pot-in-pot cooler. Its usage dates back millennia, but it had only recently been scientifically analyzed and used in modern technology. The only things needed to make one are a pair of pots in different sizes, along with dirt and water. Construction is simple. Put the small pot in the big pot, fill in the gap with dirt, and soak the dirt with plenty of water. That’s it. Though there would have to be a wet cloth or something draped over it to keep dust out, I would say this is still an extremely simple contraption.

While you might wonder if its contents would really cool, the inside of that small pot becomes spectacularly cold. The trick of it is in a process called evaporative cooling, where evaporating water takes a lot of heat with it. In Japan, for example, this process is used during the summer through hosing down the street or outside your front door.

The contraption would be less effective in places with high moisture in the air like Tokyo, but the climate of this region was similar to that of Hokkaido. Dry summers. If used in a dry, breezy location, the zeer’s internal temperature can drop to about 4 degrees Celsius. In fact, this is apparently used in rural Africa, where they don’t have electricity, to enable the storing of vaccines, saving many lives in the process. Of course, that allows for preserving fresh foods at the same time.

“The wisdom of Hermits never ceases to amaze me.”

Mister Milon laughed as he took out a tomato-ish food from the zeer. Taking a bite from a cold, fresh vegetable in the middle of summer must have been a great luxury here. On second thought, vegetables and fruits could have also been kept submerged in a well.

“It was Tia’s idea. Nothing like this could come from my knowledge.” I shrugged.

“As humble as ever,” Mister Milon replied.

Nope. Just honest.

“In any case, let’s start selling the croquettes tonight.”

“I’ve been waiting to hear you say that, Sir Eiji.”

We had been waiting for the right time, when the king would make his move. Tiamat and I had actually guessed that there would be a ban on edamame, especially since we were calling them Hermit Beans of all things. Seeing that they moved to monopolize rather than illegalize...

“They know how badly Azur is affected,” Tiamat said, munching on another tomato-like thing. She could have at least taken off the stem, though. Wow, did she eat anything.

“Beriberi is most common among young, active, otherwise healthy people.”

Soldiers, for example. During the Russo-Japanese War at the beginning of the twentieth century, more deployed soldiers died of beriberi than were killed in combat. It was easy to imagine that the Azur military was in a similar condition.

“Mm-hm. Azur can’t afford to go to war at the moment. Even if they consider us a threat, they wouldn’t send their army here.”

“That’s where those covert teams came in, though.”

During the past ten days, we were attacked by an assassination unit on three separate occasions... apparently. I never saw any of them. Hieronymus, Baze, and Syfer’s parties had each defeated a team. Losing to a Cait Sith and a Fenrir was one thing, but I didn’t know what to make of the official military losing to a private adventurer team, even an A-rank one.

“We could take on swarms of those cowards.”

Syfer came out from within the manor, having overheard our conversation. He had a bandana on his head and an apron around his neck. As I recalled, he was hired as my bodyguard, not a chef. I must have been mistaken.

I didn’t ask him why he trained in the kitchen day after day though, because I already knew the answer. He was improving his cooking for the sake of his younger brothers and was helping in the kitchen for leftover food. I had enough heart to condone that much. Besides, Syfer having enough time to work in the kitchen was one indicator of how weak Azur’s military was.

“They were that bad?”

“Wobbling all over the place. They tripped over nothing, dropped their weapons... They were bad enough that we were able to chase them away alive.”

“Ah...”

Textbook beriberi. Their limbs were no longer listening to their brains.

The hard-training soldiers would mostly be eating white rice. Since they had all the calories, they would appear healthy at a glance; underneath their skin, though, their bodies were crumbling. There was only so much lethargy they could overcome with their willpower. On the other hand, Syfer’s party was completely healthy, physically and mentally, with Baze and Hieronymus behind them. Of course, there was no reason for them to lose.

“I’m starting to feel sorry for the royal army.” I shrugged.

3.

As expected, the potato croquette was a hit. It could be served as a legitimate side dish too. And its nutritional value was on par with edamame.

“But it doesn’t take long to get sick of croquettes.”

Croquettes today, croquettes tomorrow... There was a song like that that came out in the Showa period.

“Originally from the Taisho period. The one you’ve heard of is a remake.”

There went her trivia again. As soon as I gave one little fun-fact, she pounced on it.

“While it was a high-class western food at the time, you would get sick of it eating it every day. A satire.”

“What, really?”

Wasn’t it about a housewife who couldn’t cook anything else thanking her husband for happily eating the croquettes day after day?

“The connotation changed when it was remade. By the late 1950s it wasn’t expensive or high-class anymore.”

“I see...”

Culinary history is our history. Still, Tiamat hit the nail on the head. The croquettes, now fresh and popular, would soon become mundane. We weren’t nearing an actual solution unless we popularized the habit of eating a balanced meal. Pork would make things a lot easier, but alas.

“No sense wishing for the impossible. I just had an idea though. How about a dish using rice bran?”

Well, we wouldn’t struggle for supplies. So much is produced as a byproduct of rice refinement. But what could we make from rice bran...?

Oh.

“Pickled vegetables?”

“Mm-hm. Bran pickling, wasn’t it called?”

It was. And rice bran contains plenty of vitamin B1, which meant that bran pickled foods could yield a good amount of it too. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how much that amount was.

“I think so. Don’t know much about it, though.”

“Can’t be helped. I don’t eat pickled things either.”

Like Tiamat said, it couldn’t be helped. Pickles and vinegar-y things weren’t really my cup of tea. Naturally, I didn’t know how to make any, as well as their nutritional contents. I doubted we could just shove vegetables in a pile of rice bran.

Tiamat, or my fiancée, didn’t like pickled vegetables either. Nor did she like natto. Of course, she had her trivia databank, so she should have known how to make it.

How do I put this... We didn’t really feel like making something we didn’t like. Please understand. We would’ve had to taste it ourselves and advertise how good it was.

“Perhaps we can teach them the method as a means of preserving food.”

Even Tiamat backed out. The hungry-hungry-dragon was being a little chicken.

“Besides, we won’t be staying in this country for long.”

“True.”

A week had passed since we started selling croquettes. It was about time the king made his next move. The buyouts of edamame didn’t yield the results they expected, and our dishes still continued to save people. The kingdom’s reputation fell as the Hermits’ reputation rose. I doubted that the leader of Azur was so deep into la-la land to be a jolly, happy fellow in this situation.

“Their next step must be to illegalize it.”

“Yep. And ask us to leave the country, I guess.”

I shrugged. They wanted to avoid us gaining even more of a positive reputation, but it was proving difficult for them to take care of us with blunt force. The best solution for them now was to have us leave the country.

“Sir Eiji, Lady Tiamat. Are you still up?”

There was a polite knock on the door, followed by a voice. It was Mister Milon.

“Yes. What is it?”

“A royal messenger.”

“Here we go.”

We stood up from the edge of the bed. A week had passed since we started selling the croquettes, and twenty days had passed since the throne monopolized edamame.

The messenger was the Viscount Zahreed from the other day. Beside him was a figure whose face was cloaked under his hood. I recognized him. I may have been stupid, but not enough to forget my own killer.

“Nice to meet you, King Reinhart Mishima.”

I audaciously addressed him... as my voice kind of cracked. It seemed that I still wasn’t over it. Our guests jolted, having been discovered before revealing the face under the hood. I could sense their fear. Now we were even. I was scared of my killer, and he was scared that I knew who he was at our first meeting. Finally we were on equal grounds.

“...You said to come here if I wanted something from you. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Then please, have a seat.”

We all sat down, the meeting room table between both pairs. King Reinhart sat across from me and Viscount Zahreed across from Tiamat. Slowly, the King pulled back his hood. He seemed to deem it useless since I knew who he was.

“Then let us hear what brought you out here.”

Tiamat remained silent, but I could sense that she was on edge from her portrait. To her, having me killed right under her nose was an unbelievable mistake. If I could put a little faith in myself here, I would have been the same way if my fiancée was killed before my very eyes. There would not be a second time. Never again.

“Sir Eiji... Uh, Master Hermit.”

Why did you switch it up?

“Yes?”

“Please. We need your help to save our country.”

“Hm? I have acted with that very intention since the day I’ve arrived at Lishua.”

I didn’t understand. What did they think we’ve been doing all this time?

“The other day, we suffered a casualty in the royal army. The first death from that strange disease,” the king said, keeping his voice down.

I scoffed internally. That was a lie. Out on the streets, people have been dying for years; I was sure that many soldiers had already died, too. It’s a little too convenient for their first death to hit now.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

I put on my best sympathetic expression I could find. I had enough mind and decency to not laugh off such news, true or false.

“Why did this happen?! I told him to eat the Hermit Beans! Why did he die?!” King Reinhart raised his voice.

Well... because he didn’t eat them. You think people will just eat what you tell them to, Your Highness?

“Did you take away your blessing on them after we bought out the Hermit Beans?!”

I realized his understanding. Not that there was any kind of blessing to begin with. But I doubted that this king would believe the truth if I told him. People only see and hear what they want to. King Reinhart and myself were no exception.

“A Hermit’s blessing can’t be withdrawn or tacked on so easily.”

“Then explain his death!”

“Did that soldier really eat the Hermit Beans, as much as he needed to? Did you watch him eat them, Your Highness?”

“...I...”

“Of course you didn’t. You can’t be expected to supervise every soldier’s every meal. They could throw the beans away while you’re not looking. Besides, who would want to eat such a thing when they’ve only known it to be livestock feed, just because of an order?”

“...”

“Do you realize why we had been using them in appetizing meals to serve the people?”

I decided to dig a little deeper into King Reinhart as he fell silent. Surely, I was allowed to give him a little taste of his own medicine. He had derailed our operation when we had finally got it on course. And, he killed me once.

“Same goes for gagd meat. Instead of forcing them on people, I believe we need to use them in a way where the people would want to eat them, even when no one is looking.”

The ruler of this nation sulked into his seat.

4.

“What do I do...?”

King Reinhart’s tone had become totally depressed. Perhaps it would have been too cruel to tell him off and to figure it out himself since he was the one in charge. I wasn’t here to pick on the people of this country.

“A bad execution just needs to be corrected, Your Majesty.”

There was no need to obsess over the initial method or the initial goal. A course of action could be corrected as we went along. Being too tied up by the initial plan is a sort of trap that people who deal in absolutes often get caught in.

“If you try to force-feed people the Hermit Beans, of course they’d push back. For people who don’t know what’s going on, they were just told to eat livestock feed.”

Even the most loyal soldier would have been astounded. The soldiers of Azur remained relatively calm, considering that they weren’t offended for being treated like animals. It would not have been hard to imagine a riot or coup breaking out as a result. Food is serious business.

“We didn’t mean the order to come across that way.”

“Of course you didn’t. What king would make a policy with the intent of weakening his own country? I know you meant the best.”

Everyone always does. Shizuru the Hero-King meant the best when he popularized eating rice. He meant to save the people from poverty and starvation; it just happened to cause our predicament today as an end result. A failed good deed tends to cause more damage than a successful evil deed. The worst an evil deed could accomplish is, like, graffiti and annoying people with loud music.

“So you have to start by solving that misunderstanding. The first step is for Your Majesty to publicly declare that Hermit Beans are not feed for livestock.”

“That’s all we need to do?”

As if. Was he listening to anything I was saying?

“As I said, that’s the first step. The second is for Your Majesty to eat the Hermit Beans, and advertise that it is a proper food.”

“We see.”

King Reinhart nodded and shot a glance to his side. Viscount Zahreed produced something from his pocket. I could feel Tiamat tense up for a moment, but it was just a pen and paper. The viscount began making note of my suggestions. It seemed that the king was ready to take this seriously.

“With those steps, I think we can bring things back to where they started. We’ve only fallen behind from the force-feeding.”

“Urm...” King Reinhart pondered. That was a good sign. He seemed to be considering whether or not my ideas could bring us back to neutral.

“Sir Eiji. I don’t think it will go that easily.”

Good answer. He found it. A bad impression isn’t so easy to wipe away. My ideas so far were far from enough to make up for the king force-feeding his people what was thought to be livestock feed, and King Reinhart realized that too. Which means that he now accurately understood how badly he’d screwed up.

“I agree. It won’t be enough. So, things are going to become more technical.”

With that, I asked for permission to have Mister Milon join us at the table. King Reinhart had no objection. We were the home team, after all.

When Mister Milon entered, he brought with him the secret weapon for turning the game around. Beet sugar. Once it was placed on the meeting room table, I cracked it with a light tap of the fist.

“Please. Have some.”

As I said so, I plopped a piece into my mouth to show that it wasn’t poisoned. This man had the record of poisoning me to death, after all! Wouldn’t be too presumptuous of me to think that he suspected the same thing to happen to him!

“What is this...?!”

After tasting a piece with visible suspicion, King Reinhart fell speechless. It wasn’t that sweetness was hard to come by for him. Surely he had access to maple syrup and honey. He was surprised that he was tasting a brand-new type of sweetness in a commoner’s (albeit a successful businessman’s) abode.

“It is called beet sugar. Another wisdom of the Hermits.”

“This... is the secret behind your Zoom-da?”

Correct. But why’d he have to pronounce it like that?

“Yes. We add this to ground Hermit Beans, and serve it with a cake made from pounding down rice. We call it Zunda mochi.”

“Hrgh...”

“We want the kingdom to buy all of our beet sugar, decide on a price, and put it on the market.”

Exclusive selling rights. My proposition was to have the country make money off of monopolizing the beet sugar, rather than the Hermit Beans. It would have been dangerous to throw beet sugar at the people of this world when they were still starved of sweetness in their diet. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of ailments that would bring.

With the government being the middleman, though, we could control how much goes into the market. And since the government and Mister Milon’s business would take a cut, the price wouldn’t get too low.

“We would be happy to... depending on the price,” King Reinhart replied, carefully choosing his words.

I gave Mister Milon a nod.

“How does ten gold coins per kilogram sound?” the merchant proposed, practically drooling.

Of course, the actual unit they used must not have been kilograms. Still, a kilogram of sugar for about one hundred thousand yen? An outrageous price if proposed in modern times. King Reinhart was stunned.

“Per kilogram...?!”

He couldn’t believe it, for the opposite reason.

“Yes. Per kilogram.”

A brimming smile grew on Mister Milon’s face. He could already taste his victory.

We had discussed the prospect of the government deciding on a fair price for beet sugar back when we first successfully refined it. His business might have been expansive, but it was still dangerous to have Mister Milon in sole control of the beet sugar. That would have made him too much profit. It was just squeezed out of the roots of some weed.

We had made about 50 kilograms of beet sugar from the 1000 kilograms of beets we first harvested. Upon witnessing our yield, Mister Milon was more scared than overjoyed. It was too much. Yielding this much once or twice was one thing, but if this could be expected from every harvest, his profit would be astronomical. Precisely because of his keen sense of business, he sensed danger in the yield ratio.

When Tia and I proposed that the government should buy out the sugar, he wholeheartedly welcomed the idea. The ten gold coins per kilogram price point was decided upon after much deliberation too. While half of that would have profited him plenty, the market price would have been too low. If we couldn’t keep the sugar at a price point where a commoner could afford it, but only on occasion, the market would become flooded. Wow, this was hard to figure out.

“For starters, we have a hundred kilograms of it ready for you.”

“A-A hundred...?!”

His voice cracking, Viscount Zahreed dropped his pen. While the king reprimanded him, his voice was a little shrill also. The deal was for one thousand gold coins. Even if the government sold it at double the price, it wouldn’t be hard to find buyers. Considering that it could be used in foreign trade, the country would more than double their money.

“And, we would like the kingdom to sell the Zunda mochi containing the beet sugar.” With the king’s endorsement, I was willing to bet that the dish would popularize in no time. I took a page from the book of Date Masamune.

“To be honest, I feel bewildered, Sir Eiji.”

King Reinhart sighed and slapped his cheeks with his hands.

“But what do you two have to gain from this proposal?”

Huh?

Nothing, of course. I was just cleaning up the mess my brother-in-law, the hero, had made.

5.

“We hermits have no interest in worldly riches or fame. Those we happily give to Your Majesty and Mister Milon.”

I showed him a smile. The merchant would get the money, and the king would get the fame. Good. It had to be this way. My only job here was to try and correct the course of history in this world distorted by the hero, as much as I could.

“Sir Eiji... Master Hermit!”

Jumping off of the couch, King Reinhart fell to his knees.

What’s happening? Where is this going?

As I stood there, dumbfounded...

“We thought that your intentions were to destroy this country! That the strange ailment was caused by the wrath of the Hermits!”

He shouted out his confession.

What? You thought I was some angry Daimajin or something?

“We planned to summon you to my castle to kill you!”

Yeah, I know. Because you already did.

“But you didn’t answer my call. Nor did the Hermit Beans help my soldiers. I thought that I had enraged the Hermits.”

“Your Majesty. Please stand up. An intention is not a crime.”

I stood from my seat and helped King Reinhart to his feet. Anyone could have a passing thought of wanting to kill someone in a moment of anger. I’m sure that many fantasize about how to do it when they do. But as long as that thought isn’t acted on, it isn’t a crime.

“And there’s no need to apologize for something that hasn’t happened.”

“Sir Eiji...”

“So, please, save them. They are your people.”

I gave him another smile to break the tension. He was trying his best... to be the best ruler he could be. That’s why he couldn’t keep me, who could threaten the king’s power and the entire nation, alive. That’s all it came down to.

“I have bestowed you with the wisdom of the Hermits. You must put in the work from here.”

With that, I looked upon the people of this land. It was time to leave. Even though King Reinhart seemed moved now, he would soon loathe my existence. That’s how the cookie crumbles. Sharing hardships comes easy for humans, but sharing fame or wealth? Not so much. We are envious creatures by nature.

“Tia and I will be on our way out of the country soon.”

This was something I had discussed with Tiamat before. If we were to save the world, we couldn’t remain in the Kingdom of Azur forever.

“Sir Eiji?!” Mister Milon squealed.

Right. I hadn’t told him anything.

“Sorry, Milon. We can’t stay in one place for too long. I wish we could.”

Tiamat came in for the rescue. That’s my partner, all right. Her excuse was bogus though.

“But it’s our mistake to surprise you with this on such short notice. Not exactly as a token of apology, but we will leave you with one more piece of wisdom.”

And so, Tiamat began explaining how to make bran pickles. Smooth. Since she had kept that information until now, we wouldn’t have to taste-test the pickles. Good job.

According to her explanation, it would take about twenty days to build the setup required and another twenty for the vegetables to pickle. We were off the hook.

“Of course, we’re not leaving tomorrow or anything. We do have to pack for the journey,” I said, concealing my internal smirk of sly victory.

All joking aside though, no good would have come from us staying in Lishua any longer. If we wanted to succeed as a ruler or merchant, we would have been much better off with a set base of operations, but we were neither. I just figured it would take us a few days to prepare all of our equipment and supplies for the journey. Naturally we would need some money in our pockets, too. No one can travel with an empty wallet.

“Now, now. Don’t you think the government of Azur and Milon’s business would help us with that?”

Tiamat cackled, as she always did.

Time flew by, and the morning of our departure arrived. As Tiamat had said, the government, Mister Milon, and even the Adventurers’ Guild gladly contributed. They gave us warm clothes, sling packs, and even a donkey to carry our things. I was beginning to feel bad at how much they had gifted us.

While their support was heartfelt, thankfully so were their goodbyes. The prime example, by the way, was Syfer. He insisted on following us, demanding to know why we were abandoning him, and even started saying nonsense like he’ll fix whatever it was about him that we didn’t like. In the end, he was bawling.

Tiamat and I had a hard time choosing our expressions at this. I did feel grateful for his offer and couldn’t brush him off, knowing that he admired us this much. A part of me didn’t want to leave either.

Still, Syfer was an adventurer based in Lishua. He had family here. He had to protect his younger brothers and sisters with his own hands and feed them meals he put on the table. We could not allow him to accompany us. Besides, there was much work to do and many responsibilities that fell to those left behind.

The project to save Azur from beriberi had only just begun. With the variety of new products, Mister Milon’s business would rapidly expand. In the process he could very well clash heads with the royal government. While Mister Milon himself was a kind man, others may wish him harm.

“So, Syfer. I want you to protect Mister Milon and Miss Millia.”

“...I will, Sir Eiji. With my life.”

With that, the young A-rank adventurers of Syfer’s party agreed to guard Mister Milon’s business. From now on, the business and the Adventurers’ Guild would fight the outbreak of beriberi hand in hand. Alongside the Azur government too, of course. My job here, for the time being, had concluded.

“Are you ready?”

After a rather violent bang at the door, a large man entered... Who was he? He was about thirty centimeters taller than me, and his muscles were built like armor. His skin was tanned dark, and his long hair was a spectacular silver. My impression was that he was a seasoned warrior. But, for real, who was he?

“It’s me, dude. Baze.”

“Huh?!”

The Fenrir of Azur Hallow? Wait. This was no time for a mafia game. Mister Baze, as I recalled, didn’t exactly look like a human.

“Transformation magic. He’s rather conspicuous in his Fenrir form. I taught him the spell over the past few days.”

“It transformed his diction too...”

I thought Baze had a rather archaic tone to how he spoke, like a male version of Tiamat.

“It did not. You simply hear him differently because your impression of him has changed.”

Okay. I was pretty easily convinced. While the difference may have been more subtle in, say, English, the variety of speech patterns in Japanese made the transformation more jarring to me.

“Is Hieronymus also...?”

“Indeed. Incredibly perceptive as ever, Lord Eiji.”

A handsome gentleman popped his head out from behind the hunk of muscle. He wore a cool cavalier hat and a stylish cape with a rapier strapped to his belt. Under his slit black eyes he even had a fancy mustache. He looked annoyingly good.

“Perceptive... I just saw it coming...”

I gave my partner a look.

“Hm. There’s no sense in I alone retaining my form. I will also transform.”

With a poof, Tiamat’s appearance changed. Not into that of my fiancée as I remembered her to be on Earth, but into a beautiful young woman with silver hair and blue eyes, and with a glamorous body as well. She would have fit right in with Hollywood actresses.

Why did she choose that form? Why couldn’t she have looked Japanese? It seemed really off-kilter for me to be the only one looking like the average Japanese person.

“Lost in my eyes?”

“I’m lost for words.”

I was already exhausted, early in the morning. With a large sigh, I extended my right hand.

“Well, in any case... Bring it in.”

“Hm.”

“I got your back, bro.”

“I shall aid you with all of my might.”

Tiamat, Baze, and Hieronymus each put their hand on top of mine.

6.

Mister Milon and Millia were the only ones who came to the city gates to see us off. Our departure was very lacking in fanfare, but that couldn’t be helped. Everyone had their own lives, and they couldn’t be expected to hang around people who were on their way out.

“Sir Eiji, I wish you safe travels.”

“Take care, Mister Milon. And you, Miss Millia.”

We shook hands. Behind me stood Tiamat looking like a busty mage, the bulky Baze holding the donkey’s rein, and Hieronymus the light-footed warrior with the cool hat. Of course, Mister Milon was surprised upon first seeing their new forms, but the ‘we transformed to be less conspicuous’ explanation sufficed. He was cool with that. Good.

“Please give the others my regards,” I said as I let go of his hand and headed toward the city gates. They were about to open for the day.

With a slight creek, the gate slowly opened.

“You can give them your regards yourself.”

Mister Milon laughed. In the next instant, a booming noise echoed in the city’s gate plaza. A sea of people were standing on either side of the travel road. There was Syfer and his team, and Mister Garish and his wife. All of the other people we had made acquaintances with in the city were there too, forming a long, long line.

“Why are...?”

“We already had quite a large gathering before dawn. Since it would inhibit commerce and traffic, we opened the gates earlier than usual,” a guard explained as he approached me.

I recognized him, too. He was the guard that received us when we first arrived in Lishua.

“Opened? The gate was closed until a second ago.”

“Oh, you know. It was a little surprise.”

“You definitely took quite the liberty.” I laughed.

If I didn’t laugh, I couldn’t have helped but express how I felt in another manner entirely.

“A little payback. For the heartless people who saved our city, trying to leave without giving us a chance to thank them.”

The guard patted my back. The four of us began walking through the roaring cheers, heading for Noura in the distant east.

“That felt like a finale.”

After we walked for a while, and as Lishua was beginning to fade into the horizon behind us, Tiamat made this little comment while sniffing her nose. I understood how she felt. I couldn’t handle surprises like that very well. I didn’t know how many times I nearly blurted out, “Change of plans, we’re staying.”

“It was not an eternal farewell. With luck, we should see them again,” said Hieronymus. Not without emotion. This one had the brim of his hat pulled down, hiding his face; he was holding back tears. I understood.

Baze, by the way, was bawling with a deep howl, not caring who saw him. The donkey he was pulling seemed very annoyed, though. Apparently a cat and a wolf expressed their emotions quite differently.

“I mean... Tia and I had to go, but there was no reason you two couldn’t have stayed. Lord Baze, Lord Hieronymus?”

It wasn’t like they were on the job to save the world. No one would blame them for following any path they pleased.

“Shut your mouth right now, my man!”

Baze slapped my back with his open hand. Ow! My spine was going to snap!

“We share a destiny now! You couldn’t get rid of us if you tried!”

Bam. Bam.

Please stop. You’re going to kill me.

Probably sensing my mortal danger, Hieronymus came in between us.

“Lord Eiji. We are precisely on the path we’ve chosen. We would be left for fools if you should leave us now.”

A slight smile was on his handsome face, and his silky locks flowed with it.

“Y-You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

I apologized, out of breath. My back ached. Tiamat approached me and rubbed my back.

“Y-You do too much for me. If only...”

“Papa. You promised not to mention Mama.”

That’s some stupid gag we’ve concocted.

“Speaking of, Papa. I sense an unruly presence ahead. Have you noticed?”

“How am I supposed to notice that? And stop calling me Papa.”

“Bandits, perhaps?”

Apparently she couldn’t discern how many there were, their strength, or what weapons they carried. I mean, she would have been some superhuman if she could tell that much from sensing their presence. Of course, no one else in my party was an ordinary human either. It felt like this was where the wild things were.

“I shall scout them out.”

“Nah, leave it to me. It’s been a while since I got some exercise.”

Baze volunteered himself over Hieronymus and handed me the donkey reins.

“I don’t worry about you, Lord Baze, but be careful.”

“You betcha.”

He kicked off the ground and accelerated to amazing speeds. He shrank into the distance as I watched. His leg strength was incredible.

“Then why don’t we leisurely try to catch up?” Tiamat said, completely relaxed. She showed no sign of concern for Baze jumping the gun.

“Let’s.”

To be fair, I felt no concern either. Honestly, if he couldn’t handle the situation, there was nothing I could contribute beyond waltzing over there. If anything I’d only get in the way. We three carried on down the travel road without changing our pace.

After a little bit, Baze returned.

“A caravan was getting attacked ten kilometers down. Probably bandits.”

Ten kilometers? Not fifteen minutes had passed since he had left us. He ran the roundtrip of twenty kilometers in that time?

“No?”

Baze crooked his head. It wasn’t cute when a huge, towering man did it.

“Five minutes to get there, five minutes to get back. Two minutes to beat up the bandits, and about three minutes to get away from the merchants trying to thank me.”

You beat them up, did you?

It couldn’t be helped that the combat itself was the shortest part of his little expedition, since he was really a Fenrir. A team of A-rank adventurers had faced him down, ready to die. There was no way any bandits were going to best him.

“Wait, get away from?”

That’s the part I was more concerned about. He didn’t beat up the merchants too, did he?

“They started yammering about thanking me, or traveling together, or wanting to know my name. I told them our boss man decides that stuff and came running.”

Oof. That meant the caravan was waiting for us up ahead. We were barely out of the city, and now we’re in another mess.

“Hmm. Should we change course?” Tiamat mumbled, seeming to share my sentiment. They had transformed into humans to avoid attention. We didn’t exactly want to star in a parade.

“You have had a change of heart, Lord Baze. Perhaps you should have left the humans to squabble amongst themselves.”

Hieronymus grinned. He was teasing the Fenrir, who now completely sympathized with humans after being close to Mister Milon and the adventurers. Hieronymus was in the same boat, though. He had been adored by the spellcasters in town, and many women had shed tears at his departure. Not that I was jealous or anything!

“Go off the travel road you mean, Tia?”

“Mm-hm. We keep going and we’ll bump into that caravan. That’ll be a whole mess.”

“If we do that, though, we may not reach the inn in time.”

We weren’t in a modern nation where numerous roads crisscrossed each other. There were only a few routes suited for human travel. Once we were off the travel road, our map was practically useless, too. If we were to go around and get lost, we wouldn’t be able to laugh it off. Most importantly, though, I didn’t want to sleep on the ground anymore. You have to experience it to know how hard it is.

“No, let’s keep going and accept our fate. Even if we go around, we’ll probably see them in the next town.”

“True. If they decide to wait for us there, there would be no point in altering our route.” Tiamat shrugged.

7.

Generally, people in this time period travel on foot. Even in Japan, that was the mainstream mode of transportation until the Meiji era. Naturally there was only so much distance one could cover in a day, which was about thirty kilometers. And about thirty kilometers out of Lishua, there were inns. A natural development.

Based on city locations, inns and restaurants spring up where travelers typically came to rest. As those establishments grow, they form towns. Where people gathered, so did money. On the flip side, towns and villages at an awkward location or too far off the travel road only decline. People only walk past those places, after all.

The same goes for modern-day Japan, too. Even with public transport and automobiles, it’s difficult for a countryside village in an inconvenient location to not fade away. Even in my home province of Hokkaido, 147 of the 188 towns and villages are endangered.

“Humans act the same in any world, it seems,” Tiamat said, as we walked down the travel road.

“Yeah.” I shrugged.

Across time and space, the nature of humanity never changes.

“Why reference Legend of the Galactic Heroes now? That’s from the anime version, isn’t it?”

“Well, I like it, so I reference it.”

“Humans envy and hate others while craving love. Humans want results without putting in any effort. Humans want to escape their routine, but hesitate to step outside the box. Humans can’t stand someone working hard to achieve something. Humans can’t help but be jealous of the success of others. That’s human nature.”

Do you think they’re helpless? Tiamat added. I don’t. Humans are creatures of emotion. Jealousy, envy, hatred... If we lose these things we are no longer human, but mere robots.

“Now, it seems we’ve caught up to our people in waiting in the meantime of our philosophical discussion of human nature,” Hieronymus brought to our attention.

We were walking leisurely, but the caravan Baze had rescued seemed to have waited there. For three hours! Polite was one way to put it, but I was kind of hoping that they would have been gone by now.

“No way around it now. Let’s make their acquaintance. We may thank or curse them for it later.”

“I hope to thank them then.”

We were already stumbling on a roadblock half a day in. Some journey we were on. In the distance, I could see who appeared to be the leader of the caravan noticing and greeting us.

Judging by the amount of luggage, I had pegged them to be traveling merchants, but I was unfortunately off the mark. To our surprise, they were traveling performers.

While that form of entertainment was mostly a thing of the past in modern-day Japan, I have heard that a band of traveling performers still annually visits the hot springs resorts in Jozankei, for example. It was much more popular back when there was less entertainment readily available. There was no radio, TV, or internet in this world. For the most part, people’s enjoyment came from food and drink. And, perhaps, the marital bed.

“What else would a man and woman do after the sun goes down? Even in Japan today, families in the country are big.”

I was being vague on purpose, but this dragon just had to dig deeper, didn’t she? In any case, families in this world also tended to be big. When most of one’s day is consumed by day-to-day life, there isn’t much space for entertainment. That’s why a band of traveling performances were a welcome source of it. While I can’t attest to the accuracy of it, I once read that leaders of these bands were highly respected and sometimes even stepped in to settle disputes in the towns they traveled to.

“How can I possibly thank you for saving our lives?” the respected leader said as he came up to me.

“Please. Baze is the one responsible for it. No need to thank me. Besides, we are adventurers. We are obligated to help those in need.”

Even though we were F-rank, Tiamat and I were still adventurers, yes sir. Cats and wolves, by the way, could not become adventurers.

“I admire your humility unbecoming of your youth.”

The leader seemed impressed. His name was Murdock, a large man who looked to be in his fifties. Which meant that he was most likely around my age. With a rather rushed set of introductions, our familiarity began to grow.

Mister Murdock then called for a member of his troupe and had him bring over something wrapped in cloth. Definitely a token of gratitude. I didn’t even have to guess. Judging by the size, it was cash.

“Please forgive us for repaying our life debts with money.”

With that, Mister Murdock took off the cloth. What appeared from under it was a pile of gold coins, perhaps fifty of them. That was a lot of money. Even my Chronograph only sold for one hundred gold coins.

“Please! We can’t accept this!”

I pushed it back, a little frazzled. If we did accept it, it meant that we were pressure-selling our kindness.

“Still, we have no other way to repay you. We wouldn’t know what to do if you didn’t accept this.”

“I understand, but...”

We didn’t help them hoping for a reward. Really, it was just a coincidence that we happened to save them. Since Baze was the one who saved them, he should be the one to negotiate this, but I couldn’t expect a Fenrir to do that. In fact, he had chucked all the responsibility to me from the very start. With a nod, our silver-haired beauty reached out and took just four gold coins from the pile.

“This will be enough for our reward, Murdock. We are merely F-rank adventurers.”

Four coins. One per member. That was good. It would have hurt Mister Murdock’s pride to rescind his offer now, but fifty coins was way too much for us not to feel guilty about. So, using our F-rank status as an excuse, she accepted an amount that was harmless to both parties.

“How abstemious...”

“Greed hastens death. An adventurer’s mantra.”

“Yep.”

I smiled at Tiamat as she made a self-grandiose declaration, and picked the conversation up from there.

“Mister Murdock. If you’re still unsatisfied, could we ask to join you for lunch?”

I pointed at the sun, almost directly above us. We had been walking all morning, and it seemed an acceptable time for lunch. I couldn’t tell the exact time, though, since I didn’t have my watch!

“Lunch...?”

A slight shadow crossed Mister Murdock’s expression. Oh? I had only suggested it to make him feel better. Was something the matter?

“Our meals are meager... Nothing we can possibly serve to guests...”

Oh. That’s it?

“Please don’t mind us. We are traveling, too. We’d feel bad if you served us an overly proper meal.”

I also added that we would be contributing some food too. To be honest... just having them cook our food would have been wonderful. Our party, including myself, had zero skills in the kitchen. We had a good amount of gagd meat in our zeer pot on the donkey’s back, but we weren’t sure how we were going to consume it. Mister Milon went through the trouble of packing it for us, but I was worried that we would have to discard it pretty soon. I wouldn’t feel bad for the food if we could eat it all when we had the chance.

8.

The Murdock troupe didn’t have a designated cook. As they shared responsibilities within the troupe, they took turns. The chef of the day was a girl named Eily. With light golden hair and reddish-brown eyes, she was fourteen or fifteen. Her role in the troupe was a knife thrower.

“Is this meat... It’s cold!”

She was astonished by the gagd meat we provided.

“Were you chilling it with magic, Eiji?”

“No, no. Anyone can make this pot. No magic involved.”

I suppose she was more surprised by the zeer pot. We had about four kilos of gagd meat, by the way. There was no sense in us carrying it around, so we decided to contribute all of it. Even if all ten members of the troupe and us four split it, we would each come out with a good amount.

“Everyone would love a side dish,” she said.

“I’m glad.”

In the zeer pot, we only had a bit of edamame and beet sugar left. Nonperishables were kept in a separate bag. Mister Garish from the Adventurers’ Guild had given us rock-hard bread, jerky, and wine. The problem was whether or not my jaw could withstand the bread.

How were we going to survive on our own? Especially if we aren’t able to stay at an inn at times. Oblivious to my worries for our future, Eily began cooking rice. It seemed that they mostly ate rice, too. I was impressed, considering they didn’t have a rice cooker.

“The people we visit think it’s funny.”

Catching my glance, Eily stuck her tongue out. Was she doing something funny? I was just thinking that it was impressive how she was cooking rice in a pot over a fire.

“We mix all sorts of things in our rice.”

“Really?”

“It feels like just white rice doesn’t give us enough energy. We mix in all sorts of things, depending on who’s cooking.”

Eily showed me a sort of wild rice.

“This is the Eily blend.”

It had wheat, millet, brown rice, and even soybeans. There was more variety in there, but I didn’t know what the rest of them were.

“Oh!”

It clicked. Because they were traveling, they couldn’t always have enough, or expect to get enough, white rice. They had to ration the rice while they traveled. Perhaps they had initially intended to inflate the amount of rice by mixing in other grains. In the end, that saved this troupe from beriberi. No wonder they were all healthy, despite their physical workload. They prevented beriberi, thanks to their own experiences.

“This is the wisdom of humanity. Perhaps they are the real saviors of this world, Eiji.”

Tiamat approached me, impressed. I completely agreed. Humanity has the ability to find the answer. The smell of cooked rice and grilled meat began to fill the air.

“Hmm. I wish there were a little more options for seasoning...” I said, chewing on the bland wild rice. Baze and Hieronymus, on the other hand, were eating it without any complaints. These two basically ate anything. The polar opposite of picky eaters. How wonderful for them.

“Noura faces the ocean. Perhaps they’ll have fish sauce or something comparable,” Tiamat said, skillfully maneuvering her spoon. Right. Now that she’d transformed, she could properly use her hands. So could Baze and Hieronymus, who had spent their lives thus far on all fours. Magic worked in mysterious ways.

“Like Shottsuru? Hrm...”

I recalled the taste of the brand of fish sauce I was familiar with.

“I remember you didn’t like it or nam pla.”

A brand of Thai fish sauce.

“I don’t like how they taste like fish.”

“Then we’ll just have to make miso. Sake, too, if we can.”

There were soybeans, and there was rice. Once we have miso, we should be able to make soy sauce and vinegar from there. If we could get to that point, we would really have sparked a change in the culinary culture of this world. Without enough condiments, we could only go so far in our quest of popularizing side dishes if we were only using the flavors of the ingredients.

“But can we go that far...?”

“That ship has sailed. We already created sugar. That will take the world by storm, in no time. No harm in teaching them how to make other condiments.”

“You’re right, of course...”

I wanted to prevent a future where the people of this fantasy world are plagued by lifestyle diseases and obesity. Actually, after centuries or millennia those things would become an issue. As technology and culinary culture improved, any world seemed destined to reach that point. Still, I wanted to keep that in the distant future. At this point, the thought of me pulling the trigger still terrified me.

“You’re overthinking again, about something you’re never going to figure out,” Tiamat said.

And she kissed the back of my head, for some reason.

“...”

“...”

“...That’s a unique way of showing your affection, Tia.”

I made sure to grin, ear-to-ear. I bet she tried to bite my head, forgetting that she turned herself into a human. While I couldn’t see her behind me, I was sure that she was blushing. I did it. I had won. Did everyone see that? I won against Tiamat.

“It really makes me feel loved.”

Grinny-grin-grin.

“Shut up!”

“Aghhh!”

My scream echoed. Tiamat, this violent woman, grabbed me by the ear and held me up in the air. Even though she looked like a human now, it seemed that she retained her strength. Isn’t magic wonderful?

“Ow! Ow! You’re tearing my ear off!”

“Eiji the Earless.”

“This isn’t at all like the— Ow ow ow ow ow!”

“Have you learned your lesson?”

“Yes! I have! I’m sorry!”

“Mm.”

She let me go. My ear hurt. I touched it to make sure it wasn’t ripped off...

I had failed. I couldn’t defeat Tiamat.

Heroes of the future. You must fulfill your destiny...

Death.

“What are you talking about, you crazed fool.”

Tiamat smacked me across the head. When I tried to turn around, however, she had me tight in an armlock for some reason. I complied, though. I wasn’t supposed to turn around right now. Unlike the protagonist in the old folklore, I wouldn’t open a door a lady has asked me not to.

“You said Noura faced a sea, right?”

“Mm.”

Then we could get our hands on some pollack roe. Not right away, though, since it was a winter fish.

“I guess we’ll prep to make miso while we research what fish we can catch.”

If the climate here was the same as Hokkaido, we would have the same kind of fish... I hoped. We had already found gagd; we couldn’t keep our hopes up too high.

“Mister Eiji. Are you two headed for Noura?” Mister Murdock asked carefully.

I assumed that he was giving us two lovebirds some room. While he wasn’t mistaken about our relationship, it didn’t seem right to categorize our interaction as something lovey-dovey. Sure, Tiamat is the form my fiancée took upon coming to this world, but she’s a dragon now. She only looked human because of a transformation spell; she could still wipe away an entire forest with her breath. We couldn’t possibly... do what lovers do, at the moment.

“Yes. For now, our destination is the Kingdom of Noura.”

Of course, our journey wouldn’t end there. We had to find out how far the aftermath of my brother-in-law-slash-hero’s actions reached, and figure out remedies for it. I couldn’t let history solve the problem for us with war like it did when I died.

“Would you like to travel with us, Mister Eiji? We’re also headed to Noura.”

The leader of the traveling troupe smiled at us.

9.

I had to think about that proposition. Tagging along with the Murdock troupe would come with considerable benefits, first and foremost of which was food. While I could barely cook, the other three in my party were even worse. There was no way we could expect any decent meal along the way. We could manage while staying at inns, but if we camped out in the middle of nowhere, I would just starve alone. I mean, I was sure Baze or Hieronymus would hunt something for us, but if they handed me, say, some kind of bird, I couldn’t do anything to it.

In that sense, it wasn’t a bad choice for us to freeload on the troupe. We had been freeloading at Mister Milon’s the whole time we were at Lishua, and now we were going to freeload off the Murdock troupe on our way to Noura. Some Hermits we were.

Setting our lack of pride aside, it was undeniable that traveling with a troupe of performers came with some perks. Most importantly, we would attract much less unwanted attention. It would be a little tiresome to be worshiped as Hermits everywhere we go. If we could accompany the troupe under the guise of security, I expected that we would be able to avoid getting in trouble.

However, we would need to explain to the members of the Murdock troupe our true identities. It was just too dishonest to keep a secret when they would be accompanying us out of their good will, and keeping a secret only festered the potential damage if and when it ever came to light.

“We can’t stay transformed forever, either.”

“Is that so, Tia?”

“Mm-hm. The spell will break after twelve hours or so. Of course, I can always cast it again, but being in a skin that is not my own can be a little stressful.”

“That’s the way it is, huh?”

“For example, even if you dressed in drag for work, you wouldn’t want to keep it up off the clock.”

“I don’t remember working for such a free-spirited city that I would need to dress in drag to work as its clerk.”

That would be one funky city office. That being said, I understood what Tiamat meant. Blending into the crowd was one thing, but I didn’t think it was an uncommon desire to want to return to their true form at night or in private. I have been told that the first thing women want to do when they come home is to take off their makeup.

“If we’re going to be with the Murdock troupe, you guys, for the most part, want to do so in your regular forms.”

“Mm-hm. We’ll transform when we’re walking into a city.”

“We’ll see if that’s an acceptable condition for Mister Murdock.”

After a very short huddle, I returned to Mister Murdock and revealed my identity as a Hermit to see if they would still accompany us.

“Oh, that.”

Mister Murdock accepted my explanation much too easily. It seemed that he knew from the start. Egg on my face.

“When Mister Baze single-handedly took care of the bandits, he was too strong and too fast to be human. No one would expect his ‘Boss Man’ to be a mere human, either.”

He was laughing. Unfortunately, I was a mere human. If we went into combat, I doubted I could even beat Miss Eily the dagger-thrower. I didn’t have any cheat codes, after all. The truth hurt.

“You overestimate me, but let us redo our introductions. I’m Eiji, a Hermit. And this is Tiamat, also a Hermit.”

In response to my introduction, Tiamat poofed back into her dragon form.

“Baze the Fenrir, and Hieronymus the Cait Sith.”

The other two followed suit. While the members of the troupe were surprised, they didn’t fall into a panic. They had some guts. Syfer’s team was ready to die fighting Baze when they first encountered him. I wondered if the title of Hermits carried some weight here. By the way, the women were gathering around Hieronymus again. A good-looking human form and irresistible to women in his true form? He didn’t have to rub it in my face, dammit.

“Oh... Ohhh...”

While not panicking, one of the members was brought to tears. The storyteller, as I recalled, who told various legends and myths throughout the show. I imagined the role to be similar to an Ainu (the indigenous people of Japan) storyteller.

“A hermit leading a dragon, Fenrir, and Cait Sith... Embarking on a journey to save the world from destruction...”

Stop that. Don’t make it into a poem. Don’t go spreading this around like it’s some legendary story. Please.

The Murdock troupe, whom we stumbled into accompanying for the journey, was a group of ten members with an enclosed, two-horse-drawn carriage. They were a rather large travel group with a wide age-range, too, from a ten-year-old boy to an elder in his sixties. Mister Murdock was 46, by the way. Of course, everyone was surprised when I told them my age; I was getting used to it. They usually spent about two years at a time touring each nation in these parts, about eight in total. A grand tour spanning over one hundred cities.

“By any chance, have you noticed beriberi outbreaks in the cities you’ve visited?”

“Yes, of course.”

Mister Murdock nodded with a painful expression. As expected, the issue reached beyond the borders of Azur. The farming system that Mister Hero had brought over did, indeed, change the world. Steady production, efficient harvesting, and most importantly, better taste. That’s what a batch of Kirara 397, one of the best-rated varieties of rice today, would do to a medieval fantasy world. It’s tasty on its own to the spoiled taste buds of the modern Japanese. No one would substitute that for an inferior tasting product. Dear brother-in-law had really left us with quite the uphill battle.

“And how is beriberi understood in these cities?”

“For most, they don’t know what causes it. I’m sure the mage doctors are researching it, too.”

I shook my head. If magic could put a dent in the problem, neither Tiamat nor I would have been summoned.

“Healing magic isn’t even for curing diseases,” the dragon joined in.

She was slapping the ground with her tail. I somehow felt more comfortable seeing her like this.

“It isn’t, Tia?”

“Magic cannot regenerate lost blood nor eradicate cancerous cells. Or stop the aging process, for that matter. It is not omnipotent.”

Good point. If magic could cure diseases, there should be no one dying from any in this world. If magic could slow aging, there was no reason that the life expectancy in this world would be shorter than ours.

“But not in Lishua. We only passed through the city, but they all seemed healthy.”

“I’m glad.”

I returned a smile to Mister Murdock’s comment. While the venture was only in its infancy, both edamame and croquettes were slowly getting popularized. I was sure that the bran-pickling knowledge Tia left behind would eventually come to fruition, too.

“So that was thanks to your team, Mister Eiji?”

“I hope our knowledge was of help to them.”

I wanted things to go in a better direction, somehow.

“I think it’s admirable. By the way, why do we not catch that... beriberi, was it?” Mister Murdock asked, as the question seemed to spring up in his mind.

“Your diet,” I answered simply. “Mixing those grains into your rice is preventing you from being afflicted.”

“I see. How funny that us being cheap ended up saving us.”

We laughed. We can’t thoughtlessly relish our innovations and new conveniences. There can be quite the pitfalls hidden behind those conveniences.

“Everything is connected, somehow. Bringing in the wisdom of Hermits to this world warps that connection,” Tiamat said.

“And, to fix that connection, we have to use more Hermit wisdom.” I shrugged.

“The lesson must be that no problem is as simple as it seems,” Mister Murdock concluded. “It’s a harsh world we live in.” He chuckled.

10.

By the time our eastbound journey had brought us into the kingdom of Noura, the seasons were shifting away from midsummer and into late summer. Ordinarily our route would not have taken us this long, but since we matched our pace with that of the Murdock troupe, we had to stay longer at all of the towns they performed in. However, that wasn’t a disadvantage for us at all. We were able to advertise edamame everywhere we went. To boot, the storyteller of the troupe even told a made-up legend about the bean, making it a smash hit.

To save us from destruction, the Hermits blessed a crop of beans and called it Senzu.

Why did they bless livestock feed, of all things?

To remonstrate us, fellow humans.

We were depraved in our peace and prosperity, after the Demon Lord’s demise.

Remember.

Remember the times of suffering.

Remember how we ate dirt to survive.

Remember the fighting spirit, to defeat the Demon Lord at any cost.

Now you’re above eating livestock feed?

Behold, how weak you’ve become!

We ate everything we could. Weaponized everything we could. Crawled back up on our feet, as many times as it took.

The storyteller sung something like that, with a dramatic flare. Accompanying that, the members of the Murdock troupe danced and performed tricks. It was like an improvised dance and performance. The epic tale of the hero’s journey to defeat the Demon Lord, then the epilogue of peace and prosperity, followed by the Hermits’ remonstration.

The crowd enjoyed watching the performance unfold in spaces like the town plaza, with an ale in one hand and edamame or gagd meat in the other. We had sold the gagd meat we hunted for along the way and the edamame we bought from farmers to local restaurants for dirt cheap so they could serve the audience.

This was a great hit. The crowd tore into the grilled gagd meat and washed down edamame with ale as they enjoyed the show, stomping their feet and cheering along the way. They were enthralled by Eily’s thrilling knife throws, Murdock and Hieronymus’ (why was he a part of this?) grand and elegant swashbuckling, and the dancers’ evocative dances.

When they awoke the next morning, they were much less lethargic. Edamame flew off the shelves, as people experienced the Hermits’ blessing firsthand. Of course, our supply was far from enough to meet the demand. Merchants rushed to neighboring farmers. The producers were overjoyed that there were now buyers for the overgrowing soybeans.

Word traveled through the grapevine, and the Murdock troupe, who usually only performed once per town, ended up performing twice or thrice in each town we passed through. Each day and night crowds packed the plaza, a storm of coins for the performers flew through the air, and the restaurants near the plaza were overflowing with customers seeking Hermit Beans and gagd meat. Since the meat was less readily available, Baze went hunting for some every now and again.

As we continued our very slow-paced journey, a specialty of the capital city, Lishua, caught up to us: Zunda mochi. The traveling merchants, who traveled much lighter than performers, were bringing over the Lishua specialty by carrying the ingredients in zeer pots on a wagon.

“Something special about a chilled Zunda mochi.”

According to Tiamat, anyway. That’s just her dragon appetite talking, though. The proper way to enjoy Zunda, to me, was by topping fresh mochi with it. Since they must have made them in the morning and put them in the zeer pot, it was kind of tough by the time we ate it.

And they were expensive. A whopping four silver coins for a single Zunda mochi, when I could fit two of them on my palm. When we were selling them in Lishua, they were a silver coin and change a pop. What a ripoff. Despite the ridiculous price, these flew off the carts, too.

“Apparently, Reinhart himself is leading a public promotion.”

Tiamat had gathered some intel from the traveling merchants. We didn’t give him a golden ticket for nothing, it seemed. According to stories we were told, King Reinhart stood on street corners, promoting Zunda mochi to passersby. His knight guards pounded the mochi while the women of his court made the Zunda. The king then put the two together and handed them out, saying:

“This is the new specialty of Azur, bestowed upon us by the Hermits. Enjoy.”

What a bizarre scene. I think I remember seeing a similar one on a historical drama on TV. I wished I could have been there to see it, too.

And so, that’s how it took us over a month to make it out of Azur.

“The thing is, now we have a new problem on our hands.”

“Mm. I didn’t expect to not make it into the capital of Noura before summer’s end. Didn’t see it coming.”

We were at a border station. We had left Mister Murdock to the bureaucracy of international entry while us two stood idly and discussed our plans moving forward. Tiamat and the other two were in their human forms while we were crossing the border.

It was late summer. At this rate, it would be well into fall by the time we made it to Nourn, the capital of Noura. While we weren’t particularly in a hurry, there was one problem with that: the harvest season for edamame. Early to midsummer was the time of year best suited for eating soy beans in their edamame form. After that the beans are overgrown and too hardened to serve as edamame. At the same time, fall is the harvest season for rice, which meant that the consumption of white rice was about to drastically increase.

“That’s actually quite a problem.”

Tiamat twirled her long, silver hair with her right hand. I had witnessed this tick a few times back in Japan too. She did this when she was troubled.

The fact that we didn’t make it to Noura for midsummer meant that we didn’t make it for the time of year when beriberi is most active. Who knew how many people were lost to beriberi in that time, unbeknownst to us?

While I couldn’t help but feel remorseful, there was nothing I could have done. I couldn’t be the superhero who saves everyone, but I was resolved to help those I could... Although, even that I would be far from perfect at.

“Thanks to Murdock’s bunch, I think we made some solid grassroots progress. We’ll have to tackle Noura moving forward. Time for good ideas, Eiji.”

“Right. Fall, and then winter... What could we do?”

“How about Amazake?”

Amazake is a drink so nutritious that it’s nicknamed ‘oral IV.’

“We’d have to start with sake, though.”

“Mm. Since we’ll have to use sake lees for it.”

“Now we’re talking about how we can make sake.”

We didn’t have any malt. I mean, we might if we looked for some, but that would be an excruciating process. Malt was basically mold, after all. I doubted we could find any if we tried.

As far as I could recall, there are artisans who specialize in that field. When building a new sake brewery, for example, they first have to call one of the Toji groups, who collectively oversee all sake production in Japan. The quality of rice, water, and malt make or break the batch of sake. We couldn’t very well use some random mold we’d find. Even in modern-day Japan, I think they only breed from a mother-batch of high-quality aspergillus.

“I could chew on the rice for a while,” Tiamat suggested.

“That’s not going to be pretty.”

Chewing sake had been made in ancient Japan, where people would mix rice with their saliva and fill a pot with that until it fermented. Gross, right? While some may find pleasure in such things, I was not one of them. I had no desire to eat anything regurgitated by someone else, even if that someone was my beloved fiancée.

“Then, we’ll have to find malt we can use.”

“Yep. At the end of the day, we’re going to need to make miso and soy sauce, too.”

It seems the fact of the matter is Japanese cuisine is nonexistent without malt. Dammit. Where did all of those Isekai-political-fantasy protagonists get malt?

Oblivious to my woes, Mister Murdock waved us over, having completed the paperwork.

We were about to begin our life in the kingdom of Noura, the second country we’d come across in this world.