DAY 22: MORNING — GENERAL STORE

DAY 22

MORNING

Was this some sort of mushroom disease or a fungal infection?
Did she eat some poison mushrooms?

GENERAL STORE

 

WHAT A LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY! I underestimated this world. I assumed it was a simplistic fantasy world. I thought it was all a big joke. I couldn’t believe that things would come to this. My name should go down as the definition of folly.

I kicked open the door to the general store and stomped inside.

“I know what you’re hiding!” I roared. “Show me! Show it to me now! Where is it?! You’ve been lying to me all along, but if you tell me the truth now, I’ll spare you!”

“Oh? Is there something I can help you with?” The general store worker glanced around. “Can anyone come help this poor youth? He must have gone mad!” she shouted out the rapidly shutting door.

The general store lady didn’t quite grasp the seriousness of the matter at hand.

“The soy sauce!” I bellowed. “What else would I be talking about, dumbass?! Give me soy sauce! Now! Please and thank you! The regular kind! Just give it to me!”

“What sauce…?”

“You can’t hide it from me!” I howled. “The girl from the Lady Finger Boudoir confessed everything! Tears rolled down her cheeks as she told me all about where the sauce came from. The inn purchased that salty elixir here!”

“Soy sauce? Oh, that salty, fermented sauce?” Her left eyelid twitched in agitation. “Just what did you do to that poor girl?!”

How dare she get mad at me! Everyone intentionally concealed the truth from me this whole time. This world had soy sauce! This was the essence of this world, the cosmic truth, the holy writ! Soy sauce!

“When I was here before, I asked that you show me the seasonings, and yet you hid the soy sauce! Is that not so?! Do you deny that you had it?! Lies! You concealer of soy sauce, you dare to deny it!”

“We just got the shipment in yesterday! We weren’t hiding the sauce from you. It’s rare and it sells terribly, so we rarely order it. Why are you losing your mind about this?!”

Soy sauce doesn’t sell well? Do my ears deceive me? We are talking about soy sauce, aren’t we? I didn’t understand. Maybe the benighted denizens of a fantasy world don’t yet comprehend how marvelous it is. They didn’t know to appreciate the beauty of soy sauce. Could this world be so contemptible and barbaric? Whatever monster ruined soy sauce’s good reputation would have hell to pay…

Besides, if it was so unpopular, how did it sell out in the first place? There was something suspicious about all this!

“Give me all of it,” I demanded. “Sell it to me. Now. Faster!”

She stopped and crossed her arms. “Not until you’ve calmed down,” she said. “I’m worried about you. The other day you were a normal, polite kid. You’ve totally changed.”

“My precious soy sauce! Soy sauce, soy sauce, soy sauce! I want it, I need it! Must have the soy sauce!”

What am I even saying?

“I-I would be happy to sell you some. Sure. We have two massive barrels brimming with the stuff. How much do you want?”

“I’ll take it all! I’ll pay with mushrooms!”

My bag was still flooded with fungus.

“Mushrooms?” Her jaw dropped. “Where? Give them to me! Hurry! Mushrooms, you fool, the noble fungus! Mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms! Give me the mushrooms!”

Did she lose her mind? Was this some sort of mushroom disease or a fungal infection? Did she eat some poison mushrooms?

The lady—the, er, young lady who worked here emptied the register to buy as many mushrooms as she could.

I was able to afford all of the soy sauce. To test it out, I dehydrated some mushrooms with Heat Magic, glazed them with soy sauce, and roasted them using Fire Magic.

I couldn’t get enough of the smell! I passed a skewer to the general store lady, and she was overwhelmed with joy after one bite. Other fantasy world food paled in comparison.

“Sell me back some soy sauce!” she demanded.

Her eyes had been opened to the true beauty of soy sauce. I poured some sauce into individual bottles and sold it back to her at a massive markup. She wiped a tear from her eye.

She apparently pulled an all-nighter sorting the mushrooms and preparing them for sale. She made back all the money she spent and more in a single day. Talk about greedy. I was worried that she might start demanding more mushrooms every day. Wasn’t the local merchant supposed to live in humble frugality and walk a simple path toward a decent, honorable life? Apparently, she didn’t play by those rules.

Anyway, you should have seen her face when I told her I had more mushrooms to sell her if she could get me some rice.