First thing in the morning the next day, Syfer came to visit me. Forcibly dragging me out of bed, he put me into rags (as if I was a slave) before bringing me to the courtyard of Milon Manor. To boot, he sat me onto the ground and shoved my back down to make me grovel on the ground.
“So cruel... What have I done to deserve this...?”
A demon had been sent to bring hellish torment unto me.
“What do you mean, Sir Eiji? You could get hurt if you don’t stretch first.”
“Urgh...”
His overly charming smile was blinding. Where was all his energy coming from?
“You’re just a weakling, Eiji. Too sore to move? What a geezer.”
Tiamat added insult to injury. I had walked a lot the past two days! And I couldn’t sleep well with nothing between me and the ground.
What was the point of working out, anyway? I had finally returned to town, why couldn’t I have enjoyed a moment’s rest? My whole body was screaming in pain, tearing at the seams. This part wasn’t in the job application. Stop this madness, young man.
“The Bureaucrat in Captive, by Eiji Kazama.”
“I’m sorry, Sir Eiji. I don’t understand a thing you are saying.”
“Yep. It’s all nonsense, Syfer. Don’t mind me.”
I would have been dumbfounded if Syfer, a resident of another world, understood my reference to a poem titled “Ostrich in Captive” by Kotaro Takamura, published in 1928. In any case, I was the one who asked him to train me. While I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had been very maliciously set up, I couldn’t back out of it now, even if streaks of tears flowed down my face... I wanted to just go home.
“Stretching is painful for you? A little too out of shape, don’t you think?” Tiamat laughed, slapping the ground with her sturdy tail.
She, by the way, was playing with Baze. Apparently it was a game where each tried to pin down the other. A four-meter Fenrir versus a barely 180cm (if I didn’t count her tail) dragon wouldn’t be much of a fight if the game was contingent on size, but it seemed that Baze was the one being toyed with. Tiamat didn’t even let him inside a range where he could make a palpable hit, let alone grapple.
Of course, if I were to jump into such a ring, I would have been a corpse in one second flat. So I kept a fair distance between myself and them. Now Tiamat was interrupting my conversation with Syfer all the while parrying Baze’s attacks. How many legs did she have up on the Fenrir?
“In any case, Sir Eiji. I think you’re a little too stiff,” Syfer said, as he pulled my left arm and stretched it behind my back, more like a chiropractic session than a stretch. It felt pretty good.
“I apologize. Never had a job that required me to be physically active.”
“No need to apologize, but you might actually get hurt if we jump right into things.” Syfer half-sighed, half-chuckled.
Don’t joke about it.
Shout out to all the dads who have gotten themselves hurt during the dads’ dance portion of their daughters’ recitals. One can’t underestimate just how out of shape people can get.
“Not underestimating. For today, we’re going to focus on stretching. Get you on your feet tomorrow.”
“I don’t mind if we just keep stretching forever.”
It felt good enough that, if Syfer were to become a masseur, I would go to him regularly.
“Then you’ll never get any training done.”
Yep. That was so true, I got teary-eyed.
“But you’re really good at this, Syfer. Where did you pick up these techniques?”
“Just did, after a while. Comes with knowing how to break the body.”
He casually dropped that scary notion. This was a man specialized in fighting, after all.
After finishing our morning training, we all came to the breakfast table. Mister Milon’s conditions seemed to be improving further. While I doubted that he had consumed enough vitamin B1 for a complete recovery, it seemed to be enough to get him out of the chronic state of malnutrition.
“It appears the Senzu are already working, Sir Eiji,” Mister Milon said, during breakfast.
Another meal filled to the brim with edamame dishes. The one that particularly caught my eye was a bowl of rice and beans. That was good. I couldn’t have enough of the white rice seasoned by the beans and their salt.
“How do you mean?”
Putting the rice down for a moment, I asked for clarification. He wasn’t talking about his improvement. That was already apparent two days ago.
“While you were away, Sir Eiji, I provided some Senzu to a few bars owned by some friends. We’ve already received an amount of reorders this morning.”
“I see.”
I chuckled. No wonder the edamame dishes seemed refined at the tasting of gagd dishes yesterday. Preparations were already underway even before we had returned. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Mister Milon knew when to seize a business opportunity.
“Not without concerns, however.”
“What is it? Are we running out of edamame?”
If that was the case, things were dire. A supply that could be depleted in a matter of days could never provide for the entire population of this country.
“Oh, no. No need for worry there. We already grow plenty of it for livestock feed to begin with. In fact, most farmers are even annoyed by the plant growing rapidly on its own.”
Never underestimate the vitality of beans. As we spoke, Mister Milon’s business was buying up those pesky little beans by the cartful. The growers were left richer than before, and Mister Milon had a promising return to look forward to. A win-win. Considering that this could lead to improving the health of the people of Lishua, throw another win in there.
“Then, what are the concerns?”
“We have some complaints, mostly from women. Nothing major.”
“Which are?”
“That most of the dishes are bar food.”
“Oh, I see...”
I could only muster a chuckle at that. The boiling recipe I’d demonstrated was exactly that. While the chefs had developed some more uses, putting them in soup or rice for example, I believed that the rightful place of an edamame is by a cold pint of beer. Gagd meat was more of a masculine food too. Perhaps they wouldn’t be too popular with the ladies.
“Come to think of it, Maley didn’t eat much of it either,” Syfer chimed in.
Maley was the sole female of his party. She didn’t seem like the type to drink heavily, so I couldn’t imagine her choking down beans and meat with a side of ale.
“Hmm. An edamame dish that women would like...”
Quite the conundrum, especially since I had no expertise in the kitchen.
“Tia? Have anything up your sleeve?”
“Don’t women and children prefer sweets?” said the biologically-female dragon fighting Baze over gagd meat at breakfast. Seemed a little too simple to conclude that non-drinkers like sweetness.
“Hmm. Sweet, you say?”
Mister Milon was the one who seemed more interested. I looked around to find that Syfer’s and Millia’s interests were piqued too.
Then I remembered. In olden days, sweetness was a coveted taste. There were no sweets sold at the corner store, like modern day. Back in the day, people in Japan would chew on the roots of plants like jiaogulan in search of any semblance of sweetness.
Of course, I never lived through those times, but I assumed that the current times in this world were comparable to that. Perhaps a sweet edamame treat would explode in popularity.
“But a sweet edamame dish...?”
I dug deep into my memory bank, and everything I could recall was savory or spicy. In the first place, even if I knew the taste of some pre-packaged snack, I didn’t know how to make them.
“Remember? The traditional one in Japan.”
Tiamat grinned at me in my confusion. Was there really such a thing? I still couldn’t shake my perception of edamame as a salty food.
“Zunda mochi. Zuuundaaaa.”
“Why’d you say it like that?”