“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.