Tiamat was picking at the treats, throwing one after another into her gullet.
Hey dummy, have a shred of self-control, will you?
The king’s going to think Hermits starve themselves.
“Hm. Rather tasty. Much more refined than our Zunda mochi.”
No surprise there. They must have honey or something in it instead of beet sugar, and it must have been made by the best of the best. Why make the comparison with our amateur sweet?
“That’s it. I requested your presence because I am intrigued by the things you are selling.”
King Reinhart smoothly segued into the topic on his mind. It was impressive, unless Tiamat teed it up for him on purpose. The intrigue between them seemed so high-level that I couldn’t really interject.
I slurped on my tea, which was really sweet. Perhaps it was a flex, like ‘taste how much honey is in here,’ and ‘that’s how rich I am!’ Everything in moderation, Your Majesty.
“In order to explain our products, we need to begin at the ailment plaguing the city.”
“Ailment?”
“Hm. An ailment caused by eating too much white rice. We Hermits call it ‘beriberi.’”
The king began to ponder, it looked like. I’m sure he had never heard of such a disease. Still, there had been indirect deaths caused by beriberi for years. Those he must have heard about. I wondered how King Reinhart interpreted the disease that previously had unknown causes and no cure.
“The Hermit Beans you are selling is medicine for that ailment?”
“Not medicine. Senzu contain nutrition that prevents beriberi. Same with the gagd meat. We taught how to make Zunda mochi as another method to feed it to the people.”
Tiamat laughed. Her explanation was largely on point. Was there anything I could add?
“Hm. You are saving my people, then?”
“Not as grandiose as that. We’re only cleaning up Shizuru’s mess.”
Don’t say it like it.
“What?”
And now the king was upset. Even the most forgiving person would have been, if their ancestor’s shortcomings were mocked. I felt the need to clear the air. Almost as if to raise my hand in interjection...
Huh? My arm won’t move. Wait, why am I so groggy all of a sudden?
“Wh...”
What’s happening, Tia? was what I was trying to ask my partner.
But I couldn’t. What came up my throat wasn’t my voice but a red glob. It fell out of my mouth.
What is that...? What’s happening...?
“Eiji!? You bastard! What did you do!?”
I could hear my partner’s enraged voice in the distance. That was the last thing I sensed in that world.
“A little short of a month. That was quite the quick return, Eiji Kazama.”
In a space with nothing in it, my consciousness gradually becoming more clear, a woman’s voice slid into my ear canals. I knew this place.
“...I see... I died...”
Back where I started. Me, standing still like an idiot, opposite the gorgeous lady.
“Yes. With your life ended, you came back as promised. Surprising that it took you less than a month, but not so that you were poisoned.”
Ah, I was poisoned. Probably through the tea that was served. It was probably over sweetened to mask the taste of it or something. That was rather careful of him. With or without sweetener, I wouldn’t have been able to taste any poison.
“He seemed friendly to me...”
“He had summoned you with intent to kill you from the beginning. Surely he would put on a friendly act.”
There was no room for discourse from the get-go. King Reinhart was asking us questions, but I was sure that was an act, too. He had already done his research on what we’d done and why. His motive? Easy. His country wasn’t big enough for two heroes. Anyone who would discredit the accomplishments of Shizuru the Hero-King was only an obstacle. So, he killed me.
“That’s right. I assume you’re mostly correct. Good observation.”
“A fool thinks in afterthoughts, right? What’s the good in observing things after I’ve been killed?” I shrugged.
“Touché. To add a little more context, the kingdom had been keeping tabs on you the entire time, since you called yourselves Hermits when entering the city.”
“Ooh. It goes back that far, does it?”
The guard we met was loyal to his job. He had reported us to his superiors. As he appeared, he must have been the kind of person to do things by the book.
“So we were being walked on a leash.”
“Correct. Want me to explain why?”
“I have a pretty good guess.”
A traveling duo of Hermits. They were about to come across the population of a country plagued by ailment. Would they let them be, or move to save them? The government pegged us to do the latter. So did the hero-king of old, after all. Overzealous to save anyone who needs saving. Both the hero-king and I were typical Japanese.
And so, I showed them the cure for beriberi. The answer Azur had longed and waited for. While I was at it, I even provided them with a refinement method for sugar, which would bring boundless wealth for the country. Yep. That was enough. No reason to keep me alive. They had the knowledge they needed. All that was left was taking care of me before I became too famous.
“Incredible calculation. How smart of him.”
I crooked my lips.
“There’s no point in throwing your malice at me, Eiji Kazama.”
“...I’m sorry.”
“In any case, let’s talk about what happens next.”
With that, the Inspector began to tell the story. After I (aka Eiji the Hermit) was killed, the official story became that the cure for beriberi was developed by the hero-king’s descendant. Anyone who knew that to be false was someone the kingdom wanted gone. Directly following my death, assassins were sent to Mister Milon’s business and the Adventurers’ Guild. As a result, both Mister Milon and Mister Garish, along with their wives, perished.
Miss Millia, who barely made it out alive, managed to escape Lishua guarded by Syfer’s team, with Baze and Hieronymus in tow. After their daring escape, they met up with Tiamat, who had caused a storm at the castle. They turned to the neighboring Noura. Noura was another country that, thanks to the rice introduced by the hero-king, had experienced a boost in their quality of dining but was suffering from an outbreak of beriberi.
Meanwhile, after monopolizing the knowledge for it, the Kingdom of Azur became the sole provider for edamame and sugar. The medicine for a mysterious disease and a new sweetener. Those were meant to bring wealth in historical proportions to Azur. But they didn’t. This was because Syfer, who had usurped the throne of Noura with the aid of a dragon, Fenrir, and Cait Sith two years later, attacked Azur.
That was the beginning of a war that spanned decades. The continent was thrown into chaos, and many lives were lost. There was no time to spend farming anymore. Food supply, along with rice production, drastically decreased, to the point where people couldn’t afford to decrease the amount of it by refining the grains. In order to eat as much as possible and consume as much nutrition as possible, people began eating brown rice.
“And so, the threat of beriberi disappeared from the continent, and the entire world.”
“Thanks to war?”
“Thanks to war.”
“What sort of ending is that!? Even more people died because of war!”
“Most likely. Millions died from the war, either directly or indirectly.”
“No...”
“But those deaths weren’t caused by a disease that was never supposed to exist. Millions and billions have died on Earth from warfare.”
The Inspector paused for a moment.
“Congratulations, Eiji Kazama. You saved that world.”