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.