“Ugh... I want to go home...”
“You’re a grown man. Stop sulking already. It’s annoying,” said Tiamat.
Of course. You’re not affected. You got off scot-free!
As we were penniless, I had to sell something I was wearing. That was the only way. We couldn’t have borrowed money from anyone when they had no reason to trust us. Our saving grace, as it turned out, was a merchant that happened to be in the hall. He offered to buy the watch on my left wrist. I checked with Tiamat, and they counted each day in twenty-four hours, just like on Earth. As I didn’t want to adjust to a new system of keeping time, I was willing to accept this rather convenient fact. It was probably a concept imported by the Japanese before me, anyway.
In any case, we couldn’t do anything without some money. Not even pay the registration fee to become adventurers. When push comes to shove... The thing was, that wrist watch was very dear to me. It was very dear to me. That’s right, I said it twice. An IWC Portugieser Chronograph. I’d wanted it so bad I saved up for three years. It wasn’t expensive for an IWC watch, but my model cost me about 650,000 yen. The price didn’t matter, though. I was in love. Love at first sight. I was born only to wear you on my wrist.
“How lucky that you had something valuable on you.”
“Yeah! You’re right, you know!? I know you’re completely right, but...!”
The Portugieser was first crafted by the Swiss watchmaker for a seafaring Portuguese merchant. It’s full of that sense of wonder!
“You can’t eat a sense of wonder, after all,” said Tia.
After much conflict and self-questioning, I finally parted with my beloved watch. I had sworn not to wear any other watch as long as I lived... The merchant paid one hundred gold coins for it. Apparently that was a ridiculous amount of money. Tiamat explained that I should consider a gold coin to be the equivalent of about 10,000 yen. On paper, I turned a big profit. Again, that didn’t matter. The only thing was, even a merchant like him doesn’t carry that much cash around. I was given ten gold coins to start, and I was to visit his shop with the certificate later. This promise was made while the receptionist and the other members of the guild watched, so I doubted he’d breach it. Adieu, my dear Chronograph.
Many of the quests posted on the bulletin board were, in fact, for gathering herbs. Most of those quests were made by treatment wards and mage doctors.
“More than I expected.”
“Of course, we don’t know that all of these are related to beriberi.”
Some of them must have been for unrelated ailments or injuries.
“Hm. So, which quest should we take?”
“Just from what I can see, none of them.”
I wasn’t an expert on medicine in this world, but I knew that herbs couldn’t cure beriberi. There would have been a chance if any of the quests had wanted soybeans or potatoes.
“Which means that doctors in this country haven’t figured out how to cure beriberi, yet.”
“Yep... This might be worse than the Edo affliction.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s walk and talk.”
In the end we left the Adventurers’ Guild without even taking a quest, while feeling some stares on our backs asking why we even bothered to become adventurers. We headed toward the shop of the merchant who bought my watch.
“Explain what the Edo affliction is first,” Tiamat asked, as we walked through the main street side by side.
“Mm-hm.”
The Edo affliction was another name for beriberi in Japan. It came from most cases of the disease occurring in Edo (modern-day Tokyo), whereas in the countryside, there were almost no examples of it. People with the disease who moved to the countryside even saw their symptoms subside.
“How strange.”
“Yep. But not once they figured out why. Edo at the time was wealthy, and the epicenter of culture.”
And the height of luxury at the time was white rice. Apparently, even the lowly samurai who moved there from the country ate white rice just to keep face. Once out in the country, they ate brown and wild rice instead of white rice, which naturally treated the beriberi.
“So silver rice was the problem?”
“No. If that were the case, all of us in modern-day Japan would be dying from beriberi.”
I wondered what percentage of modern-day Japanese people ate brown rice regularly. There were important differences in meals from the Edo period and meals in modern day: the amount of rice each person ate, as well as the variation and amount of sides.
“At the time, they ate about two kilos of cooked rice a day. Per person.”
“How hearty.”
That was a little surprising, in my opinion. That’s about ten large bowls of rice. While their love for carbs was astonishing, so was their lack of sides. In fact, lunch was just about the only meal with any semblance of a side, which was usually a small grilled fish. As for breakfast and dinner, they might have had a few slices of pickled vegetables, as well as miso soup in the morning.
“How did they live like that? They were much more physically active than people in modern day, surely.”
“Carbs are energy. They did have plenty of fuel, at least.”
“I see. That’s why you asked Garish if he exercised,” Tiamat recalled.
I nodded. Exercise improves metabolism, which spends more and more vitamin B1 to break apart the carbohydrates.
“And a lot of vitamin B1 can be found in brown rice, or the bud to be specific. It wouldn’t be a problem...”
“If they didn’t throw that nutrient away by refining the rice.”
“Bingo.”
“Why don’t you and other modern-day Japanese people suffer from beriberi? You eat white rice, don’t you?”
“Vitamin B1 comes in other foods, too. Pork, eel, cod roe, soybean, potatoes.”
“That a good variety.”
“Mm-hm. If you eat a balanced diet, you usually won’t get beriberi. Pork, especially, is the superstar.”
“Oh. I think I’m beginning to see what you’ll prescribe.”
“I think so. Food culture is another thing, too.”
For example, I couldn’t expect a Muslim person eat pork, even for their health. While for different reasons, pork had been avoided by most people during the Edo period. There was even a poem from the time that reads Yang Guifei / Such a pretty face but / eats pork meat. Apparently, this was a poem expressing disgust towards the Chinese affinity for eating pork. A divide in food culture could run deep. Personally, I love the dish Genghis Khan, but many people in mainland Japan don’t enjoy lamb. It’s so good, though.
“That’s why we’re seeing the merchant.”
“Yep. It’s a good connection I wasn’t expecting to make. It’s our chance to ask some things about food in Azur.”
“You didn’t seem too heartbroken when handing over your watch. So this was your plan all along. Quite the strategist, you are.”
That was not true. I was heartbroken, and the decision was very difficult. I just knew that we couldn’t do anything without money, just like in my world, and we had absolutely no other way to procure any than to hand over my watch. Now that my watch was gone, though, I wanted to get the most out of it I could. It was the least I could do out of respect for my dear Chronograph.