Isekai Rebuilding Project: Volume 2 Read online

  “And how is beriberi understood in these cities?”

  “For most, they don’t know what causes it. I’m sure the mage doctors are researching it, too.”

  I shook my head. If magic could put a dent in the problem, neither Tiamat nor I would have been summoned.

  “Healing magic isn’t even for curing diseases,” the dragon joined in.

  She was slapping the ground with her tail. I somehow felt more comfortable seeing her like this.

  “It isn’t, Tia?”

  “Magic cannot regenerate lost blood nor eradicate cancerous cells. Or stop the aging process, for that matter. It is not omnipotent.”

  Good point. If magic could cure diseases, there should be no one dying from any in this world. If magic could slow aging, there was no reason that the life expectancy in this world would be shorter than ours.

  “But not in Lishua. We only passed through the city, but they all seemed healthy.”

  “I’m glad.”

  I returned a smile to Mister Murdock’s comment. While the venture was only in its infancy, both edamame and croquettes were slowly getting popularized. I was sure that the bran-pickling knowledge Tia left behind would eventually come to fruition, too.

  “So that was thanks to your team, Mister Eiji?”

  “I hope our knowledge was of help to them.”

  I wanted things to go in a better direction, somehow.

  “I think it’s admirable. By the way, why do we not catch that... beriberi, was it?” Mister Murdock asked, as the question seemed to spring up in his mind.

  “Your diet,” I answered simply. “Mixing those grains into your rice is preventing you from being afflicted.”

  “I see. How funny that us being cheap ended up saving us.”

  We laughed. We can’t thoughtlessly relish our innovations and new conveniences. There can be quite the pitfalls hidden behind those conveniences.

  “Everything is connected, somehow. Bringing in the wisdom of Hermits to this world warps that connection,” Tiamat said.

  “And, to fix that connection, we have to use more Hermit wisdom.” I shrugged.

  “The lesson must be that no problem is as simple as it seems,” Mister Murdock concluded. “It’s a harsh world we live in.” He chuckled.

  10.

  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 th
e 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.

  The Truth Around the Corner

  1.

  Once we passed through the mountains, our view opened up all of a sudden. An endless blue in front of us, with infinite cresting waves. The ocean. We had arrived at a seaside kingdom from a landlocked one.

  “Rgh... The seabreeze feels amazing.”

  “Hm. There’s about twenty kilometers between us and the ocean. You couldn’t possibly feel any seabreeze.”

  Tiamat countered my sentiment. Why did she have to say things like that? Placebo’s a thing. The ocean isn’t less real just because we’re looking down on it from atop a mountain.

  “I just wanted to enjoy the setting.”

  “Because you’re human. Tia-o.”

  The ridiculous back-and-forth had become a routine.

  “Still, many have the same reaction as you, Mister Eiji. It’s a dramatic change of view.”

  Mister Murdock laughed as he pulled the reins from atop the carriage. I was walking, by the way. We had been traveling for over a month. I couldn’t be the weakling forever. With a little tan as well, I think I was beginning to show my wild side, if I do say so myself.

  “Only our boss man would brag about catching up to the average,” the much-wilder-than-I mountain of a man remarked.

  Laugh it up. It was an achievement for me to be able to keep walking all day long.

  “Now, now. He’s come a long way, Mister Baze. Remember, when we first started, he spent most of the day in the carriage. When he finally started walking, he’d give up in a few hours. Compared to those times the difference is night and day.”

  Please, Mister Murdock. If your intention is to defend me, please stop talking.

  “In any case, we’re on course to arrive at our destination by sundown. I’ve missed the sensation of a soft bed under my paws,” said Hieronymus.

  Miss Eily walked alongside the refined gentlemen, and they seemed to be getting along smoothly. Human form? Cat form? Didn’t matter to this chick magnet. Disgusting.

  As Hieronymus mentioned, we had been camping out the past few nights, as there weren’t any inns along the mountain pass. The first city after the mountains was going to be Mostail. As the second largest city in Noura, it apparently served as an entry point for travelers via land and sea.

  The Murdock troupe intended to show their first performance in Noura at Mostail. Of course, there was no guarantee before they could speak to the lord or lady of the city and be granted permission.

  “Are your permits ever denied, Mister Murdock?”

  We had been traveling with the troupe for a while but I had yet to see that situation. It seemed unrealistic that the people of this world starving for entertainment would turn down traveling performers after they’ve already arrived at the city.

  “It does happen. Sometimes the plaza is booked for another event, and other times they can’t be bothered with performances.”

  “Can’t be bothered?”

  “When preparing for battle, for example.”

  “Oof.”

  I wasn’t in peaceful Japan anymore. The lord/lady of a city had a completely different role than the mayors of Japan I was used to. They were tasked with running the city bestowed upon them by the crown, safe and sound. Fighting against bandits and monsters was part of the job description. That’s why they were granted decision-making powers and an army. The only reason I didn’t come across such a scene was dumb luck.

  “If possible, I would like to keep our journey peaceful.”

  “That’s what they call Chekhov’s gun, Eiji.”

  Tiamat was right. All because of my stupid mouth, the Murdock troupe was facing a possible cancellation of their performance in Mostail.

  “As if. This is just a coincidence.”

  “Hm. Who are you trying to convince?”

  When we arrived at Mostail, I could feel the tension in the air. Apparently, an army of monsters came close to the city, where battle ensued. The opposing force of ten thousand was mostly comprised of goblins and orcs, with a few ogres and cyclopes, too. That was more than a decent militia.

  Even if the city fought them off from their walls, the city would take hits. And if enough enemies breached the walls, to the point where there were too many to eradicate, Mostail itself would fall. That would be a critical loss for the kingdom of Noura, as they would lose their trading post out west and their major seaport. The safest tactic was to keep the battle a siege and protect the walls while waiting for reinforcements from the capital... but even that was risky.

  Things weren’t looking good. Faced with an uphill battle, Earl Mikhail Agamemnon, Lord of Mostail, made a daring decision. Not fighting the monsters head-on nor defending a siege, but guerrilla warfare, utilizing his army of one thousand. They used the shadowy forest, the dark of night, hunting traps, anything they could to lessen the number of the monsters. In fact, they were fighting like typical monsters themselves, appearing out of nowhere and disappearing again.

  Of course, there were reasons behind choosing this unusual strategy. First, they couldn’t very well only defend Mostail. There were neighboring towns and villages that were unprotected. Things would turn very gruesome if the monsters changed their targets to those towns and villages. Being innocent civilians, many would die without much of a struggle. Farmland would be decimated, too.

  “Most importantly, a soldier’s duty is to protect their people. Being under my command was your misfortune. I need every single one of you to give your life in exchange for at least ten of those monsters. A thousand of us, and ten thousand of them. That would eliminate us
both from this world.”

  That was a quote from the earl’s speech upon deployment. Moved by his determination, his loyal warriors forsook both their pride and chivalry as soldiers and knights, turning into monster-hunting machines.

  With their elaborate armor cast aside, they blended into nature with mud smeared all over them. They hid in the shadows, picking out monsters one by one. Apparently there was even a battalion that took the place of one of the monster’s teams, then got close to other monster teams before stabbing them in their backs.

  This was, in no way, how the honorable Knights’ Order was expected to fight. But they found pride in nothing else but protecting their people. Therefore, they wanted nothing but victory.

  Earl Agamemnon’s army fought on with tragic determination. While they succeeded at slowing down the monsters, there was no way that their tactic was going to last. The one thousand plus Earl’s army had lost half of its soldiers already, and the remaining half was becoming too exhausted to function as a military. They had taken down 20% or so of the monsters with them, but the other 80% were still going strong.

  The Earl had no other option but to have faith that the royal army of Noura was traveling fast during the few days’ time his men had bought... and to turn the battle into a siege, ready to die with his castle.

  This is when we arrived. A traveling troupe of performers waltzing into the depressing atmosphere. I couldn’t tell you how painful the glares of the guards were, prodding as if to say “What the hell are you doing here?” Well, we couldn’t help it. How were we supposed to know what was going on when we came in from the other side?