Chapter 10
The girl who called herself Rufa was a beauty with large, slightly reddish eyes and a well-defined nose. But her most distinctive feature was the color of her hair. It glittered blue in the light streaming through the window.
That was a characteristic of the Salsha people from the southern continent across the sea.
For reasons I don't know, this blue hair was apparently a trait possessed only by pure-blooded Salsha.
For example, if one of them married someone from our country, Rudek, their child might have blond, red, or brown hair, but never blue hair.
Since many sailors came to Rudek from the southern continent, pure-blooded Salsha were not particularly rare.
You could see them often enough even in Rudectrad, the royal capital where we lived, and the port of Gadeland, the largest port in the country, was, to put it mildly, practically full of Salsha.
However, girls around Rufa's age were quite rare. Most of those who came here were merchants or sailors. Families occasionally immigrated, but having someone her age in another country's knight order was certainly unusual.
I had found myself staring at her as though I were appraising her, causing Rufa to hide behind Glantz-sama. I hurriedly apologized for my rude stare.
"Sorry, sorry. Salsha girls are rare around here, so I couldn't help myself. I didn't mean anything by it. I'm Roa, and you're Rufa, right? Nice to meet you."
With as friendly a smile as I could manage, I extended my hand, and she timidly peeked out from behind Glantz-sama again. I felt like I was feeding a small animal.
"You'll both get used to things little by little. If either of you runs into trouble, tell me. Well, I'll leave the rest to you! Oh, right. If you need more hands, let me know, and I'll have someone who looks free help out. Well then!"
The handover ended so abruptly that I could only think, That was it!? Before I knew it, only Rufa and I were left there.
After a brief silence, I scratched my cheek and looked at Rufa. She looked back at me.
"...In any case, shall we check the inventory? Rufa, can you write?"
She answered my question with a small nod.
"By the way, can you do arithmetic? Ah, don't worry if you can't."
She nodded again. I see. She had received a much better education than I expected. That meant she probably hadn't been brought here to be sold as a slave.
"All right, then. I'll check the contents of the boxes, so could you ask Glantz-sama for a ledger and bring it back?"
"I understand." It was our first real exchange, and I felt a little happy.
After watching Rufa run toward Glantz-sama, I said, "All right, let's get started," stretched, and began checking the contents of the boxes.
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In the future after the Kingdom of Rudek had fallen, I wandered across the continent for forty years.
I had no permanent home; I traveled from country to country, working day labor jobs wherever I went and simply drifting through life.
No matter where I went, nightmares awaited me at night: the peaceful everyday life I could never reclaim, replaying over and over. Unable to bear it, I fled as though trying to escape.
Rather than seeking a place to settle down, it would be more accurate to say that I was looking for a place to die.
In hindsight, I had experienced all sorts of things over those forty years: ideas this country did not have and technologies this era did not possess. Things I acquired to live—or perhaps to die.
It was ironic that those things could now prove useful.
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"...It's meat."
"Yeah. Meat..."
After Rufa returned with the ledger, she helped me open box after box of preserved food. What we discovered was astonishing.
There was nothing but meat—every piece thinly sliced and dried. Nothing else.
Every wooden box in the fairly spacious storeroom held the same dried meat. I see. In that case, all we had to do was move the older supplies to the front. Were they creatures that could only eat meat?
"Even so, they could at least dry some fish, if not dried fruit..."
I said, sounding a little exasperated.
"Come to think of it, I've heard the knights say, 'I'm tired of preserved rations.'"
Of course they were tired of them. During expeditions, they gnawed on nothing but dried meat every single day like fools.
"We should tell Rays-sama as soon as possible that the preserved food needs improving. Just gnawing on something this salty can't be good for their health, either... Since we're at it, I wonder if we could can some of it?"
"Canning?" Rufa tilted her head at the unfamiliar term. Oh, no. Canning didn't exist in this era.
Canning would not appear in the Empire's territory for another thirty years. Since it allowed vegetables and other foods to be preserved for long periods, it would spread explosively, not only through the military but among ordinary citizens as well.
By the time I died forty years later, there would even be specialty shops for canned food, but for now the technique was still unknown. Bottles themselves already existed, so it should not be impossible to make canned food if we tried. I would make some as an experiment and propose the idea to Rays-sama.
While I was lost in a sea of thought, Rufa kept staring at me. When I noticed her gaze, I hurriedly tried to smooth over what I had said.
"I read about it in a book. It's an ancient preservation method, one they call a lost technology. You boil the jars in hot water, remove the air, and keep the food from spoiling."
"...I've never heard of it."
Of course not. It had yet to be invented.
"Since we have the chance, let's give it a try. Besides salting things, let's try preserving them in honey too. Once we've numbered the storage shelves, we'll start making new preserved foods!"
If the food tasted good, it should help motivate everyone going into battle.
Rufa stared at me with a puzzled expression as I made this emphatic declaration all by myself.