Red Rice

We all made smoked fish—smoked salmon—and it was a huge hit. The beastfolk especially seemed unable to get enough of it.

Primula said it would sell in the city too. She planned to sell the smoked salmon-making process to Santanka Village and turn it into a business.

We would buy the finished product wholesale from the village and sell it in the city. The villagers could fish, but doing business was difficult for them.

For one thing, there were very few people who could do calculations. They say each trade has its specialist, and considering the time and effort involved, it would be wiser to sell wholesale to merchants.

I had filleted the fish before smoking it, but even if they simply split the fish open, dried it, and then smoked it, it should still have value as a product.

Since smoked salmon took more effort, we could also market it as a luxury item.

――The next day.

At everyone's request, I made the same sandwiches we'd eaten yesterday.

They were sandwiches made with smoked salmon, tomatoes, cheese, and vegetables.

For the bread, we used some that Anemone had baked in the round, doughnut-shaped bread pan.

"Whoa! The bread turned out great. Nice work, Anemone."

"Hehe..."

While Anemone was baking the bread, I boiled some eggs and smoked them—making smoked eggs.

"Chomp—Mmm! Boss, alcohol!"

Nyamena, who had taken a bite of a smoked egg, suddenly said something outrageous.

"I'm not serving alcohol first thing in the morning. Make do with soup."

Even in this world, where people couldn't drink untreated water, they didn't normally drink wine first thing in the morning. Some people did, of course, but most drank soup or hot water.

"Come on, just one sip..."

"No, no. Anyone who drinks alcohol this early is getting kicked out. Besides, we're going to see a noble. What are you planning to do?"

Primula was going to see the lord who ruled this land, and Nyamena would accompany her as a guard.

"They won't let a beastfolk into the mansion anyway."

"You mustn't drink, Nyamena."

"Yes, yes. Since you put it that way, young lady..."

Nyamena was sulking, but this was one thing I couldn't allow. If she started drinking this early, she'd be on the fast track to alcoholism.

"Can beastfolk become addicted to alcohol too?"

"Of course we can... But normally, we don't have enough money to drink that much."

"Mmmyaah! This is delicious, nya."

"I ate boiled eggs often enough, but smoking them... How astonishing."

In ordinary households, people only ate eggs when they were sick, but Marlowe Trading Company was a large merchant house, after all.

But one person was unusually quiet—Anemone.

"Anemone, what's wrong? Don't you have an appetite?"

"No..."

She shook her head while eating her smoked egg.

"You don't seem very energetic. Did something happen?"

"I don't understand why Primula is going to see a noble even though Kenichi doesn't want her to."

"Hmm, I see... Nobles do seem like a pain, so I'd rather avoid them, but we need money to live."

"...Money."

"That's right. Even to live a leisurely life like this, you need money first. Without money, you'd have to struggle every day just to earn enough to get by."

"My family didn't have any money either."

Anemone stared intently at the soup on the table.

"Besides, you said you wanted to go adventuring with me, but that requires money too."

"That's right, Miss Anemone. You need equipment, companions to hire, and plenty of food. No matter what, you need money."

"We were only able to defeat Shaga and rescue you and Primula because Marlowe Trading Company provided the funds."

"That's right, nya~. You can't gather people without money, nya~."

"However, we have an extremely capable merchant among us. Once she earns money for us and our funds are plentiful, everything will be secure."

"I can't swing a sword, but I promise I'll support Kenichi with money."

The right people in the right places. We were the active field team, while Primula handled the finances from the rear. We needed to divide up our roles.

"And to expand a business, you need powerful backing—and that's where nobles come in. With an influential person's backing, we can resolve this dispute cleanly instead of resorting to drastic measures."

"I kind of prefer drastic measures, though."

"Nyamena, be quiet."

"Yes, yes. Miss Anemone, even when you're fighting a real war, you need an incredible amount of money. Enough to bring a country to its knees. Merchants are the ones who move money around at times like that. Since we've got such an amazing merchant among our own people, we might as well make use of her. Sorry, young lady."

"There's no need to apologize. That's a merchant's job."

"I understand... If Kenichi doesn't mind, then it's all right."

"It's fine. I don't mind."

"Okay."

She seemed convinced, but she still didn't look very energetic.

Still, my family had grown, and we couldn't remain like this forever.

I had to make sure my family wouldn't end up destitute if something happened to me.

Besides, I had to prepare for the possibility that my abilities might run dry. I needed money for that, too.

This was an ability whose source I didn't even understand, so it could disappear at any time.

I wanted a slow life, but if something like that happened, a slow life would be out of the question.

Still, Primula was an independent merchant, and Myaree and Nyamena would probably be completely fine.

The problem was Anemone. For her sake, I registered her with the Adventurers' Guild and began depositing money into an account in her name.

I told her to use that money if something happened to me.

After breakfast, Primula, Nyamena, and I would go to the city. Anemone and Myaree said they would hunt atop the cliff.

Primula and Nyamena planned to go straight to the lord's residence.

"I hope it goes well. If you don't have enough of a gift for the noble, I can teach you how to make pudding too."

"No, I think we'll be fine."

"Well then, Boss, we're off."

"Yeah. Don't cause a scene."

"I wouldn't do that with the young lady there!"

"Hahaha."

After seeing them off, I visited the Adventurers' Guild and went to the usual counter to ask them to butcher the calf.

"Oh! If it isn't the Item Box guy. Did you bring us something interesting?"

I really wanted to have them process the cave spider in my Item Box, but taking it out here would cause a huge commotion, so I decided against it.

"I heard you process livestock too?"

"Yeah, we do."

"I'd like you to butcher one calf."

"Meat only again? You're selling us the materials?"

"Yes. That's fine."

"But an ordinary cow won't bring you much money."

"I don't mind."

I had bought the calf for 100,000 yen, and even if I got several tens of thousands of yen for the materials and one calf's worth of meat, I would take a huge loss financially.

Well, it couldn't be helped. Since they said it would be ready by evening, I went to the shop run by the old woman.

"Hey there~"

As usual, the dark shop was filled with strange tools whose purposes I couldn't understand.

"Yes?~"

The old woman, dressed in black with a khaki robe, greeted me as usual.

I took the owl-shaped statue we'd found atop the cliff out of my Item Box.

"Hmm. You've brought in something interesting this time too."

The old woman carefully examined it from every angle.

"There should have been a magic stone attached to this. Do you have it?"

"Oh, this?"

I took the fist-sized magic stone that had been inside the statue out of my Item Box.

"Hmm, hmm. It seems to be a spell formation that activates when a key is inserted into the statue's eye."

"You can tell?"

"Of course I can. I'll buy the statue, magic stone, and key together for ten gold coins."

"No, I can't give you the key. It belongs to someone else. How much for the statue alone?"

"The statue alone is junk. Some eccentric might buy it, so I'd say one small square silver coin (5,000 yen)."

There was no point keeping it in my Item Box, so perhaps I could accept that price.

Come to think of it, I had the grimoire too. What should I do with it...?

"Granny, what should I do if I acquire an unregistered grimoire? Can I keep it quiet and avoid getting caught?"

"If you don't want to create unnecessary trouble, you should register it. You could get in trouble over something else, you know?"

Ah, that was true too... I took the grimoire of Explosive Magic—Explosion out of my Item Box.

"I found this. Please register it for me."

The old woman took the grimoire from me and flipped through it to check the contents.

"Explosive Magic—Explosion, eh? You found something quite valuable. This would be worth at least thirty gold coins (6,000,000 yen)."

According to her, registering a new grimoire cost one silver coin (50,000 yen). It was expensive, but it was a necessary business expense.

A registered grimoire could also count as property, after all.

"Could that girl use this?"

"Yes."

"At her age, that's remarkable. Her mother was a mage too, wasn't she?"

"No. Apparently, she was raised by a farming family that took in a child from a woman who had collapsed on the road."

"Oh, my."

Hmm. The old woman seemed to know a lot about magic, so perhaps I should ask her something.

"I'll give you this owl statue for free, Granny, so there's something I'd like to ask you about..."

"What is it?"

"About ten years ago, did a young and famous female mage ever go missing?"

"Huh? Now that's... Hmm, ten years ago, you say? Ten years ago, there was Golden Hanana—but she wasn't young. Or perhaps Platinum Almeria?"

The old woman rested a hand on her chin and thought deeply, as though searching through her memories.

"Granny, did you ever meet that mage, Almeria?"

"I caught a glimpse of her once. She did have the same black hair as that girl, but do you have any proof?"

"No, none at all. She didn't have anything with her when I first met her either."

"Then it might be difficult. Besides, does that girl even want to know?"

"No, she doesn't seem interested at all."

The old woman stared at me with a sly grin, apparently thinking of something.

"Well, you know, what's important to a woman is the man standing right in front of her."

"The man? I'm old enough to be her father!"

"Age doesn't matter."

The old woman cackled, but was that really how things worked?

For now, I asked the old woman to register the grimoire. Apparently, it would take about a week.

"Take this to that girl."

The old woman brought out a book.

"What kind of book is it?"

"A book of simple household magic. It's not a grimoire, so she'll probably need training to use it, but I'm sure that girl can master it."

"Oh! I'm in your debt."

I accepted the book from the old woman, bought an insect-repelling magic stone, and left the shop.

The meat from the guild wouldn't be ready until evening either. Should I go home for a while...?

------◇◇◇------

I returned home and worked in the fields. There was still plenty of time before Myaree and Anemone came back at noon, so I planted cabbage seeds in a seed-starting pot.

As I worked the soil, I happened to look toward the cliff. Ko○tsu-san's hydraulic breaker had torn away a huge section, but there was still an ore vein remaining.

"Hmm, I wonder if I could drill a hole in the cliff and use Explosive Magic—Explosion to blast it?"

Would it just blow out through the hole, like a bullet fired from a gun barrel?

But if the explosion were stronger than the barrel's strength, it would naturally blow away the surrounding area too.

I immediately searched Shangri-La for a hammer drill. Unlike an ordinary drill, this machine drills holes in concrete and similar materials while applying vibration.

I bought a green hammer drill with a power consumption of 1,000 watts for 48,000 yen. Next, I searched for long drill bits.

"I wonder if they have one..."

Searching the site, I found a one-meter drill bit. For now, it seemed to be the longest one available.

I also bought several bits of different lengths. Altogether, they cost about 20,000 yen.

I pressed the purchase button and examined the items that dropped down—but they were long! They looked like they might just snap. Would they really be all right?

I suppose I had no choice but to start with the shorter bits and gradually switch to longer ones as I drilled the hole...

As I was worrying over it, I saw Anemone coming down from the ledge on the cliff. But something was wrong... She looked like she was crying.

I hurried over to her.

"Anemone! What's wrong?! Are you hurt?"

"...My stomach hurts."

That was her answer to my question.

"Your stomach?"

"...A lot of blood is coming out... Am I going to die...?"

"Huh? What?"

After she said that, I looked her over and saw that the inside of her legs, exposed below her dress, was wet with red blood that had dripped down to her shoes.

"Aaaahhh!"

Wait! Calm down, calm down, me! Hee-hee-hoo, hee-hee-hoo.

But what should I do? Explaining it myself, as a man... Well, you know...

Ah, Primula! Please come back soon! Just then, as if heaven had answered my plea, I heard a voice from the forest.

"Hey, Boss!"

When I looked toward the voice, Primula was with her too.

I waved frantically with both hands to call them over.

"Hey! Come over here, quickly!"

Seeing how flustered I was, Nyamena picked Primula up and dashed over to us.

"What happened, Boss?!"

"Primula-san! Come here!"

"What is it? Why are you calling me so strangely?"

I turned the puzzled Primula around, and the two of us whispered together.

"It seems Anemone has had her first period... It would be better for you to explain it to her, as a woman, than for me to try as a man..."

"Oh my! Oh, my! I understand! Leave it to me!"

Primula went over to Anemone, crouched down, and spoke to her.

"It's not an illness. Let's talk inside the house, just the two of us."

She reassured Anemone, who was staring at me anxiously.

"It's all right, Anemone. Primula will explain everything to you."

"...Okay."

Ah... What should I give her, anyway? I had no idea. The sanitary products sold on Shangri-La seemed far too advanced for this world...

Actually, I didn't even know which ones were suitable.

When I asked Primula, she said we needed cloth. In this world, cloth meant hemp fabric. I ordered a one-meter-by-one-meter piece of hemp cloth from Shangri-La.

"Will this do?"

"It didn't have to be something this fine..."

"This was all I had. Also, this is pain medication. Give her one pill."

I handed her the painkillers and some water, then watched the two of them go inside the house.

"Sigh... Men are completely useless at times like this."

But women in this world seemed to have it tough. The women around me had never shown any sign of this, so I had completely forgotten about it.

I wondered how Primula was doing.

I slumped down beside the stream flowing from the waterfall and drank a canned coffee I'd bought from Shangri-La.

At times like this, you needed canned coffee. The sweet taste of sugar helped reduce stress.

I offered a canned coffee to Nyamena, who was beside me, but she regarded it suspiciously and refused to drink it.

Then Myaree and Bell returned from the top of the cliff.

"Nyaa! Huh? What's wrong, nya?"

I must have looked strange sitting there dejectedly, so I explained what had happened.

"Ah, so it's that day for humans other than beastfolk, nya~."

"Come to think of it, do beastfolk have periods?"

I asked without thinking, but this might have been sexual harassment. However, they answered me quite casually.

"No, nya."

"You don't?"

"Nope. Boss, are you really the Sage if you don't even know that?"

Well, I wasn't the Sage in the first place. And I was a human from another world.

According to the two of them, beastfolk didn't have periods. Instead, they had something like a mating season once a year that lasted about a week, and if they mated then, they would conceive every time.

Of course, this only applied to beastfolk. They couldn't interbreed with ordinary humans.

"Wouldn't that mean all the babies were born at once?"

"It comes at different times for everyone, so that doesn't happen, nya."

"I see..."

As I spoke with the two of them, Anemone came running out of the house.

Perhaps because Primula had explained everything to her, or perhaps because the painkillers were working, her face had returned to its usual brightness.

"Kenichi!"

Anemone leaped into my arms, and Primula came after her.

"Did Primula explain everything to you?"

"Yes! She said I'm old enough to have babies now!"

"That's right. We have to celebrate today."

"Yeah! I want to have Kenichi's baby!"

I had been about to finish the canned coffee I'd been drinking before returning to the house, but I spat it out.

"Cough! Cough!"

"What's wrong, Kenichi?"

"Cough—Anemone, calm down. That may be true, but with your little body, it would be difficult. You need to grow quite a bit more first."

"Then how much longer?"

"Let's see... Probably another five years..."

"That long?"

"Well, your breasts need to grow too, or you wouldn't be able to nurse a baby..."

"Well, Miss Anemone, Boss is right. I think you should wait a little longer."

People in this world started working at around twelve, but apparently most married and had children between fifteen and seventeen.

"Okay..."

Behind Anemone, who seemed convinced, Primula wore a frightening expression. She grabbed my hand and whispered in my ear.

"Are you serious?"

"Now, wait a minute. She's saying that now, but once she reaches the right age, she might suddenly fall head over heels for some handsome young adventurer she met in the city."

"Do you think so?"

"You know how a girl who used to say, 'I'm going to marry Daddy!' suddenly brings home a complete stranger and says, 'I want to marry him!'? It happens all the time, right?"

"Are you taking a jab at me?"

"Huh? Did you say that to your father too, Primula?"

"..."

"Oh, poor Marlowe-san."

Primula was in a bad mood again, but there was nothing I could do about it. For now, postponing the issue seemed like the best strategy.

With everything that had happened, I nearly forgot to go to the guild to collect the meat, so I hurried over and picked it up.

That evening's celebratory meal consisted of red rice, fried meatballs, meat, and soup. There was more food than usual.

I used plenty of the meat I'd just picked up. It was my first time making fried meatballs, so I wondered how they had turned out.

I ran the calf meat through a mincer, mixed in chopped onions, a binder, and seasonings, then shaped the mixture into balls.

Since it would be dangerous if the meatballs weren't cooked through, I boiled them in water, coated them with batter, and fried them in oil again.

"There's so much food today, nya!"

"It's a celebration."

"Beastfolk don't have customs like this, nya~."

"What's this red grain?"

"This is red rice. Where I'm from, we eat it when something auspicious happens."

Apparently, there were no azuki beans to be found in the markets of this world.

Incidentally, where I'm from, we also ate sweet red rice containing candied azuki beans. Wondering if they might have it, I searched Shangri-La, but apparently even it didn't sell sweet red rice.

"May I have some too?"

"This?"

Primula seemed interested in trying the red rice too. She had never shown any interest in rice before.

"It's for good luck, isn't it?"

"That's right."

Anemone and Primula scooped up red rice with their spoons and brought it to their mouths.

"Wow, it's so chewy and delicious!"

"It has quite a texture... But it's delicious."

Anemone and Primula both liked it.

"What about you two?"

"I'll pass, nya."

"I have alcohol, so I'll stick with this."

The beastfolk were surprisingly conservative.

"But these round fried things are delicious, nya! When you bite into them, they're full of meat juice, nya!"

"Hehehe, they're perfect with alcohol."

For a moment, I'd been afraid of how things would turn out. But this was probably normal for a girl Anemone's age.

I'd completely forgotten about it.

"Anemone, I forgot that I had one more present for you."

I took the magic book Granny had given me out of my Item Box.

"Apparently, it's a book of household magic. It's not a grimoire, so you can't use the spells right away, though."

"Thanks, Kenichi!"

Anemone took the book from me and immediately began flipping through the pages.

"The Light spell, the Dry spell—there are so many useful ones!"

"All right, all right. Let's look at the book after we finish eating."

"Okay!"

"Oh, right. With everything going on with Anemone, I completely forgot—how did things go with the noble?"

"Yes, everything went well. The viscount's wife was extremely surprised by the cheese-making process."

According to her, Primula had actually demonstrated making cheese from milk.

"You didn't meet the lord?"

"The viscount seems to be away in the royal capital... But his wife was extremely indignant, calling the harassment of a shop run by women like us despicable."

In that respect, perhaps it was fortunate that the viscount's wife, another woman, had dealt with the matter.

"And she'll lend us her patronage?"

"Yes. It seems that merchant Sogaram had caused trouble in the past as well..."

"I see. So he was a repeat offender."

"It seems so."

I was glad we hadn't gone down the violence route.

"At any rate, it looks like everything will be settled peacefully."

"It's all thanks to you, Kenichi. Thank you very much."

"If your shop makes money, I'll get some of it too. Besides... It's only natural for a husband to do something for his wife's shop."

"...Yes."

Primula ate a meatball, fidgeting shyly as her face turned red.

"Mmph."

Anemone pouted when she saw that... But it looked like Primula's shop would be able to reopen after all.

Once the shop was running again, we could move forward with the plan to make dried fish in Santanka Village.

But would the villagers of that insular place listen to an outsider?

We would have to leave that part to Primula.