Chapter 014: Knowledge and the a lot of Ingredients
Shiu's hobby was reading, but what he liked seeing was printed things rather than gaining knowledge from the things.
Especially since the books of this world were mostly handwritten and the calligraphy looked artistic. There was even a copyist office and which also had ranks.
Because it was a book, the highest ranking copyist store wrote them. Those books were also beautiful. Their writing was as beautiful as Japanese calligraphy.
Books were very valuable in this world since their printing technology hadn't progressed.
There was magic for copying but the people who could use this type of magic were taken in by the kingdom, nobles and wealthy merchants, so they didn't take troublesome or simple jobs such as copying books.
Old man Stan taught Shiu this.
He stressed how convenient record storage was when Shiu told him about it.
He learnt how to search for stuff while using the record storage, and now he could mark things that he thought were important. Shiu thought that it would be nice if he could do that and it became possible, magic was so convenient.
And now he was still recording absolutely everything he could, in other words, he held the book in his right hand while returning it to the shelf with his left.
Once he finished with the daily life books then, he started gathering every book he could, including articles about magic. Just reading the title of the books made him excited.
Although he could record the contents by having the book in hand, there were a lot of books in the library so he planned to come to the library a lot.
He got hungry while he was recording the books so he left the library and decided to go to the food stalls. There was a wide variety of food stalls including skewers, sandwiches, soup and bread stalls. There were also some stalls that sold alcohol for some reason even though it was daytime. The shop that Shiu was curious about was the one selling meals that looked like rice bowls.
When he looked closer it was a rice bowl with ingredients on top of the rice.
This must be this world's rice, Shiu stared at it excitedly and the stall owner looked troubled. He thought that Shiu was a child with no money:
"Kiddo, where's your parents?"
Shiu felt the stall owner staring at him with pity. Shiu panicked and took his money out.
By the way, he didn't do something like take money from his spatial storage. He usually got money out from his waist pouch. He had enchanted it so that it was a magic bag, however he could retrieve money from anywhere without enchanting it but it was inconvenient.
"This is rice, isn't it? I thought about eating it someday so I unconsciously acted that way."
"Ah, what the, is that so? You know about rice? You must be a specialist."
The stall owner said as he put barbeque meat on top of the rice.
"I'm happy. I thought I wouldn't be able to eat it if I didn't go to Shayṭān Kingdom."
"Ah, I see. I'm married to someone from Shayṭān, so I'm doing business here."
"So you buy rice with your wife's help?"
People would normally ask why a child was asking such a question but the stall owner kindly replied:
"It's sold at the market. Surprisingly, Shayṭān ingredients are also sold here."
Oh, Shiu was surprised. Steigbahn was a major agricultural kingdom so it was self-sufficient and they probably exported to other kingdoms. Therefore, Shiu thought that they wouldn't import grains.
According to the stall owner, he didn't import it himself, it was imported by merchants and sold in large quantities. It was a surprisingly popular ingredient. He ate it and although the rice didn't have the same sweetness or soft and sticky texture like Japanese rice did, it cooked in a delicious way. He finished eating and said while returning the cutlery, "It was delicious". The stall owner was extremely happy and even taught him how to cook the rice.
Shiu brought trivial things and then immediately wrote an itinerary down as soon as he got home.
He also got paper. He wrote a lot better on this paper than the one he got from the countryside. The pen also didn't get stuck in the paper. He was excited because he could write smoothly and wrote a lot. However, Feles disturbed him while he was writing. Feles was sulking because he had been left at home and hit Shiu's hand with his tail.
"Myu!"
Shiu laughed. He'd also heard him crying out angrily.
"I'm sorry. I really thought that they wouldn't let you into the library."
Another big reason why he didn't take Feles with him was that he didn't want to stand out at the guild.
"Myu!"
Feles's tail was still swinging around so he still seemed like he was angry.
"Let's go out together next time."
"Mya."
Feles stopped swinging his tail and looked interestedly at the pen and paper.
"They seem to have soybeans too so I want to make miso or tofu. Shayṭān seems to have some but it's too expensive to import it myself."
The shipping cost would be a considerable sum. So it was better to make it himself and he could make the miso to his tastes.
Shiu's dreams were expanding just by thinking about it. There were also many other things that he wanted to do. He wanted to make a bath at the separate residence. Baths weren't installed in normal houses and there weren't many bathhouses. People were fine with not bathing. But Shiu loved baths so he wanted to take his time to soak.
Feles became interested in the pen again while he was writing up the plans and got in his way. Feles was like a cat when he acted like this. He played with the pen while meowing.
His general knowledge increased as he began going to the library.
For example: don't be straightforward, greetings were important in writing and what the seasons were called.
His foster father had taught him the basics, "There are 28 days in a month and 13 months in a year", but he didn't teach him the names of the seasons. Incidentally the numbers of days in a year was almost the same as Earth.
In addition, the number 7 was favoured in this world because of the Savonesia Sect. There were 7 gods, therefore there were 7 days. The days of the weeks were named after basic magic attributes. In order: Fire・Water・Wood・Metal・Earth・Wind・Light. The last day was a rest day.
The seasons were called: New, Rime, Thaw, Sprout, Spring, Calm, Breeze, Flame, Wind, Birth, Leaves, Autumn and Mountain. The beginning of the year was for offering prayers to gods but the names had nothing to do with seasons.
Ordinary people didn't usually refer to the seasons by their names even though those were the official names. However, it was necessary for formal documents so it was useful to remember.
Requests at the Adventurer's Guild were simply written as from wood, 2nd week of the 3rd month. This was because there were people who couldn't read and write.
It was currently the last week of the Flame. The seasons in Steigbahn were similar to Japan so it was like the end of summer.
Shiu also went to the market often, so people remembered his face. At any rate he called rice brown rice and he started saying things like: I want soybeans, I want adzuki beans, is this refined salt and pepper?
He became close with some of the merchants just like that. This was Ana Camus from Shayṭān.
"There have been people who have been strangely interested in rice before. You're mostly like them."
She said and promised to import the rice Shiu wanted next time.
"You want soft and sticky rice that's sweet right? Come to think about it, I heard you made things like this too."
That's probably because I'm a reincarnated person, Shiu guessed.
Shiu couldn't understand how the goddess could enjoy watching the life of a reincarnated person, but he forced himself to think that it was similar to how he enjoyed reading.