CH 28

Before we went to bed, Rofas-san asked for some polished rice.

Bryce-kun had been polishing it for us, but we would run out eventually once he left. It’d be a little difficult for three people to polish rice and prepare meals every day. Then again, it has been said that polished rice loses its flavor quicker, but the rice that Japanese people bought at the supermarket were probably polished three to four months prior to packaging, and they tasted fine. It takes a while for a family of two to finish a ten kilogram bag.

「So the reason for the bad wheat’s taste is this brown-colored part.」

Rofas-san muttered as he observed the rice bran that came off of the polished rice.

「That’s right. If you grind up the white part and make bread with it, I think it’ll taste good.」

「I see… This is nice. The price of bad wheat is one-fourth of regular wheat. I’m sure there will be a lot of people that are happy to learn that you can make good bread out of the bad wheat. Yuuri, can I report this to the guild?」

I gave it some thought.

He basically implied that poor people could only afford bad wheat, right?

I couldn’t imagine poor people having a bountiful meal. Certainly, the taste of the wheat itself was bad, but its nutritional value was higher if it was polished. If they suddenly started having bread made from polished rice, would it upset their diet?

That reminded me of what Bryce-kun had said. They drank a bottle of potion once every three days, so that’s why they were fine with living off of only bread and potatoes. One potion was equal to one loaf of bread. Perhaps poor people drink potions from time to time as well…

In that case, would they be fine having bread made from polished rice? Since potions wouldn’t fill up one’s stomach, maybe there would be people that would rather have a loaf of bread over a potion.

Hmm, this problem was difficult to solve.

「What problem?」

「Whether the rice bread would be nutritious or not.」

「Nutritious?」

I wondered if it was possible to make rice bread with potions to increase its nutritional value.

But bread that tasted like ginger ale seemed a bit… strange. If I don’t add in a lot, how much healing effect would the bread have? Ah, but for me to use the potion in the bread, I would have to wait until the information about them was released to the public first.

「I’m sorry, but there’s still a lot of things I want to check first, so can you hold off on telling the guild until I’m done?」

Rofas-san nodded without asking any further.

「Alright.」

I wasn’t sure if I could make nutritious bread, but let’s try to think of recipes and do some experimenting.

…One thing I was thankful for was the fact that I could purchase potions for around the same price as bread.

Ah, maybe that was because the potions we had were beginner-grade. Rofas-san did mention there were high-grade potions. Perhaps the beginner-grade potions were less in demand.

Wait, if the demand increased, would the supply be able to catch up?

I wasn’t sure if there were other potion fields elsewhere, but I was pretty sure the field here wouldn’t be able to produce enough potions to keep up with a surge in demand.

「【Contract: I will keep the bad wheat a…】」

I covered Rofas-san’s mouth as he tried to make a contract.

「I believe that you won’t do it, so you don’t have to make a contract.」

I said and smiled.

「H-huh? N-no, ah… I see, you trust me…」

Rofas-san looked confused for a moment.

Eh? Did he take the contract that seriously?

I thought that even the children could tell that Rofas-san was not a bad person.

「It feels a bit awkward to be told straight up that I’m trusted.」

Rofas-san combed his hair upwards with his hand.

「In fact, in my hometown, contracts are only made for important things, so this feels a bit strange to me.」

(TN: Yuuri actually says “in my world”, yet nobody seemed to notice. I think the author meant to say “hometown” since Yuuri hasn’t revealed that she’s an otherworlder. )

Papers that one signs and stamps with their personal seal is a contract.

Yet, my husband still cheated on me, even though we were officially married. Did our pact even have any meaning…

Trust was more important than simply signing a contract.

「I see. No, you’re right. We’re so reliant on contracts, we don’t even think about trust before making one… Trusting people is difficult, I think. But, you’re still entrusting me with something this important. Thank you, Yuuri.」

Rofas-san patted my head.

He hasn’t realized it himself, it seemed.

He wasn’t asking me why I wanted to keep the polished rice a secret, and he didn’t probe any further. He was letting me decide because he trusted me as well.

Even though Rofas-san said it was difficult for him to trust people, he did it so naturally.

Not only was I at level 1, my age and hometown were unknown to him, so clearly I was quite suspicious, and yet he still believed in me.

「What are we going to do with these?」

There was a lot of brown powder underneath the polished rice.

「Rice bran!」

「R-rice bran?」

「Don’t throw them out. We can make nukazuke (*1) with them!」

Ah, but wait. I knew the recipe, but I never made it before.

Since I knew the recipe, I realized I was missing some ingredients. At the very least, I needed rice bran, water, and salt.

「I don’t have any salt…」