Chapter 7, Episode 43: Demonstrating Research
In the morning, two days later—only five days until the new year—I was working at the hospital.
“Master Ryoma, it’s almost time,” Libiola, the maid, notified me.
I had booked a meeting room in the security HQ to discuss the preserved foods I’d been developing with Serge and the others over lunch. I packed up my work quickly and greeted Doctor Maflal on my way out of the hospital.
By the time I made it to the meeting room, the maids had already set up everything for me, so I only needed to do a once-over before our guests arrived.
Serge, as well as Piolo and Clana Sionji, arrived punctually for our meeting.
“Thank you for taking the time,” I greeted them.
“Thank you for inviting us,” Serge answered.
“I’ve been looking forward to it,” Piolo said.
“Long time no see, Ryoma,” Clana added.
“It’s great to see you, Clana. Please, take a seat.” I commenced our lunch meeting. “To start off our meeting, please choose what you would like for lunch. I don’t have much variety yet, but there’s plenty of each of them.”
We had set three wooden boxes atop the meeting room table. They were packed with reflective bags, each labeled with its contents and date of manufacture.
“Oh! This bag is made from your water-resistant fabric, although it has a slightly different texture,” Serge noted. “And there’s liquid in it, which makes sense...but I assume it’s not a bag of anything pickled.”
“The bag isn’t the only thing new,” Piolo said. “This one was packed two months ago.”
“This one’s from three months ago,” Clana added.
They continued discussing the packs on the table. I had prepared a selection of instant lunches today. As Serge had pointed out, I had tweaked the water-resistant coating to something closer to the hardening solution. By inserting aluminum foil, I’d created a new watertight pouch that kept the heat and light out. I’d then packed the bags with food, pinched the air out, and sealed them, before disinfecting them with the heat from the pressure cooker I had custom ordered from the Degnome workshop. Although the materials I had used were a little different from instant lunches on Earth, the process was identical. The difficult part was maintaining the high heat and pressure with magic during the cooking process.
Before I’d gone to Fatoma, I’d kept trying and failing to make these, but finally, with the help of the pressure cooker, they’d become a reality. Before, I’d tried casting a barrier spell on a pot to keep the pressure building; unfortunately, that had made it difficult for me to relieve enough pressure to prevent the pot (and its contents) from exploding all over the place. Otherwise, I couldn’t put enough heat on the food to properly disinfect it. Eventually, I got used to barrier magic enough that I could feel my barriers getting stronger. But even then, I could only make a successful instant lunch once in a while, almost by dumb luck. At some point, my focus might have shifted from creating a successful pack to just boosting the strength of my barrier magic.
Once I’d started using the pressure cooker, though, high-heat, high-pressure cooking had never been easier. I was now able to make a steady supply of instant lunches with proper sanitization and completely sealed packs. Degnome had my full respect and gratitude for this incredible creation.
These instant lunches had turned out even better than I had hoped. I hadn’t figured out how to mass-produce them, but that wasn’t a bridge I had to cross yet.
“I double-checked that they are all safe to eat with the Appraisal spell,” I said. “Not to mention we have a hospital in this building, if anything were to happen.”
Piolo chuckled. “Well, that’s not reassuring.” Still, he reached for the oldest pouch on the table. I assumed he was curious to see if I’d managed to preserve the taste, since his company handled foods as well. His wife Clana reached for another of the oldest pouches, but of a different instant lunch.
“I will heat those up here.” Lulunese collected the pouches and began heating them in a pot of water on the stovetop magical item on the table.
“While those are warming up, I wanted to show you something else...”
Just as I said so, Lilian brought out a carafe of hot water while Libiola set clear cups made out of hardening solution on the table. The maids were so perfectly coordinated that I really didn’t have to do anything.
“Let’s have a cup of tea,” I said.
Serge inspected his cup. “This is the same material as the ones you brought to the wedding. Even without the coloring, they look... Well, I suppose you’re showing us what’s in the cup today.”
“It’s in a cup, and there’s the carafe. He wants us to pour hot water in it,” Piolo said.
“Up to the line marked inside the cup,” I said.
“Allow me.” Clana elegantly poured hot water from the carafe into each of their cups. Instantly, a coffee-like aroma filled the room.
“That smells wonderful. Similar to kafee, but distinct,” said Serge.
“Roasted dante root tea. It’s considered medicinal in some regions,” Piolo added.
“That’s absolutely right. I’m impressed you could tell from the scent alone. I was hoping to make one with black tea, but I wasn’t quite happy with the flavor, so I went ahead with dante tea,” I explained.
Truth be told, I was far from the sort of distinguished gentleman who could tell coffee from dante tea by smell. I hadn’t had any coffee since coming to this world, and if someone had told me that the smell of dante tea was just the smell of coffee from a different region, I’d have been none the wiser. Maybe you’d have to have a sophisticated palette to run a major trading company like they do.
Also, judging by Serge’s comment, there was such a thing as “kafee” in this world. As I was considering asking Piolo to order some for me in the future, I saw that my guests were already trying what I decided to call the dante coffee.
“It doesn’t taste half bad,” Serge said.
“Yeah,” Piolo agreed. “And it’s not just powdered dante root either.”
I had used magic to freeze dry the dante before pulverizing it. I thought we could market this in a few different ways, but I wasn’t sure if we could turn a profit with it.
“If we could sell this, it would be a bonus,” I said. “But I’m more interested in showcasing its manufacturing process. I used it to create medicine and process food products like this, but I can use this to create other dishes as well. This allows me to preserve food for a long time with little effect on flavor. On top of that, they’re ready to enjoy with just a little bit of water.”
“My interest is definitely piqued,” Serge said.
“The process dehydrates without adding any heat, so it should be useful in a variety of ways. Soup, rice, noodles, boiled beans... You could even use it to dry herbs and fruit. It’s not a perfect method, though. I processed the dante here using my magic, but we would have to custom order magical items that can reproduce this effect and continuously spend magic stones to recreate it. It does cost a lot of magical energy, so our manufacturing cost would be high. These would be more of a luxury item.”
Freeze-drying apparently required ice magic stones. Even the smallest of them were very expensive, since they were used for food preservation and air conditioning. They were an essential supply for nobles and high-end restaurants, especially in the summer. While not as many were used in the winter, magic stones could be stockpiled for a long time, so their price hardly dropped, even in the dead of winter. A stone without any element could power an ice magical item, but at a reduced efficiency compared to magical power. I’d be lucky if I only spent triple the amount of magic stones compared to using ice magic stones.
I’d read one time that instant tea on Earth was mostly made by a process called spray drying...but recreating that with magical items would have been more complicated, expensive, and mana-stone intensive, according to Degnome, who had given me an estimate on the magical items we’d need for these processes.
“Could sell it to the rich and the nobles, as long as it’s high quality. A lot of them travel with a chef and fresh ingredients, but not all of them can afford that. Still, if we’re going to sell it to the common market, we won’t turn a profit unless we can make a good amount of it decently cheap. That’s the direction you’re thinking of going in, right? And you think the food’s got a better chance at fitting that bill than the tea,” Piolo said.
“That’s right,” I replied.
“You’re really teasing us with all this flashy new stuff, huh?” Piolo said.
Clana gently laughed. “If these instant foods have a serious prospect for mass production, we’d have to judge them harshly.”
I returned a nervous chuckle. While I had confidence in the instant lunches, there was something a little scary about how she laughed...
“I would prefer that, actually,” I said. “They’re still prototypes, and I’m sure there are some points of improvement.”
At this point, the instant lunches seemed properly heated. The three maids passed bowls and bagged lunches to each guest plus me at the table.
“The pouches are very hot,” one of the maids warned.
I took the lead by slicing open my pouch with a knife before pouring the contents into the bowl. The pouch’s hardening solution coating made it difficult to tear by hand. My three guests followed suit, investigating the look and smell of the dish they chose.
Serge was visibly excited. “Wow... Were these really prepared months ago? Not only do they look unspoiled, they smell wonderful. I would believe you if you told me these were prepared this morning.”
The Sionjis, whose business handled more food than Serge’s, reserved any commentary for the moment, reaching for their spoons. They each took a bite of their dish and spent several seconds chewing and tasting it.
“It’s good,” Piolo said. “It tastes freshly cooked.”
“Yes. Nothing like cured meat or vegetables,” Clana chimed in.
“Let me see...” Serge reached for his own dish. “Ooh! I had plenty of preserved food back when I was a traveling merchant, and I even tried my hand at cooking on the road more than once. But I always ended up making something rather simple and bland. If these had been on the market back then, I would have reached for them without hesitation, even at a higher price than the traditional preserves. Maintaining this fresh taste for three months is simply incredible.”
“Those were simply the oldest successful products that I had. They should last much longer in reality. As long as the pouch remains undamaged, I expect them to be edible and to taste similar to this for about a year.”
The merchants’ eyes widened.
“A year? That’s a long while,” Piolo said.
“I haven’t tested it out, but that’s my estimate,” I confirmed. Instant lunches like this were very popular in Japan. As long as I could recreate the important parts of those products, I expected my version to last at least a year.
“Also...” I turned to my trusty assistants.
“They’re ready,” they said, already bringing over the pots we had prepared earlier.
“This one contains boiled beans and potatoes that have been preserved in a similar fashion, but without any seasoning,” I said. These were akin to instant mashed potatoes. I demonstrated adding a packet of freeze-dried seasoning to make an instant bean and potato soup. I also took the dried noodles the maids had boiled back to life earlier and mixed in an instant pouch of pasta sauce.
Demonstrating this sort of instant cooking confirmed what the three merchants no doubt suspected from the beginning: there were more uses to these instant foods than just preserving a complete dish. Their interest had intensified with every new step of my demonstration.
“This technology could be used for long-distance travel or emergency stockpiles, not to mention rations for adventurers or soldiers...and with the right types of food, it could even appeal to nobles, or perhaps people with dietary restrictions.” After all, I know I would love to have instant rice porridge if I were too sick to cook. Some people had dietary restrictions and cooking around those could be a lot of work, especially if they wanted their food to still taste good. That might not have been an issue for those who could afford a private chef, but otherwise, cooking every day could become a huge chore.
Preparing food was a chore that literally everyone had to deal with; as I demonstrated my instant food technology, I felt strongly that it could have a great impact on many people’s difficulties with preparing food and eating. That was why...
“I plan to seek the Duke’s guidance on how to handle this project. With how busy he is, I’ll have to wait until the new year, but that works out—I still need to experiment with the instant lunches some more and verify how long the food can be preserved in practice.”
Once I’d collected enough data, I wouldn’t have minded selling the manufacturing technique and rights to the Duke so that he could completely take over the process. In fact, that seemed like the better option, the more I thought about it. Instant food was too great of an enterprise for a commoner alone to run.
“That being said, I would love to seek your assistance when the time comes to officially start putting them on shelves. Is that all right with you?”
This, apparently, was an obvious choice for the merchants.
Piolo jumped in right away. “Who d’you think would turn down a deal like this? We gotta wait for Duke Reinhart’s decision, ’course, but you got my full support if he wants to make a business out of it!”
“Food isn’t my forte, but I can be involved with supplying and improving the pouches. We did just build the new factory. Should we build more?” Serge asked enthusiastically.
“How long would it take to prepare for mass production of the pouches?” I asked.
“We could start on a small batch immediately, but full-scale production will have to wait at least until next spring. The slime factory has its hands full with the regular waterproof fabric, rain gear, and the rubber products you introduced the other day,” Serge explained.
“Right. Dealing with the snow comes first,” I said.
“Yes... The good news is that the products are selling well, which means we have plenty of funds. As soon as demand for snow gear drops, we can spare staff for the pouches. I’ll make arrangements so we can start as soon as the Duke gives us the go-ahead.”
“That’s great. There’s no rush for this,” I said.
After that, we continued tasting the other instant dishes and discussed other uses and marketing strategies, as well as other things we could manufacture in Serge’s factory.
At last, our peaceful lunch meeting adjourned.
“Thank you for lunch,” Serge said.
“Those instant lunches were good!” Piolo exclaimed. “You got me all excited for the future, Ryoma!”
“Thank you for having us, Ryoma,” Clana said.
Time flies when you’re having fun. Knowing that this would probably be the last time we met up before the new year, I was tempted to ask them to stay a little longer, but then thought better of it. They were all busy people. To make the most of my time with them, at least, I walked them out of the room.
When we opened the door, we found five armed men surrounding us.
“Are you ready, Mister Morgan?” one of them asked.
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