Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 15 - Chapter 1.39

CHAPTER 1 STORY 39

A Story of Staple Foods

I visited a certain country, and as always, I bought some bread in town and walked around on the street munching away. To a discerning observer, I must have looked quite rude. People pointing at the unfamiliar traveler and saying, “Wow, what bad manners!” wasn’t an unusual occurrence no matter where I was.

And so I did as I always did and walked around town chowing down on some bread. But—

“Hey, hey…look over there…!”

“Whoa… She’s walking around eating bread… She definitely must be ill…”

“Poor thing, and she’s so young, too… No question about it, she’s definitely going to die an early death.”

The people I passed in town whispered to each other as they looked at me.

“……”

My goodness.

Apparently, the country I had arrived at that day was, as I mentioned above, kind of a strange place.

“Allow me to explain!”

When I made it to an inn in town, the innkeeper told me what was going on as she hung up an enormous sign. Apparently, most of the travelers who arrived in this country had questions like I did, so she was ready for mine, because she had already answered questions from others.

“In our country, the health risks that come from eating bread are considered a real problem. Eating bread on a daily basis causes a considerable decline in intellect, you see.”

“You’re saying that it makes you stupid?”

“Exactly! Bread is quite harmful to the body! The majority of people who eat bread regularly end up losing their lives to some sort of illness!”

“Huh…”

I think it’s very common when anybody dies for them to be suffering from some sort of disease, though.

“And that’s not all. Would you believe that among people who ate bread daily, in about half of all cases, they died sooner than the average life span in this country?! It’s just dreadful!”

“Uh-huh…”

“Lots of other data has also been gathered about the dangers of bread. First of all, people who eat nothing but bread every day are at risk for nutritional imbalances, and if you give bread to very young children, they seem to enter a rebellious phase around age fifteen! Bread is avoided here in our country as the devil’s food.”

Then the innkeeper went on an eloquent diatribe about the dangers of bread.

And in conclusion—

“I understand that there aren’t very many people who eat bread in this country,” I said. “But in that case, what is the staple food here?”

“Rice, of course!” the innkeeper answered immediately.

Oh-hoh. Is that so? I see.

“Did you know?” I said. “Apparently, among people who eat rice on a daily basis, about half of them pass away before they reach the average life span—”

[Publication Information] Volume 11

Toranoana Buyer’s Bonus

[Author Comments]

I wrote about this after the “The Cursed Box” story. This is also a story about how, when you’re determined to stretch the truth, everything can get stretched and strained beyond belief.

By the way, everyone, did you know this? Apparently, there’s an amazing book out there that will greatly enrich your life if you carry it with you always and enthusiastically recommend it to every single person you encounter. It’s called Wandering Witch.