Sasaki and Peeps - Volume 3 - Chapter 8

Extra Story: <Welcome Party>

Ms. Futarishizuka had not only reserved a suite in a gorgeous luxury hotel for Lady Elsa, but she had organized a welcome party for our otherworldly guest in the separate dining room. Thanks in part to her considerable efforts, the party lacked for nothing.

Every one of the dishes lined up on the table was elaborate. Even Lady Elsa, who had lived a life of luxury as a noble in the otherworld, was smacking her lips over the food, smiling widely.

“I’d grown curious about this world’s cuisine from our previous walk through the city,” she said, “and it seems just as advanced as everything else here. I haven’t touched a single morsel that wasn’t incredibly tasty! And they all look gorgeous, too. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten such splendid dishes in all my life.”

“Please, please, what is the girl saying?” asked Futarishizuka.

“She’s in awe of all the food you prepared,” I responded.

“Oh? Well, isn’t that a delight! Please, eat until you drop. No need to hold back, now.”

Her repeated compliments were by no means empty flattery. The food was a huge perk for those of us joining in with her. This meal was the kind that, as an office worker, I’d only eaten a few times in my life. French’s cooking in the otherworld was delicious, but in terms of luxury, all the dishes here had it beat—just as Lady Elsa said.

Peeps is on the table in front of the meat, too, eating his little heart out. As his owner, I was a little worried about how it was possible for him to cram all that food into his small body. He had the power of magic on his side, though. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some way of processing whatever he packed in.

“There are so many foods I’ve never seen before,” remarked Lady Elsa. “But I know some of these.”

“Which ones might you happen to know, Lady Elsa?” I asked.

“This alcoholic beverage, for example. It looks just like the beer my father drinks!”

Her gaze went to the mug in her hands. It had beer in it. We’d gotten it for her as a substitute chaser to follow her Japanese sake. “You’re right,” I said. “Beer is the same over here.”

“It’s just that—well, I drank a little of it before, and… How should I put it? It tastes somehow…smoother than the kind my father drinks. They look almost exactly the same, but this one is more refreshing.”

“The beer Count Müller drinks is actually ale.”

“Ale?”

“That’s right. The kind you’re drinking today, however, is a lager.”

“There are so many varieties of beer…”

When I drank beer in the otherworld, it had also been ale. The beer itself was the same, but the manufacturing method was different. In this world, ale had a longer history, while lager was newer. That didn’t mean the latter was better, though—it very much depended on individual preference.

Ale was simpler to manufacture, so it was probably all over the place in the otherworld. In our world, though, lager was much more widespread. The reason had to do with the history of its major producers. Recently, however, ale was becoming more and more common thanks to a boom in popularity of local breweries.

“I quite like this sake,” continued Lady Elsa. “It’s so sweet!”

“I heard Futarishizuka wanted to pick out a brand that would be easy for you to drink,” I explained.

“Really? You’re so considerate. Thank you so much.”

“Please, please, what is the girl saying?” repeated Futarishizuka.

“She seems to be enjoying the sake you picked out.”

“Oh? Well, isn’t that a delight! Please, drink until you drop. No need to hold back, now.”

Judging by the label on the bottle, this sake was of the highest grade—pure rice, very special brew—from a brewery that was famous with those in the know. It wasn’t extremely expensive, but it was the type you couldn’t buy unless you reserved some well in advance. And you had to go to the shop in person—that sort of thing. Ever since the recent proliferation of flea-market apps, they always sold for more than three times the original price on the internet.

Since I was here anyway, I had a cup of it myself. I might never get the chance to drink something like this again.

“It also feels strange to eat raw fish like this. I was scared at first, but now that I’ve tried it, I realize how good it is. Your world must have a roaring seafood industry!”

“Please, please, what is the girl saying?” repeated Futarishizuka.

“She seems to be enjoying the sashimi. She’s very impressed.”

“Oh? Well, isn’t that a delight! If there isn’t enough, I can always order more.”

Sashimi was amazing when paired with sake, and we had a veritable rainbow of high-quality ingredients here. It wasn’t only the basics like sea urchin and salmon roe—there was even scallop liver. That was a very rare treat, indeed. Given the generally off-putting appearance of shellfish, however, Lady Elsa kept her distance from them. But that only meant there was more for me. Peeps seemed pretty busy pecking at his meat, after all.

“Please, please, do you have a moment?” insisted Futarishizuka.

“What is it?”

“I’ve been feeling like a villager in a role-playing game for a while now,” she explained. “With you as the intermediary, the conversation has no variety—it’s painfully dull. Isn’t there anything you could do about it?”

“Well, I’m not sure…”

This seemed like one thing I couldn’t do anything about. And even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. The two of them not being able to speak to each other was beneficial to us. Knowledge of the otherworld—and particularly its magic—gave us a major advantage in modern Japan. I wanted to keep as tight a lid on that information as I could, and Peeps agreed.

“If you ask for too much, the curse may progress,” said Peeps, looking up from the plate at his feet. He had a little bit of sauce on his cheek—just adorable. I was overwhelmed by the urge to pat it dry with a napkin.

“And this bird of yours is always so cruel to me in particular…,” murmured Futarishizuka.

“Of course I am. You would do well to reflect on your past actions.”

“That means a lot coming from a little bird with sauce on his face.”

Peeps grunted, then quickly rubbed his face on a napkin. Oh, crap, I thought. That’s even cuter. It’s so birdlike! Futarishizuka, that was a really good move!

“Little bird, come over here. I’ll clean you off,” offered Lady Elsa.

“No, I can’t bother someone else with such a thing.” Peeps ignored her beckoning and smeared his head against the napkin.

As I watched the two of them, a thought occurred to me. A thought about products for our business in the otherworld, that is.

“Peeps, I’ve got a question for you,” I said.

“What is it?” he asked, lifting his head from the napkin and turning to me. The sauce was all gone.

“In your world, is there any sugar that you can eat a lot of without getting fat?”

“What nonsense are you talking about? Are you drunk on the wine?”

“I guess that means no.”

“When you eat sweets, you get fat. That is the way of things, is it not?”

Something Lady Elsa said had made me think of it. She’d been quite casual in saying how sweet the sake was. No matter the world, people loved anything sweet. There seemed to be a lot of people in the upper echelons over there who would brew tea and eat sweets as a snack.

But recently, we’d been bringing a lot of sugar into the otherworld. According to Mr. Joseph, it was all being consumed by those of the upper class. Most of it ended up in sweet candy or bread before being delivered to the customers.

Naturally, this caused a problem: obesity.

We earthlings, at least, were in a pretty rough situation when it came to our bellies—starting around the age of thirty. If you ate and drank the same way you did when you were twenty, you’d get fat almost immediately. A few years of that would really start making your doctor angry.

When I was young, adults would talk about how you got fat right after hitting thirty. At the time, I’d laughed it off, thinking they were just overeating, but when I got there myself, it was a pretty big shock. I wished they’d told me more about why.

I would assume the same was true for the otherworld. The upper class especially would probably be struggling, since they didn’t want for food on a daily basis. Wouldn’t they start to view their plumper bellies as a problem?

Some, like Count Müller, were very fit even after passing thirty, probably because they swung swords around every day. Not all nobles would be into that, though. I figured there were plenty of homebodies like me in their ranks.

I explained all that to Peeps and got a disinterested response. “Eating makes you put on weight,” he said. “That is simply the way of things, yes?”

“But isn’t it especially easy to get fat when you use sugar?”

“Indeed—of that there is no doubt.”

“This world has a kind of sugar you can eat without getting fat.”

“…Is this true?” My foodie sparrow gave a visible ruffle of his feathers. This had caught his interest.

It would be better to show him an example than to simply explain it. However, in this case, providing evidence presented a problem—changes in the human body came slowly. I could at least show him the real thing, though.

Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I asked Futarishizuka if we could get some artificial sweetener from a nearby supermarket. She then proceeded to contact someone working at the hotel, who bought it for us immediately. Apparently, that kind of service came with the room. If you had the money, you could get almost anything you wanted, it seemed. A person wearing an expensive-looking suit who appeared to be a butler came along and took care of everything we needed. I had to hand it to this high-class hotel.

Because of that, we got the white powder delivered to us within the hour. I sprinkled some on an empty serving dish, creating a little pile. I then placed the torn-open packet to the side, the words on its surface boldly announcing that it had zero calories.

Peeps courageously plunged his little beak right into the middle of the pile I’d made. He probably figured a little poison could be easily cured with healing magic anyway.

A moment later, he raised his voice in surprise. “You can truly eat something this sweet as much as you want and not grow fat?”

“Your stomach won’t absorb this type of sugar, so yes—you can eat however much you’d like and not put on weight,” I explained.

Peeps looked at me, his beak now snowy white with powder—yet another lovely sight.

After seeing the sparrow brave it, Lady Elsa reached in for some as well. She poked her index finger into it, then licked it off. Immediately, she cried, “This is so sweet!” Her enthusiastic voice echoed through the room.

“If what you say is true, then I believe this would be in high demand among noble women. The youth may be fine, but older people put on weight more easily. Many refrain from eating very much because of it.”

“Oh? I guess that’s the same as this world, too.”

“Sugar you can add to tea without limit would be a delight for them, to be sure.”

“Then maybe I’ll propose it to Mr. Joseph the next time we see him.”

“It will likely not sell as well as sugar, though. I believe you should limit the supply and sell it at a high price to richer nobles. Oh, and we’ll want to avoid imitations entering the market. Perhaps, if we are raising the price, we should spend more money on its packaging.”

“Yeah. I was just thinking the same thing, Peeps.”

He was so reliable, immediately sharing his perspective. I was sure he was already calculating all sorts of ways to develop a business around artificial sweeteners. Maybe there would come a time when he’d be concerned over his own weight, even if only a little.

“What’s this? Considering yet another wily business scheme, are we?” chimed in Futarishizuka after listening to us. An indecent grin spread across her face.

“No, no. Don’t make it sound so scandalous,” I insisted.

“Sugar substitutes don’t seem like such a big deal to me,” she replied.

“They would probably be a valuable commodity over there.”

“You know, I might just let slip what you’re doing to that girl.”

“Even if you tried, you two can’t understand each other’s language.”

“I have ways of conveying the value of an item to her, at least.”

“If it sells well over there, we’ll be adding even more onto your payments. Could you possibly procure about one potato sack’s worth of sweetener for us?”

“Oh, will you, now? Well, only if you promise to pay up.”

“Of course. I promise.”

“Very well, then.”

“Thank you, Ms. Futarishizuka.”

And with that, I’d managed to get our collaborator’s agreement. Thinking about what kinds of products might sell for a high price in the otherworld’s marketplace was fun in and of itself, regardless of the actual results. I’d gotten into the habit lately of thinking about such things whenever I went out to buy something for myself.

And for the sake of my pet Java sparrow, I’d work even harder to succeed.