Chương 34: Chapter 1.34: What’s in Store

The first indicator that Brutus had something special planned for the next few days was that he and his sisters ate spiritual beef for breakfast. Favius was eager, but Serran had organized an appointment with the Master of Provisions. No matter how Favius tried to interrogate the man, Brutus merely kept smiling mysteriously. Favius walked across the estate grounds, glaring at his protector.

"Please, just one hint. What exactly are you going to do with us?" Brutus chuckled and shook his head.

"You realize the more you keep asking, the more satisfying it is to not tell you." Favius hmphed in indignation. They arrived at the storehouses. Slaves hustled about, carrying amphorae and boxes between wagons, root cellars, and large buildings. They are bringing in the harvest, but come to think of it, I haven't seen any barrels in the estate or here. Only sacks, boxes, and amphorae. Favius walked into the middle of the chaos, looking for someone meeting the description Serran had given him. He shook his head.

Barrels were so ubiquitous in the medieval museums I've seen on Earth. But maybe they are just that, a medieval technology? He shrugged as Brutus touched his shoulder and pointed.

"That's got to be our man." Favius nodded and approached the spindly figure. The man was barely taller than himself, but wore a fiery orange tunic in the Cindrathi style, unlike the more muted yellows of slaves and freedmen. So he is a citizen freedman.

"Doroth Cerul?" inquired Brutus. The man sniffed, then responded in a high, nasal voice, "Indeed." He looked away from the group of slaves he had been instructing on where to store sacks of fresh grain, then studied the newcomers. Well, at least he's not entirely unhappy to see us.

"Young master." The man bowed low at the hip.

"The majordomo orders me to show you around and answer all your questions. May—" He hesitated for a second, glancing sideways at Brutus.

"—may I inquire what has prompted the young master's interest in affairs of estate management?" Favius smiled.

"Consider it a curiosity. I read certain things in the library, but I wanted to see the reality on the ground." The man's eyes, which Favius only now noticed didn't look entirely human, studied him deeply. Finally, he nodded.

"Very well." He gestured to two of the large buildings.

"Those are stores and processing houses for grain."

"Yes, I was wondering about that," Favius said.

"Why do we have green and gold grain? I understand the gold grain doesn't store well, so we need this second harvest in late summer?" The man nodded.

"That is indeed the case. On the southern continent, with Egyptian grain, they get to dry it in the desert heat, and it might last up to two years. But here in the north—" The man looked at the still slightly too large and too orange sun before shaking his head.

"—the golden ears just don't dry out enough and start spoiling." Brutus grunted.

"Yeah, supply lines were a ripe pain in the Celitia campaigns. Up there, close to the Sea of Fog, they even stop growing wheat and rely on this measly grain called rye." Brutus made a face, and Favius turned to him.

"What's wrong with rye?" Brutus stuck his tongue out slightly.

"It's chewy."

"And the yields are rather pathetic compared to wheat," interjected Doroth. Favius nodded. He looks like he knows what he is talking about.

"So that's why the soft bread has disappeared, and it's been so much fermented and baked flatbread."

"Indeed," Doroth replied.

"If the young master would follow me." They walked toward one of the granaries, and Favius nodded along with the explanation of various storage methods. Apparently, green grain was generally stored in root cellars or used straight from the field, while gold grain was stored in sacks, which were heaped on shelves made of sticks so the grain could be well aerated. But Favius was only half listening. Maybe I failed as a physicist.

This world—from the grains alone, and with a year being essentially a bit longer than four months—the foodstuffs should hold longer. So what gives? While the rich, earthy smell of grain enveloped him, he considered. Well, at the most basic level, the reality—the physics—seem pretty close to Earth. I'm on a planet orbiting a star. Well, except for that weird object in the night sky, but that's probably just another star with a debris disk.

He absentmindedly compared the feeling between gold and green grain in his hands. One was hard, the other squishy. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Fundamental physics comes down to a few variables: light speed, the cosmic constant, the strengths of the four fundamental forces, and then the ratios between the charges of various fundamental particles. He clicked his tongue. It's not that you can't vary them.

It's just that the parameter space where you get stable, long-lived stars, functioning nuclei, or anything that resembles chemistry is relatively limited. So my scientific plans might not be entirely doomed. He looked around. His eyes fell on the magically glittering steel of Brutus's axe, the bronze of the man's chestplate, then the wooden construction of the house and the fabric the workers wore. So assuming physics is reasonably similar, I think the same holds for chemistry.

Wood burns to coal, and I've seen no reason not to think that's not carbon. And the metals—my mind translation calls it steel and bronze, but could it be something entirely different? He shook his head, recalling conversations with flatmates far nerdier than himself. It's a common trope in stories that other realities with magic don't work like ours, but having a self-coherent system that acts like physics—or at least like a physics engine—gets complicated.

Just making the gunpowder recipe not produce explosives—that's a non-trivial problem. Favius's nose scrunched up as he recalled a conversation. And it's fucking inelegant design as well. If you want to avoid explosives alongside your magic, just have the magic interact strongly with volatile compounds to make them impractical. He returned his attention to the grain. And even if the fundamental laws of physics were different, science allows me to set up hypotheses, build experiments, and test ideas.

I could rebuild science even in a universe where the physics are contaminated with magic and function differently. However, I think this food situation is a problem of organic chemistry. He looked at his companions and hummed along to a comment that Brutus made. Biochemistry was wild even on Earth. My best guess for this green grain is—well, why would plants develop the ability to have fruits that stay stable for more than a year if a year here is only a few months long? But still. I have a few ideas.

Even if the specifics of biochemistry are gone, some principles should still apply. They walked down into the root cellar. The chill greeted him, and Doroth led them around by the light of an oil lamp. He gestured at various shelves occupied by amphorae and crates.

"As for preservation," he said, gesturing at the amphorae, "there are dozens of methods, but ultimately oil, brine, wine, and vinegar tend to stave off the rot." Favius nodded.

"What about fermentation? I am quite fond of fermented mussels." He ignored the gagging noise Brutus made in the background, and Doroth nodded.

"Indeed, young master. Fermentation can be applied to a wide variety of foodstuffs. Milk—" he gestured at a wheel of cheese, "—vegetables, or even seafood." The man tilted his head gently.

"If the young master enjoys the taste of fermented mussels, might I recommend he try fermented algae? The seafarms of Lirene produce it in significant quantities." Favius stepped on Brutus's foot as the man gagged more intensely and nodded.

"It sounds interesting. I will ask the cook to prepare some for me." The cultivator seemed undeterred. They moved on to a different section, and the slight smell of salt, smoke, and a distant tinge of blood made Favius shiver.

"Drying, salting, and smoking are preferred for various meats and fish." Favius frowned.

"Shouldn't fruit be dryable as well?" Brutus responded this time.

"Again, southern stuff. There's the tubers from the volcanic islands between us and the southern continent, which take well to drying. But here in the north, almost all fruit that can be preserved is dried poorly or not at all." The Master of Provisions inclined his head.

"The lord speaks true. We just don't have enough time in the sun up here, and if unexpected rains hit, an entire crop might be ruined." Favius frowned but nodded. He studied a slave who was moving a rack of dry bread with dirty fingers. He scrunched his lips.

"Are the slaves not told to clean their hands before working with the food?" Something in his voice made Doroth flinch.

"Why would they, young master, if their hands are dirty with what is in the storehouses? That is merely dust. Should their hands be fouled with some sort of rot, they will of course be cleansed." Favius grimaced, and silence settled over the trio while he began thinking again, rubbing his chin. All those methods of preservation… it comes down to suppressing bacteria, and come to think of it… He narrowed his eyebrows. I haven't actually seen soap. I've been scrubbing with cloth and water.

And well, there is the oiling and scraping that Brutus tells us is for weak southerners in the bathhouse, but… He trailed off as he recalled the morning. I've been washing my hands and brushing my teeth with this salt-brine-ash mixture. It tastes not too bad, and I guess the ash being alkaline and a fine particulate. That allows it to scrub away dirt, and the salt water sterilizes it a bit? At least I don't have to chew on some stick to clean my teeth.

Distantly, Favius noticed that Brutus dismissed the Master of Provisions, then poked him in the chest.

"You're again thinking too much. Let me guess, boy—you're going to say that all of this is due to those invisible small monsters that are sitting everywhere." Favius let go of the last sequence of thoughts and sighed.

"They aren't monsters." He groaned as Brutus began to smile.

"You can say what you want, Brutus, but I did notice that you started washing your hands before eating after I told you."

"That—" Brutus faltered briefly, then shook his head.

"That is merely a precaution. My mother told me to wash my hands before eating, too." Favius pounced.

"So you still believe in the invisible monsters that your mother told you about in bedside stories?" Brutus grunted and shook his head.

"If you keep teasing me, boy, I will throw you to a very real monster." He chuckled before humming.

"After you're done with my plans for the next few days, maybe I should take you on a hunt." Favius's eyes widened slightly. I've never hunted in my previous life, and something tells me that hunting in this world doesn't mean dicking about in the woods with a gun until something walks in front of the muzzle. He shook his head as they walked across the estate grounds to meet his sisters. But today—today was a success. I'm certain that science still works. And well, I have some ideas for hygiene and preservation.

But for now… He glanced at his protector, the mighty Magnicultor, at the edge of Transcensor. For now, it's time to advance my cultivation.