Chapter CXLVII – Whosoever shall compel thee to go a flask, go with her in twain.

49th of Spring 5860
A village, March of Zon’guldac

One thing that Watanabe had noticed soon after arriving in Gemeinplatz was the sheer amount of walking one needed to do.

Back home he could hop on a car, a bus, even traverse the whole nation on rail and return home in time for dinner. Gemeinplatz, however, was a completely different story. Even if the concept of “maintaining paved roads” was a progressive idea for its time, it didn’t eliminate all the walking needed to get from A to B. Especially for Watanabe, who didn’t feel comfortable on horseback. It turned out that riding a horse was much harder than just mounting it and praying to the eight million kami that it trots the right direction. So, on footback he was, accompanied by Rabanowicz who too was travelling on her two feet out of sympathy for her assistant.

At least one good thing about all this travel is that one got used to it. Watanabe was surprised at how quickly he had adapted. Not that he had gotten any more muscular, he couldn’t get anywhere enough protein in Gemeinplatz to achieve that, but he had just gotten used to his legs aching. More than getting used to it even – man was made for the great outdoors. He hadn’t felt this energetic and alive in a long while, despite currently accompanying an army and being under the threat of imminent death. It somewhat felt like a permanent holiday despite him working every single day, at least compared to being stuck in a cubicle all day long with people he’d rather murder than work with. Now he had friends, comrades that he’d rather die for.

“Doctor, what’s the plan for our meal when we stop?” Watanabe was ignored; Rabanowicz was reading while walking, and she had gotten way too deep into a Gemeinplatzish chivalric romance novel. Watanabe had to tap her on the shoulder and repeat the question once she grumpily turned her head over to him.

“I’ve still got some hardtack in the bag, and a bit of pemmican” replied Rabanowicz, immediately turning back to her book.

Watanabe checked his pockets… a few groschen coins jingled there. “How about we treat ourselves a little today?”

Rabanowicz’s eyes followed the jingles, and she followed with a pat of her own pockets. A whole lot more coins jingled in response, the frugal lady she was. “Whatever we can find when we encamp then.”

It took a few more hours before the sun began setting, and so time came to stop the march for the day. They set up camp right next to a village, who had all made their escape to the forest in view of the incoming “savage army”. When night proper rolled around, and seeing that their houses weren’t being plundered, the villagers came back out of hiding to a surprisingly polite welcome. It was just common sense in Gemeinplatz that an incoming army, enemy or even friendly, would make generous use of the convenient loot that a village offered. Most armies were underfunded and underfed, lords not willing to set up the proper logistical structure needed to fund a force that they barely even made use of. Nor would a feudal lord have the ability to set up such an extensive support structure outside of their territory. Thus, outside of Brown having explicitly forbidden looting innocent civilians, the Army of the Republic didn’t depend on looting to feed itself like its many counterparts in Gemeinplatz.

The camp was set up right next to the village, and soon enough, it was flooded with villagers using the opportunity to trade. One thing a pre-modern army brought along with it was a supporting caravan of camp followers, and if they weren’t being looted by the army they were attached to, the villagers found their services quite convenient. Some got a new pair of shoes, another a spiffing set of cutleries, and a few spent quality times with others other than their spouse.

For Watanabe, his interest lay in finding something delicious to eat. Looking around, there were a plenty providing plenty of delicious food… for plenty of money. “Something not too expensive, not too meager… aha!” Watanabe spotted his target: a woman carrying jugs of milk. He took two cups from Rabanowicz’s bag, then headed over to her. A coin he handed over, and two cups of milk he got in return.

“Dairy doesn’t do my stomach well, monsieur, but, thank you.” Rabanowicz took the cup with the hint of a smile.

“It doesn’t do me well either, but I missed the taste.” When was the last time Watanabe had milk by itself? Probably way back in elementary. He raised the cup up to its lips, before taking a sniff. It didn’t smell expired thankfully, but, the possibility of expiration made him think of another possibility that made him not take a sip “Hm. I wonder if…”

“What do you wonder, monsieur? Has it gone bad?” Rabanowicz took a sniff of the milk. It smelled just like ordinary cow’s milk.

“If… if…” Watanabe couldn’t find the word for it in the local language. He couldn’t find a bunch of words. Pasteurization, bacteria, salmonella. “…if this has been treated.”

“Treated?”

“You know, you need to heat the milk up to get rid of the… the… diseases inside it.” That’s the best Watanabe could do. “Back home we did it with all the milk that was sold, I remember it being a pretty big deal. I don’t want to catch a disease and die from milk in another world.”

“If what you are saying is true, that’d indeed be a terrible way to go.” Rabanowicz didn’t take a sip either. Instead, the doctor and his assistant got to taking out their pan and lighting up a fire. They lit some kindling from a fire that was already burning in camp, and then laid a few logs on top of it. In a few minutes the milk was heated up. Watanabe stopped before it began boiling, so he wouldn’t be hurting his precious lips. Back into the cups the milk went. Now it was pleasantly warm alongside with not being potentially full of e. coli.

“Cheers.” Watanabe clanged the cup of milk with Rabanowicz. They sipped on the milk slowly, to appreciate the taste. It was quite good, being fresh milk.

“…so, what happens when you heat the milk up?” Rabanowicz wasn’t exactly believe in magical thinking.

“Uhm… so, there are little living things that live on everything, right? The ground, the water, the air… So small that you can’t see them with your own eyes.”

“Monsieur, what are you talking about?” Rabanowicz’s world had been a bit early for germ theory, which on Earth became accepted only in the 19th century.

“Mm. Basically, little living beings that multiply by feeding on whatever they can find. Some of them multiply in milk and make you sick when you ingest them alongside your drink. They die in the heat.”

“Interesting theory.” Of course, Rabanowicz wasn’t about to believe in such bold claims without empirical evidence. She quickly thought up of an experiment “Give me your flask.”

“O-okay?” Watanabe gave the flask of water that he carried around. Rabanowicz dumped the fresh water, much to his horror “Wait-”

“Don’t worry monsieur, I’ll pay back with something better.” She emptied her own flask of water as well, then handed both back to Watanabe. “Fill both with milk, then come back to me.” She handed one groschen coin to him.

Watanabe obliged, finding the same woman and coming back with both flasks filled and sealed. “Thank you for the generous gift.”

“It isn’t a gift, it’s an experiment.” Rabanowicz took Watanabe’s flask and heated it over the fire. “If you say that there are these little living beings in the air spoiling our food, and that heat kills them, then this flask of yours shouldn’t spoil after I heat it up.”

Watanabe nodded “It shouldn’t, yeah.”

“Then, the milk is yours if it doesn’t spoil by tomorrow morning.” Rabanowicz didn’t heat her own flask up, to be a control group. “If it does spoil… I’ll have you drink your words up, monsieur.”

Watanabe hoped for the safety of his guts that he had remembered things correctly. The rest of the night was spent constructing a tent before both of them immediately crashed on their blankets. The fatigue from walking so much tended to hit suddenly, the moment that one had an opportunity to rest.

As the sun rose and the drums were beat to wake the troops up, Rabanowicz immediately rolled over to check her own flask. Plop. She immediately grimaced as a foul smell emanated inside the tent. “As expected. Yours?”

Watanabe took a deep breath, prayed to the myriad gods for his guts to not be destroyed that day, and then popped open his flask. A sniff. It smelled like milk, like it had yesterday. “Hah! I win!” He took a victorious swig of the white liquid that wasn’t about to cause a pretty crappy death.

“How curious.” Rabanowicz, of course, dumped the milk she had on to the earth below. No way she was about to take her chances with the fun surprises that spoilt milk had in store. “I’ll have to investigate this further when we’re at rest.”

For now, they began packing the tent up for another day of constant marching. Unbeknownst to them they’d made a discovery that’d potentially save countless people.

Gemeinplatz had today seen the birth of the field of microbiology.