Chapter XIII – In which our hero ventures forth and provides additional capital for his joint venture.

“Wait a second there!” exclaimed Rabanowicz as she interrupted our hero’s heroics. “We have business to attend to tonight, like learning how to count! Isn’t that right, Monsieur Watanabe?”

Watanabe was shocked to see the deuteragonist object to him, the rightful protagonist of this story. “Doctor, adventure calls to me and I must heed her call!” he replied.

“What sort of adventure is there to be found in ambushing a petty thief?!” asked Rabanowicz in frustration.

Watanabe leaned towards Rabanowicz as he whispered to her “But doctor, pay attention the woman’s description, I have seen her before and…” Our hero quickly relayed his encounter with the apparition that had hunted him at night a couple chapters before.

“A woman with red eyes, white hair who hunted you at night…” said Rabanowicz as Watanabe concluded relating his struggles. “If that is to be true, then this…”

…is quite curious. A real ghost? It’d make quite an interesting research topic if I could get my hands on her, thought Rabanowicz as she evaluated her chances at surviving such an encounter.

Rabanowicz made up her mind as she turned towards the shopkeeper, who had already forgotten about the two. “Monsieur Shopkeeper, may I join in keeping guard tonight?”

“…Sure?” said the shopkeeper who had completely given up resisting.

After having gathered an ally in his mission to finally catch the potential harem member ghost-woman, Watanabe was in the highest of spirits despite having only had two hours of sleep. Rabanowicz too was in similar spirits, for she had potentially found a curious subject to research that night. Having finished her job with the shopkeeper, she bid him farewell and continued her shopping trip. She bought a stack of paper, a new bottle of ink a lump of black lead (a.k.a. graphite) for Watanabe to use while writing.

Watanabe was quite bored of this shopping trip, as most of the items on display were quite mundane. The few smiths he saw had very standard steel armaments on display, having nothing with cool magic effects that Watanabe expected from a fantasy market. He mostly followed Rabanowicz as he carried the items she bought.

“Alright, spare button, check… I think that should be all for now.” said Rabanowicz as she looked at her journal, which also contained her shopping list. “I think it’s about time that we win some bread.”

“Win… bread? Like in a competition?” asked Watanabe, who had no knowledge of idioms containing bread.

“No, ‘win bread’ as in ‘make money’.” replied Rabanowicz. “The soldiers will require entertainment after they have finished their luncheon, which they should be finishing right about now, and what better entertainment is there other than literature?”

“Right, you did mention reading the ‘Saga of Agelherd’ to the soldiers.” said Watanabe.

“It’s the ‘Saga of Egilhard’.” replied Rabanowicz. “Anyways, we should get out of the market and get ourselves near the shacks and tents where the soldiers are plenty.”

Rabanowicz was about to leave for the center of the camp when Watanabe noticed a stall that caught his attention and stopped Rabanowicz to ask a question. “Say, doctor, how do you make money by reading to the soldiers?”

“I take a fee from those who stop to listen.” replied Rabanowicz. “Some of the kinder ones drop a coin or two as a donation as well.”

“So, you don’t sell them anything while they’re there? Like something to eat and drink while they’re listening?” further inquired Watanabe as he began formulating a plan to further profits.

“I don’t have the skill nor the time to make anything like that.” replied Rabanowicz. “I don’t know if you could, but even if you did, we don’t have the time for cooking and brewing right now.”

“Indeed, I can’t cook much either, but I think the power of capital can help us.” said Watanabe as he approached the stall which had various baked goods on display. He greeted the shopkeeper, and pointed at a wooden box containing what he thought to be were cookies. “What are these sir, and how much does one of them cost?”

“These are freshly baked sweet crackers from the next villager over, sir, and they are only half a seed.” replied the shopkeeper.

Five columns and ten rows of crackers, making twenty-five seeds for all of them, calculated Watanabe as he actually stopped being errant when it came to finance. “I’ll buy all of them for twenty seeds.”

The shopkeeper paused for a moment, trying to understand why one man would need an entire box of crackers, but they sobered up as they were delighted to instantly sell a big chunk of their stock while retaining a decent profit.

“Hey doctor, mind lending me twenty seeds?” asked Watanabe as he turned around to address Rabanowicz. She responded by handing him a one-leaf coin (worth twenty seeds) in approval.

Handing over the coin to the shopkeeper, Watanabe triumphantly held the box of crackers, he had also agreed to borrow the box for the day, before Rabanowicz. “Doctor, I think it’s now up to you to brew something that’ll go along well with these.”

“I don’t know how I didn’t think of buying items to sell to my audience before, such a simple thing yet…” muttered Rabanowicz as she added a snicker indicating ‘How did I not think of this before?’. “I think I can quickly cook up something, yes.”

Rabanowicz (and Watanabe) headed to an area of the camp which contained most of the makeshift shacks and tents that constituted the resting area of the soldiers. There, Rabanowicz (with a measly amount of help from our hero) borrowed a few pieces of dry wood to start a fire. She put the two jugs that she had used yesterday and had filled with water on the road in case she needed them. Out of her bottomless bag came out some green-colored Brassicus-berries she had foraged on the march, which she put them in the jugs filled with now boiling water.

“Brassicus-berry tea, it helps you have a good night’s sleep as attested by wise men both ancient and contemporary.” lectured Rabanowicz as she stared at the jars, which began having a green color as the juice from the berries seeped into the water. “It’s also a widely used to counter constipation and can help soothe men afflicted by high fever.”

Watanabe was greatly intrigued by what Rabanowicz said. “Say, what would you say the benefits of these crackers we just bought are?”

“Crackers?” said Rabanowicz as she thought about the few times she had actually read about them. “It helps in digestion, and I have read accounts of food similar to crackers being eaten across all corners of the world.”

“Then, I think we should make known to our customers, the various benefits of Brassicus-berry tea and how crackers are a staple food that is eaten everywhere in the world.” said Watanabe. “Maybe you could write what you just said on a piece of paper that we can prominently display?”

All those times I saw advertisements of ‘organic’ products are somehow of some use, thought Watanabe. I don’t know if whatever-berry tea actually has those benefits, what I know is that people are willing to buy anything if you advertise it well enough.

Rabanowicz quickly took out a sheet of paper from her bag along with the graphite she had bought, for ink was too precious for her to be used on an advertisement. With help from Watanabe, she quickly wrote down the advert on the paper.

“Bring a cup and drink Brassicus-berry tea, a gift from Brassicus Prima himself, just one seed per cup! Sleep soundly tonight with this time-tested cure to fatigue! Other than issues related to sleep, this tea will also help you shield against constipation and high fever! A sweet cracker, staple food in all four corners of the world, will also go great with this miracle-tea!” said Rabanowicz as she read the paper to check if she had made any mistakes in writing. Confirming she hadn’t made any mistakes, she put the paper in a prominent position near the boiling jars of tea.

“We’re ready. Let’s hope your idea works.” said Rabanowicz as she stood up and began calling out to the soldiers around the camp. “Come ye all, to listen to the exciting new Saga of Egilhard!” The soldiers, who were used to Rabanowicz, quickly flocked around her as they paid the one seed fee to listen. What the soldiers weren’t used seeing was Watanabe, who was carrying around the box of cookies, and the advertisement telling them to bring a cup to drink tea.

“Hey, what is written there? I can’t read.”

“Something staple food something miracle-tea…”

“Miracle or staple it matters not, I could go for something to eat and drink. Hey, odd fellow with the box, come here!”

Conversations akin to the above floated around the crowd as Watanabe filled the waterskins of the thirsty soldiers and provided them with crackers. He had already emptied one of the jars of tea and exhausted half of his cracker supply before Rabanowicz even began relating the story.

“Gentleman, ye have gathered here, and I shall now relate to ye the true story of a knight so great that none like him ne’er walked this blessed earth ever again…” began Rabanowicz. Her voice had dramatically changed to a lower pitch as she narrated, becoming a voice that reminded Watanabe of the narration in movie trailers. As the narration progressed, Watanabe was honestly amazed at the acting skills of Rabanowicz. In one line she turned into a damsel-in-distress, in the other she turned into an evil wizard causing aforementioned distress.

Even my so-called adventures here in this world would seem eventful if narrated by her, thought Watanabe, missing the obvious fact that readers can’t hear narration over text.

“…lo and behold, the valorous knight-errant Lord Egilhard finally slaid the evil wizard with such ferocity never before seen on any continent. The skies lit up, and a beam of light shone upon his sword as he smote the fiend. With determination and dedication in his heart, dedication born from his heart to the fair lady Lucina of Trobyard, the evil wizard was instantly vanquished and the realm brought to ease. Thus, having saved the realm, the story of our hero concluded, only to be put into writing centuries later.” concluded Rabanowicz after around half an hour of reading.

The small crowd around Rabanowicz erupted into applause as the story came into a conclusion. The crowd quickly dissolved afterwards, though a few of the wealthier patrons remained longer to donate money to further fund Rabanowicz’s work and to discuss some of the finer points of the story.

“Hey, monsieur, could you pour me tea if there is any left over?” asked Rabanowicz after she had finished speaking and thanking the last remaining member of the audience. “My throat feels like somebody shoved a grater in it.”

Watanabe quickly obliged and handed the whole jug, which had a thin layer of tea remaining at the bottom, to Rabanowicz who quickly emptied the jar. “…Much better now. Monsieur, come sit here for a second so that we may talk of financial matters.”

“Right, here is your share-” said Watanabe, about to hand over all the money he earned by selling tea and crackers, before being interrupted by Rabanowicz. “You just need to give back the twenty seeds I lent you.” she said as she picked twenty seeds of coinage from Watanabe’s hands. “Keep the rest, it was your idea to sell those after all. The crowd seemed much more pleased than normal today, perhaps thanks to having been provided with catering. The money made from extra donations are enough for me.”

Watanabe now had thirty-five seeds to his name, which he had no real idea how much they were worth except for the fact that they might be worth 5500 yen if his calculations two chapters before was correct (which they were about as far away from correct as one could get), but he was still satisfied to have some capital to use in future heroic plans.