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Volume 1, Chapter 13: It’s a long road ahead.

The day after I obtained rice. I went to Alex’s place as promised earlier to discuss the future. Although Tasia wanted to accompany me, she had work so she could only give up on that tearfully. We left for town on the same carriage.

I got off the carriage at the same Ashley Company building as yesterday and walked toward the counter.

“Hello. I’m Risa Claude and I’m here for an appointment with Mr. Alexis.”

It was the same counter clerk as yesterday. Remembering me, she smiled and came out from behind the counter.

By the way, I introduce myself as a Claude in this world. My formal name is Risa Kurokawa Claude, but it seems like you don’t need to include your middle name when introducing yourself.

Instead of the room from yesterday, the clerk led me to a room at the end of the hall on the second floor and knocked on the door.

“Hey there, Risa.”

Alex greeted me when the door opened. Although there was a sofa in the middle like the room from yesterday, there was also a large desk and chair at the end of the room where Alex was sitting. There were mountains of papers piled on top of the desk. This must be Alex’s office.

Alex stood up from his chair and urged me to sit on the sofa.

“Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet me for two days in a row.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m happy to hear more about the things you have to offer.”

Alex flashed a refreshing smile at me. He’s a dandy uncle today as well.

Oh, right!

I took out a ceramic container from my bag.

“Alex, I made this with the rice you gave me yesterday. Please have some.”

There were three musubi in the container. There is no seran wrap here, so I brought a container with a lid. It was annoyingly heavy…

“What! You’re telling me this is rice!?”

“Yes. I hulled and polished the rice as I explained yesterday and cooked it.”

“Could I try some?”

“Yes, of course.”

Alex took a musubi in his hand and sniffed it, turned it in his hand and tentatively took a bite. I didn’t have any seaweed for the classic musubi, so I gave up on that. Instead I filled it with small pieces of fish grilled with salt. I tried some earlier this morning and it was pretty good.

“Uhm, what do you think?”

It had cooled after being left for too long, so I wondered if it tasted bad. I couldn’t help anxiously ask the silent Alex who had only taken one bite. However, he greedily devoured the rest of the musubi without sparing a reply. It couldn’t be helped, so I quietly waited for him to finish eating.

“Risa, you’re amazing! Whether it’s yesterday’s bread or today’s rice! I’ll do anything I can to help!”

The second he finished eating, Alex leaned forward and tightly grasped my hands with his sticky, musubi-rice hands. I couldn’t complain in front of such a serious face, so I thanked him and we began discussing the partnership moving forward…after I borrowed their washroom to wash my hands.

I talked to Alex about the things I wanted to make, the ingredients for those things and the necessary cookware. The two I wanted to start making as soon as possible were miso and soy sauce. After all, miso would take half a year, and soy sauce at least nine months. Soybeans were easy to obtain, though, so as long as I had the cookware these would be good to go.

I asked him to make chopsticks and measuring cups for making rice. He would also make something that would help polish a large amount of rice. I also talked to him about burners that could have heat adjustments.

In return, I lined out the recipe for making bread, rice and pasta. I’m sure that even if it is just these three recipes, the food culture of this world should develop immensely.

I heard this from Alex, but this world surprisingly has alcohol. The Claudes do not drink it, so I thought it didn’t exist. I was so surprised about it, Alex brought out the real thing for me to see.

It was wine. I tried a bit of it, and it was almost the same as the wine from my previous world.

According to Alex, wine had been around for a while. A long time ago, a merchant ship carrying grapes was stranded at sea. Their food stock depleted, the merchants could only eat grapes that they thought had rotted long ago when they discovered it was extremely tasty and even invigorated them. They decided to purposely let grapes rot afterwards, and from there developed wine.

Even so, there did not exist any vinegar. It would have turned into wine vinegar if they tried just a bit more. Oh well, it can’t be helped. I’ll have to make vinegar soon.

“I have to say, you’re really full of surprises, Risa. I’d really like your food to spread far and wide, but the chances…oh, forget you heard that.”

Alex muttered as he showed me out, our consultation done for the day. Those words turned something in my stomach.