“Well then, we’ll see you again in two months.”
“Take care on the road.”
“You’d better come back, Erik!”
“Yeah, I’ll be sure to bring more souvenirs next time.”
Two days later, Roland and his party departed from Kaina Village. Erik seemed particularly reluctant to say his goodbyes to Barbara.
Jin stood watching the carriage as it grew smaller in the distance, his mind drifting.
(Two days by carriage to Toka Village, another two to the Town of Charles, and then three more from there to the royal capital of the Klein Kingdom, huh? The carriage seems to move at about four to six kilometers per hour. Assuming they travel eight hours a day, that puts the capital around two hundred to three hundred kilometers away. That’s quite a trek. But if I can make it to the capital, I might be able to get my hands on a map of the continent. Then I might finally find where the laboratory is located.)
As he was lost in thought, he felt a tug on his shirt. He looked down to see Hanna.
“Hanna? What is it?”
Lately, he had dropped the honorifics when speaking to her.
“Big Brother Jin, are you going to leave the village too?”
Her eyes were swimming with tears. Jin marveled at how sharp a young girl’s intuition could be, even at her age.
“Hmm, I wonder. At the very least, I won’t be leaving this year.”
Hanna looked up at him desperately. “I’ll grow up and marry you, so please don’t go!”
Jin gave her a gentle smile. “Haha, thanks. Well, if you still feel that way once you’re an adult, I’ll be counting on you.”
In truth, this wasn’t the first time he had heard such a proposal.
The first time was back when Jin was in his third year of middle school. He had been looking after a six-year-old girl who had just arrived at the orphanage when she suddenly blurted it out. By the time she turned nine, however, she was telling a boy a year older than Jin that she was going to be his wife instead.
The next time was during his first year of part-time high school. A girl four years younger than him had confessed her feelings. But Jin was constantly busy with his part-time job during the day and school at night; by the time he looked up, she was already out on dates with another boy.
Having experienced a few of these "pseudo-confessions" that turned out to be nothing more than fleeting whims, Jin had learned not to take the declarations of young girls too seriously.
Regardless, Jin had made up his mind. Remembering the orphanage that had raised him after he was abandoned, he decided to stay in this village for a year to repay the kindness Martha had shown him. He would do everything he could for her and for the village.
As the season shifted toward summer, the wheat in the village fields ripened. Since the fields were managed collectively, the entire village spent their days harvesting in the sun. Jin tried to help, but his back quickly began to ache, and he found himself unable to keep up.
“Damn... I really don’t have any stamina.”
This was because most of Jin’s physical form was complemented by mana; no matter how much he trained, his body wouldn't build muscle. Conversely, if he were to Reinforce his body with magic, he would possess incredible strength—but Jin was still a long way from realizing that.
“There must be something else I can do to help...”
The wheelbarrows Jin had built were already proving invaluable for transporting the harvested wheat, but he continued to ponder further improvements.
“Wait, we used to grow wheat at the orphanage too. How did we mill it back then?”
He dug through his memories until he hit upon the answer.
“That’s it! A sifter!”
The flour used in this village was what modern people would call whole-grain flour—the entire wheat kernel ground together. It wasn't the pure white flour found in modern grocery stores, but a brownish powder heavily mixed with bran.
“I’ll try making a sifter right away.”
After getting Martha’s permission, Jin headed back to his workshop and set to work. He constructed a frame, fashioned a mesh, and combined the two. He made two versions: one with a fine mesh and one slightly coarser.
“This looks good, but sifting by hand is going to be exhausting.”
To solve this, he built a larger frame to suspend the sifter from above. He recalled seeing a similar setup for traditional Japanese papermaking, where the screens were hung from the ceiling to reduce the physical burden.
“This should work perfectly.”
By shaking the suspended sifter, the flour would fall into a tub placed underneath. The remaining bran could then be used as feed for their livestock.
“Alright, finished.”
Just as he was finishing up, Martha and Hanna returned from hauling a load of wheat. Jin showed them his new creation.
“Goodness, what’s this? You’ve gone and made another strange contraption.”
“Big Brother Jin, what is it?”
As expected, they were both surprised. Jin explained the device's function.
“I see... so it sorts the flour?”
“That’s right. And if we can produce higher-quality flour, I’m sure Roland-san will be willing to pay a premium for it.”
“Will the food taste better?” Hanna asked.
“It makes sense,” Martha mused. “Whether for eating or for selling, it’s certainly worth a try.”
They took some of the wheat harvested the previous year—newly harvested wheat has to dry before it can be milled—ground it with a stone mill, and tried the sifter.
“Let’s see... put it in here, and shake it like this...”
“That looks like fun! Let me try!”
Hanna eagerly took over the sifting, while Martha continued to grind the wheat and Jin sorted and stored the resulting flour.
“Wow! It’s so pretty!”
The once-brown whole-grain flour had been transformed into a strikingly white powder. Jin nodded, satisfied with the result.
“It really does come out beautiful. Let’s try baking bread with this tonight,” Martha said.
That evening.
“This is so good, Grandma!” Hanna cheered, her face lighting up with joy.
“It really is delicious...”
“Nothing beats white bread,” Jin added.
Because of his upbringing, Jin wasn't a picky eater and could stomach almost anything without complaint, but even he found this bread to be on a completely different level of quality.
“We have to show this to everyone else.”
The following day, when the villagers tasted how much better the sifted flour was, they were ecstatic. Once again, Jin found himself tasked with building sifters for every household in the village.
“It would be wonderful if we could make this flour a specialty of Kaina Village.”
Once the sifters had been distributed, Jin made the proposal to the Village Chief, who readily agreed.
“This is great. Now the village can finally start earning some outside currency,” Jin thought, pleased with the outcome.
Two months later, when Roland returned, he was absolutely delighted by the sight of the flour.
“I’ve never seen flour this white, even in the royal capital! The pure white flour the nobility eats is made by servants who peel the husks off every single grain by hand. Commoners never get a taste of it. To think you have so much of something so close to it!”
While it wasn't perfectly white, the color was remarkably close, and the price point was affordable. As a merchant, Roland knew it was a goldmine.
Since he hadn't brought enough gold to buy it all on the spot, he promised to return on his next visit and purchase a large quantity at a high price.
“Honestly, Jin-san, you never cease to amaze me,” Roland remarked as he ate a piece of the white bread. “I’m starting to want to see your homeland for myself. If you ever come to the royal capital to search for clues, please let me know. I’d be more than happy to assist you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”
Jin knew he could never truly return to Japan, but he accepted the offer graciously.