CH 41

I climbed the familiar wooden stairs. With one hand supporting my back, tired from the long journey, I grabbed the railing with my other hand and thumped my feet on the stairs to the office, when a quiet but clear voice called out to me.

“Welcome back Chris.”

“I’m home Yulis.”

After returning home safely from the entrance exam, I came back to my territory. The results of the entrance exam would be announced at the school, but they would also be sent to me by letter, so I came back to my own territory immediately. There was a reason why I didn’t do anything in the capital and came back immediately.

“Yulis, how’s the yeast doing?”

“We’ve finally got a good yeast culture.”

“Really?”

Yes, we were cultivating our own yeast.

☆☆☆☆☆

A few months ago.

“Mr. Chris, your meal is ready.”

“Hmm, a break.”

Yulis opened the door and approached me with a plate of food on a tray. I quickly put away the paper on my desk, where the inked words were almost completely blackened, and the book, whose original size was no longer visible. When I finished, Yulis popped a tray into the empty space.

“Today we have potato soup, wheat bread, and sautéed white fish.”

There were three plates on the tray. The first was a large slice of potato soup, steamy, flavorful, and crispy. The second was a sautéed white fish, browned on both sides, crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, with sauce poured over it. Finally, freshly baked, wheat bread was placed on top.

“My family has grown wealthy.”

I look at the plates on the table and am deeply moved.

“Yes, it has. It’s unthinkable in the past for the Viscount family. Unlike what we were expecting for the screwdriver, it was sold at a surprisingly high price to the nobility.”

“That’s right. It used to be just soup with no ingredients and hard bread. Some of the maids ate something as good as this meal about once a week.”

”Hmmm, what kind of nobleman’s maid can eat this level of food once a week?”

When I was a kid, I snuck into the kitchen, saw a delicious-looking dish being prepared, and asked, “Wow, are we celebrating something today?” The chef’s face was expressionless when I asked. I’ll never forget it. However, there was no point in holding a grudge now, so I decided to eat my food before it got cold.

“Well, no matter! I’ll have some!”

First, I placed the potato soup on a spoon, puffed and cooled it, and brought it to my mouth.

“Damn, it’s good.”

The soup was a harmonious combination of various vegetables stewed in a mild sweetness and the flavor of the meat, which had melted and was no longer visible.

When I bit into the crispy potatoes that had soaked up the broth, the fragrant aroma of the vegetables and meat filled my mouth and brought out the original flavor of the potatoes, so good I thought my cheeks would fall off!

Next, I cut a piece of sautéed white fish with a knife and fork and brought it to my mouth. As I chewed, the crispy skin of the fish gave off an elegant aroma of olive oil that spread to my mouth, and instead of erasing the smell of the fish, it blended with it, sublimating it to a superior aroma.

“This is also insanely good!”

Can I afford this luxury? No, no, it’s for the good of the territory! The potatoes and fish are all from this territory! The taste was so good that I deceived myself and justified it. Well then, let’s have some bread……. The bread was freshly baked and had a nice fluffy, chunky texture. But……

“It’s sour!”

“Isn’t it the same as always?”

Yulis tore off a piece of my half-eaten bread, popped it in her mouth, and gave her opinion.

“This can’t continue!”

“Huh…….”

Yulis looked at me as if I had been studying too hard and had lost my mind. People are ugly creatures, and when their desires are satisfied, new desires emerge. Of course, I’m no exception to this rule.

It’s not enough that I’ve gone from hard bread to soft bread! I want to eat good bread! In this age when microscopes had not been developed, there was no concept of microorganisms, so the only way to ferment bread was to wait for the natural yeast to do it for me. In the modern age, yeast is artificially added to promote fermentation, but in this age, this is not possible.

Some bread makers add wine or other alcoholic beverages to the bread to make it ferment, but they are not suitable for bread making and contain seeds that can make the bread sour or difficult to ferment.

“Yulis, our territory has seen an increase in population and visitors, but we don’t have enough local products for them to buy, do we?”

“You’ve made quite a bit of money from alcohol, potatoes, and Reversi, haven’t you?”

“I want to make something that can’t be exported.”

“Are you trying to get people to spend money outside of that?”

“That’s what I’m talking about! I’m trying to turn this particular product into insanely delicious bread!”

“Bread? I’m sure there are plenty of good bakers around…….”

“No, what if the bread is so good that it overwhelms them?”

“If we could do that, anyone would want to eat bread, because it’s such a familiar food.”

“That’s right! So give me some money for expenses and manpower!”

I decided to get down on my knees in a beautiful way.