I’m having a secret meeting with Yotsuba in the middle of the night.
It’s noisy to talk at this hour, so I’ve set down the text board.
I briefed her on the details of our meeting. We could not get permission to grow raw materials and sell sugar and couldn’t get them to change the law.
When I wrote, [I wonder why they made this law.] she replied, [Are you stupid?].
[No, the law maintains the sugar market price, right?]
[It seems you don’t understand the true meaning of that law.]
The true meaning?
Isn’t it to prevent confusion in the market price if they grow unregulated raw materials for sugar?
I asked her about it, but she said no.
[They even explicitly state that they would kill them if they did so.
In other words, it’s a deterrent measure to capture elves.]
W-what?!
[I sometimes hear stories about elves caught due to illegal cultivation.
Well, that’s fine.]
Is it really okay?
[You said you have sales rights for certain items, right?
Please tell me more about it.]
In addition to the sugar I just mentioned, there are some goods: metals, weapons, slaves, animals, and magical beasts (but materials are okay).
These items require a special permit to be sold.
They could also freely trade if they received permission from the king or a noble.
Whenever a store, manager, or employee’s information is updated, they must notify the town hall near the castle.
[Because of the heroes’ presence in the past, everything that is promising has already been taken care of.]
Yotsuba crosses out a line on sugar from the list I gave him earlier.
That’s true. For the level of civilization, I was surprised that soap and mayonnaise were commonly available.
[There is no other way. Let’s go with our specialties.
I will sell ice.
Do you have any specialties, Neko-san?]
Right now, I’m not short on money because I’m getting paid a lot in exchange for providing knowledge to Mac-kun.
Still, I can’t depend on Mac-kun forever.
It’s time for him to start saving up for himself.
…No, her.
My area of expertise, huh.
[How about medicine?]
[Can you make it?]
[Just watch.]
I take out the healing herb.
The salicylic acid is separated by separation alchemy.
While salicylic acid by itself can be used as a painkiller, it has severe side effects, so it is acetylated.
The vinegar is taken out and sprinkled over the salicylic acid, which is then processed into acetylsalicylic acid using a denaturing process.
This is the active ingredient in what is commonly known as aspir*n.
Does the coating need to be applied?
[It’s acetylsalicylic acid.]
[Is it a painkiller?]
[You know a lot.]
[I learned it in science.]
These days, students are so brilliant.
And next to painkillers, we have antibiotics.
Do they increase bacterial resistance? If they are used at low concentrations and without caution, they will.
If you use a high concentration and stop it after a short period, it is less likely to produce resistance.
Let’s teach doctors how to use it.
Did the first generation of penicillin come from blue mold?
I’m going to [Search] for blue mold to produce penicillin.
[I’m going out for a bit.]
[I’m going to produce a lot of ice.
Please give me clean water.]
After giving her five jars of boiled water, I went to a river near the town in search of blue mold.
I modified the blue mold’s DNA through transformative alchemy to mass-produce penicillin.
Then I put it in a handmade glass jar and put it back in [Four-dimensional Space] before heading back.
When I returned, she said there was still not enough water.
Once again, I went to the river, extracted fresh water using separation alchemy, and stored it in the [Four-dimensional Space].
I returned to Yotsuba, filled the jar with water, and let Yotsuba collect the ice, repeating the process.
While waiting, I removed the blue mold jar and extracted the penicillin by separation alchemy.
The nutrients for the blue mold should be water and pieces of meat, which I can break down using transformative alchemy.
Wait a minute. Without a syringe, I can’t inject natural penicillin.
In other words, to make it into an oral drug, the blue mold needs to be made into a component that would synthesize acid-resistant penicillin.
The carboxylic acid is extracted from the fatty acid through transformative and separation alchemy.
After much work, I mass-produced a culture solution to produce acid-resistant penicillin that could be administered orally.
This would have been faster if I had made it myself from the beginning with transformative alchemy, but oh well.
With this, antibiotics should be no problem.